Choosing between Trails... and Tales of... series

[pm_675]

Well, I decided to take advantage of the current steam sales to go back to weeaboo games. Since I stopped playing jrpg's more than 20 years ago I am totally out of touch. Currently undecided between buying the Trails series or the Tales of... one.

So, what does the codex nipponese connoisseurs recommed? If there is some other amazing game i should play, please recommend.

 

[yes plz]

Depends on what you want. The Tales of series' combat is fast-paced action while Trails is slower, more tactical, and turn-based.

There's also the time dedication for each to take into consideration. Each Tales of game is stand-alone and usually around 50ish hours. Each Trails game is also 50ish hours but part of a series and also part of a larger, on-going universe. Trails in the Sky is a trilogy and Cold Steel is a quadrilogy.

As far as the Tales of games go, I'd suggest Berseria and Vesperia. If you're looking to get back into playing JRPGs I'd suggest starting with Vesperia.

 

[kites]

i've played tales of phantasia (english-patched, psx), and had a pretty good time; but most later titles in the series went a direction that really isn't for me personally. maybe you'll just haveta skim a gameplay video or two to see what might be your cup of tea, you know?

 

[cruel]

Start with Trails of Cold Steel (first one), and you will be very happy. It should quickly motivate you to get second and third part probably. All of them are on sale now on Steam.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

Tales of games are generic and boring in my opinion.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Both are great, tbh. There are differences in combat of course, but as an overall package, I find both to be different enough to be both interesting.

It also wildly different depending on the game you play in the series. For newer Tales of games, for example, Zestria is probably the worst. Berseria and Xilia are OK.

For Trails of, I honestly heavily prefer Trails in the Sky. From finishing Cold Steel 1 (have yet to play 2 and 3 yet), I feel the theme is more generic in general (probably due to heavy anime academy/school setting and tropes) while Sky is much more refreshing character/cast and plot-wise.

Both series heavily focus on character/cast interaction, but all in all Trails of are made with that heavily in mind, even for the NPCs. So that's a big plus for Traisl of I guess.

 

[Doktor Best]

Trails series is character and story focused with very rich and interesting lore and world building. The plot can drag on though, especially TITS1. The main protagonist is written as dumb naive overly energetic female teenager in the first game and they really like to drive that trope out to its full extent. It gets better in the sequel though and overall the cast is pretty interesting. The combat is decent but it needs some getting used to. The game likes to throw you into situation in which it is difficult to regenerate/heal which put me off a bit in the first game (there is an option to increasingly lower the difficulty in fights with each death but it was a concept i didn't like). If you are a storyfag, there isn't a much better J-RPG series for you than this one.

Tales of i can't tell you that much about. I always considered it as A-rpg fast food. Only played Berseria for a bit and i wasn't exactly hooked.

 

[Efe]

trails of cold steel is one of worst games i ever played. Characters are generic and bland. story might as well be nonexistent. combat is brain dead
better skip entire trails franchise.

 

[Slaver1]

Persona 4 Golden then start Trails Of Cold Steel closer to TOCSIV'S PC release in Q1 2021 if you like it. If not I can say JRPGS/Trails probably isn't for you. If you get hooked by TOCS you're in for some ride. Holy shit what I'd give to play that series again for the 1st time and without having to wait ages for sequels.

 

[Jinn]

For better gameplay and amazing story, Trails series for sure.

Tales games are absolute trash after Tales of Phantasia. Don't bother.

EDIT: I retract this statement and am looking further into the series.

 

[Thac0]

When you have stopped playing JRPGs more than 20 years ago the best games to get back into it on Steam are: Final Fantasy X remaster, Dragon Quest XI, Persona 4 The Golden. I f you havent played them already also Grandia and Chrono Trigger.

I have played only Trails in the Sky and a few random Tales of games. I felt like they are heavily inferior to the classics and other Jrpgs.
Trails is turn based, Tales of are real time, so if you really want to stick to either the decision just go for your priority.

