The Legend of Heroes series.
I've been recently playing through this game series when it finally hit me. These games are totally Japanese version of the Baldur's Gate games. They are very story heavy both on the grand scale, between party members, and even random NPCs usually have some backstory. The party members also have much deeper stories than even those in BG2. So I decided I needed to post about them here where most active BG fans are these days. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nth9hrrORUs
Trailer for the PC release of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.
I personally started the series with Trails in the Sky which also begins the now 7 games long grand narrative (8th in the making). That is not to say that you don't get any resolution before playing them all. There are three main story arcs, Trails in the Sky (3 games), Crossbell (2 games), and Trails of Cold Steel (2+1 in deveploment). At the same time there are some things that progress and carry on between all the games in the series. The time the games are set in is a time of major political turmoil and industrial revolution.
Honestly though I won't bother trying to explain why these games do such a magnificent job at world building when someone else has already done it much better than I ever could:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaN2G-AEd9Q
Anyway I thought I'd post about these games here because they aren't too well known, and I'm 100% sure at least few of you would really enjoy them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nth9hrrORUsTrailer for the PC release of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.
I personally started the series with Trails in the Sky which also begins the now 7 games long grand narrative (8th in the making). That is not to say that you don't get any resolution before playing them all. There are three main story arcs, Trails in the Sky (3 games), Crossbell (2 games), and Trails of Cold Steel (2+1 in deveploment). At the same time there are some things that progress and carry on between all the games in the series. The time the games are set in is a time of major political turmoil and industrial revolution.
Honestly though I won't bother trying to explain why these games do such a magnificent job at world building when someone else has already done it much better than I ever could:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaN2G-AEd9QAnyway I thought I'd post about these games here because they aren't too well known, and I'm 100% sure at least few of you would really enjoy them.
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Comments
not many jrpgs have each npc's line of text change after every single plot point [ the only other rpgs i can think that do that is the lunar games.
i'm so hyped for the third coming out next year.
Also I agree with you that Trails in the Sky does starts slow and doesn't reveal its greatness right away. Which is actually other reason why it reminds me of BG1.
yeah the point where trails clicked with me was chapter 3. but to be fair most of fc is setting up the world and characters and the real meat does not begin till sc. as they were meant to be one huge game but were cut in half.
https://ko.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/영웅전설_III_하얀마녀
But lose interest since then
Didn't know already there are 7 released.
I played the Chinese translations in my childhood and honestly I didn't expect the games to be localized ever, but I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that FC and SC both had English translations. The localization is very faithful to the original text and some of the humor is arguably better in many places.
Minor stuff related to the 3rd:
They're both really good games, for sure, and TitS' insane amount of dialogue changes is a wonderful feature even if I can't imagine taking full advantage of it (so... much... walking). Cold Steel has a less expansive but still similar amount of character/world development, as almost everybody at the school has a name, unique model, and some little blurbs you can find out about them, and a goodly number have an ongoing subplot you can follow by paying attention.
It's also nice that they keep the anime tropes and fanservice down to a relatively low point.
That being said, I'm skeptical if they're going to appeal that much to people who just don't care for JRPGs. They're still JRPGs at the core - preset main character, linear plot, several character tropes, turn-based combat systems (of course, Baldur's Gate has that, but it doesn't look like it has that...). Still, can't disagree that the sheer amount of world-building bits and weird NPC sideplots is reminiscent of BG.
@Artemius_I does bring up something I've wanted to ask for years, though - what is so great about Falcom soundtracks? I'm not saying this to dis your tastes, or because I hate it, but because I've been hearing for nearly twenty years that Falcom soundtracks are all super-ridiculously-good, but TitS and ToCS are... not bad? Kinda there? Like, if I didn't know I was supposed to love them, I wouldn't even have noticed them - "Niceish standard RPG music, doesn't bother me, forgotten instantly once I stop playing the game".
It could just be that it's not to my tastes, but the acclaim for Falcom stuff is so universal that I can't help but feel I'm missing something (besides, I've occasionally liked other game soundtracks). My best guess in ToCS is that comparative to most games, there seems to be more BGM, with a bigger variety of instrument usage? That seems weak, though. Anyway, I'm just legitimately curious as to why you (or anyone) loved the soundtrack so much.
Anyways I'm with @Ayiekie in that I'd really like to know what is it in Falcom's compositions that move you so much.
It started really slowly and the characters fell completely in recognizable JPRG archetypes. There's something that caught my attention enough to not drop it immediately however and this will certainly sound silly: it's treasure chests. In this game, every time you activate a chest you just opened, you get a pithy comment making more or less fun of you, and it's different from every chest. Made me think "hey, that's some effort here so it'll probably be get good" and indeed, I'm glad I kept playing.
Overall there are a lot of cliches, enough to allow me to guess most of the plot twists pretty early and even the sudden reveal at the end wasn't exactly surprising. Still, this is what I would call "cliches done right" in that it was still enjoyable, and because the characters talk so damn much they slowly left a bit of their archetype mold behind. I understand the first game is more about world-building and the real meat starts now with the Second Chapter and I'm looking forward to it.
My biggest beef with the game would be how incredibly easy it is. Aside from two battles (the final boss and one late fight you are allowed to lose) I was never threatened in any way, making buffs and debuffs almost useless. There's a hard mode available once you finish the game but I'd rather start with SC for now.
Btw I stand on my previous comment about the soundtrack. There are maybe 3 songs I'll remember: the really creepy track playing in small villages, the battle music against generic rangers and the boss music against major antagonists. It doesn't hold a candle to the Atelier series or especially Ar Tonelico.
Anyways, I liked it. Going to play SC now and afaik there's a third one afterwards. Though it may be on the Vita, in which case I'm out of luck because I don't have one (unless I borrow my bf's I suppose).
Personally speaking, I was sold immediately (or rather, my intuition at picking up the game was rewarded) upon the realisation that the dumb, headstrong girl with the staff was actually the main character, not the generic-looking broody mysterious guy with a sword. For that alone (okay, and also that it was a good game), I'll go back and finish it and get its sequel at some point.
It'll definitely be for the Vita, though, they already said TiTS 2 would be their last PSP game. That being said, the Vita is an amazing pick up if you like Japanese games. Though not a cheap one, due to Sony's overpriced memory card shenanigans (protip: do NOT buy a 64gb card, they sometimes start crashing if they're over half-filled, due to a design flaw Sony's never seen fit to fix - other sizes are fine).
I was planning to eventually play it in Japanese if it happened to be delayed but it hasn't been so I just bought it
I am planning of getting it eventually. But I have to finish its prequels first.
I'll just get a refund from Steam to buy the GoG version instead. That's what I get for not doing research.
Still, it's near enough to a goddamn miracle that all three of them were actually translated.
Also I think Lechter is my new favorite character.