Which JRPG setting you like?

[spookyheart]

Just as the title says, do you like sci fi settings fantasy settings, or both like ar tonelico or the xeno series or some entries of the ff games? let me know down in the comments below.

[Acrux]

let me know down in the comments below.

How much are we betting that this is AI?

[WaterMage]

SMT Nocturne is the unique JRPG that I ever liked

[J1M]

I like the Mega Man Battle Network setting.

I also like the Pokemon Red setting.

I like parts of the political intrigue JRPGs sometimes indulge in, but it is often quickly abandoned in favor of demons. Or there are simply too many characters to tell an effective story.

[Unhelpful Contrarian]

SMT Nocturne is the unique JRPG that I ever liked

SMT 3 is really good, easily the best in the series that hasn’t been topped since ( SMT 4 comes very close.)

[Tangerine]

A lot of them are pretty interesting at a high concept level, but none of them feel like they could be real places once you're at the ground level. They tend to be very video gamey in presentation with things like town layouts, lack interconnectedness between places in the world unless it's directly relevant to the plot, and throw random elements from different genres with little thought for how they'd affect each other. I mostly remember them for aesthetics, not for anything interesting they do with the world.

[Tweed]

A lot of them are pretty interesting at a high concept level, but none of them feel like they could be real places once you're at the ground level. They tend to be very video gamey in presentation with things like town layouts, lack interconnectedness between places in the world unless it's directly relevant to the plot, and throw random elements from different genres with little thought for how they'd affect each other. I mostly remember them for aesthetics, not for anything interesting they do with the world.

What? You don't think it's plausible that every town you stop at has a problem you have to solve before the broken bridge/roadblock/power outage preventing you from moving forward mysteriously goes away?

[rusty_shackleford]

A lot of them are pretty interesting at a high concept level, but none of them feel like they could be real places once you're at the ground level. They tend to be very video gamey in presentation with things like town layouts, lack interconnectedness between places in the world unless it's directly relevant to the plot, and throw random elements from different genres with little thought for how they'd affect each other. I mostly remember them for aesthetics, not for anything interesting they do with the world.

Outside of some Japanese films, oriental storytelling as a whole feels very primitive compared to some other cultures.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

To me, the appeal of settings are in large part tied up with the aesthetics of the game.

The Erebonian Empire is one of my favorite JRPG countries, but a huge part of that is because I like airships that look like boats, 19th century European nobles wearing embroidered coats and cravats, swordsmen practicing in their dojos, old cars, huge castles, etc. You have to take hours long train rides steaming through the countryside to travel from province to province, and then after that you have to hike on foot to various towns and villages.

If you remove the aesthetics and just focus on the writing, then I like how the Erebonian people are backed into a corner. Due to the actions of a few (and due to the selfishness of foreigners), Erebonia has been made out to be a typical "evil empire" villain internationally, even though the populace are just normal people. And then the rest of the world gangs up on Erebonia (led by the truly antagonistic Calvard). So it is easy to root for Erebonia, since they are truly fighting a defensive war in this struggle.





I remember being sucked into the world insinuated in disc 1 of FF9. It has this renaissance era/early modern feel, where it is a medieval world that has begun industrializing. That blend between the fantastical medieval past and the familiar and convenient modern future. The baroque pre-rendered backgrounds are stunning. I liked the tall steampunk-castle metropolis of Lindblum. But what really enraptured my mind was that scripted sequence where you are on the airship travelling to Lindblum, and in the overworld you see these other merchant airships flying to and from Lindblum, giving the idea that there are other countries out there (turns out there are only two more) and that the world is alive and that people can be moving around and doing things independent of you. Ofcourse, that illusion gets dispelled once you reach disc 2 and realize that you have seen all of the countries, then visit another continent and then realize how small the world feels. But there are still fantastical environments like a huge tree with rivers and waterfalls of sand, or the biological architecture of the Terrans.

Writing wise, Alexandria is very sympathetic with how they were once proud kingdom that is now falling behind after the industrial revolution, and has now been cast as a villain in the eyes of the world.





I really liked the feel of FF11's Vana'Diel, but in this case it mostly comes from the gameplay (on top of some good art and flavor writing). You are hiking across this vast, untamed wilderness with hardly any settlements. Most of the world is uninhabited and unobserved. It is a world full of possibility. Part of the way this is achieved is due to the difficulty of the game, where you run very slowly. It can take over an hour to walk between cities on foot, and you will have ran through several maps so you feel like you are travelling through a large world. Basic overworld monsters like sheep or crabs are too strong to solo, so you need a party. You have navigate around terrain and dangerous mobs, and you need to pack supplies like invisibility powders for going into tight caves or dungeons. And then you get onboard an airship and look down at all of the land you hiked on foot, and all of this other land waiting for you to visit and out of bounds of the maps. The four cities feel like the last bastions of civilization and relief in this wild world. It really emphasizes seeking out and adventuring with people.





