A trip down memory lane for myself, recounting the steps of how I came to find and subsequently adore the Trails Series. Hope you guys enjoy this mix of backstory and Trails praise (and YS too)!

Yes the old classic. Dropping trails in the sky early then picking it back up and loving it.

Joshua meeting with Weissman at the end of FC singlehandedly locked me into the series. I was going to one off it until then.

For me it was luck, while searching for jrpgs for the vita i found cold steel and was amazed by how full of content, lore and rich characters it had

2020 was largely garbage but because of the lockdowns I was able to discover this series. Sometime last May I was on KZfaq looking for JRPGs to occupy my now extra free time and I found a video called "Top 10 JRPGs on PS4". Funny enough, Cold Steel was not actually on that list but literally the entire comment section was people upset that Cold Steel was not included on the list. Cold Steel 1+ 2 happened to be on sale at the PSN store at the time too so I bought CS 1 just to try it out. Shortly after finishing the prologue and chapter 1 I bought CS 2 and 3 right there and binged the games. (The 5 month wait from CS3 to CS4 was brutal enough for me, I can only imagine what it was like for people who had to wait year after year for each game to be released.) Then much to my delight I discovered there were 5 more games prior to Cold Steel. To this day I am still in awe of how they've crafted this universe and how well the games connect to one another. Needless to say I cannot wait to see where the series goes in the future.

My first Falcom game was trails in the sky. I was bored one night and was having a rough period in life and searched for a new game to play. looked at a few rpg games and something about the artstyle and the humor got to me. I finished that game in 8 days. It was only work, playing and little sleep during that period but was 100% worth it. The next day I started up sky second chapter. What can I say. I was hooked AF. Now I've played the sky arc, cold steel arc and Crossbell arc and nayuta. Now I cant wait to get my hand on Hajimari when it is translated to English. Thanks for always bringing us news about falcom games and sharing this story. Have a good day mate!

During the course of life, I played countless games, however this series changed everything. I always wanted to play something like this. I remember the time and effort I used to put in every single game, let that be Liberl, Crossbell or Erebonia. All of them have a complete world of story telling, enchanted with the euphonious music, the cast is fullfilling and the content is amazing. Everytime there is a video you upload I watch it for sure, thanks man for sharing your story.

I just want to say that I love the behind the scenes into your life aspect of this video. I am subscribing just based on this alone. I like watching people explaining why a video game is good but giving all this context around it puts it in a completely different level for me. Hopefully there's more like this on the channel.

For me I had bought a compile heart Title Dragon Star Varnir And purchased trails shortly afterward my curiosity was peaked by a gaming youtuber twit gamer after some time in varnir I elected to play the prologue Upon finishing said prologue I was hooked in a way that I never thought I would be I looked at the visibly generic rean and assumed I'd probably toss him in the bin with kirito as bland Hero Dude But as I played the game I realized that rean had problems that I not only faced but struggled to overcome I saw myself in him And it motivated me not just to see his story But to emulate his motivation to change I'd connected with him in a way I'd never done with any previous characters To say trails changed my life would be an understatement And shortly afterward I'd find a friend who would be the crow to my rean as we shared our interest in falcom's incredible achievement

My journey towards loving the Trails series was weird. I was browsing games to buy on Amazon when I saw Cold Steel 1 and 2. I didn't know what it was about them, but I suspected they were great games. I bought them and they entered my backlog. Later on, I bought Ys 8. Around this time, I saw Cold Steel 3. Remembering that I bought 1 and 2, I figured I might as well buy 3 so that I could complete the set. Fast forward, and Ys 8 exited my backlog. I thoroughly enjoyed it, so I ended up playing it to completion shortly after beginning it. I noticed Falcom made the game, so I started seeing what else they had created. It was at this time I noticed they also made the three Cold Steel games I bought. Upon searching, Cold Steel 4 had recently released in the US. I knew I wanted it, but I didn't know why. Keeping in mind that I still hadn't played any of the previous games, but I liked what Falcom did with Ys 8. In order to justify the purchase of Cold Steel 4, I began playing Cold Steel 1. The way I saw it was I could allow myself the purchase of Cold Steel 4 if I began actually playing the series. 120 hours later and I completed Cold Steel 1. I immediately began playing Cold Steel 2, but I only made it three hours in and I didn't have time to go back to it. A few months passed and I had already forgotten most of the story. Much later on, I ended up getting time and motivation again to play the series again. I saw that I had last completed Cold Steel 1 in August of 2021. It dawned on me that it was already August of 2022. I couldn't believe an entire year went by. Instead of trying to pick up where I left off in Cold Steel 2, I dedicated myself to restarting Cold Steel 1. I remember the story was good, but I knew that I had forgotten most of the subtler pieces. I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss or forget anything before starting the journey over. 80 hours of Cold Steel 1 later, and it felt like I just re-watched my favorite TV series. I saw bits and pieces that I didn't notice before. The story and characters had me gripped. Even minor NPCs I could name at just a glance from down the hall. I realized that I was screwed, but in a good way. The series had captivated me in a way that was so much greater than my first playthrough of Cold Steel 1. Cold Steel 2 came and with it went 200 more hours of my life that I was all too happy to spend on it. "To A Glimmering Tomorrow" will go down as one of my most favorite musical tracks of the entire series and one of my most favorite tracks of all time in general. I only began to feel slight RPG fatigue when beginning Cold Steel 3. But the story and new characters gripped me again, even more so than the characters of the first two games. Upon the conclusion of Cold Steel 3, I finally cracked open Cold Steel 4. It was funny how I only began The Legend of Heroes as a way to stave off buyer's remorse from greedily purchasing the other video games in the series without playing them. There's been so many games that I've bought that will never exit my backlog. My journey in the Trails series might never have started had I not felt guilty for buying the whole set without playing even a single game. I was afraid that I wouldn't finish Cold Steel 4 before Trails into Reverie became available. About halfway through Cold Steel 4, I knew that it wasn't going to be a problem. Waiting for Reverie to release felt like the longest month of my life. I couldn't remember the last time I was so excited about a video game coming out. Day 1 purchases are not uncommon for me, but actually playing a game on Day 1 is rare. Most games enter my backlog and stay there for several months, if ever exiting. I just completed Trails into Reverie yesterday. I looked at the calendar and noticed that it's already September. For the past year, I had almost exclusively played The Legend of Heroes. A thousand hours, more or less, spent in-game. Now, I'm looking at Zero, Azure, and the Sky trilogy. I never even thought to give these games consideration, but after completing the journey, I want to see what it is they have to offer. For the most part, I already know what happens in Zero, Azure, and the Sky trilogy thanks to video summaries and reading. But something is drawing me to them. Weirder still, despite playing nothing else for an entire year.... I really just want to insert Cold Steel 1 and start all over again.

