The Legend of Heroes Series - Possibly The Most Underrated JRPG Series

[AWarmToiletSeat]

God this line makes me love their brief reunion at the end of Azure even more.

A lot of Lloyd's lines read very poetically in the original JP script, and they're usually translated to be as blunt and to the point as possible both in Geofront and NISA's versions. Buncha posers if you ask me.

 

[Grub]

So what's the gameplay actually like in these games? There's a bunch of them for psp and I think most of them have English patches. I've heard they're decent games. At least one of them usually shows up in 'best psp RPG' type lists. They all look kind of the same to me though and I've never really seen a good description of the gameplay other than they're jrpgs with turn-based and I think grid-based combat. What kind of story and character progression do they have? Are they linear story driven type games with lots of cut scenes and dialog and shit or are they more exploratory and gameplay focused? Is there any kind of character ability customization type stuff or classes or set characters with predefined abilities? Will the anime shit become annoying if you don't really watch anime but don't actively hate it?

 

[Flopper]

So what's the gameplay actually like in these games? There's a bunch of them for psp and I think most of them have English patches. I've heard they're decent games. At least one of them usually shows up in 'best psp RPG' type lists. They all look kind of the same to me though and I've never really seen a good description of the gameplay other than they're jrpgs with turn-based and I think grid-based combat. What kind of story and character progression do they have? Are they linear story driven type games with lots of cut scenes and dialog and shit or are they more exploratory and gameplay focused? Is there any kind of character ability customization type stuff or classes or set characters with predefined abilities? Will the anime shit become annoying if you don't really watch anime but don't actively hate it?

They're very heavily story-focused games, a LOT of the text is spent on world building and character development, they are VERY slow-burn games. We are currently 13 games into the series, and it's all part of one huge narrative. The games all take place on a single continent with most of the time, only a year separating between each game, sometimes even less. Each game can take anywhere from 50 to 80 hours to complete.

Characters learn unique moves called Crafts as they level up. Spells in the game are called Arts, and are adjusted via their combat orbments by putting quartz into slots, quartz can be found out in the world from chests, rewards from quests, or exchanged for in shops. It's kind of like Materia from FFVII, if you're familiar with that. Other than that, there's not super in-depth customisation, but it varies from game to game. You can equip each character with up to two accessories, and there are tons of effects they can provide.

 

[AWarmToiletSeat]

So what's the gameplay actually like in these games? There's a bunch of them for psp and I think most of them have English patches. I've heard they're decent games. At least one of them usually shows up in 'best psp RPG' type lists. They all look kind of the same to me though and I've never really seen a good description of the gameplay other than they're jrpgs with turn-based and I think grid-based combat. What kind of story and character progression do they have? Are they linear story driven type games with lots of cut scenes and dialog and shit or are they more exploratory and gameplay focused? Is there any kind of character ability customization type stuff or classes or set characters with predefined abilities? Will the anime shit become annoying if you don't really watch anime but don't actively hate it?

The main gimmick of the series combat is how you can fuck with turn progression. You can spend resources to 'steal' turns from your enemies, and this is valuable because there are certain benefits you will get if your turn falls into a specific position (get half your health healed, get a guaranteed crit, have a spell cost zero mana, etc.). The story is mostly solid. The later games are a bit more annoying, but even they're... okay for the most part. There is a lot of text to read though. By the time you get through the Erebonia saga, the games amount of dialogue balloons to pretty comical proportions. But, you do, eventually, get a lot of room to look around the setting and find cool shit. The Crossbell saga is probably the best saga if that's what you want out of this series. It's got a small-ish map, but it's also the most open.

 

[Grub]

They're very heavily story-focused games, a LOT of the text is spent on world building and character development, they are VERY slow-burn games. We are currently 13 games into the series, and it's all part of one huge narrative.

I don't necessarily mind that but on like a game by game basis are we talking like ps2 jrpg, Xenosaga, levels of story, exposition and forced cutscenes with very little gameplay or is there gameplay with the story like say ps1 jrpgs? Like do you just get whisked along from story event to story event with little agency or other stuff do?

Characters learn unique moves called Crafts as they level up. Spells in the game are called Arts, and are adjusted via their combat orbments by putting quartz into slots, quartz can be found out in the world from chests, rewards from quests, or exchanged for in shops. It's kind of like Materia from FFVII, if you're familiar with that. Other than that, there's not super in-depth customisation, but it varies from game to game. You can equip each character with up to two accessories, and there are tons of effects they can provide.