I liked the feel of early Pokemon (much of it tinged by the anime and movies), again also bound up in aesthetics. The world was mainly vast, untamed wilderness with few to no paved roads or railways, and no jumbo jet passenger planes flying to and fro. You had to walk on foot on mountainous dirt roads, or bushwhack through the forest. You did not have a cellphone to look up info on the internet or to dial 911 for help, so you still had to rely on word of mouth for information and if you fell down in the forest and broke your leg, no one was coming to save you. You had to climb out on your own. It was a huge world full of possibility. You could stumble upon some weirdo's training regime, or a huge Team Rocket sci fi base. I love the cassette tape retrofuturist aesthetic the technology, with the big bulky machines and big buttons and bright coloration, and dimly lit screens.






I quite like Granblue Fantasy, not only for the cozy romantic setting and fabulously opulent cities and palaces, but also for the lore. The dragon god Bahamut created the world, but then people decided to kill their good and split him into two, which split the universe into two (the Astral Realm, and the Sky Realm). The Sky Realm shortly after sundered from one land into countless smaller floating islands. There is also this humongously tall and thick hurricane called the Grim Basin that splits the world into different "seas" called Skydoms. So even after the proliferation of airship technology, you have these different cultures developing in isolation from each other. There was also an interdimensional invasion from the people in the Astral realm, and the Astrals grew living weapons from crystals called Primals and sent them out to fight as mass produced supersoldiers. When the Astrals retreated, you have all of these immortal supersoldiers left behind who are wandering around trying to find fulfillment in their life. There are also some sympathetic countries like the true Erste which has been subverted by an expansionist empire that hijacked its name.

I like parts of the political intrigue JRPGs sometimes indulge in, but it is often quickly abandoned in favor of demons. Or there are simply too many characters to tell an effective story.

I think this ultimately comes down to the secular Japanese's lack of convictions and their aversion to confronting that there is an absolute right and wrong. They don't want to admit the possibility that there can be a war (in which people kill each other and many more suffer) in which one side is absolutely, unequivocally right, and the other wrong. They don't want to admit that there are people who need to be killed, because then that leads into uncomfortable questions about themselves that they would rather try to ignore. So instead, we usually get war narratives where most people have no moral agency. Nobody was wrong. Everything is scapegoated onto a few comically evil psychopaths or literal demons. Everyone else was just some poor, good hearted normal person who got caught underneath forces much larger than themselves. It is somewhat similar to the current situation in the West where villains with sad backstories are in vogue, but the difference is that those writers still have convictions about needing to fight. They just got the targets screwed up. Captain Marvel beats up a guy and steals his bike because he said she should smile more, and the writers think that was right.

[methoxetamine]

To me, the appeal of settings are in large part tied up with the aesthetics of the game.

The Erebonian Empire is one of my favorite JRPG countries, but a huge part of that is because I like airships that look like boats, 19th century European nobles wearing embroidered coats and cravats, swordsmen practicing in their dojos, old cars, huge castles, etc. You have to take hours long train rides steaming through the countryside to travel from province to province, and then after that you have to hike on foot to various towns and villages.

If you remove the aesthetics and just focus on the writing, then I like how the Erebonian people are backed into a corner. Due to the actions of a few (and due to the selfishness of foreigners), Erebonia has been made out to be a typical "evil empire" villain internationally, even though the populace are just normal people. And then the rest of the world gangs up on Erebonia (led by the truly antagonistic Calvard). So it is easy to root for Erebonia, since they are truly fighting a defensive war in this struggle.





I remember being sucked into the world insinuated in disc 1 of FF9. It has this renaissance era/early modern feel, where it is a medieval world that has begun industrializing. That blend between the fantastical medieval past and the familiar and convenient modern future. The baroque pre-rendered backgrounds are stunning. I liked the tall steampunk-castle metropolis of Lindblum. But what really enraptured my mind was that scripted sequence where you are on the airship travelling to Lindblum, and in the overworld you see these other merchant airships flying to and from Lindblum, giving the idea that there are other countries out there (turns out there are only two more) and that the world is alive and that people can be moving around and doing things independent of you. Ofcourse, that illusion gets dispelled once you reach disc 2 and realize that you have seen all of the countries, then visit another continent and then realize how small the world feels. But there are still fantastical environments like a huge tree with rivers and waterfalls of sand, or the biological architecture of the Terrans.

Writing wise, Alexandria is very sympathetic with how they were once proud kingdom that is now falling behind after the industrial revolution, and has now been cast as a villain in the eyes of the world.





