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Theres some proper love in this video. Also having only really delved into jrpgs this year. Having found your channel and trails has been *chefs kiss*. On cold steel now. And i just cant wait to keep playing. So excited for the remake of trails sky1 even though i only just finished it in april this year

Trails is such a unique series I’m so glad it is still going, some other jrpgs may have better concepts or stories but the overarching world of Zemuria and attachment to characters just can’t be replicated! Switch is also such a powerhouse for jpgs makes adults with busy life’s a godsend! I mainly play some of the remasters on switch along with recent port titles with decent performance. PS portal is a blessing too to flush out catalogue for games that don’t run well on switch (e.g Ys IX, SMTVV etc) and I find myself playing the latest Falcom/jrpgs on there! Wanted to say I also love the JRPG Pursuit podcast, I religiously wait for new episodes and listen to them right away - keep up the great work!

Thanks Branden! I'm only active in YT comments because it gives me a place to channel my enthusiasm for RPGs. I agree, things are better than ever as a JRPG fan; the market is so much richer and deeper than it was 30 years ago. I'll happily take a high-budget title at least quarterly, with dozens of smaller efforts coming out in that time. It means I always have something to play. Something to think about. Something to learn from. And if I encounter something I don't love, I can just, ya know, *MOVE ON TO SOMETHING ELSE* instead of coming online to cry about how AAA games are too woke (meaning there are too many brown people, non-submissive women, and gays) now. I'm so tired of that grift...

Man JRPGs are my favorite genre...i was hooked from the moment i played 7...then went seeking them out on snes to play all the o es i missed... Breath of fire 1 and 2 Bahamuts lagoon Taleas of phantasia FF6 Secret of mana1 and 2 Chrono trigger Super mario RPG Etc.. One criticism i have of alot of JRPGs today is theyre trying to appeal to the west ...and losing alot of what makes them unique

Have to wholeheartedly disagree... JRPGs have better quality of life function..and are smoother but they're not better.. With the influx of full 3D environment rendering..JRPGs..look better and are more expansive...but have less content... For me the Golden age of JRPGs was the ps1 to ps2 age... For simple reasons..the limitations on graphal fidelity mades developers had to focus on other things.. FF7 is the best example i can think of..especially because it had a modern remake.. FF7 had an entire world packed into 1 game ..3 full disks of content.. A globe trotting story..that sees you go From a cyberpunk mega city To caves..grasslands,boats,countryside,mountains,desert wilderness,canyans,jungles,forests, snowfields...submarines...space...and so much more.. This is something you cannot do to the same extent...in a way modern graphics and 3D rendering has no limited JRPGs.. FF7 remake had to split the game up into 3 parts... The reality is also making a 5 year game with a budget of 200 million means the game cannot be very creative it has to be safe with its systems.. Better production values.. Better quality of life does not make a better game.. I'm playing metaphor refantazio right now and I'm over 100 hours in and the game is good..but not amazing..

I am not a fan of Final Fantasy - I have tried many time but since III and IV, have not finished any though I've started quite a few. They just really don't grab me and i really disliked 15 and didn't even try 16. Trails - I've tried a couple times and so far it hasn't grabbed me though I will be going back to try again. For me the games I liked were most of the Tales games with the exception of Arise which just didn't feel like like a Tales game. In all honesty, I just haven't gotten into any JRPGs recently and feel pretty alienated by all the 'Fromsoft' so called RPGs that just want to make you feel like you are slamming your head in a car door over and over. Dragon Quest and Tales are my favorite series. The only game I've played recently that really grabbed me is Echoes of Wisdom which really isn't even an RPG. All that said, I do think this is still a good time for RPGs and maybe it's just me lacking the focus to stick with games recently.

Yeah jrpgs are def better nowadays because i love how accessibility options are so prevalent nowadays

I agree with most of your points (Final Fantasy just doesn't speak to me but that's a me thing). I just love the Trails, the Yakuza/LaD, the recent Ys and Persona games, etc. I'll add something that I'm grateful, as someone who has every consoles + PC but prefers playing on Xbox is how many JRPG devs have released their games over there too. JRPGs are often on the longer side and long haul games + Quick Resume is just so good I'm crossing my fingers to see that feature emulated by all platforms.

