Alright not to get on my soapbox further but the Trails series is pretty much the anti-Rance, pretty unsurprising since both take a lot from Suikoden and the big ensemble casts manga that inspired Suikoden, yet Trails has ended up being less inventive than the porn game series. I'm not sure Trails has a moral high ground to stand on either, considering 1) the siscon and loli fetishism, which even Rance didn't stand for and 2) the unironic all-encompassing harem Rean assembles. At least Rance's harem ranges from genuine affection to Stockholm Syndrome to rape fantasies to Johnny Bravo ironies, Rean's harem ranges from "you fixed my life's problems, will you fuck me?" to "you're my step-brother, will you fuck me?".

There's also the fact that every entry in this series is like a 50+ hour investment, of which often only half or so of those hours are substantially saying anything or engaging combat systems in any new way. The finale of these things are often these great, grandiose segments in which Shit Blows Up Everywhere Forever, and I often wonder what's going in the writer's room where Trails can't just be like this all the time. There's ways in which you can keep the sort of small-town vibes of the early parts of these games and also not bore me to tears.