"I started the series with Azure" Said no English speaking trails fan ever.

I did by playing Trails of Cold Steel 1 on the ps3.

The school festival scene, specifically the play, in Sky FC has put me on a journey with Trails that I never want to end.

The linguistic mastery and organized presentation of ideas is outstanding. The reason I love this channel is because of the style. Super talented.

One of my favourite ever KZfaq videos. I moved to China after university and felt a lot of joy in hearing your story and reliving the excitement you felt when you first made it out into Japan. Thank you!

Ys 8 was my start back in 2019 when I was browsing for games on Amazon, fell immediately in love once I heard sunshine coastline hit my ears. Not so soon after, after completing the game I started watching channels like this one and a few others to see reviews for the game. Reading the comment sections of each video was how I found out about falcoms other masterpiece, the legend of heroes.

I usually don't watch videos like this but this was very well made! I just became and Y's fan and I'm about to start the trails in the sky and I'm very excited.

Awesome Video! Thank you for sharing. I started playing ToCS1 and 2 on PlayStation Now and was instantly enchanted by them. Having just finished Persona 5, I loved the game play and found myself getting completely caught up in the lives of Class 7. It was shortly thereafter that they re-released both games on the PS4. I have now finished the entire Cold Steel Saga and I'm looking forward to revisiting Erebonia soon.

A friend of mine showed me a picture of Emma and I was curious at the character design. I wishlisted Trails of Cold Steel and I eventually got it early summer of 2019. After the prologue, I essentially played the game until completion in a few days. The cliffhanger was so gripping, I immediately bought trails of cold steel 2. I've loved all the Cold Steel games and will be playing the rest of the series very soon.

Love your videos. I started with Ys8 this year and now just beat all Trails in the Sky games and am in love and can't wait to continue this journey. So happy I got introduced to Falcom games, there's something about them other Jrpgs don't have or do quality wise.

Such a fun video to watch! I absolutely love your content and glad you found the Trails series

this reminded me so much of my own journey to the trails series, my greatest gaming joy and comfort of all my 25+ years of gaming, thank you so much for this video it helped me relive the discovery of Trails for me

I don’t wanna make this comment TOO long, so in an extremely abridged series of events, kinda found Tokyo Xanadu by accident, played it, loved it, went on to play Ys VIII, loved it even more, then moved on to the Trails of Cold Steel games, and just absolutely fell in love. This channel has actually helped a lot with my understanding of the Trails universe, so thanks a lot for the hard work man. Your videos are much appreciated.

Started with the Cold Steel 1 and 2 on the Vita, expanded to Ys viii and Tokyo Xanadu. Now exploring the rest of the Trails series. Falcom is fast becoming one of my favorite JRPG developer.

I got into Trails throught the youtuber BigKlingy. He did an infomational 100% let's play for Sky FC & SC. I fell in love with the world and characters. I played Sky the 3rd as my first Trails game that I played by myself and now it is my 3rd favorite game of all time.

Honestly, I haven't played any of the games (I watch more let's plays than actually playing the games myself) but I have seen a playthrough of pretty much all of them, and honestly, the thing that got me into the series was you, I have always been a fan of rpgs so I had watched a lot of videos about them and I saw one of your videos show up in my recommendations, so I checked it out, and as soon as I did, the way you talked about it made me very interested, so I went and watched a playthrough of the first cold steel game, and I was hooked, the characters, the music, the story, it was so good, so obviously when I found out there was more, I had to see it, so thank you for introducing me to this amazing series

I played trails in the sky FC and it was the most engaging story I’ve ever played. It took me over 6 years before I would commit to playing them all in order. Best decision ever. It shows the benefit of hard world building and a commitment to a long term narrative that can span multiple titles to tell a larger story.

Back to this video after being 7 games deep. I never knew what Trails was back in the day. I think an old coworker played it on his Vita back then. I stumbled over a random falcom news video from your channel one day and then started being interested in Trails. I watched quite a few of your videos and started Sky FC around late 2019, I think. I was playing tales of Symphonia at the moment and wanted to finish that game first. I then stayed up many a long night while playing Sky and even finished the prologue in one sitting. I then got the Crossbell patches running and then started Cold Steel 1 and left it for 6 months before coming back. I then finished Cold Steel 2 and replayed Zero on my Switch. Trails is an amazing series so far and I am excited to see more. And also playing more Ys. I am at Napishtim now. I hope Daybreak turns out great. I am so glad I found your channel and these games. JRPGs truly are the best and I hope I can play many more.

Great journey! Thanks for sharing!