But other games I have mentioned are cheaper and better. I cant comment on Cold Steels quality, since It seems very different from Trails in the Sky.

 

[Jinn]

Final Fantasy X remaster

No

Dragon Quest XI

Yes

Persona 4 The Golden

Yes

Grandia

Maybe

Chrono Trigger

Yes!

As someone who has played the majority of Trails games released in English, I can say without a doubt that on harder difficulties, they provide more in terms of both gameplay and story/world building/character development than any other series out there. I can say without a single doubt in my mind they are more worth your time than any entry in the Tales series.

 

[Thac0]

As someone who has played the majority of Trails games released in English, I can say without a doubt that on harder difficulties, they provide more in terms of both gameplay and story/world building/character development than any other series out there. I can say without a single doubt in my mind they are more worth your time than any entry in the Tales series.

But Trails in the Sky FC combat is just bad, and it doesnt get better on hard.
Starts kinda neat with the Orbment system, and getting your first special attacks is cool, but then you unlock White Gehenna and the game just ends. Earth Wall trivialises combat aswell. And you can get White Gehenna super early by accident when you are just stacking the +3 time materia.
All fights that still pose a threat are those which have too much defense so that your normal attacks deal 0 to them and you cant nuke them with Gehenna. But fighting those is highly annoying when you have to chain the limit breaks to even deal some damage.

I wont go into story since we obviously have very different opinions on that and its much more subjective, but in what world is Trails FC combat good?

 

[Jinn]

I wont go into story since we obviously have very different opinions on that and its much more subjective, but in what world is Trails FC combat good?

Just because you decided to cheese it with a certain Orbment setup doesn't make it bad.

FC on Hard is something that a lot of JRPGs just don't offer: a completely brutal experience on even the most basic encounter. Beyond that, the entire series has combat that would rival any other JRPG at any time because of this. Yes, you can cheese it, just like any good RPG would allow you to. But beyond those basic battles, you're going to have a hard time facing any real boss with those tactics alone.

As far as story goes, you'll never understand how great it is if you play only the first installment. The Trails series is all about world building, and you'll never get why that is if you stop with FC.

 

[Thac0]

Lol I had exactly the same argument with Lhynn in shoutbox already. You two truly are bros.

To cut ahead that argument ended when I mentioned that I think Joshua Bright is an unlikeable cunt, and we both agreed that a main character you dislike can make or break a game.

I wont go into story since we obviously have very different opinions on that and its much more subjective, but in what world is Trails FC combat good?

Just because you decided to cheese it with a certain Orbment setup doesn't make it bad.

FC on Hard is something that a lot of JRPGs just don't offer: a completely brutal experience on even the most basic encounter. Beyond that, the entire series has combat that would rival any other JRPG at any time because of this. Yes, you can cheese it, just like any good RPG would allow you to. But beyond those basic battles, you're going to have a hard time facing any real boss with those tactics alone.

If the game made aquiring white Gehenna hard or cheesy in any way, or forced you to sacrifice something else for it I would agree, but White Gehenna is something you come across by accident and can easily slot into each and every characters spheregrid just by taking the potent action quartz. Its like making the grenade in a shooter overpowered, its something every build gets and it turns the difficulty into mush.

Also Trails FC on hard is not particularily hard, not even for JRPGs which tend to be easier than western rpgs on average. Almost all SMTs are way harder. NES and SNES rpgs are harder. Id even say Dragon Quest on draconian is harder (pm_675 should you decide to get DQ XI absolutely play with draconian stronger monsters enabled, it makes the game much better)

As far as story goes, you'll never understand how great it is if you play only the first installment. The Trails series is all about world building, and you'll never get why that is if you stop with FC.

That doesnt make FCs story or worldbuilding better, that just means they made a better sequel to a bad videogame. There is nothing interesting in FCs story or world, its all ultra generic and shallow.