I really liked the feel of FF11's Vana'Diel, but in this case it mostly comes from the gameplay (on top of some good art and flavor writing). You are hiking across this vast, untamed wilderness with hardly any settlements. Most of the world is uninhabited and unobserved. It is a world full of possibility. Part of the way this is achieved is due to the difficulty of the game, where you run very slowly. It can take over an hour to walk between cities on foot, and you will have ran through several maps so you feel like you are travelling through a large world. Basic overworld monsters like sheep or crabs are too strong to solo, so you need a party. You have navigate around terrain and dangerous mobs, and you need to pack supplies like invisibility powders for going into tight caves or dungeons. And then you get onboard an airship and look down at all of the land you hiked on foot, and all of this other land waiting for you to visit and out of bounds of the maps. The four cities feel like the last bastions of civilization and relief in this wild world. It really emphasizes seeking out and adventuring with people.





I liked the feel of early Pokemon (much of it tinged by the anime and movies), again also bound up in aesthetics. The world was mainly vast, untamed wilderness with few to no paved roads or railways, and no jumbo jet passenger planes flying to and fro. You had to walk on foot on mountainous dirt roads, or bushwhack through the forest. You did not have a cellphone to look up info on the internet or to dial 911 for help, so you still had to rely on word of mouth for information and if you fell down in the forest and broke your leg, no one was coming to save you. You had to climb out on your own. It was a huge world full of possibility. You could stumble upon some weirdo's training regime, or a huge Team Rocket sci fi base. I love the cassette tape retrofuturist aesthetic the technology, with the big bulky machines and big buttons and bright coloration, and dimly lit screens.






I quite like Granblue Fantasy, not only for the cozy romantic setting and fabulously opulent cities and palaces, but also for the lore. The dragon god Bahamut created the world, but then people decided to kill their good and split him into two, which split the universe into two (the Astral Realm, and the Sky Realm). The Sky Realm shortly after sundered from one land into countless smaller floating islands. There is also this humongously tall and thick hurricane called the Grim Basin that splits the world into different "seas" called Skydoms. So even after the proliferation of airship technology, you have these different cultures developing in isolation from each other. There was also an interdimensional invasion from the people in the Astral realm, and the Astrals grew living weapons from crystals called Primals and sent them out to fight as mass produced supersoldiers. When the Astrals retreated, you have all of these immortal supersoldiers left behind who are wandering around trying to find fulfillment in their life. There are also some sympathetic countries like the true Erste which has been subverted by an expansionist empire that hijacked its name.

I like parts of the political intrigue JRPGs sometimes indulge in, but it is often quickly abandoned in favor of demons. Or there are simply too many characters to tell an effective story.

I think this ultimately comes down to the secular Japanese's lack of convictions and their aversion to confronting that there is an absolute right and wrong. They don't want to admit the possibility that there can be a war (in which people kill each other and many more suffer) in which one side is absolutely, unequivocally right, and the other wrong. They don't want to admit that there are people who need to be killed, because then that leads into uncomfortable questions about themselves that they would rather try to ignore. So instead, we usually get war narratives where most people have no moral agency. Nobody was wrong. Everything is scapegoated onto a few comically evil psychopaths or literal demons. Everyone else was just some poor, good hearted normal person who got caught underneath forces much larger than themselves. It is somewhat similar to the current situation in the West where villains with sad backstories are in vogue, but the difference is that those writers still have convictions about needing to fight. They just got the targets screwed up. Captain Marvel beats up a guy and steals his bike because he said she should smile more, and the writers think that was right.

Good choices, for Trails though I would go with Liberl over Erebonia. FF9 has my favorite jrpg setting overall

[Val the Moofia Boss]

To me, the appeal of settings are in large part tied up with the aesthetics of the game.

The Erebonian Empire is one of my favorite JRPG countries, but a huge part of that is because I like airships that look like boats, 19th century European nobles wearing embroidered coats and cravats, swordsmen practicing in their dojos, old cars, huge castles, etc. You have to take hours long train rides steaming through the countryside to travel from province to province, and then after that you have to hike on foot to various towns and villages.

If you remove the aesthetics and just focus on the writing, then I like how the Erebonian people are backed into a corner. Due to the actions of a few (and due to the selfishness of foreigners), Erebonia has been made out to be a typical "evil empire" villain internationally, even though the populace are just normal people. And then the rest of the world gangs up on Erebonia (led by the truly antagonistic Calvard). So it is easy to root for Erebonia, since they are truly fighting a defensive war in this struggle.





I remember being sucked into the world insinuated in disc 1 of FF9. It has this renaissance era/early modern feel, where it is a medieval world that has begun industrializing. That blend between the fantastical medieval past and the familiar and convenient modern future. The baroque pre-rendered backgrounds are stunning. I liked the tall steampunk-castle metropolis of Lindblum. But what really enraptured my mind was that scripted sequence where you are on the airship travelling to Lindblum, and in the overworld you see these other merchant airships flying to and from Lindblum, giving the idea that there are other countries out there (turns out there are only two more) and that the world is alive and that people can be moving around and doing things independent of you. Ofcourse, that illusion gets dispelled once you reach disc 2 and realize that you have seen all of the countries, then visit another continent and then realize how small the world feels. But there are still fantastical environments like a huge tree with rivers and waterfalls of sand, or the biological architecture of the Terrans.

