You’re missing why Trails matters.
This isn’t about “a lot of games.” It’s about building something no other JRPG studio has ever pulled off—a single, continuous saga that’s been unfolding since Trails in the Sky in 2004.
No resets, no reboots, no discarded lore. Every event, faction, and character connects across a dozen titles. That kind of long-form narrative discipline doesn’t exist anywhere else in the genre.
And don’t minimize how hard that is. Most JRPG studios can barely keep one trilogy coherent. Falcom has been weaving one uninterrupted storyline for over twenty years—through console generations and shifting hardware.
Holding a narrative together across decades isn’t just impressive, it’s almost impossible. Doing this wasn’t just because of luck. It’s taken discipline, patience, and vision on a scale no other studio has matched.
Influence is easy to trace. XSEED’s Trails in the Sky localization raised the bar for how seriously Western publishers approach text-heavy JRPGs. At the time, bringing over a game with hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue was considered unworkable. They did it, and it set a precedent for the kind of effort fans now expect from localizations.
Falcom also helped legitimize PC as a JRPG platform in the West—back when most people dismissed the genre as “console only.”
And if you look at modern RPGs built around serialized storytelling and grounded politics—Disco Elysium, Baldur’s Gate 3, even the way Persona 5 structures its arcs—you can see Falcom’s fingerprints everywhere.
Critics agree. RPG Site flat out said this about the remake of Trails in the Sky FC:
If you’re here strictly for the magical number, here it is: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter remake is a 10/10. What’s more, it’s the easiest 10/10 I’ve ever given.”
rpgsite.net/…/18452-trails-in-the-sky-1st-chapter…
And the numbers back it up. Trails in the Sky sits at Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam with a 93% approval rating from thousands of reviews. Recent reviews are even better—96% positive.
store.steampowered.com/app/251150/The/…/_Sky/
Rather than burning energy on outrage, put that time into actually playing more games. You’ll get more out of them—and you’re better than just dismissing something this significant.
Poopfeast420@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I believe you’re vastly overstating the importance of this game and franchise. As I said, I think it’s a terrible series of games (and I’ve played them up to CS3), so there’s absolutely some bias here.
Also, what does other people’s review have anything to do with how impactful or important something is to the medium? Does this mean that the Hentai game Mirror with ~96% positive, 85k+ reviews on Steam is even more significant than Trails?
Please show me where those fingerprints are, because I don’t see them.