Sky Reflects on His Favorite Game Franchises - The Second Half (Megami Tensei, Trails, & Dragon Quest)

 

Part one predominantly focused on the franchises that I got into at a young age. They’re the ones that have been in my mental sphere the longest and my more formulative experiences growing up. This week, we’re focusing on the series I discovered in my teenage years and onwards, which are all JRPGs. JRPGs have defined the later half of my gaming career, and while I haven’t touched absolutely every series out there, I have played enough to have a good understanding of the different flavors of the genre I’m looking for that the next three series provide for me. These franchises are Megami Tensei, the Trails series, and Dragon Quest. I haven’t only played the franchises listed here and have favorites from other series such as Final Fantasy and Xenoblade, but as a collective whole I can always rely on the three we'll discuss here to get me through tough life experiences with a good time.

Megami Tensei:

I got into anime around the end of 2014, when I watched the 2011 version of Hunter x Hunter for the first time. I didn’t finish the anime at the time (I have now and it’s peak) but it left enough of an impression on me for me to explore other stuff. Eventually, in either 2015 or 2016, I’d come across a video talking about Persona 4 The Animation and decided to give it a go. I don’t remember much of my first watch through of the anime, or if I even finished it, but I remember just how endearing I found everything about it. The small town of Inaba, the Investigation Team, the hijinks, the stellar English dub; everything about that original P4 anime was captivating. Of course, you’d think that the number 4 being in the title would make me think “Huh, maybe there’s a 3 or 2”, but no, I went on with my life never considering that there could be more to this series. Even if I didn’t know it at the time however, this would be my first interaction with what’s probably my favorite JRPG franchise. 

The Ever Iconic Persona 5

I’d heard a decent bit about Persona 5 around the time of its initial launch and eventually recognized that P4 was part of a larger game series. In 2018 P5 went on sale for $20, which was the lowest it had ever been up to that point. I bought the game and took my first steps into the Megami Tensei franchise proper. What really is there to say about P5 that hasn’t already been said honestly? Almost 10 years on, people still laude so many aspects of the game from its combat to its UI design to its cast. Arguably the single most significant JRPG released in the modern age, most people who are in the know when it comes to video games have probably heard of Persona 5 at some point. I quite liked my original playthrough of the game, and remember how surreal it was to play a game from the franchises proper after having technically known about it for years, though I haven’t touched the game myself since that playthrough. I also have yet to get the enhanced re-release Persona 5 Royal. I think P5 stands tall in the realm of JRPGs, though I personally won't return to it anytime soon.

Incredibly Important Atlus Release

From there, I’d start up Persona 3 FES around 2019. When I first completed P3FES, I held it up as my favorite JRPG of all time. I loved what the game had to say about life and death and thought S.E.E.S was a phenomenal cast. Plus, it had blue color theming and blue is my favorite color. However, as time went on that sentiment would begin to waver. I didn’t suddenly hate the game, I think it was just a case of work just not really sticking with me as the years went on. Eventually, a certain duology of games I’ll discuss later on soundly usurped that position and have kept a much stronger hold on it. Persona 3 is a game I still very much enjoy however, a fact that was reinforced when I played Persona 3 Reload on its initial release in 2024. I’d like to do a separate write up on at some point, to really sort out how I feel about both it and its remake. As time goes on and I think about my feelings on P3R, I feel that it encapsulates many of the positives and negatives I feel towards the Persona portion of the franchise. A discussion for another day.

Some of the Best Turn-Based Combat Ever

Up to this point, my experience with the Megami Tensei franchise was locked to specifically Persona. However, the release of Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne HD and Shin Megami Tensei V in 2021 would allow me to break out of that bubble to give the wider series of games a shot. I remember SMT Nocturne being a great time. It sports one of the most visually distinct art styles of any JRPG to date, and the dungeon crawling and battle system strike an excellent balance between difficult and fair. The Nocturne HD Remaster leaves a lot to be desired quality-wise, since it suffers from many visual and performance issues, but the fact that I was able to see the game's charms in spite of the remasters quality is a testament to the quality that was there in the first place. SMTV was a game I jived with a lot during my first playthrough, with its iteration of the press turn system being my favorite form of turn-based combat ever, though time away from it ended up making me more privy to the games flaws, particularly with the narrative. I wouldn’t revisit the game until the end of last year, where I picked up Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance during the Steam Winter Sale, and it promptly became one of my absolute video games. Improvements to the game's narrative with the Canon of Vengeance combined with small but impactful tweaks to the exploration and combat revitalized my love for the game. 2024 was a monumental year for Atlus, and SMTV Vengeance stands as my personal highlight from them. In fact I’m constantly debating on if Vengeance has become my favorite Atlus game period.

I could go on about other entries in the franchise such as Shin Megami Tensei IV and Devil Survivor, but what I’ve already discussed are my formulative titles so I think I’ll leave it at that for now. I love this franchise. Something about Megami Tensei just sets it apart from the rest in so many ways. The aesthetic, demon fusion, press-turn; all of these aspects just come together to create a series of games you can’t just get anywhere else. I’ll always be grateful for discovering the P4 anime that fateful day, because what it led me to is something invaluable to me.

