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Ys: The Oath in Felghana on Steam. A remake of the 3rd game.
Ys: Memories of Celceta on Steam. A remake of the 4th game, set chronologically before the 3rd.
Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand Not on Steam, Just Japanese PS2 (or fan-translated SNES).
Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim on Steam.
Ys Origin on Steam. Prequel to the entire Ys series set 700 years before Ys 1.
Ys Seven on Steam.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana on Steam.
Ys IX on Steam.
what I don't get is why steam hasn't put together a bundle/batch discount, even if it's something like -5% the existence of it would allow them to place the games in order and make the relation more apparent
The story order puts Origin first, yeah, then I and II, but after that it's a little out of order relative to the numbering. But I think Seven, VIII, and IX are the latest in story order. However, each of the stories is designed to be standalone (except Ys II) anyway.
Origin and I&II end up basically just referencing each other in various ways, so you'd be "missing something" no matter which order you play in, but it's also just fine because you're not expected to know all of the series lore before playing stuff. (This isn't the Trails series, after all!)
If you want to see the artistic evolution of the series, you may be interested in playing in release order of the now-"canonical" releases, which means starting with Ys I&II and then playing Ark, Oath, and Origin (these three all use the same engine), and then turn to Memories, Seven, VIII (Lacrimosa of Dana), and IX (Monstrum Nox).
FYI all these "modern" versions or new games are available on GOG (DRM-free), Humble Store (DRM-free + Steam key), and Steam (technically also DRM-free, just no standalone installer). You can check all of them to see when they're on sale. I think there's a big sale on Humble Store going on right now, actually, and I know I saw some XSEED games on sale there.
No official canon remake of this exists yet.
and wait... it's part of a larger Legend of Heroes franchise including Dragon Slayer...
and naturally Steam doesn't bundle ANY of this so I need to research on wikipedia to figure out priorities and entry points
This is probably more important than I'm imagining, I've been trying to use my -15% on Humble but I've only built that via three months at half-price and was thinking of cancelling unless there was some SUPER good freebies on month 4.
GOG stuff is probably fine and it's prob a good idea to spread out your content in launchers, so GOG aside from it's launcher/downloader also just has website URLs for DDLs which Steam won't provide?
Like, the Trails series is a sub-series within Legend of Heroes, which is a sub-series within Dragon Slayer. But, as far as understanding story elements, you don't need to know, say, Dragon Slayer, in order to understand Trails in the Sky.
Frankly, Trails in the Sky can be regarded as the first game in an entirely new series of games, the Trails series. Sure, it's technically The Legend of Heroes VI, but no one really cares. And I think Falcom stopped caring about the numbering at some point too.
If you want to know the artistic lineage, then, sure, you might be interested to know that Legend of Heroes III, IV, and V (which unfortunately got some bad localization jobs) are their artistic predecessors, with various design elements like having one connected world (and thus world lore) spanning multiple games.
There are some YouTube videos covering this, and if you're interested in this trivia you may want to watch stuff like these two videos. Warning, there may be spoilers. I forget if there are any in these videos. (If you're worried about Trails series spoilers, then just don't watch the second video...?)
Or, you can just ask people; people will willingly describe to you how things are related. With or without spoilers, per your request.
But yeah, bottom line is, there's Dragon Slayer, and The Legend of Heroes is a series spun off of that, and Trails is a series spun off of that.
Xanadu is also a series spun off of Dragon Slayer, but those games only get one released every ten years, with the latest one being Tokyo Xanadu in 2015.
Now, within the Trails series, that's another story. Everything is related.
So far there's a Trails in the Sky trilogy, a Trails from Zero/Trails to Azure duology, a Trails of Cold Steel tetralogy, and the lastest one called Kuro no Kiseki (Trails in the Dark, I guess), along with a few unrelated spinoffs. Best place to start for the whole Trails series is the original Trails in the Sky, and the PC version is probably the most recommended version.
Yes, GOG lets you download installers straight from your account's list of games on their website. These installers are DRM-free.
The launcher, GOG Galaxy, is also (unlike Steam) an optional launcher. Like, you can use it to download games but not use it to launch them. Or use it to launch games but download them separately. You can also add other games (from other platforms or even individually) to Galaxy and use it as a launcher for them too.
And Galaxy also lets you add your Steam Library, which it can launch by just calling Steam to launch the game for you. (Though obviously this means having both launchers running.)
Incidentally, there's a big GOG sale that just started today, too. So you also have that choice now.
FYI, Humble Store has games that have a little "DRM free" icon on them, and for those you will also get access to standalone installers. Not all Humble Store games have this.
FWIW, some XSEED-published Falcom games used to have DRM, but that DRM has since been removed (based on what I've tested and based on what XSEED programmer Sara has mentioned on the Steam forums). Nowadays XSEED-published Falcom games should be exactly the same game files between GOG, Humble, and Steam versions. I think they even all come with Galaxy and Steam integration too, so it's possible for one version to trigger achievements for the other platform, in case you own the games on both GOG and Steam and have the launcher clients running. (I've had that happen to me!)
Some more recent Falcom games have been published by NIS America. NISA-published games are offered DRM-free (complete with installers) on GOG, but not on Humble (they just give a Steam key, and I don't know whether the Steam versions have DRM or whether they're the same as on GOG, since I haven't bought any of them yet).
(There's also a couple oddball Falcom games published by other publishers -- Gurumin (via Mastiff), and Tokyo Xanadu (via Aksys). Both are available DRM-free on GOG, and are also on Steam, but I don't know whether their GOG and Steam versions are the same.)
(Also, praise Falcom for their unusually strong commitment (among Japanese developers) to offering games DRM-free!)
Whew! That was a mouthful. Well, you shouldn't be afraid of reading if you're gonna get into the Trails games, so...