I’m going to play my first trails game next year and your channel is at least 27% of the reason why.

I love my PS Portal. Even though it doesn’t work (for me) outside the house much, it’s still nice to play anywhere in the house.

Im glad you like FF, but im more disappointed and let down by FF than anything else...glad you enjoy it though...to an almost religious degree, cant ask for more than that out of an experience. I dont really care that much about the console experience, my switch pretty much collects dust and my steam deck is a once a month adventure. What I am grateful for: The trails translations...the best game series on recent times. There were long string connected games made in the 90's, you just didnt play them and were not interested in them...but they existed. Trails is actually a throwback to that thinking, and falcom (like square and enix) were influenced by western rpg's and loved them. Eveything Atlus has done: persona 3 reload is great, and unlike Falcom...but still great...keep their iterations unrelated and playable on their own. Metaphor and SMT vengeance have been great, and they are dedicated to making original (mostly) games. There are too many remakes and redos (even though I like some, like reload) and the indie scene is picking up the slack. "Retro" is still strong and there are still developers that believe a game can be artistically beautiful without having to make it as "FF" as possible, instead concentrating on content and choices. Octopath Traveler II and chained echoes come to mind. Jrpgs have mostly stayed out of the preaching market and tried to be influential through their narrative, rather than beating you up for breathing air wrong, which a lot of the West is obsessed with now.

How are they bettwr when its nothing but remakes and remasters. Nothing new has been done in years. You have lukewarm releases like xiv and tales of arise. Im 40 and my first nes games besides mario and zelda were jrpgs. This whole 8dea is false. Innovation and creativity is dying. Falcom is one of the few i still respect(and no not atlus metaphor was p5 with current day politics). Whats worse is they water down characters in the name of censorship and DEI. I do not play my trails games by NISA they destroy them. I could write a NOVEL of all the changes cold steel and kuro made from NISA. JRPGs thrived in the ps1 and ps2 era. Theyre were some bangers here and there in the ps4 era. Now only switch and a select few pockets of companies make anything new. Also xenosaga is better than xenoblade, people play for the narrayive and im sorry but sagas was way better. Gaming Industry must crash. Too many normies. Gaming was a passion in the 90s, i miss getting picked on at school for playing FF7 because only" dorks" played that stuff. Now everyone must be into it, it must be for everyone( DEI woke SBI) and artistic and developmental decisions are made for $$$ soley not for vision. JRPGS are worse, get out of your echo chamber

Listen, I have been gaming since the mid 80s and just now I feel that games are on that level artistically that they were meant to be. That everything that came before was just birthing pains.

As a Canadian thank you for acknowledging our true thanksgiving 🥲

Love when the trails series get the appreciation it deserves as a vet in rpg’s it provides both story politics and gameplay with fun rpg elements and builds and satisfaction.

I agree for the most part that games now are better than ever. It's also easier to see / sample / keep up with games with platforms like this. Trails is a big part of that for me as well. I never saw another series catching up to DQ in my fandom, but they're right there. Plus, many of the best classic JRPGs like DQ3 and Suikoden II that us olds have nostalgia for are being remade or re-released even better than before. Playing DQ3 now and seeing what it looks like has given me so many feels. Oddly enough, the one thing that I feel has not improved is the first series you mentioned, Final Fantasy. Now to be fair, I was always a DQ guy over FF. Sure there was 4, 6, and 7, but as good as those games were I still wasn't into them as much as most were. And as JRPG fan, it's hard to feel like FF isn't chasing the 'new hotness' type of game rather than sticking to their roots.

3 features I wish every JRPG had 1) Auto text advance (most have this now, hate hitting X after every sentence). 2) Feature to constantly sprint. Just click R2 to sprint instead of constantly having to hold R2 to run faster. Give us the option to toggle back and forth. 3) Hyper speed mode like in the newer trails game to make battles faster or travel in big areas faster.