Trails (Kiseki):

The year is 2021. I’ve graduated high school and am beginning to prepare to enter college. I hadn’t had a personal laptop in years, but seeing as it would be essential for coursework I went and brought one. For the first time in years I had access to Steam again, and could finally play a lot of games that I simply didn’t have access to. One such series was Trails. I had heard about the series in passing, but quickly had my hopes of playing the series dashed upon learning that the Trails in the Sky trilogy, the ideal starting point, was PC only. I didn’t want to hop in with Trails of Cold Steel because I'd be missing out on a large chunk of the series without a PC. Now that I had a laptop things were different. During the Steam Winter Sale that year, I bought Trails in the Sky FC intending to play it as my first game of 2022. That plan wouldn’t go through however, as my mom lent the PS4 and DualShock controller to a family friend, so the game I was actually going through at the time was essentially locked out. After I discovered that Sky FC has really good mouse and keyboard support, it became my main focus for the rest of 2021 into 2022.

        

The Beginning of a Long and Expansive Journey

Sky FC is very much a predominantly “slice-of-life” JRPG, despite the insurrection plot building in the background. Estelle and Joshua Bright spend most of the game getting their bearings for the land of Liberal, exploring most of what it has to offer as a way for both them and the player to become acclimated to the setting. And to its credit, this works in the games favor for the most part. I found FC’s more mundane nature really enjoyable, and I think spending time participating in school plays and going on mini-picnics really gets you comfortable with Liberal before the plot really gets crazy towards the end. Nowadays, Sky FC is on the lower end of my Trails totem pole, but I still remember my time with the game fondly. I’d be remiss not to mention FC’s iconic cliffhanger. One that I would argue is one of the strongest in the genre and immediately had me gunning to play Trails in the Sky SC.

I brought Sky SC with birthday money from my dad, and I remember just marathoning that game front to back. I absolutely needed to know how things would continue from FC, and SC mostly delivered. Had you asked me about Sky SC at the end of my SC playthrough about my opinions on the game, I’d have told you that it’s absolutely one of the peaks of the JRPG genre. I love the Liberal group and I thought it had a rock solid narrative upon completion. Nowadays however, my opinion on the game isn’t as high. Don’t get me wrong, Sky SC has some stellar moments, but as time passed and I really sat down to think about the game, I noticed how many little things piled up against it in my mind. I think the game doesn’t really carry the energy and momentum of FC’s cliffhanger long enough in the opening hours. It obviously can't carry that energy for the entire game, but I feel the brakes were put on a bit too fast for me. Plus, I felt that the game's middle portion meandered a bit and I distinctly recall in the back of my mind wondering when the plot was really going to pick back up. Pacing in video games will always be a personal preference subject first and foremost, and I personally feel that SC takes just a bit too long to get to where I wanted it to be. Despite my grievances, I still found myself enamored with the series, and I was hooked upon clearing Sky SC.

        

My Personal Favorite of the Sky Trilogy

To avoid burning out on the series, I decide against jumping straight into Trails in the Sky The Third upon clearing Sky SC. I opted to wait until the summer to play it. I wouldn't start Sky 3rd until July that year. I had heard that this entry was significantly different in structure compared to the first two Sky entries, being more of a set up game for future entries with a higher emphasis on combat. Admittedly, I was worried about this going into the game. While I didn’t hate it, Sky’s combat system wasn’t really the most impressive thing ever to me, so the decision to place more focus on it left me worried that Sky 3rd would feel like a chore to get through. Did my worries turn out to be justified? Absolutely not. Not only is Sky 3rd my favorite of the Sky trilogy, it stands with the next two entries in the franchise as a sort of "Holy Trinity of Quality" for Trails in my eyes. Sky 3rd provides Kevin Graham, originally introduced in Sky SC, with one of  the most stellar stories in the series while also providing crumbs for future storylines. The door system as a way to deliver bits and pieces of both lore and foreshadowing for the future worked really well in the games favor, giving the player a way to expand their knowledge at their own leisure and keeping the pace of the main plot steady. While my opinion of Sky SC wavered as time passed, my opinion on Sky 3rd remains just as it was when I first beat it. An absolutely stellar game.

The First Half of a Special Duology

The final stop on my Trails journey in 2022 would be with the Crossbell duology, Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. Anyone who knows me knows that this duology makes for my favorite JRPG experience ever. The narrative, the setting, the cast, the soundtrack; Falcom fired on all cylinders for these games in my eyes, and the result is a high I’ve been chasing since I first put Azure down. One day, I’d love to commit to a dedicated write up on this duology and elaborate on my feelings towards it, so I won’t go into full detail now. Just know that this duology means the world to me, and I haven’t ever stopped thinking about it since completion. The Trails of Cold Steel quadrilogy was a multi-year long endeavor that I actually just wrapped up at the end of last year, and to no ones surprise, it was also an experience I mostly enjoyed. The games were longer on average, so I decided to take my time with them as opposed to marathoning all four back to back.

