Mishelam
An elaborate deconstruction of the original Dragon Quest that's based around a joke ending, and a really fun game on top of that.
It improves on Dragon Quest Builders in the same way that Dragon Quest II improved on the original Dragon Quest (the addition of party members, a greater emphasis on stories and character interactions instead of pure exploration, etc.) but man did it run terribly on Switch.
It's the best unfinished game you'll ever play.
Fodlan was surprisingly fleshed out, especially considering the world that Fates took place in doesn't even have a name. The school sections were a little slow and I didn't like how Part 1 was basically the same for each house, but it was still a great game.
A way better combination of Warriors gameplay and RPG progression than Persona 5 Strikers or either of the DQ Heroes games.
2017
Pretty fun, but way too many characters shared movesets with each other. The fact that four of the nine DLC characters were just clones of characters in the base game should show how bad it is.
Runs poorly even by Warriors standards, but each character is actually unique and the Divine Beast battles are surprisingly fun.
If I'm Sisyphus, this game is my rock. I got close to completing every Adventure Mode map on Wii U when Legends was announced for 3DS, so I got it and started from 0. Then I was about halfway through Legends when Definitive Edition was announced for the Switch, so I stopped playing Legends, got Definitive Editon, and started over from 0. I've only made it through the original Master Quest map in the four years since this version came out because I keep getting distracted by other musous, but one day I'll sit down and finally complete it. The game is a real love letter to the Zelda series, from recreating locations from Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, Skyward Sword, and Wind Waker as maps for the classic 1 vs 1000 combat of a Warriors game to letting you play the Ocarina on loading screens, it's clear that everyone who worked on the game loved the series. Even after eight years, two rereleases, and countless hours of playing, this game still manages to make me feel that love of Zelda that the developers had. Also you can play as a giant Cucco.
This game really needed a Critical Mode update. The extra options for difficulty that Square included don't make the tracks harder, just more annoying to play.
Playing this on Hard was a mistake.
It's interesting to see a bunch of the Trails series' tropes (characters holding back, the party getting bailed out by a sudden arrival, etc.) kind of just pop up here after they were mostly absent from FC, while not being nearly as obnoxious as they would get in the Cold Steel games.
A great sendoff for the Liberl arc and a surprisingly fun dungeon crawler with plenty of options for how you want to build your party. I HOLD IN MY HAND THE CHALICE OF HEAVEN and SAKURA MORNING MOON are permanently burned into my mind.
This review contains spoilers
This was actually my first Trails game, and although my opinion of it has definitely soured after playing the Liberl and Crossbell games, it's still one hell of a journey.
This review contains spoilers
This is the game where Rean stops holding back except not really. The Erebonian Civil War is pretty cool but there really aren't enough long-term consequences of it for the rest of the series.
This review contains spoilers
Cold Steel III is probably my favorite game in the Erebonia arc. The new Class VII is much smaller than the Class VII of the first two games, so they actually get time to develop as characters. Rean's hesitancy to rely on power despite his desire to protect those he cares about is a much more interesting dynamic for a teacher than a student, making him a more interesting character in III and IV than he was in the first two games. The fishing system from I and II was better than the one Falcom made for this game, though.