Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

The "Trails of" series is really great! I've played up to about the same point you're at, Taskforce; I've finished all mainline games through the second Cold Steel game. There's a big time jump between Cold Steel 2 and 3, so it's a good point to take a rest and do something else. At least, that's what I'm doing.

I just finished up Xenoblade 2 last earlier this week. It as a great game! It had a very different character design from the first instalment, but the story was great, environments were expansive and gorgeous, and that soundtrack is top-notch!

Interestingly enough, I've never played any of the mainline Trails games, but I've played the PSP spin-off title Nayuta no Kiseki using the original fan translation (I've heard that the newer addendum version has some bugs). It's a nice action RPG, a lot like Ys Seven, but with a few more puzzle and platforming aspects to it. I'm a pretty big fan of the PSP myself, so I'll definitely check out some of those Trails games for it. Does anyone have any suggestions for which games in this series I should check out first?

As for me, I've recently just finished playing Wargroove for the Switch. Overall, it was a great strategy game to play through. The battle system and gameplay are top notch. And the same can be said about the music and graphics as well. As for the characters, it's about 50-50. Some are very well designed and drawn, while others could use a little more work (especially the main character). The only real complaint that I have about it is that you can't add a computer player for the skirmish/local mode in the Switch version. Furthermore, the map called "Sunder Sea" is downright impossible to beat in the Arcade hard mode, where the AI gets twice as much gold per village as the player does. You might as well restart your current Arcade run if you encounter that map.

Hi Recca! If you want to follow the timeline, then you should play the games in the following order:

Liberl Arc
Trails in the Sky FC (First Chapter)
Trails in the Sky SC
Trails in the Sky the 3rd

Crossbell Arc
Trails from Zero
Trails to Azure

Cold Steel Arc
Cold Steel 1~4

(And more games coming soon)

I started back with the first game in the Series on PSP, and then I moved on to the PC releases. The PSP versions are fine, but I'd highly recommend going for the PC games. They have a lot of quality-of-life improvements (fast forward battles, etc.). I ended up using a side-quest FAQ to save time, and it is one the few RPGs where I'd say DON'T bother talking to every townsperson you see. There are SOOOOO many NPCs with a lot to say. It will just slow you down.

I actually took a break halfway through FC because I started getting bored. The games can be VERY slow at first, but once the ball starts rolling, boy the story gets REALLY good.

Well, if you want to play them in order, sadly they were released out of order in the US. And one of the games wasn't released at all. Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes II wasn't released in the US.

My favorite was Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch personally of the original PSP trilogy.

The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion came out in the US before Moonlight Witch but Moonlight Witch came out first in Japan. Anyway, Moonlight Witch, Tear of Vermillion and Song of the Ocean while loosely connected aren't like the later series so you don't have to worry about order so much with them. Once you get past that trilogy though, the games in a series should (must) be played in release order as they're directly connected.

Thanks, I'll take a look through these games and will try to play them in order like you both suggested. I also saw another interesting looking RPG for the PSP called Hexyz Force. There are two playable main characters and a rock-paper-scissors type elemental mechanic for the battle system. I'll be sure to check out that game as well after I try out some of the newly released Fire Emblem hacks from feuniverse. Thanks again for the suggestions, I've been meaning to check out some more classic/traditional style RPGs that I haven't played yet and the ones in the Trails series certainly do look good.

The first 5 Legend of Heroes games are completely outside of the current Trails game series that started with Trails in the Sky and is up to 11 games with Kuro no Kiseki releasing in Japan soon. The three PSP games before Trails in the Sky were really badly translated and released out of order too. I've only played one of the three for a fair amount but it didn't compare to the quality of Trails in the Sky and beyond.

I'm not going to say it is a terrific game, but another you can check out is Mimana Iyar Chronicle. If you liked games like Thousand Arms and Ar Tonelico, this game is similar. Most people found it quite mediocre but I personally enjoyed it.

Brandish, Metal Walker, Karous ~ The Beast of Re:Eden, and a sprinkling of RPGs and shooters on various systems (including the first Dragon Slayer and Trails in the Sky, seeing as that series was mentioned). Hard for me to get really into any of them at the moment, but those first three are keeping me coming back at least.

Oh, there was also Deltarune Chapter 2 which released about a week ago. Thought I wasn't into the Toby-verse anymore, but this installment proved me otherwise. (It has a genocide route now by the way, which I highly recommend.) Gonna play through it again on the Switch version at some point.

Hello this isn't completely related to what games I am playing but I would like to thank dynamic designs for there hard work and dedication to bringing these great game's to us English speaking audiences. I love jrpgs I have since I was little I played every RPG especially for SNES and Even learned some basic Japanese to help me with some of the super Famicom games back in the day but as many people know it's not an easy language to learn that's why years later I was very happy to start seeing fan translation. Thanks again guys for your tireless efforts hard work and dedication! You have from me a heartfelt thank you these games have helped me through alot of difficult times. Keep up the great work! You are all awesome!!!! Take care all the best.gaz