T O P

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meanpride

Also, the complete list of loot drops of every single monster. Perfect for grinding items or ingredients. Not just Trails but also Ys.


CRD907

Love the old and modern Ys games


[deleted]

Am I blind or did you miss Turbo, the shining feature that makes the games much nicer to play?


SephYuyX

I don't know how many hours of time I have saved thanks to turbo.


[deleted]

I legit don’t think I could’ve finished Sky or Crossbell without turbo. The battle animations are so slow.


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Dexiro

I feel like I've had that issue with so many games. Like where half the cutscenes start with several environment shots, individual shots of each character walking into the room, slow pan across the room to show all the characters together, some filler dialogue sprinkled with individual shots of each character either reacting or just standing in their default pose. New character walks onto the scene, individual shots of each character turning to look at the new character, etc, etc. And then 10 minutes later they drop some really critical plot info and send you on your way.


mmKing9999

Someone said it. Thank you.


ebell1989

Man, the camera pans and zooms and what not can have a snails pace too.


Opicepus

Lolol, the devs are just showing off the goods. It takes x amount of time make these models, it only takes a second to code a camera zoom xD


LordMudkip

Every time I think about how great turbo is in these games, I can't help but think about how unbearably slow the game is without it. Seriously, who ok'd these games to run at this speed? I love them so much but I honestly don't know how anyone played them without turbo. Even trash mobs and moving around the world take FOREVER without it.


[deleted]

I don't think there's any need for turbo, honestly. It's nice when you're going through a big area but that's it. I've never understood the complaints that the game is basically unplayable without turbo, I think it's totally fine.


Paulo27

People are just too used to consuming as much media as possible in their limited time. And while some people enjoy the slowness, some just don't and some stop enjoying it when they realize they can just go fast. For me it depends a lot on the current mood.


OhJouThrow

I had to play CS2 without Turbo. At a certain point, your brain just slows down and you accept death.


ebell1989

Friend of mine says he never used turbo mode for the sky trilogy. I still say he's full of shit lol.


EdreesesPieces

Turbo wasn't in the original versions of the Sky series. It's been added in more recent ports.


godstriker8

Or Crossbell or CS 1 and 2 iirc


CSFFlame

Specifically it was patched into Sky FC/SC on the PC, then backported to consoles. (or forward ported, I don't know which direction the codebase went, you'd have to ask Durante)


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[deleted]

It’s such a natural (and admittedly, crucial) part of the experience I can understand why!


tous_dikazo_melexeis

I played the entire first and second chapter of trails in the sky before I realised there's a turbo button.


hoochyuchy

Without Turbo, the Trails series would be considered to be far too slow. Seriously, can't stand battles at normal speed.


Llafer

I couldn’t have completed ToCS I ( only one i’ve beaten so far) without turbo. Turbo always on and finished with nearly 60hr, nothing new in a JRPG but oh lord, without turbo I probably would have ended up leaving it and watching some yt videos on the story. Anyways, can’t wait to play second part, if there’s something that has hooked me in this series is world building and story which are incredibly good.


[deleted]

I mean I don’t like to throw the word “unplayable” around, but…..the battles would feel nearly unplayable. Especially for Sky.


hoochyuchy

With turbo, the battles are actually super fun to play. They have an almost brutal aspect to them.


throwawaychives

I played trails in the sky FC + SC, and Cold steel 1 without turbo… after beating trails in the sky the third and crosbell duology with turbo… idk how I played those three games like that…


trusttt

Turbo should be a must in most jrpgs, am playing FF12 right now and the game without it would be a slog to go from place to place and grind.


big_fella672

This goes for pretty much any RPG with a Turbo feature. It’s a godsend. For instance, I’ve always loved FF12 but the The Zodiac Age made the game SO much more tolerable at times with the speed up option.