I ended up getting introduced to the Trails series last year. After my final month in college, getting reading to transfer to uni to get my bachelors. Around that time there was a lot thinking of what I really wanted to do in life. Plus with the beginning pandemic I had a lot of free time to hash that idea out. Around that time I bumped into recommendations on KZfaq about JRPS. And on the forefront it was trails of cold steel. And that's all it took for me to fall down the rabbit hole of the franchise. It's hands down one my favorite series of all time. Ended playing Sky, Zero, YS, and all of Cold Steel thanks to that recommendation. Those games helped me get through the good and the bad times in life. Leaving Falcom games holding a special place in my heart. Thanks for the video Kiseki Nut.

I'm playing Trails in the Sky, my first Trails game and while slow I'm really enjoying the character development and how good the dialogue is. Nice video, a lot of passion for the series in your words. You got a new subscriber

What a remarkable experience！Thank you for sharing your story. I started by playing the gagharv trilogy again and again back in high school. So when trails of the sky was released in China I got on board at the very first moment expecting another breathtaking mega story. Looking back at the time past, I will have to say that as a gamer, I was lucky and blessed that I got to experience trails game from the very beginning. It's an amzing ride.

Solid pick by mentioning Don't Be Defeated by a Friend, it's criminally underrated! I'm so glad you had a chance to go abroad for an extended time, it's one of those things that can't be replicated. One of my friends told me that I had more stories that started with "When I was in Spain..." than he had stories, and I'd bet you have a similar situation with your friends and family. I actually remember watching those Japan videos back when I first discovered your channel! PS Your Name is my fave anime and #2 favorite movie of all time. Amazing!

I became a trails fan on accident. I've loved jrpgs for years, back in the PS1 days actually, however many ages ago that was lol. So I went to gamestop wanting to scratch my jrpg itch one day, and luckily for me, someone had ordered a collector's edition of Cold Steel 1, and then canceled after it came in. The clerk mentioned it, I bought it, and I feel in love. I then preorded and beat cold steel 2, and then went to the older games while waiting for CS3 and later CS4, and eventually got to play Zero and Azure thanks to the Geofront.

It's so great to hear your personal story :) thank you for sharing it with us

this was rly nice to watch while doing dishes! you have a very nice voice to listen to :) for me, it was because I had been a massive harvest moon fan since I was a kid. so naturally, once it became story of seasons, I followed xseed on Twitter. when tocs came out, xseed and other jrpg news/reviews sites were all tweeting about it, and I kept seeing the game keep getting 8 and 9/10s. naturally it piqued my curiosity and then i read about how all the npcs have their own story and I found that so unique and interesting! on top of all that I found out one of my good friends had just played it and she raved about it to me so I ended up buying it and played for like 6 or 7 hrs on a school night when I only meant to play the prologue/up to a save point LOL and that ending of tocs1 was the first time in my life I had ever stayed up all night beating a game. all I could think of during classes was to get back to my apt and immediately buy tocs2 (which I did LOL) fast forward to 4-5(?) yrs later now, and I'm in the middle of tocs4, having already played all the past games. there's no going back now esp cos I live in Japan haha also i didn't know Makoto Shinkai worked for falcom so that was a rly interesting bit of trivia! would you say kimi no na wa is your most fav movie by him?

I discovered trails in the sky when i was searching for some fantasy RPGs to play and got immersed in it. I loved the world, characters, music and turn based combat was up my alley. After completing FC i started playing next games in the series and finished them up to cold steel 3. For me every entry in the series was amazing and i hope to play every upcoming game in the series when it comes to steam. Also trails games remind me of Brandon Sanderson's novels (which are my favorites) because of complex story and innovative magic/technology. When you will be searching for something to read i highly recommend his works especially Stormlight Archive.

Loved hearing your story! Thanks for sharing :) my journey into trails started with Sky 1 when it first came out on the PSP. I played it and loved it and was absolutely gutted to find out the sequel was not going to come out in the west. Years and years later it finally did, and not too long after that 3rd did too. Then I jumped to the Steel series and here we are!

NGL, I came for Kiseki content, but your backstory really hit home, also went through Business, a period of having no idea WTF I was going to do with it, the Sales interview where I said "screw this" and left early, and thank god I didn't get into sales. Everything else was different LOL, but appreciated the post-grad struggles.

That's a really great story. Love how you were listening to trials music and using wallpapers without even knowing. It's a lot more interesting than my story. I just played CS1 last year after hearing amazing things, got hooked, and played them all within a few months.

More than the the game, your life journey kept me captivated throughout the video. Well done.

Just got into the series and loving it. I just beat TOS 1 a couple of weeks ago and part 2 yesterday. Excellent series of jrpgs. I'll be buying 3 in the near future, thats for sure.

My time time was when I was playing Trails in the Sky, and first heard the Royal City Grancell music. My ears melted

What a wonderful video! Thank you for sharing your experience! (Looks up early Japan travel video.) Relative newcomer here. Final Fantasy 7 Remake was the entirety of my pandemic plan, and I wrapped it up in less than a month. Meanwhile, it became clear we were (are) in it for the long haul. So I scoured the internet for "immersive JRPGs." Blazed my way through Cold Steel 1 & 2. Finished 3 and loved it, but felt a lot of plot points and returning characters flew right over my head. Spent the last year slowly making my way through Sky and Crossbell (per your content & the suggestion of some Twitter folks). Hell of a journey so far! It ruins other JRPGs the same way The Wire ruins all cop dramas (that's a good thing).