That sounds decent enough. The materia system wasn't my favourite but it was fun to mess around with. My biggest problem with it was that it made everyone in FF7 feel kind of generic. Especially because a lot of them kind of drop out of the story too later on so you're really only left with limit breaks and apart from the animations I could never really figure out a difference between all the limit breaks and it didn't really seem to matter which characters you used.

The main gimmick of the series combat is how you can fuck with turn progression. You can spend resources to 'steal' turns from your enemies, and this is valuable because there are certain benefits you will get if your turn falls into a specific position (get half your health healed, get a guaranteed crit, have a spell cost zero mana, etc.).

That sounds like it could be fun and adds some decent strategy.

But, you do, eventually, get a lot of room to look around the setting and find cool shit. The Crossbell saga is probably the best saga if that's what you want out of this series. It's got a small-ish map, but it's also the most open.

That does tend to be the type of jrpg I prefer. Shit like Dragon Quest VI with its fairly hands off here's a boat and a world I dunno figure it out kinda shit. I usually get bored of the ones that are like reading a book or watching a movie with some button presses here and there and not a lot outside being railroaded from one place to the next.

 

[Road Work Ahead]

Just finished up Cold Steel 2. I'm still enjoying the games, though I definitely see why people complain about Rean. He's basically the archetypal LN protagonist. An hour into 3 I wish the MC was one of the new students and the let Rean just be a side character (like Estelle/Joshua in Sky 3)

It was nice seeing Lloyd again, if only briefly. I also did not care for the dungeon in the epilogue. I'm still on the fence about the actual mech combat, it was pretty boring and easy, Hopefully they improve it in 3.

 

[Freelance Police]

So what's the gameplay actually like in these games? There's a bunch of them for psp and I think most of them have English patches. I've heard they're decent games. At least one of them usually shows up in 'best psp RPG' type lists. They all look kind of the same to me though and I've never really seen a good description of the gameplay other than they're jrpgs with turn-based and I think grid-based combat. What kind of story and character progression do they have? Are they linear story driven type games with lots of cut scenes and dialog and shit or are they more exploratory and gameplay focused? Is there any kind of character ability customization type stuff or classes or set characters with predefined abilities? Will the anime shit become annoying if you don't really watch anime but don't actively hate it?

The games are very dialogue heavy and the stories are heavily character driven with an overarching story that builds up in each chapter until it becomes big enough to dominate the latter half of each game. The group dynamics are (usually) very strong and chapters generally have one of the party members as a focal point if you're interested in that kind of party interaction. One of the main charms of the game is the autistic attention to NPC characters in towns who'll change their dialogue constantly as you progress through each chapter, many of which will have their own little storylines you can check up on throughout the game. They're completely optional if you don't want to bother, but they're very charming and many people set up their own little patrol routes to check in on their favorite NPCs. There's also a lot of hidden quests you can find by exploring and talking to NPC's after regular story beats.

The combat is turn based and the first 5 games have combat take place on a grid; the grids are small and are mainly used for identifying the range of AOE attacks than positioning, though positioning does become more important as you progress. The turn system being AT based gives you opportunities to manipulate the turn order through status effects, speed values, and other unique mechanics if you want to snipe turn bonuses or just prevent the enemy from attacking.

For character customization the best comparison I can think of is that it's similar to FFVII's materia system. Each character has a piece of equipment called an orbment that you fit quartz (elemental gemstones) into. Each character has a unique orbment that will help determine what they exceed at based on how many lines they have and how many quartz belong to each line. For example, here is one of the protagonists orbments.

This orbment has two lines (yellow line has three slots, blue line has two slots). Each piece of quartz has an elemental value, and that characters spells are determined by the total elemental value on a single given line. For example, the spell 'teara' (a medium healing spell) requires you to have x4 water element on a single line. If you slot in a water quartz like HP 3 which gives x5 water element, you'll get access to both teara as well as the spell 'blue impact' (an offensive water spell). Many spells will have more complex requirements, the aoe version of teara (la teara) has a requirement of x5 water and x2 space, and fitting everything onto one line will be tricky. Elemental values are not shared between lines, but the center quartz is unique in that it contributes its elemental values to both lines.