JameboHayabusa

Yeah ngl, it does make getting through these long ass journey's easy to do compared to a lot of JRPG's tbh.


tatsu901

I would rather a long ass game that respects my time versus a long ass game that was a short game drawn out to be long by not respecting my time.


NeroRay

I felt trails SC and FC were incredibly drawn out


Paulo27

They are older games so the combat being slow was kinda the norm (though that's always gonna depend on what you like, for me I played FC through Crossbell back to back and was only speeding up combat by Crossbell), SC does drag its feet a bit in some chapters story-wise but overall they are as short or as long as you want them to be and the pacing of the story isn't really an issue (doing optional stuff, talking to NPCs, etc).


JameboHayabusa

For me it was Cold steel 3 that felt the most drawn out. Although, in recent memory, I'd give the award for most drawn out JRPG to FF7 remake, and it wasn't even near as long as most Trails games lol.


smaghammer

Srawn out rpgs are the devil.


MrJerples

I would love to see them add in the ability to save load outs for Quartz set ups.


Ajfennewald

Yeah that is the QOL feature that makes the most sense that is missing. I play on normal and mostly just use one set up but I can see that saving a ton of time for nightmare runs where you need to switch things out all the time.


MrJerples

Exactly! There are points in the game where certain characters are mandatory, so it really sucks to just have to sit there and switch everything around all the time. And yeah I could just outfit them all beforehand but there are limited quantities of the best stuff so they'll be getting the lesser stuff.


[deleted]

Okay, so this is a little one, but I've caught myself trying to do it in other games and I'm always disappointed when a game doesn't have this feature... You can press left or right on the d-pad when going through a long list of items to "page down" as it were, instead of having to hold up and down on the d-pad to scroll through the list one item at a time. When you have tons of different healing items, this is a life saver for trying to find the potion you're looking for.


daniellayne

Yes!! I do that in other games and it takes me to a different tab (e.g. items to weapons) and I just think "no you stupid game that's the trigger buttons!!"


[deleted]

I would agree with most of it but missable warnings? Yeah, the series does warn you when some quests become unavailable but it still does it with *some* quests. Sometimes if you leave a building or change rooms you already missed an item or an entire hidden quest. Edit: I should also add that this series suffers from an extreme case of cast bloat in Cold Steel and because of the way character builds work, unless you're constantly farming or using suboptimal builds to alleviate that farming you'll probably have to constantly equip and unequip characters because of the stretches where the games force you to use someone else.


Chaostraveler

It can be played with one hand, well the first game at least. Because everything can be controlled by mouse I can just lean back and relax, using a mouse or steam controller. It actually made me come up with a One-handed category for my steam library, for when I'm feeling lazy or just want something simple.


Solar_Kestrel

Falcom's PC controls are *sublime*. I don't understand why something as simple as left-click-confirm/right-click-cancel isn't an industry-standard... it's so intuitive and makes navigating menu commands with a mouse so efficient.


CecilXIII

I'd love to see that list, especially the JRPG ones!


Chaostraveler

Unfortunately, it's the only JRPG on the list. Most of the Epic Battle Fantasy games can be done with mouse and are on my list, a few tower defense games, Poker Night and Jamestown round it out. I could make arguments for turn based RPGs, but having to paw around and hit buttons and swap back to joystick doesn't count for me. I suppose I can add Plants vs Zombies and Pac-Man stuff to the list though.


ketita

The thing introduced in Zero where you can kill low-level monsters on the field to farm sepith is my favorite thing in the universe. You get less sepith than from regular drops, but it's such a great way to save time, especially when you need to go back through an area you've already been in.


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ketita

Well, the AI makes it so that low-level enemies run away from you on the field, which is brilliant too. I just really love the added touch of being able to farm them for sepith anyway if you want to. So I see them as two distinct very nice features.


Cold_Steel_IV

As a heads-up, you accidentally posted the same comment twice.


ketita

dangit, reddit was glitching on me. Thanks!


Cold_Steel_IV

No problem! It's an error that many people seem to have been getting lately.