Man your videos are really amazing and am always waiting for them to come out. This video especially was a surprise thank you for that. trailers for is everything. Just one request if you have the time could you list for my the songs that you played in the video it will be huge help thank you 😊

I enjoyed hearing your story. If I’m honest I’ve never finished a trails game. I tend to sit on the periphery of communities and watch in. I’ve always been like this in lots of aspects of my life. I consider myself a part of the community though. I desperately want to play these games. I own all of the Trails of Cold Steel games on PS4, but I have no means to play Trails in the Sky at this time and really want to start there. I’m planning on getting a PC one day to start my journey. But, I realise from countless research that this is a special series and I cannot wait to get engrossed in it.

Great video man

For me it started way back in Gagharv. The name "The Legend of Heroes" was stuck on my mind when I was a kid then tried to do research after few years of not playing. When I got back to playing, I started at Cold Steel but I feel like I missed some parts of the story. I postponed my Nord field study, researched again then saw Sky. Now I'm at Cold Steel 4 and I badly don't want it to end. I'm having post-game depressions lately thinking about i'd stop my journey soon. We still got no news about Hajimari's localization but I believe it's worth the wait :)

When I first notice about the trails series is one of my classmate playing The Trails of the Sky series.. As I am always a guy that love JRPG, I went and research on the game... Unexpectedly the game is like keep calling on to me. And from there I become Trails Fan..

hehe, well, i personally haven't started the journey yet, though i've been an Ys Fan for many years. i do own the Trials in the Sky Games but since i know how interconnected they all are, that just makes it hard for me to actually start on it. i don't mind story heavy games, been playing some visual novels like Utawarerumono lately, but the sheer size of that rabbit hole still makes me hesistate to take the jump. so seeing your journey on how you actually got started made me interested in the series once more, who knows, with no clear release date for Ys9 on PC yet (and with NIS doing it, thanks god theres durantee though) i could push for at least one of the games i guess. also, thanks yt algorithm, found your channel while running some ys music in the background and had quite a few recommendations for your videos. xd

Amazing story behind how you got into the "Trails" games. I really enjoyed your video. Oddly enough, my first experience with the series was the first game in the Trails in the Sky series. I didn't really get into that game even though I had read amazing reviews. It was the first Trails of Cold Steel game that drew me in to the "Trails" world. Rean Schwarzer became one of my favorite characters in gaming history and the cast of that game was excellent. Great story and world building along with memorable characters that you feel compelled to care about. I'm now in the midst of Trails of Cold Steel II and really excited to see where the story goes. I've already purchased Trails of Cold Steel III and IV so I can finish the entire story arc. When comparing Trails of Cold Steel to Trails in the Sky, the 3D graphics and voice acting of Cold Steel really makes a significant difference for the better. The world depicted in Trails of Cold Steel feels more alive because of it. Other Nihon Falcom RPGs I've also enjoyed are Y's VIII and Tokyo Xanadu eX+. They also happen to be 3D games with voice acting included, although Tokyo Xanadu only voice acting option is in Japanese. While I do agree that the music for Nihon Falcom games is top notch, the voice acting is also tremendous. The audio experience in itself is a treat.

Ys vs. Trails in the Sky - Alternative Saga introduce me to this series this year.. all thanks to Geofront and i am experienced JRPG games i played so many RPGs through out on my life and i am excited to venture more on the Ys and Trails series.. especially i really luv the OSTs both series. anyways thank you for sharing ur story ! :D

First of all, thank you again for the CC support (I seriously enjoy your content more with CC subs lol) and I would love to hear more about your story in Japan back then but I'll try not to sidetrack to that part. I would love to slap that like button 100 times but I can't so let me get on with mine. (Sorry if its a bit long, I'm a tad excited when it comes to this) My very first Falcom game was Ys I which I played 3 years ago on a whim where I was out of games to play and found out about a game with a lot of sequels and that was Ys. It was around that time where Ys VIII was popular in my gaming community and I saw the gameplay was nice. I also did research out for Ys I gameplay and I love how unique it was. Ended up play Ys I followed by II, Felghana, Ys VI, Ys SEVEN and Ys VIII eventually. I did remember somehow that Trails of Cold Steel was also one of the recommended games from Steam but I wasn't a huge fan of JRPG especially turn base game back then. Fast forward two years later in April 2020, while I was on COVID lockdown in my country (Malaysia), I was bored doing nothing back home but games. I tried out a bunch of games but it didn't stick to me and I was quite a fan with a mobile game called Dragalia Lost back then. Not until in 22nd April, where I stumbled upon the Trails series once more since I have watched several videos of great RPG games and Trails came up in some JRPG videos in KZfaq. I did some research and it hit back to Falcom where I enjoyed Ys a lot and then what pull me in is that the game has sequels up to 8 games or so I read back then. I was hooked and decided to try it out in one go because I was very bored. On 23rd April 2020, I started Sky FC and finished the game 2 days later and was completely hooked with the story and the OST. Immediately try out Sky SC and finished it in 6 days and went on with Sky 3rd which took 4 days to finish. Afterwards, started with Zero and finished 8 days later continuing on with Azure and finished in 6 days. I didn't stop there and continue playing Cold Steel which took me 6 days to finish and continue forward to Cold Steel 2 which took me a whopping 12 days to finish. This was on 5th June. Basically, I played the Trails series nonstop for 44 days and I didn't felt burnt out. Lockdown was finished at that time so I eventually keep playing Cold Steel 3 and finished it within a month and dread in despair over its ending lmao. I finished CS4 and Hajimari last year and so looking forward to Kuro now. Also, my first video with you was the Akatsuki video. Love that one too.

Fantastic video man!

My uncle actually bought me the first game. Didn’t like it at first but after deciding I’d play through it no matter what, I suddenly became engrossed in the story. Been a HUGE fan ever since

Great video. I only picked up the series recently, and I honestly have a hard time saying why. It could have been the music (I have listened to all but Trails in the Sky: The Third), and then couple that with western remasters of ToCS for PS4, and I guess I was sold. These games have snuck up on me, and now suddenly I am trying to sell them to all my JRPG playing friends. Fantastic is all I can say.