Writing wise, Alexandria is very sympathetic with how they were once proud kingdom that is now falling behind after the industrial revolution, and has now been cast as a villain in the eyes of the world.





I really liked the feel of FF11's Vana'Diel, but in this case it mostly comes from the gameplay (on top of some good art and flavor writing). You are hiking across this vast, untamed wilderness with hardly any settlements. Most of the world is uninhabited and unobserved. It is a world full of possibility. Part of the way this is achieved is due to the difficulty of the game, where you run very slowly. It can take over an hour to walk between cities on foot, and you will have ran through several maps so you feel like you are travelling through a large world. Basic overworld monsters like sheep or crabs are too strong to solo, so you need a party. You have navigate around terrain and dangerous mobs, and you need to pack supplies like invisibility powders for going into tight caves or dungeons. And then you get onboard an airship and look down at all of the land you hiked on foot, and all of this other land waiting for you to visit and out of bounds of the maps. The four cities feel like the last bastions of civilization and relief in this wild world. It really emphasizes seeking out and adventuring with people.





I liked the feel of early Pokemon (much of it tinged by the anime and movies), again also bound up in aesthetics. The world was mainly vast, untamed wilderness with few to no paved roads or railways, and no jumbo jet passenger planes flying to and fro. You had to walk on foot on mountainous dirt roads, or bushwhack through the forest. You did not have a cellphone to look up info on the internet or to dial 911 for help, so you still had to rely on word of mouth for information and if you fell down in the forest and broke your leg, no one was coming to save you. You had to climb out on your own. It was a huge world full of possibility. You could stumble upon some weirdo's training regime, or a huge Team Rocket sci fi base. I love the cassette tape retrofuturist aesthetic the technology, with the big bulky machines and big buttons and bright coloration, and dimly lit screens.






I quite like Granblue Fantasy, not only for the cozy romantic setting and fabulously opulent cities and palaces, but also for the lore. The dragon god Bahamut created the world, but then people decided to kill their good and split him into two, which split the universe into two (the Astral Realm, and the Sky Realm). The Sky Realm shortly after sundered from one land into countless smaller floating islands. There is also this humongously tall and thick hurricane called the Grim Basin that splits the world into different "seas" called Skydoms. So even after the proliferation of airship technology, you have these different cultures developing in isolation from each other. There was also an interdimensional invasion from the people in the Astral realm, and the Astrals grew living weapons from crystals called Primals and sent them out to fight as mass produced supersoldiers. When the Astrals retreated, you have all of these immortal supersoldiers left behind who are wandering around trying to find fulfillment in their life. There are also some sympathetic countries like the true Erste which has been subverted by an expansionist empire that hijacked its name.

I like parts of the political intrigue JRPGs sometimes indulge in, but it is often quickly abandoned in favor of demons. Or there are simply too many characters to tell an effective story.

I think this ultimately comes down to the secular Japanese's lack of convictions and their aversion to confronting that there is an absolute right and wrong. They don't want to admit the possibility that there can be a war (in which people kill each other and many more suffer) in which one side is absolutely, unequivocally right, and the other wrong. They don't want to admit that there are people who need to be killed, because then that leads into uncomfortable questions about themselves that they would rather try to ignore. So instead, we usually get war narratives where most people have no moral agency. Nobody was wrong. Everything is scapegoated onto a few comically evil psychopaths or literal demons. Everyone else was just some poor, good hearted normal person who got caught underneath forces much larger than themselves. It is somewhat similar to the current situation in the West where villains with sad backstories are in vogue, but the difference is that those writers still have convictions about needing to fight. They just got the targets screwed up. Captain Marvel beats up a guy and steals his bike because he said she should smile more, and the writers think that was right.

Good choices, for Trails though I would go with Liberl over Erebonia. FF9 has my favorite jrpg setting overall

I liked Liberl too - both all of the hiking through mountains and forests and caves, and the lore about how they were invaded and saved by the bell, and their one gimmick of airships has slipped away - but I thought that the aesthetics looked a little samey. You are looking down at a lot of green grass and dirt and rocks all throughout. Maybe the top down view is the issue here so maybe the remake might help here, but a lot of the towns look samey too. The only ones that really stick out in my mind is the white washed Mediterranean city of Ruan, and then the capital of Grancel with all of the tiles on the streets.

I liked how there were small hamlets and houses along the road in between the five cities. One or two screens West of Rolent is that farm you go eliminate Crop Munchers at. Along the way to Bose there is that fishing lodge with the dock. There is a house in Ragnard's canyon. Ravennue village Northwest of Bose. And then there is the old guy in the light house on the way to Ruan, and another village there. And then the Elmo Hot Springs village near Zeiss. It does help make the world feel more populated and real, rather than it just being cities and wilderness. I wish that the other Trails games had more of these houses and tiny hamlets. For Erebonia's size, Cold Steel did not have enough small towns, let alone random buildings out there.