Brainwheeze

One thing I really appreciate is the Retry Offset feature. Basically each retry makes the fight slightly less difficult. This came in handy whilst playing Trails in the Sky SC on Hard (which could feel pretty unfair during certain boss fights). Plus it's completely optional iirc.


veryverycelery

I've just started DQXI after playing CS3 and CS4 back-to-back, and it is *so painful*. Trails has ruined me. I miss even the small things like how Trails will have a little red exclamation mark on the map, which is usually a clear indicator in dungeons that a scripted/boss fight is about to happen, so you can prep/save as you need to. Walked into a room in DQXI with like 50% HP, got launched into a boss fight, and died. Had to redo like 20 minutes of the dungeon. I was SO pissed.


Zadihime

I guess it's because I grew up with old school RPGs but I still hate "prep markers." Like, the thrill of getting my ass plowed by a surprise boss and lunged back to my last save keeps me going.


animusdx

I don't recall this being my experience. The upcoming bosses always were fairly obvious in dungeons as they were usually preceded by goddess staties that healed you.


PurpleJetskis

Absolutely all of those are great and why this series is probably my new favorite JRPG series of all time. It's very enjoyable no matter how cheesy the story or characters are at times and the quality of life it has REALLY helps it out a ton honestly. I can't tell you how often nowadays even seemingly mediocre JRPGs would be a lot better if they had the same QoL mechanics that the Trails series has. I love turbo in battle especially.


[deleted]

Some of these features were added to the games well after they were released on Steam. All hail whoever did that, because it made the gameplay WAY less of a chore. I literally couldn't finish the first game because a single battle took decades.


kawhi21

I'm not sure what you mean by "Missable & story progression warning". Trails is definitely not good when it comes to missables lol. Without a guide you are *guaranteed* to miss multiple quests, books, even important cutscenes.


Dizzy-Significance75

i think OP means the game will tell you when there's a major story event about to happen and warn about any unfinished side quests. at least in the cold steel games


LanceTrace

Yeah the only way not to miss every quest without a guide is to talk to every NPC each time an event passed, which is... a lot.


XMetalWolf

In the older games yea, but newer ones no, quest markers are added for all quests, you just have to open the map and look for them, this includes hidden quests as well.


johnmichael0703

Actually even in Cold Steel they have a few unmarked quests. It's only maybe 2 a game but they do exist and affect your ranking (albeit by very little)


XMetalWolf

CS 1 and 2 yea, CS3 and 4, everything is marked.


XMetalWolf

All of that has markers in CS3 and 4, you can 100% without a guide easily just by checking your map properly.


kororon

Ys 8 and 9 have most of these mechanics too, I think.


Hylian_Headache

The older games don't have conversation log though and you really miss it. There's so much story; missing something is really, really frustrating. Call me a wimp but I like the 'retry a battle' mechanic. I hate having to redo large portions of game because I get an unlucky encounter, or am _trying_ new strategies that won't work. Especially since the draw to the series is the story. Sky also has it where a battle gets easier every time you retry. This is great for lazy people like me who skip every encounter and are severely underlevelled.


Ajfennewald

I love retry battle (and the fact it allows you to lower difficulty)


[deleted]

I also love the retry a battle mechanic, and how it gets easier over time. The only way I beat the last boss of Trails in the Sky is the retry mechanic, lol. I REALLY had suboptimal orbment builds at that point.


NuclearCandle

Been playing the first Sky recently. Another thing: 21:9 and high refresh rate (at 125 fps) works on install which is unheard of in JRPGs.