For me, it was stumbling across an article detailing the massive amount of work XSeed had to put into localizing SC. I figured that it looked like an interesting game so I bought Trails in the Sky FC on Steam and gave it a go. I'm no stranger to JRPGs like Persona, Suikoden, and Ar Tonelico. Estelle Bright was an amazing character. I loved her sass, her expressiveness, her eagerness to throw down and her general bakaness in contrast to Joshua. After the thickening plot throughout the game and the major reveal in the end, I was in for life. Blood in, blood out!

Really nice Video. I will start trails in the Sky after finishing Final Fantasy 16.

I had a sort of similar experience to yours :D When I started animation school I dropped playing video games altogether and took a 2 year break from them so I could focus. When I finally had more free time on my hands and was really into anime at the time, still am to this day, I wanted to play some jrpg's. I checked out steam since I had just built my own computer and found the Trails franchise along with it's "overwhelmingly positive" reviews. Started with Trails in the Sky FC over a holiday break and the rest is history. Enjoyed the vid and listening to your story man!

I randomly decided to actively search through jrpgs on steam and found the 1st chapter of trails in the sky, it reminded me of the old games I had nostalgia for and so I picked it up. I only played for 30 or 60 minutes at a time before it would lose my attention. Early game is slow. But once I hit the end of the Ruan chapter I was hooked, 6+ hours a day until I was crushed by the cliffhanger ending, with 9 months of waiting for the sequel... I still remember the moment I realized 2nd chapter was out, I just said 'gotta go, see you in a week' and alt f4 my team speak chat. No regrets, I love this series and I'm glad this channel exists to help others to discover such an amazing experience.

Oh boy, that Sunshine Coastline bgm... Never fails to get me hype.

I was introduced to the series through Trails of Cold Steel by Fishfriedcat another KZfaqr. Upon watching his amazing video about it, I was curious, and it was in a lull that followed my 160 hour investment into Final Fantasy 7 Remake and 200 hours in Dragon Quest XI. So I picked up ToCS1 on sale for PlayStation, and I was hooked in the Prologue. The music and the combat system coupled with the art style in that first hour or so, and I immediately went back to PlayStation store to buy CS2 and CS3 and all the add-on packs for all three. This was August of 2020, and I proceeded to spend a minimum of 200 hours plus over 3-4 playthroughs FOR EACH GAME! Picking up CS4 in October, this whole series endeavor took me through January 4th, and I immediately picked up Trails in the Sky series and will pick up the Crossbell arc eventually. I'm finishing Sky 2 now and Sky 3 this month before moving back to Nier for spring. Later this year, I'll play the Ys games on PlayStation while I wait for news Hajimari and more will come to the west soon. I have also picked up Tokyo Xanadu to play this summer before Ys. I'm absolutely hooked on Falcom. If I have a complaint, it's only the selfishness of wanting faster localizations.

That Trails train set off on the 15th July 2019 and haven't looked back since. It all started when I was first introduced to Falcom games the year prior when a friend of mine recommended me a game called "Tokyo Xanadu eX+." I loved that game so much that I had to check out the other games. Once I had the first few CS games and was able to stream again, I got sucked into the Trails journey. Oh boy, and what freaking journey it has been so far. CSIV and Hajimari, in particular, have blown me away with some brilliant lore, gameplay and music. This, next to Persona, is my all-time favourite gaming experience. Since I've been playing JRPGs since 1997, that's a big deal considering I've only known the series for a mere 18 months. This is also a very special series not only because of the gaming aspects but also because of the community it has attracted. I have met some great people through the Trails series, including you Kiseki, and being a fellow Brit, it was great to know that people in my own neck of the woods are into the series. Brilliant video, man. I've always been curious about where it all started for you :).

It's the year 2012, in my 2 year mandatory conscription and I found out I was getting grounded for a week. Took along the good'ol PSP with Trails of the Sky in it and passed time with it. Found out it was actually a 2-part game(only realised it was 3 much later), but there wasn't news of an English version in sight, so I promptly forgot about it. 4 years later, was trying to find RPGs to play on the vita and saw a familiar title: Trails of Cold Steel, looked like an industrial revolutioned upgrade of Sky that I played prior and gave it a shot. I got so hooked, I took it up onto the plane en route to Japan during my holidays. Found out that 3 was coming the following fall and immediately Pre-ordered that. (Knew my Japanese lessons will be put to good use!) Saw a Prince who looked like that casanova guy back in Sky, researched a bit and found out ALL THESE GAMES ARE LINKED. Never looked back since.

I stumbled upon a channel that uploaded gameplay videos on the first game, Trails in the Sky FC, and after seeing a part of the story, I immediately started to become invested in it.

i was first introduced ys origin by my cousin back in 2010 but it was in chinese translation so i never knew where/how/what it came from until much much later on, very similar to you i've started trails in 2016 but never finished it not until TOCS3 was announced last year for the switch did i decide to give the series a go again. Though ive not caught up like you many of the things you mentioned like listening to jdk band's soundtracks which were all absolute banger of a masterpiece along the way always reminded me to go back for a taste of goodness... looking forward to finishing the entire catalogue in the years to come!(and be part of this epic epic story)

Looked around the PS Vita sale, saw Trails of Cold Steel 1 and 2, didn't think much of it at first... 3 years later and I caught up little by little in a reveres chronological order of games, but that didn't hinder how much I enjoyed this series

What moment did I realize Trails was for me? It was 2011 and I was playing Sky FC on my PSP and there was this character named Schera, and the first time I saw her Sadist Whip S-Craft I immediately got "step on me" lovey dovey eyes. As if the instant addiction to the game and not being able to put it down in the first place was not enough, Schera's character solidified it and then later Olivier cemented it in stone. I bought every game as they came out after that.