As of writing this piece, I have a copy of Trails into Reverie with my name on it ready and waiting. An entry I’m eager to sink my teeth into, seeing as I’ve heard it’s a celebratory epilogue to the Crossbell and Cold Steel arcs with some of the series most addictive and flexible combat. Nearly 5 years since I’ve begun this journey and I’ve finally hit what seems like a major milestone for the series. Fitting that I should hit it just as I’m in my own transitional period out of college. Trails, while not perfect,  has provided me with some of the most well-crafted and memorable experiences I’ve had in gaming. I don’t regret the hundreds of hours I’ve poured into the series as a whole, and I’ll keep it close to my heart for as long as I can.

Dragon Quest:

The latest franchise to enter this list, Dragon Quest wasn’t something I ever really paid much attention to until 2024. When I first got my Nintendo Switch back at the end of 2020, I sampled the demo for Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age since I heard it was quite lengthy, but I never made it far and left thinking that the franchise wasn’t for me. So what renewed my interest? There were 2 main reasons. Firstly, a youtuber I watch called SomecallmeJohnny had uploaded a review of the Nintendo DS port of Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride and I remember really loving how the game looked. I am an absolute sucker for pixel art, and DQV had an amazing visual style in my eyes. The second, and more tragic reason, was the passing of Akira Toriyama in 2024. Dragon Ball had been with me all my life since my earliest years, and Toriyama’s death devastated me. I wanted to expand my familiarity of his works outside of DB, and being as big on JRPGs as I am, Dragon Quest was the obvious go to (aside from Chrono Trigger). Thus, I dedicated April of 2024 to playing through Dragon Quest V.

Life's Never Easy for Our Man in Purple

Dragon Quest V was the biggest surprise hit for me in recent memory. For a 30+ year old game, it stands as one of the most unique experiences I've had with JRPGs. The way the game explores its themes of family, struggle, and growing up allow for it to have one of the strongest coming-of-age narratives I’ve ever seen. We follow the MC throughout every major point in his life. We see the death of his father, his escape from enslavement, his marriage, his reunion with his children, all of it. One of my most memorable experiences in recent memory, and the start of what would become an incredibly strong passion within me. When I have the time, I'd love to return to DQV and reexperience all that it had to offer.

Art for a Remake of One of The Most Influential Video Games Period

Later that year, Dragon Quest III: HD-2D Remake would release after being initially revealed in 2021. I had a passing interest in this remake since its original announcement, but since it had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth for a while after that original reveal, the game remained nothing more than a passing interest. With the game’s re-reveal in a Nintendo Direct, the reveal that the first two games were being remade alongside it, and my playthrough of DQV still fresh on my mind, my excitement went through the roof. I picked up the game at launch, and marathoned it as much as I could. At the time I was in the middle of one of my final college semesters, so I couldn’t dedicate all of my time to it, but I played as much as I could with any free time I had. DQIII needs no introduction to anyone familiar with the JRPG genre. The game is the culmination of the lessons Yuji Horii, the main director of the series, and his team had learned from creating the first two DQ games. The result is a genuinely timeless game. DQIII isn’t complicated by any means, but its plot, world, and gameplay are so fun and charming that quite literally every JRPG since borrowed from it in some way. A formulative game for the genre, and one that I loved to experience. It was almost a mini-history lesson of where a lot of the genre’s traditional conventions started. This basically cemented the fact that I’d become a lifelong fan from that point on.

We then fast forward to today. I’ve completed both Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, Dragon Quest XI, and Dragon Quest I&II HD-2D Remake in 2025. I've also recently played and thoroughly loved the demo for Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, which is absolutely the most exciting release of the year for me. DQ has been the gift that keeps on giving for me since I first sat down with DQV almost 2 years ago. I love this series. One of the oldest JRPG franchise around, yet many of its entries are some of the most unique experiences I’ve ever had in gaming. I deeply look forward to the future of the series, especially with the 40th anniversary on the way. There’s no doubt in my mind that my admiration for the franchise will only continue to grow.

Conclusion:

While the series I’ve discussed here today and last time aren’t the only ones I love, they are the ones I hold the most near and dear to my heart. Everyday of my life, I become more aware of how they've changed my life. Sonic the Hedgehog led me to my longest lasting online friend group, people who I hold near and dear to my heart and still chat with regularly. Often, I return to The Legend of Zelda at least once a year during the autumn season. The combat of the Megami Tensei franchise, specifically SMTV: Vengeance has a choke hold on me. The Crossbell duology of Trails stands as one of my favorite fictional works period. And most recently, Dragon Quest brought a sense of wonder into my life that I've desperately needed as of late.

Video games are the biggest constant of my life. I often find myself leaning on them during the tougher points of my life (which seem to be increasing with age). They are my absolute favorite medium, providing a level of interactivity and engagement that I simply can’t find anywhere else. Amongst the plethora of different series and experience within the medium, these six franchises are the ones that have spoken to me the most. I treasure all of my memories and connections to them and wouldn’t trade it for the world. Now and in the future, I hope to continue to hold all of them close to my heart.