The Trails series is like the One Piece of JRPGs. Immaculate world building and adventure. Both are super intimidating to get into because they’re so big, but both are worth the investment.
I'm kind of glad I played Trails in the Sky while being ignorant of the rest of the Trails games because I probably would have been too intimidated to start the series if I had know the trilogy I was starting was really a 13+ game series that is still on going. Its kind of funny I got in to Trails in the Sky because I heard the battle theme in some other random video and I found the game on steam and it was 50% off (10$) when I found it on steam. I was completely clueless to the massive, but fantastic rabbit hole that silly little 10$ rpg I bought on a whim would take me down.
@@WhiteFangofWar Reverie is the 5th game of the third arc in the series, it's most definitely the worst entry point in the entire franchise. I suggest you start with one of the first games of an arc, with sky being the first one chronologically, though if you find it outdated you could always pick up the new trails through daybreak, which is the entry point of the calvard arc
That's funny because I think it has the same flaw as one piece. One piece is great but because there's so many characters and so much going on sometimes the story lacks focus and you have a lot of moments where you don't really care about what's going on. It makes it so that the highs are really high because of the buildup but the lows are really low. It could have been an even better story in my opinion if each arc were more conscise but I don't mind it because the story starts strong and the weekly format makes it almost impossible to not have moments where the pacing is not great. Trails do the same thing but unlike one piece the stories don't really start strong so it's like if one piece started with dressrosa. In my opinion it doesn't really give you good reasons to be invested yet spend time talking about the favorite color of a side character and I find it so boring. Sometimes it feels like game writers think more text means better story but I think they would benefit from more editing and more direct stories. I tried playing many trail games but every time it just felt like the writers were more concerned with flexing their writing skills than getting the player invested in the story. They just kinda expect you to endure the boring parts to get to the fun part but you wouldn't need to endure the bad part of the story started by giving you reasons to care. That's why I could never get into the series. the closest I've been to a proper playthrough was with trails in the sky but even then I dropped it after a few hours. Trails of steel starts with a daily school life thing and I stopped as soon as I realized that. I feel like the only way to enjoy those games is to just turn off your brain and mindlessly read until you get to the good part and that's not how any story should be written.
i finished FFX and trails but man with all due respect, X feels just like a filler or written clumsily when u played trails or persona 3-5 games.. i don't know about tactics they said its good tho
Final Fantasy X is really good game, but the story is not what stands out for me, but the combat system. I think it's the best combat. From Final Fantasy i think 6,7,8,9,12, 13, 14 have a better story thann x, 14 being the best.
13 Sentinels blew me out of the water with its story! I still wish it had won the Game Award for Best Narrative in 2020. FYI, did you know the lengths English VAs had to go through to record their lines for the game? They had to record at home and the audio quality they managed to pull off is amazing, you'd think they recorded in an actual studio. Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is the reason I ended up getting a PS3 lol. I did get it again on the PS4 too, love it that much. I knew with Studio Ghibli involved in this game, the story would be charming and amazing. Playing this game is what got me to try Pokemon for the first time lol. My 2 fav JRPG stories though come from my 2 fav games. Even though Eternal Sonata IS my fav game and I loved the story it was telling, I do think Grandia 2's story is better because it flips the script more AND it turned me into a better person. Both games though make you THINK.
I started playing the trails series last year and it was probably the best choice I made, videogame-wise, it quickly became my fav jrpg series of all times
Speaking of Falcom, I'd recommend giving the Ys series a shot. It's an action RPG starring a red haired silent protagonist: Adol. You can start almost anywhere in the series, and play through without context from other games in the series, so I can recommend starting with Ys: The Oath in Felghana or Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana for one of the best experiences you can get.
the stories of the Ys games are wonderfull. My only complain about it (and I really don't care cause I give a shit bout story if gameplay is good, and Ys gameplay has been always overall good) is that the story always begins with a shipwreck hahahaha
As far as story goes, I really enjoyed the original Parasite Eve, also as far as Xenoblade games, I really enjoyed 2 and Torna the golden country. The story of fire emblem three houses was really fun to learn. I love the fact that you had to play through all the different routes to get the entire story. Final Fantasy nine and 10 were also really good. Nier Automata, Xenogears,
Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology (regardless of what people say this is the best version, due to added quality of life features and a great voiceover). If you love time travel you will love this. It dethroned Chrono Trigger as the best for me. Also the Yakuza series is fantastic.
List is definitely missing Nier Automata in my opinion, but great list nonetheless. Happy to see you highlight smaller franchises that don’t get enough love.
No Final Fantasy IX, no Final Fantasy VI, no Xenogears? I easily drop Final fantasy VII for these games taking into consideration plot as a main argument.