But I got myself Second Chapter just to see what all the rambling is about and wether you are deluding yourself into liking Falcoms mediocre shit or there is something beyond the surface I dont see. So maybe my opinion on that will change.

 

[pm_675]

Thanks Bros for the recommendations. For budgetary reasons I finally bought the tales series and Dragon Quest. And Digimon Story, what can I say, childhood.

Will bought the Trails and Persona 4 next sale. So many games and so little time (and money).

 

[Cromwell]

That doesnt make FCs story or worldbuilding better, that just means they made a better sequel to a bad videogame. There is nothing interesting in FCs story or world, its all ultra generic and shallow.

while I cant say its generic and shallow I can understand that someone doesnt want to play a game (or series) that only gets better as a package). I played through FC and it burned me out hard because nothing really happens until the end, everytime when it seems to take on steam it dials it down again utnil you are at the very end and then you get a cliffhanger. If you have a lot of time thats ok go right in to the second one, if you can play 2 hours (if even that) a day its a lot to ask to play an 40+ hours long introduction while the story only takes of in the last hour or so.

 

[Hyperion]

Since I stopped playing jrpg's more than 20 years ago I am totally out of touch

Yep, definitely. Trails is very niche for storyfags. Tales of is the CoD of JRPG's. Lots of Low T answers in this thread too. Play SaGa games and don't look back. Start with either SaGa Frontier 2 or Romancing SaGa 3.

Be warned, all other RPGs will fail to impress and hook you once you've felt your first adrenaline rush from a perfectly timed Glimmer to save your black ass in battle.

 

[Rahdulan]

Y'all cowards don't even smoke crack.

Atelier series is where it's at. Not like you have anything else to do but play 21 games. Well, less as some weren't translated.

 

[4249]

I can stand the anime bullshit in Trails since they have so much more to them than that, but oh lord is that shit grating in Tales (which is the only goddamn thing they have).

 

[Morality Games]

Tales is sort of a you played one you played them all type of thing, although I could honestly say the same thing about most of those long running jRPG series.

Tales of Symphonia is the last one I could be bothered to finish.

 

[Jermu]

Start with Trails of Cold Steel (first one), and you will be very happy. It should quickly motivate you to get second and third part probably. All of them are on sale now on Steam.

This is quite bad advice in my opinion. What makes Tales of games good is characters and world building and starting from the end of series is not adviced.

Obviously start with The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (1-3)

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Tales of Vesperia, Tales of Graces, and Tales of the Abyss are good. Symphonia is okay.

The enjoyability of Tales games comes down to how much you like the combat, button mashing is fine but there's a different gimmick in each game to building and extending combos. In Vesperia for example you can go from chaining two simple attacks together to an infinite chain with the right skills. Every skill upgrades through use and combo potential increases in ways that encourage experimentation. For example an attack that has a jump may allow you to combo-cancel from midair into a new attack once you've leveled it enough.

But if that doesn't sound interesting at all then Trails may be more your thing. Trails series seems good but I've bounced off of it pretty hard. Trails in the Sky is PS1-level graphics and runs slow, though I learned there was a turbo mode after I abandoned it. Combat is tedious and unrewarding due to soft level caps, so you mostly skip it and just read the story, which is ultra-decompressed, Yammer About Feelings and Shit All the Time. Meh. Cold Steel seems better but it's all based around Japanese Kids in School, and Persona 3-5 do a better job with that IMO. It's also PSP level graphics for the first two entries.

Anyway I agree that Dragon Quest 11 is worth a shot, it's a very traditional JRPG with big-budget production that's extremely polished. It's pretty much like playing an SNES game with current gen graphics and voice acting.

 

[Häyhä]

Forget that rubbish, both of those are garbage aimed at 15-year-olds.

Play a REAL "MAN GAME" like YAKUZA.

 

[Grampy_Bone]