There's a lot of ways to experiment with this system, as the same set of quartz can give you an entirely different set of spells depending on where you place them. Having a longer line also gives the character more EP (this games magic points), but makes them more expensive to upgrade. Each orbment being unique will help shape what roles they can fulfill. A character like Agate who has three different lines isn't going to be much of a spell caster since he has less room to meet spell requirements and less EP since his lines are very short, for him he's using his orbment more as a statstick and unlocking his slots are cheap, meanwhile a character like Olivier whos orbment only has one line makes for an excellent mage since his spell list will innately be huge and he'll have a lot of EP to bolster, but it'll be more expensive to unlock his slots. Characters also have their own unique moves called crafts that use a different resource, which is something to consider when you build your orbments, as a bad offensive caster can still bring value as a support caster while doing good damage with their crafts, or an offensive caster being able to outsource utility like buffs and healing from their crafts instead of their spells.

The anime tropes become a bit overbearing in the Coldsteel games and onwards if you couldn't tell by reading the thread, but the first five games are all very good, and if you make it to that point you'll probably have enough sunk cost fallacy to make it to the end like the rest of us since these games are very long and both the characters and stories all exist in the same world and build off each other with each game. The worldbuilding is very rich and we're at the point where each game has an in-game library for you to brush up on terms, organizations, in-world politics and significant events that happened in the worlds history as well as major conflicts from past games. If you like cutscenes and reading character driven dialog, you will probably get a lot out of this series and the world it has to offer. If you're looking for something more gameplay focused, then this series probably isn't for you.

 

[Grub]

The games are very dialogue heavy and the stories are heavily character driven with an overarching story that builds up in each chapter until it becomes big enough to dominate the latter half of each game. The group dynamics are (usually) very strong and chapters generally have one of the party members as a focal point if you're interested in that kind of party interaction. One of the main charms of the game is the autistic attention to NPC characters in towns who'll change their dialogue constantly as you progress through each chapter, many of which will have their own little storylines you can check up on throughout the game. They're completely optional if you don't want to bother, but they're very charming and many people set up their own little patrol routes to check in on their favorite NPCs. There's also a lot of hidden quests you can find by exploring and talking to NPC's after regular story beats.

That actually does sound pretty interesting. I do like party interactions in jrpgs. I found the party chats in the ds dragon quest remakes really added a lot and I do like when you can go back and see things progress with npcs. I always find it a bit immersion breaking when you go back to towns later on in jrpgs and nothing's really changed since last time you were there because all the main story stuff in those towns is done.

The combat is turn based and the first 5 games have combat take place on a grid; the grids are small and are mainly used for identifying the range of AOE attacks than positioning, though positioning does become more important as you progress. The turn system being AT based gives you opportunities to manipulate the turn order through status effects, speed values, and other unique mechanics if you want to snipe turn bonuses or just prevent the enemy from attacking.

The combat system actually sounds pretty cool. I like the sound of the way the grid system's used in these games. I tried Radiant Historia but right off the bat I didn't really like the grid system and the heavy focus on moving enemies around and stacking them.

There's a lot of ways to experiment with this system, as the same set of quartz can give you an entirely different set of spells depending on where you place them. Having a longer line also gives the character more EP (this games magic points), but makes them more expensive to upgrade. Each orbment being unique will help shape what roles they can fulfill. A character like Agate who has three different lines isn't going to be much of a spell caster since he has less room to meet spell requirements and less EP since his lines are very short, for him he's using his orbment more as a statstick and unlocking his slots are cheap, meanwhile a character like Olivier whos orbment only has one line makes for an excellent mage since his spell list will innately be huge and he'll have a lot of EP to bolster, but it'll be more expensive to unlock his slots.

That sounds like it fixes ff7's issues where materia makes all the characters feel generic and interchangeable while still being fairly flexible.

The anime tropes become a bit overbearing in the Coldsteel games and onwards if you couldn't tell by reading the thread, but the first five games are all very good, and if you make it to that point you'll probably have enough sunk cost fallacy to make it to the end like the rest of us since these games are very long and both the characters and stories all exist in the same world and build off each other with each game. The worldbuilding is very rich and we're at the point where each game has an in-game library for you to brush up on terms, organizations, in-world politics and significant events that happened in the worlds history as well as major conflicts from past games. If you like cutscenes and reading character driven dialog, you will probably get a lot out of this series and the world it has to offer. If you're looking for something more gameplay focused, then this series probably isn't for you.

All the stuff you said in the first part made the games sound good but this last paragraph makes them sound like a video game version of the kinds of fantasy book series that put me off reading large fantasy book series. Long, convoluted and never ending, with a glossary and list of characters almost as long as a normal book.

Thanks for the detailed explanations. They do sound like fun games but they sound like the kind of series you need to be ready invest a fuckload of time into or I guess treat them like your nightly reading for the next year or so.