Thank you! It's not just me. While the writing in many on this list is okay, they definitely wouldn't be as popular without the modern day graphics. All of the FF games that predated the PS2 were great because of the writing, music, and graphics which were cutting edge for their time, but still hold up today.
@@davidmckenzie3608 Many on the list seem recent too, with the exception of Ni No Kuni. Trails could have been added due to curiosity of older games since it is a continuous series. I'm guessing there is a lot of recency bias in play here. For example, how did Chrono Trigger not make the list?
@TheUderfrykte yeah, it wasn't that great. If it had any other title it would be an above average JRPG, but this is a Final Fantasy title we're talking about and that sets the bar a little higher
I understand you didnt list FFT, FFX, FFXIV, Suikoden, Illusion of Gaia and even Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger. But why, in the name of the holy Mother of Nissan, Xenogears is not in this list?
For me I enjoy Rean’s story more than Lloyd’s. I don’t know maybe it’s the giant robots. No comment on Sky, it could possibly be better, but I’ve never played it.
@@germanicusternus1982 The gameplay isn’t finished properly, the story is still there, and even then, it’s still widely regarded one of the top jrpg of all time regardless its imperfections just by the strength of its story alone.
good video! I think we'd have a lot of the same choices. 13 Sentinels (for my money the best video game story ever told) Undertale (if it counts. not far off 13S) Mother 3 (can't mention UT without this one. oof.) Xenoblade (I put the entire series here but if I have to pick one, yeah 1 is winning. I know others are going to say Xenogears but it just does not do it for me.) Trails in the Sky FC/SC/3rd (unpopular opinion: this is the only Trails game going here. but damn does it deserve it) Suikoden (the entire series but largely 2) Radiant Historia (time-travel perfection) Final Fantasy 6/7 (6 is my personal fave but I've been thinking a lot about 7 thanks to the remake... I am extremely unhappy with the ending of Rebirth but we'll see where they take it) Tales of the Abyss (I feel like it's a more flawed story than most here but it's a personal choice, it stuck with me) Bravely Default (this is the DEFINITION of "peaks and valleys" but when it hits, oh man it hits!!!!! best villain reveal of all time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Valkyrie Profile (not much to say here. it's just a really good story.) Chained Echoes (brought down a bit by how much I hate Kylian. felt like a bad parody of like "morally gray" characters. the ending really annoyed me for reasons you can probably guess. go away Kylian. but yes otherwise fantastic) Danganronpa (not a JRPG technically but amazing at what it does while also being completely stupid. god bless.) DQ11 is probably my favorite game ever but I am not sure if I'd put it on a list of best stories. I think the overall effect is really good and the halfway (third of the way?) twist is nuts and I loved it though. Octopath II had fantastic individual stories, but once you take a step back and look at the picture as a whole, the number of DRAMATIC BETRAYALS starts straining your sense of disbelief quite hard lol SOSS/SOSSR - completely falls apart in the second half. P3R - yeah probably should have been on this list, this or P5R. NNK - honestly I dislike this game so much I don't really like the story either. I feel like it runs really hard off Ghibli aesthetics and a dead mom.
Wow - no Tales games listed - Tales of Berseria is the most memorable game I have ever played and the only one that ever made me actually cry. Tales of Symphonia on Gamecube was the first JRPG I ever played and I have loved them since. Another game where the story stayed with me was Shadowhearts Covenant from the New World.
Berseria didn’t hit with me the first time I tried playing it but I went back recently and it is really an all around amazing game. It actually made another list of mine recently.
Having Xenoblade Chronicles but no Xenogears is criminal.. You made up for it though by having P3 and not P5. I like 5 but the story is very overrated imo Personally I’d put SMT 4 somewhere on the list too
Final Fantasy X is not only the best jrpg story but one of the best stories in the medium of gaming and fiction as a whole. List is automatically disqualified lmaooo
If talking about recent JRPGs I fail to see Unicorn Overlord, a 2024 very good game with an engaging story. If you are taking into account all time JRPGs I don't know how did you miss Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, which precisely, their story and storytelling is their best asset. I also miss Suikoden 2 in the list.
Well for me. It would have to be persona 5 or persona 3 reload or final fantasy vii or whatever. Maybe if you wanted to add a pokemon platinum quarter or A super mario rpg or too for 25 of 10 storylines or more 😊
Xenogears’ story is epic, but falls way short on story telling. The pacing was horrible, and it was terrible at keeping you immersed and engaged throughout all the twists and turns. As a result most of the later game plot points and revelations fell flat. It is definitely a story that deserves a second chance to be retold, but as it is it’s hard to call it a great story
@@AJfromLA818 way short? It’s critically acclaimed from the day it dropped to today 😂. Stop rehashing what you see on some losers RU-vid review. This games script touches topics that movies don’t even approach anymore. It’s banned in Europe because of its script lol. No one craps on Gears that actually played it 🤷
@@EugeneKurlikin don’t get me wrong it’s a great game, and I remember purchasing it when it came out and replayed it multiple times. I’m not arguing the story has the potential to be great, I’m arguing it fails on story telling. It’s told in a way that’s very hard for casual gamers to follow, which is why on its own the story fails in its medium as a game. Even on a recent playthrough I had to watch numerous RU-vid videos to help me understand the story as it was too difficult to capture the immensity through just the dialogue.
