I think there might be a small misunderstanding. I wasn’t saying they’re one company—just noting the influence they both still carry today. However you look at it, Square Enix are the caretakers of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, much like how Bandai Namco continue to carry Pac-Man forward.

Instead of focusing on the negatives, why not celebrate what these games have meant to so many of us? Their impact is still worth appreciating.

Again, what other series is comparable? 12 games, multiple but interlocking arcs, developed over decades.

If there’s one that I don’t know about, tell me.

Notice I wrote in present tense, not past tense. Square Enix are one company now.

You’re missing why Trails matters.

This isn’t about “a lot of games.” It’s about building something no other JRPG studio has ever pulled off—a single, continuous saga that’s been unfolding since Trails in the Sky in 2004.

No resets, no reboots, no discarded lore. Every event, faction, and character connects across a dozen titles. That kind of long-form narrative discipline doesn’t exist anywhere else in the genre.

And don’t minimize how hard that is. Most JRPG studios can barely keep one trilogy coherent. Falcom has been weaving one uninterrupted storyline for over twenty years—through console generations and shifting hardware.

Holding a narrative together across decades isn’t just impressive, it’s almost impossible. Doing this wasn’t just because of luck. It’s taken discipline, patience, and vision on a scale no other studio has matched.

Influence is easy to trace. XSEED’s Trails in the Sky localization raised the bar for how seriously Western publishers approach text-heavy JRPGs. At the time, bringing over a game with hundreds of thousands of lines of dialogue was considered unworkable. They did it, and it set a precedent for the kind of effort fans now expect from localizations.

Falcom also helped legitimize PC as a JRPG platform in the West—back when most people dismissed the genre as “console only.”

And if you look at modern RPGs built around serialized storytelling and grounded politics—Disco Elysium, Baldur’s Gate 3, even the way Persona 5 structures its arcs—you can see Falcom’s fingerprints everywhere.

Critics agree. RPG Site flat out said this about the remake of Trails in the Sky FC:

If you’re here strictly for the magical number, here it is: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter remake is a 10/10. What’s more, it’s the easiest 10/10 I’ve ever given.”

rpgsite.net/…/18452-trails-in-the-sky-1st-chapter…

And the numbers back it up. Trails in the Sky sits at Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam with a 93% approval rating from thousands of reviews. Recent reviews are even better—96% positive.

store.steampowered.com/app/251150/The/…/_Sky/

Rather than burning energy on outrage, put that time into actually playing more games. You’ll get more out of them—and you’re better than just dismissing something this significant.

When I try to edit, there’s an error message that says “Network Error”. That error is preventing me from making an edit.

The technical merits mattered when it launched. Do they matter now? Not at all. Otherwise FFVII would’ve gone the way of Battle Arena Toshinden—big splash at the time, forgotten in the long run.

What gives FFVII its staying power is the art. That’s why we play games. Not for specs. For creativity.

And this is where FFVII and Trails meet: at the rarefied height of JRPG artistry. The pinnacle. God-tier.

Auto-correct changed “glam” to “glamour”, and now lemmy.world won’t let me make the edit.

Anyway, here’s my further opportunity to say that The Beatles changed the world by being everywhere. The Velvet Underground changed the world by changing the people who mattered next.

And if this motivates you to go listen to the Velvet Underground, then I’m jealous—because I wish I could hear the VU for the first time all over again.

If it’s bananas, tell me why.

Thank you for succinctly explaining why Trails in the Sky is such an artistic achievement.