 

[Freelance Police]

All the stuff you said in the first part made the games sound good but this last paragraph makes them sound like a video game version of the kinds of fantasy book series that put me off reading large fantasy book series. Long, convoluted and never ending, with a glossary and list of characters almost as long as a normal book.

It is very much akin to a large fantasy novel, although the concepts are fairly grounded as the setting is pretty modern for a JRPG. There isn't much fantasy jargon you'd need to memorize beyond orbments and quartz, both of which will cement quickly into your head because of their direct gameplay mechanics. You're definitely right about the huge time investment since we're approaching the 13th game, I treated them as my night entertainment for a while and binged when plot tensions were rising. They're the type of games where you can just go at your own pace and feel like a geography buff when the name of a country you explored in the past comes up and you remember all the shit that went down there.

 

[ShitLurker]

I don't think even a 13 year old would like Rean. Someone too successful for no real effort usually antagonizes men, at least most Isekai start with the main character needing to climb up a few steps before they become OP.

Seeing how this was the result of the 2021 Falcom character poll



and this one is 2022



The clearly are taping into something. Rean is the archetypical "Sasuke" just with a big heavy stroke of "nice guy" to not make him too much of a cunt. But those characters always perform incredibly well in the land of the rising sun at least when it comes to character polls.

As for @Grub 's inquiries. Like what others have told you, first 5 games should give you a great time assuming the slow pace that some of the games have doesn't filter you out (Sky 1 which is the first of them is incredibly chill/slice of lifeish for the most part). If you are able to pace yourself and take it nice and slow, go for it, but if you are the obsessive that goes all in on something when he gets interested, I'd honestly suggest to let it simmer for a few years and see if the whole saga can stick the landing. Love the first 5 to bits, the next 5 are good-ok with some hype moments and 11th I'm kind of oh hum on even though it's a step up from the worst parts of the cold steel era, but I think I had higher expectations for it. I also may just be drained a bit from the formula and should let it rest for a while, but either way, it's a huge time investment.

 

[Slap47]

So what's the gameplay actually like in these games? There's a bunch of them for psp and I think most of them have English patches. I've heard they're decent games. At least one of them usually shows up in 'best psp RPG' type lists. They all look kind of the same to me though and I've never really seen a good description of the gameplay other than they're jrpgs with turn-based and I think grid-based combat. What kind of story and character progression do they have? Are they linear story driven type games with lots of cut scenes and dialog and shit or are they more exploratory and gameplay focused? Is there any kind of character ability customization type stuff or classes or set characters with predefined abilities? Will the anime shit become annoying if you don't really watch anime but don't actively hate it?

All of the games have anime tropes and power of friendship stuff in them. Falcom likes to go all in on anime tropes and then expand on them and give them more depth. Although they do this best with the Liberl arc of the series.

Best way to see if you like these games is just play the first trails game.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky on Steam

Hailed as one of the largest, longest and most meticulously detailed turn-based JRPG series of all time, this first chapter in the ongoing Trails saga sets the stage for what's quickly become Ys developer Nihon Falcom's most popular and best-selling franchise in their entire 30+ year history.

store.steampowered.com

These go on sale for like 5 dollars.

 

[Grub]

It is very much akin to a large fantasy novel, although the concepts are fairly grounded as the setting is pretty modern for a JRPG. There isn't much fantasy jargon you'd need to memorize beyond orbments and quartz, both of which will cement quickly into your head because of their direct gameplay mechanics. You're definitely right about the huge time investment since we're approaching the 13th game, I treated them as my night entertainment for a while and binged when plot tensions were rising. They're the type of games where you can just go at your own pace and feel like a geography buff when the name of a country you explored in the past comes up and you remember all the shit that went down there.

Fantasy jargon doesn't bother me much but I have found I'm not so into hard world building stuff as much any more with books. But I do like the idea of playing through a fully realized world that changes and progresses as the game goes on as it sounds like it does in these games.

If you are able to pace yourself and take it nice and slow, go for it, but if you are the obsessive that goes all in on something when he gets interested, I'd honestly suggest to let it simmer for a few years and see if the whole saga can stick the landing

I do tend to get a little obsessive and go all in on shit. I've been on a jrpg binge for the last few months playing one after the other. I will probably burn out of them at some point. I usually do. Last time I really went on a jrpg spree was like 6 years ago. It does sound like the kind of series I probably should have jumped on at the beginning of my jrpg playing mood not after playing through a bunch of similar games first.

Best way to see if you like these games is just play the first trails game.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky on Steam

Hailed as one of the largest, longest and most meticulously detailed turn-based JRPG series of all time, this first chapter in the ongoing Trails saga sets the stage for what's quickly become Ys developer Nihon Falcom's most popular and best-selling franchise in their entire 30+ year history.

store.steampowered.com

These go on sale for like 5 dollars.