The genre was great in the 90s for sure, but they’re so much more accessible today, so much more playable, and available as well. It’s great! I’ve kind of fallen off of FF over the years, but I’m glad it’s continued to evolve. And I’m smack in the middle of the Trails games, too. It’s all good!

Agree with this so much. Also worth adding the rise of emulation, rereleases and fan translations makes experiencing the titles we did miss so much easier.

I want to play Trails, but at this point it seems so huge as to be unapproachable. I kinda wish they would release collections for each series and make it seem a little more manageable.

Definitely agree we are in an amazing era of RPGs. If anything my criticism is that there are too many great games and not enough time to play them. I'm so happy developers have moved away from the idea that Western audiences don't like JRPGs. Also, happy to hear you shout out the true Thanksgiving...Canadian Thanksgiving 😉

I just started playing this series and I decided to just start with the basic PSP game, it reminds me of Xenogears which is cool and I actually prefer that old school style to a lot of the modern stuff sometimes.

I’m 50 and I still have no one to talk about games with irl.

FF15 haters actually hate friendship.

Just found your channel, appreciate your perspective. Thank you!

I think FF died with 11, I was okay with MMORPGs back then but it was not one of them. I actually like 15 better than 12 or 13 & maybe 8. FF7Rs: I am not a fan of they seem to be ruining the nostalgia for me. My favorite RPG of all time is FF6 and do not see it changing for quite some time. I am not Trails fan and most likely never will be. Same with Persona, but will most likely always love SMT. I will say I have started liking Y's with 8 & 9, due to I think they finally got the combat decent enough to like. Talking about history and waiting. The first thing I saw of FF7 was in a magazine & if it had just been that magazine I most likely would not have picked up the game. There was another game in that magazine though that I 100% wanted and thought it looked 100% better than FF7 graphically & everything else, which was Arc the Lad. Sadly it took a few more years for AtL collection to come out and then after 4 the series went downhill hard, but so has FF to me so meh.

Agreed

The kill thing is about TikToks algorithm specific, it's hates "bad" words like kill and sex

Nothing warms my heart more than Dragon Quest 3's remake outselling FF7, the same way DQ7, one of the worst IMO, outsold FF7 Sad that 'the west' is still struggling to see past 'dragon quest is traditional, final fantasy changes' stuff, Final Fantasy is still chasing things DQ was doing in DQ1, Dq4, DQ5 and Dq9

thank goodness for dracky mode this game gets pretty crazy difficulty wise. id probably give this a 5/10 because of how cheap even random encounters are but 8/10 because it has the option to not make it hard as nails. with that said I do agree that it makes it too easy.

You've gotta talk about Final Fantasy 9. I thought, for sure, it would be in your list. The main character, Zidane, is a mischiveous rapscalion thief with a heart of gold, but- it never tarnishes. Throughout the whole typical JRPG quest of fighting rats to eventually fighting a god, Zidane is a constant example of radical empathy. And a bit girl-crazy, but mostly radical empathy, even towards the big bad evil guy, even after the terrible things they do, Zidane will choose compassion and empathy and mercy over anti-hero grim-dark retribution and revenge. He's actually pretty inspiring. He's right up there with the indefatiguable optimism shown by Superman, Shantae, and The Tick.

Legend of Mana is very relaxing :3

those thighs ;_;

Harvestella is generally celebrated in the jrpg community at this point>?

You're nervous because of Trump yet you don't say anything about Biden getting us in to WWIII. Typical baby lib.

A big problem I have with most JRPGs is that they often have the worst main characters, Eternights MC, for example, Instantly turned me off despite my initial interest in that game. I'm even tired of Persona for it's lacking MCs (outside of Kotone, who I actually related to too much). So many are just non-entity self insert anime protagonists (another genre with this problem in spades).

