What are you playing?

Anyone playing Trails in the Sky? While I'm not generally into anime aesthetic games at this point, friend got me the remake so I'm playing it. Never played any of the Trails games, but I've heard they're the great traditional RPG series of the 2010's+ in the mold of your Suikodens and Grandias.

I'm about an hour in and I have to give the game credit for making all of the female characters ridiculously hot. Tight midriffs and belly rings are something I'm happy to still see games doing in 2025.

Droigan said:

Very large story driven games. I think there are 2 or 3 trilogies? Very good games, and apparently the remake is quite good. I've only played the demo.

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Yeah, I think they're up to like the 9th Trails game at this point. In a few months when the next one comes out, the U.S. will at last officially be up to where Japan is with the series. When the first one came out here, I think Japan was about to get the 5th one.

The series takes place on one big continent, and each game has filled in a different province of the continent. At this point I think they have one trilogy left before the continent is fully covered by the series (doesn't mean they can't make more games, or do a full slate of remakes). The continent is about 75% playable over all the games in the existing series.

Given how Elder Scrolls was a similar situation that completely dropped the ball with covering most of the provinces (at least they're making one of the five* remaining lands, I guess), it's pretty cool to see a series set out to cover an entire continent's worth of lands and actually follow through with it.

* - Six if you count that more than half of Morrowind didn't get included in the Morrowind game. Figured it'd be in the Black Marsh game or in a Morrowind 2, but here we are 15 years after I made those speculations and it all seems quaint now

Anyway, the Trails series seems really good, something actually worth getting into if I ever want to do a full RPG series that doesn't drop the ball with its potential.

Sup

I am on a serious Roguelike/Roguelite kick. Been mainly playing Balatro, Neon Abyss, Nimrods and The Binding Of Isaac. Played a little bit of Spelunky and Dead Cells and a few others. Debating if I want to go for Completionist++ in Balatro, or or first play through of either Darkest Dungeon or Inscription.

Also, regarding Spelunky, should I just buy 2 and play that instead? Or should I play through 1 and then 2?

EDIT: I also have played a tiny bit of Enter the Gungeon.

Brikker said:

So I'm looking for a game suggestion. I've got an isometric aRPG itch that I wanna scratch with something new, ideally. Something along the lines of a Grim Dawn (but not GD because I've played it a ton and won't again until the new expac releases). Titan Quest 2 looks great but I'd rather wait for it to be finished.

To give an idea besides the above, I enjoyed stuff like Chronicon, 9th Dawn, Hero Siege (before it got fucked), and stuff like that. I definitely don't mind Indie stuff.

No interest in Season based stuff like PoE and Last Epoch. I just don't have the time for those anymore.

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I have not played this game, but it is definitely something I will pick up at some point. Looks fun with a new take on aRPGs.

velk said:

I've had a few strong recommendations, but when I went to check it out, it looks like the entire series, including ones from 20 years ago, are at more than full price for a AAA game still. The series is like a thousand bucks to buy all of them, not including the endless amount of DLC ;p

I am told the most recent one makes absolutely no sense if you haven't played any of the previous ones too.

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I'd probably just play the remakes as they come out, since from the sound of things they're gonna be doing remakes of all 9 (10?) games. I think the overall story is pretty much done in another game or two, and the Chapter Two remake is already well into development.

Easier to just play the modern 3D remakes as they drop every couple years, rather than spend a thousand bucks to go back and play all the 2D originals on like, PSP and Vita and shite.

I got most of the way through Chapter One remake and it's pretty good. Characters are super likeable, soundtrack is great, visuals are great. The overall story though is kind of...bland? Like I'm waiting for something to happen still and the game is nearly over. It doesn't launch into the geopolitical deep end like, say, Suikoden (a similar continent-based saga). Seems like Trails is more about individuals and their micro-scale journeys and struggles.

It's a real cozy game, at least.

I was gonna try to also knock out Xenoblade 3 and the two RDRs before the end of the year (yeah, RDR is still backlogged...) but I don't have time. Probably just gonna get Trails and Dragon Quest 1+2 done and then move on to the New Year CRPGs.