I mean yeah I could buy it but there's like 8 of these games available on PSP and Vita I can download for the extremely low price of free and then I can also play them on the go on my phone. Looks like there might even be a couple turbografx games and a snes game related to the series too. At least that's what pops up searching legend of heroes on cdromance.

 

[Flopper]

I mean yeah I could buy it but there's like 8 of these games available on PSP and Vita I can download for the extremely low price of free and then I can also play them on the go on my phone. Looks like there might even be a couple turbografx games and a snes game related to the series too. At least that's what pops up searching legend of heroes on cdromance.

The Trails games are unrelated to the old The Legend of Heroes series.
Trails in the Sky is The Legend of Heroes VI, but quickly dropped the numbering system, and became its own thing, it's the first game in the Trails series, hence where you should start.

 

[Grub]

The Trails games are unrelated to the old The Legend of Heroes series.
Trails in the Sky is The Legend of Heroes VI, but quickly dropped the numbering system, and became its own thing, it's the first game in the Trails series, hence where you should start.

So are these ones all in the same series then and the first one is Trails in the sky without the SC?

Spoiler: Large picture

 

[Flopper]

So are these ones all in the same series then and the first one is Trails in the sky without the SC?

If it has "Trails" in the title, besides "Boundless Trails", then it's the series you're looking for. I'll list the games out for you:

Trails in the Sky
Trails in the Sky SC (Second Chapter)
Trails in the Sky the 3rd

Trails from Zero
Trails to Azure

Trails of Cold Steel
Trails of Cold Steel II
Trails of Cold Steel III
Trails of Cold Steel IV
Trails into Reverie

Trails through Daybreak
Trails through Daybreak II
Kai no Kiseki

 

[ShitLurker]

I mean yeah I could buy it but there's like 8 of these games available on PSP and Vita I can download for the extremely low price of free and then I can also play them on the go on my phone. Looks like there might even be a couple turbografx games and a snes game related to the series too. At least that's what pops up searching legend of heroes on cdromance.

Flopper already cleared the game order, but as an extra note. Sky is in the PSP BUT I would still suggest the steam version purely on speed up function. I wouldn't say these games are particularly grindy if you play them in normal difficulty but when you are just going from point A to B nucking everything in your way to keep levels consistent, having a X2 and X4 speed on hand is a godsend. If you emulate you can also have speed up there of course, but it screwing with audio made Trails to Azure less enjoyable for me (only one I emulated) and the Trails soundtrack for the first 5 games is peak and after that it's still pretty good.

 

[Grub]

Flopper already cleared the game order, but as an extra note. Sky is in the PSP BUT I would still suggest the steam version purely on speed up function. I wouldn't say these games are particularly grindy if you play them in normal difficulty but when you are just going from point A to B nucking everything in your way to keep levels consistent, having a X2 and X4 speed on hand is a godsend. If you emulate you can also have speed up there of course, but it screwing with audio made Trails to Azure less enjoyable for me (only one I emulated) and the Trails soundtrack for the first 5 games is peak and after that it's still pretty good.

Yeah but the steam version has this whole requirement of needing to use my computer to play and for a game like that I'm going to use save states because if there's one thing jrpgs do that I hate is make you replay the same shit and watch the same cutscenes over and over again when you lose.

 

[Road Work Ahead]

Yeah but the steam version has this whole requirement of needing to use my computer to play and for a game like that I'm going to use save states because if there's one thing jrpgs do that I hate is make you replay the same shit and watch the same cutscenes over and over again when you lose.

I'm going to second the opinion on the speed up function being almost mandatory. It saved me probably 10-12 hours per game.

You can also save anywhere and if you lose a battle there is a retry option if you're worried about have to re-watch cut-scenes.

 

[Flopper]

Yeah but the steam version has this whole requirement of needing to use my computer to play and for a game like that I'm going to use save states because if there's one thing jrpgs do that I hate is make you replay the same shit and watch the same cutscenes over and over again when you lose.

The games have 1000 save slots, and auto saves every time you finish a battle or go into a new screen.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Yeah but the steam version has this whole requirement of needing to use my computer to play and for a game like that I'm going to use save states because if there's one thing jrpgs do that I hate is make you replay the same shit and watch the same cutscenes over and over again when you lose.

I don't remember Trails being especially egrigeous with slow combat and too long animations, pretty sure there was skip animation already in Trails