New viewer here, loved this video. I too finished my business management degree recently and looking to to do a masters in banking and finance lol. I have played ys 1 and 2 years ago on psp, so i knew about falcom through some youtubers. I got into trails series through cold steel last year, only beat cold steel 2 few days ago. Now looking to go back to sky trilogy and get into crossbell before carrying on with cold steel.

love how falcom had played a big part of your life and your journey sounds as exciting as it is only because of the exposure to falcom

Man. This is hilarious to me because I feel like I hit basically the exact same thing. A friend of mine recommend Trails in the Sky during my third (I think?) year of college and I played until just about the same spot you described before life got in the way. And since I recently got into Ys, I've been looking into Trails again and thinking I'd pick it back up since I've loved Ys so much.

A little late her, but whatever xD For me I was randomly searching for games in 2018. Then I came across CS 2 as it had just released. But I knew, of course, there had to be a first game. Hence I tried Cold Steel 1. What an experience the game was. Never have I been so invested in a video game series and no doubt my favourite series of games. They also introduced me to the JRPG genre, which is my favourite of games now too. Since then I have completed every Trails Game released on PC and are waiting for CS 4. Only a few more weeks! Btw love the channel. Keep up the good work!

For me, it started out as a recommendation from a close friend back in last May that I thought would just be a good way to kill time, but it ended up becoming more than I could have ever dreamed of and while going through this entire series I have come to a realization and that is nothing and I mean NOTHING will ever compare to Trails in the realm of video games for me now and hell even in all of fictional media in general I just think it's one of the best story sagas I've ever witnessed. I can't stress this enough, but these games are some of the absolute most immersive, unique, ambitious and realistic I've ever played and a big part of that is due to the worldbuilding that is just on a whole different level of ANYTHING else out there that I've experienced.

What a wonderful video, great job !!!

I'm about 20 hours into trails in the sky fc and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. I think I'm going to tackle Ys after based on your love for those.

It was the music for me. The moment I arrived at Trista and heard that musical score, I knew the game was special. I especially loved hanging out after school, listening in on “back to dorm” as I spoke to every NPC at campus. Amazing.

For me it all started about a year and half ago. I already had the 1st Cold Steel game for the vita and played for a few hours. I thought that the game was good but the pace was very slow, and playing the game on the Vita was not the best way. A few months later there was a price reduction on the PSN and a I thought, well let's give it a try. Best decision. When I finished the game, the first thing was buying CSII. And I was hooked. I started to search for news about the series and eventually found your channel. Then I've played the other Trails games. Currently I'm replaying CSIV to get the platinum. After that I will start the Ys games. Great video as always. Continue the good work.

Hearing your story was quite interesting :-) !!! I think that I discovered the Trails series with the japanese version of Zero no Kiseki on PSP. I tried it but being unable to read japanese I stopped playing back then. And then years later, I went back into it with Trails in the Sky FC, again on PSP. The very beginning of my absolute love for Falcom and their amazing game series !

Nihon Falcom is my favorite JRPG company. After playing the trails series, I can't seem to enjoy other JRPGs the same way I enjoy Nihon Falcom games anymore

In highschool i got trails of cold steel as a gift for my ps3. i played it for and hour or so i remember like it but as i was mostly gaming on my new ps4 it got put on the back burner, but a year or so ago i saw it on sale for ps4 remembering it i decided to pick it up. though i still ended up putting it on the backburner again. But randomly the other day the jrpg itch hit me. scrolling through my evergrowing backlog cold steel ended up standing out. Now im addicted and definitely planing on going back through the classic. Watching this ill definitely have to try ys some time 2 seeing its also in my backlog.

Back in the early 2010s, I was searching for a singleplayer game to play and my friend showed me something on Kongregate, Epic Battle Fantasy 3, I got super hooked onto the game that I actually started playing it day in day out, but always struggled to beat a certain boss (this was me as a child who didn't know what buffs were), needless to say when I did realize how it was supposed to be played I finished the game in record fashion, I needed more, then I searched it up on the internet and found a playthrough of EBF4 by one of my favorite KZfaqrs to date, and after watching that playthrough I immersed myself in his content, and there it was, he was currently playing through Trails in the Sky. Needless to say I fell in love with the music, the story, but especially I fell in love with the characters, especially the main duo, but when I had asked whether he'd play more he was reluctant, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. as an elementary school student at the time I obviously had a lot of time to spare (it was 2015-16) and by the time I started high school in September of 2016 I had played through Sky FC and SC three times and that's how I started adoring this series and Sky SC still remains my favorite game of all time.

I first discovered Falcom via Trails of Cold Steel; a game I picked up in 2016 after having returned from my own time living in Japan for a couple years working as an ALT the year prior. I had recently picked up a PS Vita and was looking for a new game to play, having been a fan of JRPGs since my time with SNES emulators in the 90s, and came across something in a review that I'd never seen before: the NPCs in Cold Steel didn't just have a single line of dialogue; they would comment on things in the world as they happened. Additionally, events wouldn't just stop because you weren't there: the events of side quests would occur with or without you, with the outcome changing depending on your presence. Intrigued I picked up the game, devoured it and CSII there after. Unfortunately though it would be another yearish before I even found out about Trails In The Sky, via the anime, and proceeded to play 1-3 in the space of a few weeks. Throw in Ys 7 & 8 and I'm pretty confident in saying I love Falcom games at this point :)

I kept hearing about cold steel and I'd been itching for a new turn based game or series to play. It was this channel that convinced me to play and it's now my favorite series ever

