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Dreiko

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The trails series is over-performing. Now that's a sentence I'd never expect to type.


Suffice it to say this is amazing news for what are basically psp Jrpgs being released in 2022-23.

This series has, through an interconnected world that keeps being developed with each game and avoiding becoming more stand-alone in favor of deep lore and references intended for people with multiple hundred hour investment, ended up becoming the games I most look forward to playing. While other games like Persona and Dragon Quest are consistently incredible, they kinda...end. This series, hoo boy. Even when it ends it keeps going. There's always the next game which will bring back tons of the things you loved about the last 10 and then add its own unique things on top of the pie which can stand by themselves alone and in any other universe would be a complete game in and of themselves. You can't quite match that.


And that's kinda the thing about this series, even if you're a beginner and jump in at one of the later sagas, you still get a super epic Jrpg. It's just all that much better with all the backstory on top. So anyone jumping in and enjoying themselves is inevitably gonna find themselves going back to play the older stuff they missed. It's a domino chain reaction of awesome.


Trails into Reverie in 2 months, can't wait!
 
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meiam

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The trails series is over-performing. Now that's a sentence I'd never expect to type.


Suffice it to say this is amazing news for what are basically psp Jrpgs being released in 2022-23.

This series has, through an interconnected world that keeps being developed with each game and avoiding becoming more stand-alone in favor of deep lore and references intended for people with multiple hundred hour investment, ended up becoming the games I most look forward to playing. While other games like Persona and Dragon Quest are consistently incredible, they kinda...end. This series, hoo boy. Even when it ends it keeps going. There's always the next game which will bring back tons of the things you loved about the last 10 and then add its own unique things on top of the pie which can stand by themselves alone and in any other universe would be a complete game in and of themselves. You can't quite match that.


And that's kinda the thing about this series, even if you're a beginner and jump in at one of the later sagas, you still get a super epic Jrpg. It's just all that much better with all the backstory on top. So anyone jumping in and enjoying themselves is inevitably gonna find themselves going back to play the older stuff they missed. It's a domino chain reaction of awesome.


Trails into Reverie in 2 months, can't wait!
I tried both in the sky and cold steel and neither really grabbed me. The combat is super basic and the story is just anime cliche filled with anime cliche character, I was pretty disappointed tbh considering how much praise they get, but it was just the usual tsundere in a world where the obviously evil looking character turn out to be evil. Especially cold steel, it completely waste its school setting and the combat is so simple it feel like it belong in the PS1 era.
 

Dreiko

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I tried both in the sky and cold steel and neither really grabbed me. The combat is super basic and the story is just anime cliche filled with anime cliche character, I was pretty disappointed tbh considering how much praise they get, but it was just the usual tsundere in a world where the obviously evil looking character turn out to be evil. Especially cold steel, it completely waste its school setting and the combat is so simple it feel like it belong in the PS1 era.
Trails is an extremely slow burn. It starts out with the usual anime tropes from shonen shows and so on but it develops with immense amount of depth and worldbuilding. It's less about being original and more about being the most highly concentrated iteration of favorite classics. Also it is important to keep in mind that this is a game that originally, originally was made back in 2006 that is being iterated piece by piece. Nowadays it obviously will seem even less original than it was back in 06.


Basically, it's less about breaking the mold, and more about providing the top tier specimen of each type of mold, and intertwining it with a story that spans 11 full games and like a thousand hours of experiences, while being totally connected and referencing things from the previous games all the time.


Combat in Sky is pretty basic (again, they were 2006 psp games) but in cold steel, especially the latter 2 games, it gets pretty intricate. Also there's giant mech fights. This game actually has the most fun iteration of giant mech fights since something like white knight chronicle.


But yeah, originality and combat isn't why you play trails. You play trails for the story. You play trails to have npcs have lives and thousands of dialogue lines, that change with the events of the story all the time, so you always run around talking to all the npcs and learn their names bit by bit, learn what goes on in their lives. By the end of the game you are intimately familiar with a good 3 dozen or so random npcs who have their own lives and issues, sometimes they even get involved in a sidequest here and there. Not many games can get you to care about the world like that, nor do they even attempt to go to that level of detail.
 
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hanselthecaretaker

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IF Boon or WBD are that pressured, then either don't say anything, or show some actual gameplay.
Ed has a problem with going too heavy on the trolling trolley prerelease. It’s getting played out, and my only hope is that the same can’t be said for whatever they wind up showing us.
 
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TheMysteriousGX

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Holy shit, this is a real article

EDIT: Wow, core memory unlocked. I had a copy of this with a torn label and my folks threw it away because it was "too violent".

Hybrid Heaven.png
 
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meiam

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Holy shit, this is a real article

EDIT: Wow, core memory unlocked. I had a copy of this with a torn label and my folks threw it away because it was "too violent".

View attachment 8837
Huh some game I randomly rented as a kid turned out to be good? Surprised wave racer and blast corp are up there.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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I resent this game because it glitched at the ending and wiped my Controller Pak.
Honestly, who in their right mind would think the best place to put a memory stick was a wired controller who's wire would be inevitably twisted way to tight against the controller by literal children?

Seems like an obvious flaw in hindsight
 
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BrawlMan

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Honestly, who in their right mind would think the best place to put a memory stick was a wired controller who's wire would be inevitably twisted way to tight against the controller by literal children?
Because it was the '90s and it was all about being XTREEEEMMMMEEEE!!!!
 

BrawlMan

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I dig it. Not the first person to come to this theory or conclusion.

 
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