[methoxetamine]

To me, the appeal of settings are in large part tied up with the aesthetics of the game.

The Erebonian Empire is one of my favorite JRPG countries, but a huge part of that is because I like airships that look like boats, 19th century European nobles wearing embroidered coats and cravats, swordsmen practicing in their dojos, old cars, huge castles, etc. You have to take hours long train rides steaming through the countryside to travel from province to province, and then after that you have to hike on foot to various towns and villages.

If you remove the aesthetics and just focus on the writing, then I like how the Erebonian people are backed into a corner. Due to the actions of a few (and due to the selfishness of foreigners), Erebonia has been made out to be a typical "evil empire" villain internationally, even though the populace are just normal people. And then the rest of the world gangs up on Erebonia (led by the truly antagonistic Calvard). So it is easy to root for Erebonia, since they are truly fighting a defensive war in this struggle.





I remember being sucked into the world insinuated in disc 1 of FF9. It has this renaissance era/early modern feel, where it is a medieval world that has begun industrializing. That blend between the fantastical medieval past and the familiar and convenient modern future. The baroque pre-rendered backgrounds are stunning. I liked the tall steampunk-castle metropolis of Lindblum. But what really enraptured my mind was that scripted sequence where you are on the airship travelling to Lindblum, and in the overworld you see these other merchant airships flying to and from Lindblum, giving the idea that there are other countries out there (turns out there are only two more) and that the world is alive and that people can be moving around and doing things independent of you. Ofcourse, that illusion gets dispelled once you reach disc 2 and realize that you have seen all of the countries, then visit another continent and then realize how small the world feels. But there are still fantastical environments like a huge tree with rivers and waterfalls of sand, or the biological architecture of the Terrans.

Writing wise, Alexandria is very sympathetic with how they were once proud kingdom that is now falling behind after the industrial revolution, and has now been cast as a villain in the eyes of the world.





I really liked the feel of FF11's Vana'Diel, but in this case it mostly comes from the gameplay (on top of some good art and flavor writing). You are hiking across this vast, untamed wilderness with hardly any settlements. Most of the world is uninhabited and unobserved. It is a world full of possibility. Part of the way this is achieved is due to the difficulty of the game, where you run very slowly. It can take over an hour to walk between cities on foot, and you will have ran through several maps so you feel like you are travelling through a large world. Basic overworld monsters like sheep or crabs are too strong to solo, so you need a party. You have navigate around terrain and dangerous mobs, and you need to pack supplies like invisibility powders for going into tight caves or dungeons. And then you get onboard an airship and look down at all of the land you hiked on foot, and all of this other land waiting for you to visit and out of bounds of the maps. The four cities feel like the last bastions of civilization and relief in this wild world. It really emphasizes seeking out and adventuring with people.





I liked the feel of early Pokemon (much of it tinged by the anime and movies), again also bound up in aesthetics. The world was mainly vast, untamed wilderness with few to no paved roads or railways, and no jumbo jet passenger planes flying to and fro. You had to walk on foot on mountainous dirt roads, or bushwhack through the forest. You did not have a cellphone to look up info on the internet or to dial 911 for help, so you still had to rely on word of mouth for information and if you fell down in the forest and broke your leg, no one was coming to save you. You had to climb out on your own. It was a huge world full of possibility. You could stumble upon some weirdo's training regime, or a huge Team Rocket sci fi base. I love the cassette tape retrofuturist aesthetic the technology, with the big bulky machines and big buttons and bright coloration, and dimly lit screens.






I quite like Granblue Fantasy, not only for the cozy romantic setting and fabulously opulent cities and palaces, but also for the lore. The dragon god Bahamut created the world, but then people decided to kill their good and split him into two, which split the universe into two (the Astral Realm, and the Sky Realm). The Sky Realm shortly after sundered from one land into countless smaller floating islands. There is also this humongously tall and thick hurricane called the Grim Basin that splits the world into different "seas" called Skydoms. So even after the proliferation of airship technology, you have these different cultures developing in isolation from each other. There was also an interdimensional invasion from the people in the Astral realm, and the Astrals grew living weapons from crystals called Primals and sent them out to fight as mass produced supersoldiers. When the Astrals retreated, you have all of these immortal supersoldiers left behind who are wandering around trying to find fulfillment in their life. There are also some sympathetic countries like the true Erste which has been subverted by an expansionist empire that hijacked its name.