I'm a big fan of that Star Ocean story. It's not that the story is bad or even weak. It's that lots of the character moments that happen especially with secondary characters are done via the private actions and so people don't view that as part of the story even though there is clear character development happening in those that helps explain certain actions taken by characters. If you skip the private actions, there are bits missing outside of the main two characters.
Great video! The story and characters are always the most important part to me. Some of my favorite stories in jrpgs huh? In no particular order, here's some of my favorites. Suikoden 5, Fire Emblem Awakening, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance, Ys 9, Persona 3 Reload, Persona 4
This is hard, I'm not sure what JRPG stories really stood out to me. Most of them follow tried & true tropes, though they'll put their own spin on them. Here's my list (in no order): 1. Xenoblade Chronicles DE 2. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 3. Octopath Traveler 2 4. Persona 5 Royal 5. Persona 3 Reload 6. Star Ocean Second Story R 7. Trials of Mana 8. Chained Echoes 9. Dragon Quest XI-S 10. Fire Emblem: Three Houses Aside from Xenoblade, I'd say none of those games have extremely unique stories, just good ones with enjoyable characters.
Dude. While I respect your opinion a lot. I might gonna have to disagree a little bit more because I think saying this is a one piece series amount of games considering the amount of characters change within each series is a major understatement for me
I think it's fun, though it can get a little redundant at times. Every basic enemy battle can be nuked the same way, and most boss battles can be won with the same strategy.
Play on hard mode; it'll make you think about how you go about combat, and make you care how you set up your orbments. Providing some challenge may make the combat more fun, but then you'll find that the pacing will drag due to needing to grind a bit more. I do like my story, but I'm not about to drop the difficulty just to rush through the series while getting bored by easy encounters. (The prologue boss in Sky SC is a stupid case where it almost feels hopeless to beat on hard mode due to minimal party members, and barely any skills/orbment configurations. Besides that though, a lot of the bosses were relatively fun and challenging.)
I think Octopath stories depend of which story are we talking about, but I can comprehend that is hard to connect with all of them. Sorry If my english is incorrect, I'm not a native speaker.
What about Xenogears, Nier, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Baten Kaitos or even original Final Fantasy VII for that matter? Aegis Rim is a great modern pick loved that one.
I think the more recent Yakuza/Like a Dragon games deserve to be on here even though they both start kinda slow. Ichiban is an absolute joy to play as.
Agreed to this. Ngl, at first I was skeptical having Ichiban as the successor after coming from the legendary Kiryu but Ichiban is a different kind of fun to play as.
Like a Dragon's biggest flaw is being too easy for like 3/4 of the game, and they give you no harder difficulty option till you beat the game and do ng+. If they fixed that, the first Like a Dragon is a literal 10/10 hall of famer, but as it stands, it's a big flaw for me
Dragon Quest V, Star Ocean 2, Persona 4, Final Fantasy IV, Sukoden V, Xenogears, Legend of Hero: Trails of Cold Steel, Tales of Berseria, Radiant Historia, Lunar Silver Star Story, and Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War.
Xenogears and p4 are certified bangers, but ff4? A great game but the best final Fantasy story? Really? No hate, but if you could elaborate a bit I'd appreciate it
You'll probably have to wait for them to remaster or redo unless you have a PS2 or 3DS but my favorite JRPG story is Tales of the Abyss. Story and Character arcs abound.
Trails!!! I'm glad it's getting more love now. Cold Steel definitely brought it out of obscurity. I can't say much there as CS1 was what got me into the series, but I went back after the second CS game and played all the Sky games and then when Zero finally released for English speakers properly and not just a patch on the computer, I played that. I did get distracted unfortunately while playing to Azure, but I plan to return to it in the near future. I've been playing the mobile game too recently and seeing all of my favorite characters is so much fun.
I think remake is a hard story to recommend when it's not done. Yes, it's awesome, but it obviously feels like a very incomplete story. If i wanted to recommend a final Fantasy story i would do 10. It's a great game, and it's complete and satisfying. My favorite final Fantasy story, however, and my favorite video game story ever is final Fantasy 9. Not every character is perfect, but the highs in that games story are the highest highs in video game writing. Also the ending is simply peak. It's the only video game that i feel no need to have more of, because the original story was that perfect. If they do a remake, i just want them to make the graphics nicer and polish up the battle system. Don't change anything else, and it would be the greatest video game ever made.