Thanks for sharing your story man! This as really cool

I played the previous Legend of Heroes saga on PSP around a decade ago, which is the Garghav Trilogy at my cousin's place. This introduced me to Falcom and the Legend of Heroes brand. Later got recommended Trails in the Sky FC by him as well. Got hooked ever since. It was a dark period waiting for SC to get translated and ported to PC. As for Ys, I watched omegaevolution's final boss playthrough of Ys SEVEN and was introduced. Later, I came across Oath and later Origin. Played the demo and the full game was on my library some time later. All three of them had their god-tier ost to hook me in and extend my enjoyment of my PSP. My interest in JRPG started with FF7: Crisis Core and was kept alive with Dissidia and its sequel Duodecim. They may be Falcom's biggest rival but if it wasn't them (and a lack of a PS3), I wouldn't even have been interested in the TRUE gem of the JRPGs.

This Jrpg is very but very different from the majority that we are used to seeing, the stories are so engaging and extremely rich that it seems that the more you think the game exceeds the potential, it just surpasses it. Another very interesting thing is about the world of the trails series, because with each choice, situations, interconnections with the characters, these will have enormous weight in the next game and as it happens in a single world, it gets to be very complex and in a simple way, which is GENIAL! I became a big fan of Crossbell duology, although Lloyd is the weakest, he can be the one who takes the most risks and the one who dodges easily, the SSS relationship is so deep that in the next game this is seen with extreme shock and Of course, although the songs are very good (THE AZURE ARBITRATOR), Nihom falcom itself does not have its due recognition even though she has been producing games for more than 20 years and she never gives up. Speechless😐

The way you describe your visceral sense of belonging in Japan is exactly how I felt in China. I ended up staying ten years, brought my new family back for a couple years to the US and am now frozen out due to Covid. Hopefully, we can get back to the places we love soon.

I have always loved JRPGS, I saw trails of cold steel 1 on sale on the psn store and I thought.. why not? Started playing it absolutely loved it, started part 2 and I started getting recommendations regarding the whole universe. I saw a video that basically stated don't play trails 3 without playing the other games, when I realised as of then.. that there was other games in that universe I was done. I have now played all of the liberl arc and half way through watching a playthrough of the crossbell arc. I absolutely love this series!

I have a very similar journey. Ys Origin was also my introduction to Falcom and that Ys music was a revelation to the 10-year-old me: Banging "Genesis Beyond The Beginning" and "Scarlet Tempest" in front of the other kids is the second coolest thing I have ever done in my life, bested only by me proudly wearing my Chelsea jersey in May 2012. After abandoning the series for about 10 years due to academics(Just Asian stuff), I finally played YS VIII which reignited my interest in the series. Then came my last year of college and the damned COVID. I sunk into quite a low in my life: lack of confidence, lack of motivation, just purely lost. Then, by chance, I started watching shonen anime because I wanted to connect with people my age and I also started reading visual novels, both of which I'd say gave me a more optimistic outlook on life. Before I knew it, I decided to replay all of Ys, and eventually Trails. To be honest, I wasn't really a fan of turn-based combat and female protagonist, but ever since COVID I would just like to sit down and enjoy stories, and Trails has just that. Don't scoff at me just because I play Normal Difficulty, and believe me I've had enough trouble fighting Cassius and Loewe in Normal and I wouldn't dare have it any more difficult. Anyway, I'm finishing my masters this year and I dare say that Trails have been with me in my darkest time, and I'm forever thankful for this journey. Can't wait to play Hajimari next month on PC.

Sometime in 2016, I remember browsing through YT and came across random footage of the CS1 ending (inadvertently spoiling myself). At the time, I thought the game looked cool and thought this would be a good entry point for me to get back into JRPG's. Prior to this, I had stopped playing around 2005 (at the time, high school, college, grad school, and early career life had gotten in the way for more than a decade, despite my enjoyment of series like Final Fantasy, Grandia, and Xenosaga). After seeing that footage, it fell off my radar probably because I had a PC but did not want to buy a PS3. In early 2017, it was announced that CS1 would be ported to PC so I eagerly awaited the release later that year. By that time, I had completely forgotten the ending of CS1 from random browsing the previous year. It only came back to me after I played through the entirety of CS1 and reached the ending, realizing there was a much bigger story than what was presented on the surface. This is how I got hooked into the Trails Series and the rest is history!

I found a used Trails of Cold Steel for PS3 at Gamestop about 7 years ago and enjoyed it, but didn't commit to the rest of the series since I couldn't find Cold Steel 2 for a good price, and I didn't own a PSP or PSVita to get into the Sky games. Then just 2 years ago I saw BigKlingy's let's play of Trails in the Sky on KZfaq. I watched the first 2 episodes and immediately decided to stop watching his LP and buy the game on Steam and play it through myself first. I've played through all 3 Sky games now, and am waiting for the Crossbell games to come. Meanwhile, time to catch up and binge on BigKlingy's Trails videos. Trails is now my favorite game series of all time.