I think this ultimately comes down to the secular Japanese's lack of convictions and their aversion to confronting that there is an absolute right and wrong. They don't want to admit the possibility that there can be a war (in which people kill each other and many more suffer) in which one side is absolutely, unequivocally right, and the other wrong. They don't want to admit that there are people who need to be killed, because then that leads into uncomfortable questions about themselves that they would rather try to ignore. So instead, we usually get war narratives where most people have no moral agency. Nobody was wrong. Everything is scapegoated onto a few comically evil psychopaths or literal demons. Everyone else was just some poor, good hearted normal person who got caught underneath forces much larger than themselves. It is somewhat similar to the current situation in the West where villains with sad backstories are in vogue, but the difference is that those writers still have convictions about needing to fight. They just got the targets screwed up. Captain Marvel beats up a guy and steals his bike because he said she should smile more, and the writers think that was right.

Good choices, for Trails though I would go with Liberl over Erebonia. FF9 has my favorite jrpg setting overall

I liked Liberl too - both all of the hiking through mountains and forests and caves, and the lore about how they were invaded and saved by the bell, and their one gimmick of airships has slipped away - but I thought that the aesthetics looked a little samey. You are looking down at a lot of green grass and dirt and rocks all throughout. Maybe the top down view is the issue here so maybe the remake might help here, but a lot of the towns look samey too. The only ones that really stick out in my mind is the white washed Mediterranean city of Ruan, and then the capital of Grancel with all of the tiles on the streets.

I liked how there were small hamlets and houses along the road in between the five cities. One or two screens West of Rolent is that farm you go eliminate Crop Munchers at. Along the way to Bose there is that fishing lodge with the dock. There is a house in Ragnard's canyon. Ravennue village Northwest of Bose. And then there is the old guy in the light house on the way to Ruan, and another village there. And then the Elmo Hot Springs village near Zeiss. It does help make the world feel more populated and real, rather than it just being cities and wilderness. I wish that the other Trails games had more of these houses and tiny hamlets. For Erebonia's size, Cold Steel did not have enough small towns, let alone random buildings out there.

You're making me realize how dogshit my memory is, I can hardly remember specific details like that. I guess it's been a while since I played it though. I'm really looking forward to the remake

[Statesman]

A lot of them are pretty interesting at a high concept level, but none of them feel like they could be real places once you're at the ground level. They tend to be very video gamey in presentation with things like town layouts, lack interconnectedness between places in the world unless it's directly relevant to the plot, and throw random elements from different genres with little thought for how they'd affect each other. I mostly remember them for aesthetics, not for anything interesting they do with the world.

Outside of some Japanese films, oriental storytelling as a whole feels very primitive compared to some other cultures.

And yet that simpler storytelling is probably why JRPGs remain consistently popular among certain types of gamer.

[Femboi_Otaku]

As far a jrpgs go, I settings like Lost Odyssey where magic and technology are recent inventions so the environments are mostly more traditional and low-tech with high tech stuff like elevators and trains kinda slapped on top. FF12 had this feel to the world aswell where things like people traveling via airships are seen in-universe as a luxury.

[methoxetamine]

As far a jrpgs go, I settings like Lost Odyssey where magic and technology are recent inventions so the environments are mostly more traditional and low-tech with high tech stuff like elevators and trains kinda slapped on top. FF12 had this feel to the world aswell where things like people traveling via airships are seen in-universe as a luxury.

Have you played Trails?

[Rasheesto]

I don't have a strong preference, i am fine with anything as long as it's not modern day setting.

[ThulsaDoomer]

None.

[Femboi_Otaku]

As far a jrpgs go, I settings like Lost Odyssey where magic and technology are recent inventions so the environments are mostly more traditional and low-tech with high tech stuff like elevators and trains kinda slapped on top. FF12 had this feel to the world aswell where things like people traveling via airships are seen in-universe as a luxury.

Have you played Trails?

No. I've heard the name and iirc the combat is turn-based but I don't anything about the series really. Are they any good?

[methoxetamine]

As far a jrpgs go, I settings like Lost Odyssey where magic and technology are recent inventions so the environments are mostly more traditional and low-tech with high tech stuff like elevators and trains kinda slapped on top. FF12 had this feel to the world aswell where things like people traveling via airships are seen in-universe as a luxury.

Have you played Trails?

No. I've heard the name and iirc the combat is turn-based but I don't anything about the series really. Are they any good?

It's a very long series with variable quality, it's also one continuous story which is what separates it from most other jrpg series. The reason I mentioned it is because especially in the early games it has a setting similar to what you describe with technology being a recent invention, so the world overall is mostly traditional and low-tech but with some airships and machinery and other things. The first arc (Trails in the Sky FC, SC, 3rd) is where this applies the most since it takes place in a somewhat backwater country, but as the series progresses the setting becomes more high tech overall due to both time advancing and the subsequent arcs taking place in countries with a larger focus on technology and higher populations

It can be a bit of a divisive series for a few reasons, but overall it's one of my favorite jrpg series ever. The problem for many people is that it's an insane time commitment to play the entire thing, but since you enjoy that kind of setting I definitely recommend at least trying Trails in the Sky FC. It's a very very slow burn too which filters quite a lot of people, but the worldbuilding is second to none so I was never bored at all even with the slow start. It's an extremely one of a kind series.