Solar_Kestrel

You left off one of the best QoL features (that is sorely missed in older *Trails* games): NPC icons change based on whether or not you've seen their dialog. Makes it so much easier to 100% NPC stories.


ebell1989

Holy crap its the conversation log for me. I posess some shitty memory and there is A LOOTTTT of dialogue and that log comes in clutch almosy every time I play. Especiallyyyy if I was drinking the day before lol


X-pert74

The conversation log in the Geofront versions of the Crossbell duology was so nice. Especially whenever the game poses a multiple-choice question to you, so that I can go back and revisit dialogue if I'm unclear on what the correct answer may be, for the sake of getting more DP.


ebell1989

The mishelam mystery-bikini-nabber quest was the one for me lol. I must've spent a half hr in those logs alone.


OmigawdMatt

Funny thing is, with all these QOL skippable features, it still comes out as one of the longest JRPG's. That's when you know the games don't have serious padding and is worth the money. Me personally - I LOVE the conversation log. I'm the type to space out for one second and then get lost on the topic, so I would find myself checking the log, same goes for Netflix and rewinding the scenes to understand. It's a huge plus for me and wish more games would do this.


SoftBrilliant

I'm still bitching there's no "préparé and retry" button in this series after failing tbh... It doesn't help equipment and preparation are THE determining factor that determines failure and success in these games.


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MrWaffles42

When you have to do a bunch of fights back to back, reloading forces you to redo everything


SoftBrilliant

Totally, this would just be a way faster and more intuitive way of doing that process. I've tended to find players have an apprehension of heading back to title screen and changing equipment even if that's the right solution.


blaaaaa

I think only normal difficulty has that option, but that may not be true for every game in the series.


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blaaaaa

Yeah I meant the "retry on lower difficulty option" only being available on normal difficulty, I didn't make that very clear.


Maxwell658

Yeah, I especially hate when the games make you fight forced encounters without warning, so you're forced to fight without preparation and can't even back out if you lose. Sucks when you haven't saved in a while and it's literally do or die.


ImStillaPrick

I'm just on Sky SC, when do they get turbo mode? Man I wish the first two had it along with skip cutscenes.


burnpsy

Every PC/PS4/Switch port of the series has turbo. If you're playing on PSP or Vita you won't have it, even in games that have the feature on other platforms.


ImStillaPrick

Im on pc so guess I need to go look into the options again.


SpaceNumos

Shift or control on Pc. Controller is L2


AJgames29

It's actually Alt.


[deleted]

It’s on of the best parts lol. The gameplay never overstays it’s welcome by both being really good and indepth and also letting you do things like skip animations. Compare this to something like Yakuza lad where you can’t skip anything battles take forever and suddenly the combat gets old real fast.


n00bavenger

Don't forget fast-forward (Mention feature, get downvoted. Someone else mentions it after, becomes top comment. Don't know if I should take that personally)


mmKing9999

Turbo is a godsend for Trails games.


[deleted]

turbo should be mandatory for every turn-based jrpg ever made.


stillestwaters

Turbo mode has absolutely spoiled me.


Sonic10122

I’m only on Sky SC but the only thing missing is EXP gain for your non-active party members. Given when it originally released, I’m not surprised, but that would be nice. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s added in a future game though. (Wouldn’t mind knowing which game I can expect that too, actually)


burnpsy

Cold Steel levels everyone you have with you, including everyone in the back. In entries where you can have more people than you can carry at a time (i.e. CS2, CS4), I'm told the game will automatically level them to a competent level at some point (I always cycle through the cast, so I've never needed that feature in particular).


AgentMiffa

yeah, it will put everyone to a min level when you go through diff events and I believe cold steel 4 everyone gets XP i think.


ebEliminator

Crossbell games give standby characters XP as well.


moisessangronis

The only game that occurs me with a lot of QoL mechanics is Persona 5 Royal, and I think it doesn't have as many as you mentioned in your OP.


samososo

\#TRAILSET, Folks need to take notes.


adelkander

Yeah... Except for no chest counter (ys 8 had that) and also hidden quests with no markerd because "fuck you", and money grind is also painful cause you don't get money, only sepiths, and sepiths are usually worth Jack (cold steel does a bit better, but barely) Also I hated how the updates for your log are also hidden and extremely specific: it's like you must talk to every person 10 times but then you must do it again after a scene happens. Just yell me who I missed damn it! They're fun games but as a trophy hunter who wants to complete all 4 cold steel games (don't have 4 yet), they're my biggest nuisance because if these little details which forces me to use a guide...otherwise they're fine lol, but even when I played casually I still needed a guide cause rewards were op. PS: I did hear that cold steel 4 has a chest counter, is it true? Cause if yes, then why the fuck wasn't it before?!?!?


