Trails of Cold Steel. A story heavy turn-based JRPG series set in a fantasy Prussian analog that is undergoing turmoil as the imperial government overreaches its power, and a declining aristocracy with their backs against the wall as modernization diminishes their power. There is also a brewing cold war with an expansionist republic. It's a powderkeg waiting to go off. The characters are extremely likeable. Features mechas and airships. Is aesthetically pleasing enough, and has a great soundtrack, and a surprisingly good English dub and localization (the latter games have some hiccups on that front but are still overall good). Also has top notch PC ports by Durante (the guy who fixed the Dark Souls 1 ports). Combat and character building was very enjoyable. The first two games have the strongest writing. The latter games (CS3, CS4, and Trails into Reverie) drop the ball multiple times but were still enjoyable. The newest Trails game,
Kuro no Kiseki/
Trails into Daybreak, has a nice upgrade in visual presentation, but I found it to be too easy on nightmare difficulty and the story had severe padding and pacing issues.
Valkyria Chronicles 4. Story wise, it has several derpy moments during the first few hours, but then those disappear and from then it's very good story wise. I would recommend playing it after VC1 (don't play VC2 and 3). Looks aesthetically great, has good music, decent English dub and localization. Gameplay was fun.
Also, can someone explain to me how games like Honkai Star Rail compare to a traditional jRPG?
JRPG: 50-100 hours long, you get all the party members when you buy.
Genshin Impact/
Honkai Star Rail: you don't get all the party members, instead you get a handful from the gacha roll. Game is padded out with grinds and it takes several hours of doing tedious MMO daily chores to raise your adventure rank high enough so you can do the next chapter of the story, which is generally shitty compared to real JRPGs. Due to the live service MMO setup and the monetization being that they sell people waifus, the stories can't do anything dramatic like kill off a playable character or nuke a city like in a singleplayer JRPG. If you want a real JRPG experience, play a real JRPG.
Honkai Star Rail compare to a traditional jRPG? I know nothing about these weird korean games.
nigga, it's chinese gacha - most evil, greedy and predatory games in the world.
said the FGO player kek
compared to genshin and honkai ANY other gacha is extremelly generous.
Granblue Fantasy is the most friendly gacha game I have ever seen. They don't wave ads in your face. No P2W. You can beat the story and even the raids with any characters. Paying only really gives you a leg up in "racing" (topping the top 3 spots on the DPS charts to get a little more loot). The only timegating is for an optional collection (the 10 Eternals characters). There are three seasonal events each year (the leadup to Christmas/New Years in December, the leadup to the game's anniversary in March, and the summer event in August) where you can get hundreds of free draws. I have 400 characters in GBF and I never grinded for them or dropped cash for them. You can also easily save up "sparks" so you can pick any character you specifically want. Character designer is final fantasy veterans Akihiko Yoshida and Hideo Minaba. Music by Uematsu and Tsutomu Narita. The game is almost completely voice acted. Some of the stories are good. However, again it is a live service and their main source of income is selling people waifus, so there is a lack of tension/stakes in the story since you know they're never going to blow up a city or kill off a playable character.