@Val the Moofia Boss is much more eloquent on this topic than I am

[Val the Moofia Boss]

As far a jrpgs go, I settings like Lost Odyssey where magic and technology are recent inventions so the environments are mostly more traditional and low-tech with high tech stuff like elevators and trains kinda slapped on top. FF12 had this feel to the world aswell where things like people traveling via airships are seen in-universe as a luxury.

Have you played Trails?

No. I've heard the name and iirc the combat is turn-based but I don't anything about the series really. Are they any good?

Trails is great. It is the best currently running JRPG series. Great aesthetics, music, fun turn based combat and character building, extremely likeable characters, novel setting, writing has verisimilitude to pull you in, etc. It is also helpful that it gets a new game every 1 or 2 years to maintain audience interest. You're not waiting 8+ years for the next entry. However, you have to go in with the heads up that the series promises an overarching storyline but never delivers a satisfying payoff on it. I wrote up a longer indepth post on that in my discussion with Cipher last month, but the short of it is that there are status quo resets and you hardly ever kill the bad guys. Nobody is brought to account. So write off the overarching storyline and just enjoy each individual game for its own merits.

The game is separated into four arcs. Start at whichever one appeals to you the most. I would suggest either Trails of Cold Steel 1, or Trails in the Sky FC. Cold Steel 1 I think is the holistically best first game in terms of aesthetics, gameplay challenge, story, music, etc. However, you might not like the aesthetics, and it is a 90 hour long game. Trails in the Sky FC on the other hand is only a 50 hour long commitment, and the plot in the second half of the game is very intriguing. However, you will have to endure the more relatively boring first 20 hours to get there, and it has a top down view where you are looking at a lot of grass and rocks, the sidequests are mediocre and the combat is unengaging. You could also maybe try Trails from Zero or Trails Through Daybreak 1 if those look they appeal to you specifically, but they have other issues.

the worldbuilding is second to none

I disagree. There are other fantasy settings with much more detail than Trails'. Erebonia is a humongous country but Reinford is the only manufacturer there that we know of. Erebonia has the most detailed history of the Trails countries, but we really only know about a half dozen incidents in its past (Adjudicator Arnor, the Dark Dragon and Emperor Hector, vampires during Roselia's time, and the War of the Lions). Etc. There are also a lot of retcons in Zero, CS3, and Daybreak 1 because the writers didn't plan far ahead enough and ran out of road (and decided not to stick to their plans in the case of CS' latter story). What sets Trails apart from most is that feeling of verisimilitude, that you are really there in the world and that there really are other people and factions doing things offscreen in the background, so the protagonists can't just wait around forever. I typically only get this feeling in visual novels.

[Femboi_Otaku]

Thx guys, they sound interesting. I looked them up and it appears the first three Trails games have sets on retroachievements(the psp versions) so I might have to finally check them out... after I burn out on Oblivion.

[Irenaeus]

Phantasy Star

[methoxetamine]

Thx guys, they sound interesting. I looked them up and it appears the first three Trails games have sets on retroachievements(the psp versions) so I might have to finally check them out... after I burn out on Oblivion.

Don't play the PSP versions, play the PC version. They have turbo which is a godsend

[Statesman]

Phantasy Star

The first game or the series as a whole?

[Irenaeus]

Phantasy Star

The first game or the series as a whole?

I've only really played 3 and 4. And quite honestly I only remember it being good but not the specifics about the setting. I'm not a jRPG guy

[DemoGraph]

Val, I don't get it.

I wrote up a longer indepth post on that in my discussion with Cipher last month,

You basically wrote that the games themselves were bad. No plot progression, no character development, 80% filler gameplay...

There are other fantasy settings with much more detail than Trails'. Erebonia is a humongous country but Reinford is the only manufacturer there that we know of.

...and no worldbuilding to speak of.

What sets Trails apart from most is that feeling of verisimilitude, that you are really there in the world and that there really are other people and factions doing things offscreen in the background, so the protagonists can't just wait around forever. I typically only get this feeling in visual novels.

You can get that by playing strategy with RPG elements (Crusader Kings, Dominions, even Civ series).

Aaand you don't have to play the games to listen to the music (my story with Lineage 2 - one of the best OSTs, one of the shittiest gameplays).
So why bother with the series? What's so unique? Constant teasing by unfulfilled promises? Wallpaper generator?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

You basically wrote that the games themselves were bad.

I wrote that if you zoom out and view the overarching stories of the arcs and the series on a macro level, it is disappointing. The plots of the individual games and the moment-to-moment experience of going through the story and the scenes is usually enjoyable. The characters are very likeable and there are many good scenes. The only time the plot was disinteresting to me was certain parts of Azure.

...and no worldbuilding to speak of.

I don't consider having a bloated number of of wiki pages to be good worldbuilding. Trails is able to sufficiently sell to me its world in a way that most games do not.