Fantastic List. Sky sc and Azure are easily the 2 best trails games imo. Love the sky trilogy and crossbell arc way more than the cold steel arc personally.
@@germanicusternus1982 And? Saying it would have been even better given more time doesn't mean its current form isn't still better than every other rpg
I should say that Xenogears, Chrono series, Fire Meblem Genealogy of War, FInal FAntasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre and Phantasy Star Original Series are among the best ones ever.
I gotta play Dragon Quest XI. Sold. But I couldnt get past Drippy's annoying quirks in Ni no kuni. I tried multiple times I even looked for a setting where he shuts up or something. Im it is loved by so many though.
Gotta love another person promoting Trails! Over the last four years playing Trails games, I wholeheartly agree these are some of the greatest stories in gaming today! Great video!
Nice list! I know ultimately everyone got their own preferences. Me personally, I always enjoy story with deep personal stake a lot more than "you need to save the world" where the MC just kinda stumble upon it.
One of the best choices in JRPGs was when Trails in the Sky decided to have Olivier and Zin as 2 of the 8 party members. Everyone else, Estelle, Joshua, Tita, Agate, Schera, and Kloe, were all either natives of Liberl or had lived in Liberl for a long time. Zin and Olivier were foreigners to Liberl who join the main party and become key parts of the story. That's one of the reasons why it feels like everything in trails was already there with Sky FC. Unlike every other JRPG, Sky FC teases you about the great world outside, with Olivier serving as our first look into Erebonia and Zin serving as our look into Calvard. The fact that we hear so much about the two super-powers and yet in the entire Sky trilogy, we never visit Calvard and only briefly visit Erebonia (in the ending of Sky SC) leaves so much mystery to everything. At the end of the Sky trilogy, we know these two giant super-powers are out there, and we've felt how they have affected every single aspect of our protagonist's lives, and when we finish it, we can't wait to get out there and go to these nations.
I agree, also starting from the point of view of 16-year-olds on the cusp of adulthood, about to have their eyes opened to what the world is really like - it really works to draw you in to that sense of a great drama unfolding in front of you
SHIT YKNOW WHAT THANK YOU FOR THIS I forgot Zin was a Calvardian and thought him being in Kuro/Daybreak wwas just "Oh, hes just doin stuff in Calvard I guess"
I love your inclusion of FF7 Remake here as your thoughts mirrored mine exactly. I'm new to your channel so don't know your stance on the FF MMOs but FFXIV Shadowbringers is just an incredible story within the greater FFXIV narrative.
@slam-zany I'm jealous how much fun you're going to have. Rean literally inspired me to take better care of myself IRL his strong character development had that effect on me. I have a $120 Displate of him from CS2 hanging up at work, lmao. Would LOVE some videos of you reviewing each title in cold steel. Subbed
Interesting list but I couldn't disagree more. Trails to me is bloated. Their individual stories are average at best and that world building is self indulgent. Their stories take a long time to even become enjoyable. It's the same for Persona games. Their design ruins the pace of the narrative. It's hard to get invested in a stories when the interesting stuff happens at the start and at the end of their bloated chapters. Good stories you need to experience are: Xenosaga Trilogy. Better than Xenogears and Xenoblade by a mile. Xenogears second disc is rushed in exposition. Parasite Eve Vagrant Story Tales of the Abyss and Berseria Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts Covenant The Legend of Dragoon Drakengard and Nier Duology. Final Fantasy IX and XII The World End with You Duology Odin Sphere Leifhtrasir (Aegis Rim is barely an rpg. That is a visual novel and a nonsensical one at that) I would also invite you to try the Darksiders series and Mass Effect Trilogy for good stories.
Dragon Quest 11 is awsome, buy Journey of the curses king will forever be the best imo. 11 could have final taken that spot, but.... Spoiler alert..... The story and character progression was top notch...until the end. When you go back in time to "correct the wrongs".....you destroy so much character development for half the party! The growth and development they go through from loosing both the battle and a friend is completely undone. "That was a super awsome and emotional journey we just took you on! So many memorable and heartfelt moments! It was great! But.....guess what? Now that we went through all of that...we are going to go back in time, erase all of that. Making dozens of hours of character development and growth completely pointless! All just to save the life of one very annoying character, who's sister ended up MUCH better off without, and get the most cliche trope landed ending!" If the game would have ended right before the time shenanigans.....it would have been perfect. But that ending just to add more game time....nope. That ruined it for me!