Don't avoid saga frontier or Xillia 2. Both great titles

Based and goated list! Fully backing you on the Atelier series. The Ryza series was so much fun and a great distraction from a rough spot in my life. Also Dragon Quest. If you dont think DQ mainline games will be for you, then try the spinoffs like DQ Treasures, Builders 2 and Monsters. I ADORE all the DQ spinoff games! Teeasures us just good clean wholesome fun with an engaging gameplay loop. Perfect for before bed. Builder 2 had me so addicted I nearly lost my job 😂 A lot of people hate on DQ Monsters but I loved it. Also, Moonstone Island, Core Keeper, House Flipper and Powerwash Simulator. And a lot of the Pokemon "clones", theyre just creature collecting games but theyre sometimes better than Pokemon. Like Cassette Beasts, Moonstone Island, Nexomon etc. I love playing powerwash sim.or house flipper before bed. The cleaning is therapeutic.

Uh, no. My beef isn't about being told I needed to care about a group of people. It's how out of touch you were using that very thing people were upset about to use as a narrative device for your anti-anxiety video. I'm certain if what happened early November turned out different, that video wouldn't have any reason to be uploaded.

Damn I forgot I had the PlayStation handheld. lmao I'll try and use that to play the game. I definitely know what you mean playing jrpg on the big screen can sometimes lead to other distractions.

Final Fantasy XIV is made of empathy; Shadowbringers + Endwalker is literally about everyone coming together to defeat nihilistic despair. Does take a long time to get there, tho!

woot woot dq3

yeah i don't get why ultra fast wasn't the default battle speed, with 5 more speed options above that. idk who wants the battles to just drag and drag.

the true ending of Nier Automata is one of the ultimate (& polrobsbly most on-the-nose hehe) examples for me! 😭💞 but one I think that you can't really capture by talking about, ppl just have to experience it in order to truly feel it's impact

aw YOU are just a gem! <3 this is a very sweet video, and a topic that is not touched on nearly enough in conversations around games~ I really appreciated when u talked about helping support vs enabling people (tho u didn't use those exact words), as that is a very important aspect of care especially when mental health is involved. everything should be fully consensual of course, but sometimes having someone message "hey can I bring over some soup for you?" is exactly what someone needs to help lift them from dark places where they might never ask for what they need. give people their flowers while they're here <3 and that goes for everyone~ you don't need to know someone to be truly kind, you don't even have to agree with someone to be kind. You could literally actively dislike someone and you can still be kind. & emotional intelligence is something learned! we can all improve, they are always avenues to grow as a person, we are all human and we are all imperfect and mess up sometimes <3

I think most people who complain about easy mode, cant die... are forgetting. Moms have little kids they buy it for, playing in switch or tv. If the child died, they would give up, cry or bug mom. So it's to keep kids entertained.

Cant raise all at once. They are priest, not necromancers, raising a cemetery.

I haven't played Harvestella yet, but it's one game that, the more I see of it, the more I fall in love with! It seems like it hits right up my alley and I did not see eye to eye with the critics of this game, at least from what I have seen of it so far. I'm definitely going to spend a loooong time playing that one when I get the chance!

I admit, I haven't played most of these, mainly because some are Japanese voice only, and for me and my crappy vision, that's a deal breaker in all but the most extreme circumstances. That said, tales of Legendia was fantastic, at least until the voice acting dropped off in the second half. It had a great story, fun enough combat, fun characters, fully voiced skits - which even Tales of the Abyss never did, and one hell of an amazing soundtrack by on of the top tier japanese composers. That one needs a proper re-release. Still have my copy on the PS2 but not the PS2 to play it on. Crystar too wat quite good, in terms of story. Played it twice - or 10 times because of the way its endings work. I was really disappointed when Cry Machina did not have an English dub. Yeah, I know, there I go talking about voice again. I'm also a voice actor, so that bothers me on that level too. For me the game that doesn't deserve all the hate is Akiba's Beat. It had a real persona vibe, in its subject matter, if not its presentation. The gameplay was fun, if a bit repetitive, and I found the story to be quite interesting. And for a clearly low budget game to include a full English VA - okay, okay, last one I promise. Anyway, the game was decent. I might even play it again. Oh And I wonder if anyone noticed the rearranged music from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest in your video.

The artwork alone from Atelier Ryza 2 and 3 made me wanna play them. (90% because of those thighs...holy cow. ^.^)