If Final Fantasy VII is The Beatles, then Trails in the Sky is The Velvet Underground.
FFVII sold millions on day one—PlayStation kids got their big, shiny JRPG and Square never looked back.
Trails, though? It slipped onto PC with barely a sound.
FFVII was instant mass appeal. Everyone played it, everyone talked about it, and then the industry moved on.
Trails built something slower, denser, and people who touched it carried it forward. Now it’s impossible to talk about story-driven JRPGs without bringing up Falcom’s saga.
FFVII is the obvious landmark JRPG. But Trails in the Sky is the one that grew underground until you couldn’t ignore it anymore.
I enjoyed the first titles (borderline incest aside) but I was sad when they switched the visual style and then stopped playing. But I remember how I immediately went for the second game after finishing the first.
Maybe someday they’ll do a 2D pixel version of the newer games like they did a 3D rerelease of the first :)