You can get that by playing strategy with RPG elements (Crusader Kings, Dominions, even Civ series).

Looking down at a Risk map of kingdoms and the gameplay amounting to looking at number percentages on UI windows is not an interesting VIDEO game experience to me like seeing characters fight, being able to move my character around the arena, seeing the cool cutscene attacks, etc.

Aaand you don't have to play the games to listen to the music

The music elevates the experience in a way that just listening to it by itself won't be as potent.

• The Bracers and the Royalists launching their attack on the villa in Trails in the Sky FC while "Recapture" plays.
• Queen Alicia talking about how Cassius invented bomber airships and killed a lot of conscript Erebonians who were besieging Grancel and then resigned from the military and renounced the sword while "In My Heart" plays.
• Our pathetic little heroes running out of cover and facing a huge firebreathing dragon trying to save him while "Great Awe" plays.
• "Stairway to Gehenna" When Kevin falls into hell and faces the little boy he killed, and there are no funny chest messages to read and you have that atmospheric music playing.
• "To Meet Again Someday" The goodbye scene at the end of 3rd.
• "Gazing at Your Back" when Lloyd is reminiscing about his dead brother and sister-in-law at the end of Zero's prologue.
  "Mystic Core" playing in the final chapter of Azure when the two
• Gralsritter airships decloak and make a run for it through Crossbell's airspace and the Aions move to intercept.
  When Jusis breaks Machias out of jail and they are making a run for it through the tunnels and the guards sic the two huge dobermans on them, and you are in for the hardest fight yet on nightmare difficulty and that triumphant music "Eliminate Crisis" begins playing encouraging you to persevere to the end.
• Rean reuniting with his friends in CS2
• "Blitzkrieg" playing as Rean busts out of his house arrest room with Alfin trying to make his escape off the enemy flagship with lots of powerful enemies around.
• The prologue and 1st chapters of CS3 when Rean returns to his room and is alone and his dear friends haven't reunited with him yet while "Stillness of Night" plays.
• Hiking to Hamel and the old timey medieval music begins playing and you feel like you are leaving the modern world and walking into the forgotten past.
• Doomsday Trance playing when everything is going wrong at the end of CS3. Cedric has just murdered his brother and Laura's father, George has murdered Angie, the coalition of heroes outside are becoming exhausted as the enemies are closing and will soon have to flee, Milium has just died, Rean is being mauled through his mech, Cedric is choking Altina, Kurt's mech is wrecked and he can only stand and watch in horror.
• The CS4 airship theme that gets you pumped when you have amassed a small army and now you are doing the training room practice stuff on nightmare difficulty and building all of your characters before you deploy to the next mission.
• The exciting, heroic music that plays when Olivier attempts to break out of house arrest by himself and everything is moving fast.
• "The Dark World" playing in Reverie's final chapter with the streets of Crossbell empty, another world war is nigh, and Mayor McDowell speaking to his men as they run off to get mowed down by the lasers and the giant mechs of the Retributive Tower.
• When the bad guys have made the move and taken hostages, and "Role to Play" is playing as you spend what money you have and build your characters before moving out for the final confrontation of the chapter in Daybreak 1.
• "Cold Reality" playing during the highway tunnel execution scene in Daybreak 2.

Not to mention all of the great field, town, dungeon, and battle themes.

So why bother with the series? What's so unique?

I thought I had already said what makes the series great. The combination of great aesthetics and music, extremely likeable characters, the cool setting with airships and nobles in cravats and european swordsman practicing in Eastern styled dojos and applying their swordsmanship to mech piloting, entertaining story on a moment to moment basis, the usually grounded scope focusing on turmoil within individual countries and the verisimilitude of the writing which makes the world feel more real, the enjoyable turn based combat and character building, etc.

[DemoGraph]

I thought I had already said what makes the series great.

Excuse me. I maybe teased you a bit. And thanks for the answer.
Have you played Wanderers of Sorceria, by chance? It's a custom campaign for Frozen Throne. If yes, what do you think about it?

Oh, but also,

► Show Spoiler

Queen Alicia talking about how Cassius invented bomber airships and killed a lot of conscript Erebonians ... while "In My Heart" plays.

That's definitely wild carpet bombing music!

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Wanderers of Sorceria

I have not, but the TV tropes synopsis sounds pretty interesting. Sounds like it does the Tellius Fire Emblem thing of rotating perspectives on separate sides of a war. The 100+ missions thing sounds like a tall ask, though. Will add it to the list of things to eventually check out.

[DemoGraph]

The 100+ missions thing sounds like a tall ask, though. Will add it to the list of things to eventually check out.

I highly recommend it. And yes, there are rotating perspectives, people flip-flopping sides, gray morals... and anime cliches)
You don't need to play it all. First two campaigns (20 missions or so) have a closed plot. You can play them standalone. I think that they're the best in the series.

You'll have to pirate the old TFT, though, since it's no longer sold.