I also indirectly discovered trails through music: short intro: I found an artist that covered Ys music, I then went to listen to the original and loved it then saw Ys 1&2 TurboGrafx, it was an awkward sensation at first when playing but I quickly got hooked as soon as I heard that music in the first dungeon and I surprisingly digged the gameplay after a while. I didn't think I could enjoy something so simple in concept this much. I then explored many other Ys games like Felghana and Origin. I then later in college found a game called Trails in the Sky on the PSP Go game store that was also made by Falcom and decided that I trusted the name and would give it a whirl. Normally I am easily turned off by turn based games but I gave it a shot and I actually got immediately hooked contrary to what most people experience first with this game. It didn't feel "slow" because I was getting invested in a game that was "genuine" more than any other game I ever played and I can thank mainly one name for that, Estelle Bright. It felt so great to have Estelle as a protagonist because she played so differently than the rest of the protagonists I was used to. She was far more easily relatable and grounded into reality. No offense to other awesome JRPG main characters like Lloyd Irving, but with every new protagonist trying to be even more epic than the last, Estelle was a breath of fresh air. And oh god...the emotional journey with her too and that ending.......that ending FOLLOWED BY THE MOST ATROCIOUSLY PAINFUL 4.5 YEARS OF WAIT TIME UNTIL THE LOCALIZATION OF THE NEXT GAME...suffice to say Estelle has endured the test of time and remains to this day my favorite main protagonist (though Olivier is my favorite character, his role in my love for Legend of Heroes wasn't as important). And to add to that main protagonist, I got introduced to so many interesting characters too that weren't limited to the main cast. The worldbuilding was truly godlike but I didn't expect a game would get me invested in the personal stories of small time characters like Nial and Dorothy who did genuinely play awesome roles in the story. They were really making me fall in love with the most inconspicuous characters out there, from an old fisherman, a bathhouse manager, even to the one bartender who only got 2 lines in the entire series just to react to Joshua's embarassment at Olivier's comments in their first encounter but god damn I loved that bartender that one time! Truly, this is a series where I don't just want to discover places, I want to discover people and their lives, and while locales are great, I think there's many more personal connections to be made with all the souls of these fictional characters than anything else could provide.

My history with Falcom and Trails as a whole was a little more scattered than I'd thought they were previously. I'd known the Trails name from watching someone stream Sky FC back around 2015, if I recall correctly, though I wasn't particularly familiar with the series or Falcom as a company back then. My first proper exposure wasn't until 2019. I was getting burned out on RPGs like the Megaten series and Final Fantasy, and asked a co-worker of mine who'd been well-versed in RPGs to give me a list of suggested RPGs he liked that were outside of those two franchises. Out of that list, Trails of Cold Steel happened to be on there, so I bought the first game on a whim. I definitely got into it the more I played, though I didn't get very far. It actually took me a much longer amount of time to beat due to my habit of playing multiple RPGs at one time. When I found out that Cold Steel was basically the middle of the series, I set out to return to the beginning and found Trails in the Sky FC. I emulated the PSP version first since I was unemployed at the time and didn't have the money to get the official version. I was definitely hooked at that point, and I loved the music, the characters, the combat, and the writing style. I decided to explore Falcom's games a little more at that time and found Ys, which I remembered seeing an ad for in an old gaming magazine around a decade prior to that. I think it was the release of Ys Seven, if I recall. I started the PSP version of the first Ys game, wondering if it would be turn-based like Trails since I was only really playing turn-based games at the time, but quickly realized it wasn't and dropped the game because I thought it wasn't for me. I don't remember what happened, but I decided to give it another try. The music in conjunction with the simplistic combat drew me in, and next thing I knew, I was hooked on Falcom's other flagship series. Eventually I was working again and could afford to get the official releases of the rest of the Sky trilogy, and even got the rest of the Cold Steel series, knowing I'd want to play them once I reached that point in the story. From there, I started going through the Trails games relatively quickly, sort of alternating between Sky and CS, and I at least familiarized myself with the Crossbell arc so I could play CS3. And now I can say I absolutely love this series, and I'm looking forward to playing Zero's official release when it comes out.

My Steam achievements and purchase history from last summer illustrates my moment. Chapter 3 of FC, I bought SC and 3rd. Blew through the game in less than a week. Also pre-ordered Zero for Switch at the end of SC. Currently on CS1 after playing the series nearly non-stop with just that few months between Zero and Azure (in which I played Ys Origin)

This really do be hitting close to home for a Trails video

Mine was the same as your story minus the trip to japan. The games I played where out of order too. Looking for a job, falling away from anime, and just no time to play jrpg's. I stumbled across trails of cold steel in my recommendation on steam. Bought it and haven't looked back. Once I finished the first two games I wanted more. I researched the game and found out there was more before it. So I went back to steam typed up "trails of" and found out I had already bought the first game. I quickly hit the install button and I was right back at home. Over the course of 2 month I had played all three games.

Damn... you've reignited that spark within me that was slowly dwindling. I went to Japan for half a year on a scholarship. You talking about Japan just made me realize how freaking much I miss that country. Jesus Christ. And yeah, game is cool too, I guess ;).

I'll probably get into the Trails series some day. For now, though, I've got my scarily large VN backlog and two years of uni to deal with, so I think it'll take a while.

I started about a few years ago.. I heard of Cold steel and saw some starting gameplay.. I was interested but it was about the same release date as persona 5 and.. I played nothing else for 130hrs.. everynight after work.. Later I remembered I downloaded Cs1 on psn and after the first chapter I was like wow.. This is a slow game.. but I persevered.. I started talking to every npc and realising they aren't random.. They have a place, a job, a name and a purpose in this world and changed with the passing of time.. It was the world building.. The intrigue of getting to know about not only your classmates, but their families, friends and environments.. That shaped them to this point.. and later how our experiences shaped them in later titles.. Even on the slow speed and 70hr playthrough.. I realised I loved this game.. and it has eclipsed an entire genre.. I'm now nearing the end of CSIV (after waiting to get the ltd ed.. for an ok price) and The entire series imo.. Is the best jrpg of the past 2 decades.. and can't wait to see what TLoH series holds in the future.. (I'm completing the liberl/bell arcs after steel.. in the wait for the new game(s) XD)

The first Trails Of Cold Steel game after the prologue did it for me. I loved the presentation & combat in it. The story seemed like it’d be great & it was.