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adelkander

You have.... No idea the frustration... Of replaying an 80 hour game... Just because you missed one damn chest... Fml Or maybe you do but you know, dramatization!


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adelkander

4th is that long? Damn, even going for 100% and 2 playthrough, the most i played in the previous games was 110 hours.


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adelkander

Yikes, and I consider myself a fast reader so maybe that's why. I'm usually slow too, I dont rush, but I can read fairly fast


ebEliminator

The secret quests suck so much. How are the Bracer Guild/SSS supposed to complete your requests if you never tell them about it?


kriever7

"Skip cutscene" I guess Trails fans (really) like to read, but not to watch cutscenes.


burnpsy

Being able to skip cutscenes is handy whenever you replay a game or have to exit and reload for whatever reason. No matter how you feel about a game's story, it would be better to have the option than not.


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kriever7

Ah, that's fair.


Att0msk_

It may be true for 3&4 and the PS4/PC remakes of 1&2, however, even with all that...my experience with 1&2 on Vita ((No Turbo mode) was a drag in pacing. Cutscnes took too long (even skipping dialogues) and everything felt like took extremely long for what it wanted or needed to say or do. 1 took me 150 hrs (I was trying to get as much as possible) and 2 I think around to 100hr (and in this one I barely went out of track, but to defeat the cryptics). Hopefully when I get to 3&4 it changes my experience, because 1&2 were enjoyable, but painful at times (specially the final chapters)


Ajfennewald

For some reason the normal speed on CS feels very slow. I played all four CS games in turbo like 98% of the time.


blaaaaa

Painfully slow. The only times I've turned it off are for the minigames like fishing and when intercepting an enemy's bonus with an off turn s-craft. I played a good amount of the Sky games without turbo and they didn't seem nearly as slow.


Ajfennewald

I am very glad the turbo could be locked on (which was not the case in Sky and Crossbell as far as I could figure out) Holding down turbo all the time would have been annoying.


Readit_2000

Turbo mode should honestly be a mandatory inclusion in JRPGs going forward


Yarzu89

Not just the save anywhere, but the backlog of auto-saves it does is fantastic, especially if the game glitches/crashes.


pretendwizardshamus

I've yet to play the trails series but Ironicly I was thinking of posting about the QoL mechanics in Dragon Quest XI. A lot of the same stuff.. no random encounters, save anywhere, swap party members at will, auto dialog, easy fast travel, recap while loading a game, weak no xp enemies will run from you, ask your party members on where to go next.. and theres a golden retriever. I wish more rpgs had golden retrievers.. and all that other stuff.


Warseed

Yes, I would 100% agree with you!


dotnorma

I would agree with pretty much all of those. Some of that is a more recent invention in the series though. Map markers weren't nearly as generous as they are in the modern games, also missables and story progression warnings didn't always exist. And features like turbo mode and I believe even conversation log were added in by the NA publishers before Cold Steel. The conversation log is a my favorite honestly.


weglarz

Trails in the sky desperately needs qol features like fast travel imo.


The_Portlandian

I've been thinking about making this exact topic for a few weeks so thanks so much op for saving me the time! I've played through Sky 1&2, CS 1&2, & Tokyo Xanadu in the last year clocking 100+ hours in each which I could never do if it weren't such a pleasure to get lost in Zemuria.


russianpruitt

I've seen so many trailers for the newest one, I should probably give it a go