The closest I can get is WoW and GW2, and they only release expansions once every 2 or 3 years.
Nowadays we rarely get good JRPGs.
Disagree. I find a ton of good JRPGs to play.
Final Fantasy hasn't been charming in over a decade and a half. Tales of releases have slowed to a crawl. SEGA is disinterested in making more Valkyria Chronicles and Sakura Wars games. Xenoblade games only come out once every 5 years. Oddballs like Monochrome Mobius are rare.
These series that you mentioned aren't like Kiseki at all.
Everyone wants to play good games. But do you specifically want to play Kiseki? You make it sound like you just play these games because they just fit a certain style.
They're not even very fantasy given that everyone is a human and it is set on an earth-like world resembling the early modern period (Trails in the Sky, Trails of Cold Steel) or the present day (Crossbell, Kuro)
Your criteria for fantasy seems to be your own and makes little sense. Kiseki games are high fantasy by all conventional definitions.
The series has:
- magic, wielded by characters, but also as an intrinsic part of the setting and environment
- fantastical creatures, including talking beasts
- technology hundreds of years ahead of our own
- characters having extravagant abilities
The biggest strength and issue of Trails is just how story it is.
Considering how you go on in the same paragraph to disagree with yourself on this point, please revisit this statement re: strength, because you really don't seem to like the story at all.
These are 100 to 130 hour long games and about 70% of them is reading.
Maybe 50% for most players. That percentage obviously goes up if you start looking into the optional novel books and other stuff, like character bios and blurbs.
As for the reading part, I know what you mean, and I don't necessarily want to nitpick, but I will. They're not text-only VNs. Not when you also have animations and character speech. So, no, it's a bit more than just 'reading'.
Most of it is padding that can be cut
There is no padding. Just because you don't like certain parts it doesn't mean they're inessential. I, for example, think Zeit is completely useless, but both fans as well as the writers obviously disagree, because he was in Crossbell and he's in Reverie again.
Objectively, anything that could feasibly be considered padding is completely optional, like the aforementioned books and minigames.
It's actually the opposite of padding, because unlike in many other games, minigames and other similar activites in the series are completely and truly optional.
The stories in these games are not satisfactorily concluded within one game, but you're instead supposed to buy sequel games on the hope that there will be a satisfying conclusion to what was promised in an earlier game.
No, you're not supposed to do that at all. This is not Final Fantasy. These games are episodic in a connected grand universe and the only kind of conclusion they receive is based on arcs: Liberl, Crossbell, Erebonia, Calvard. Whatever gave you the impression these are one-offs? Nothing. You're inserting your own weird expectations based on nothing.
In a sense, you're the kind of customer Falcom loves to have, because you seem like you really don't want to play these games, but you just keep doing so and talking about them.
Except these games rarely payoff on those promises.
There is no such promise. You made it up in your head. Fans want the story to continue. Fans want to see the same characters and even more new ones. This is a series not just in name, but in essence.
The status quo always resets. The heroes suffer no real consequences.
You meant to say 'the heroes suffer no negative consequences'. There is definite character progression, but it is in an upward manner.
But it's the same for the villains. They also tend to get stronger.
I mean, this is all something that's been happening since Trails in the Sky, so if you don't like it, why are you still playing these games?
The are stunning moments of protagonist hypocrisy and double standards.
Maybe this is true. And? Point me to a better videogame story of this length.
In the end you feel like you've wasted all this time paying attention and speculating for no real reason.
No. I don't play these games to speculate. I don't play these games to make fanfic. I enjoy them for what they are, in the moment, and then look forward to whatever comes next.
That feels really bad when the 1,000+ hour long story is the main feature of these games.
This is a non-sequitur. You just said in more than one way that you've wanted the story to come to a conclusion, which would guarantee that it would never reach 1,000+ hours.
Do you want a short or long story?
but again that's really secondary to the story
The clown squad member whom I was replying to previously had had way more criticisms than the story. In fact he always does, that's why you can tell he's lying. And yet he always comes back (great customer).
You mentioned other parts of the games are pleasing, but others would disagree with you on this too. Some don't like the graphics, others don't like the music. I read them on Youtube and other places.
And gameplay isn't secondary to the story at all. The gameplay, past minigames and field encounters, is directly tied to the story itself - difficulty and balancing issues aside.
But anyway, since your critiques are way more integral and encompassing than the clown squad's
("I don't like Rean", "I only like Estelle as a 2D sprite", "These characters are in highschool and I'm in my fifties and that makes me feel bad", etc.), I'd like to understand why you keep playing like they're forcing a gun to your head.