memo

fellers never heard of a mmorpg

Thank you! Pretty much everything suggested, I've added; I knew about CrossCode, yet completely forgot about it.

Thank you! Indeed, Trails in the Sky has been on my backlog for a while and for good reason, from what I hear. I remember looking at screenshots for the subsequent series like Trails of Cold Steel and generally it was a turnoff starting from the art/design direction.

In this regard, I think that Persona 5's success in recent years is both a blessing and a curse: blessing, because it showed how JRPGs don't have to be action oriented to be beautiful; curse because Atlus surely realized, already back with Persona 4, that the high school setting somehow seemed successful, thus somehow suggesting to the industry that it is a good model to follow.

Oh, I just looked at a wiki for the upcoming game (already out in JP) Trails Through Daybreak and it seems like the cast is at least balanced between teenagers and adults! I'm more than okay with this if written nicely and without creepy/disturbing tropes.

This! I mean, if we take a well-known and loved example, Goku is 18 by the time the first Dragon Ball series ends up, while being around 23 at the start of Dragon Ball Z. Also, I don't think it's bad to have a teenager as the main character once in a while, but we have to admit that it happens a little too often and in dubious way in japanese media in general. That's because this whole thing sadly has a market, and it's ever-expanding too, as @Wugger@lemmy.world said.

Fair question! After I grew up to around 21/22 years old, I felt like I had a harder time resonating with young teens in JRPGs: coming of age stories can be a bit.. dull at times, it's common in JRPGs to take someone quite immature and make them grow up as they save the world; more often than not there's also either awkward/creepy tropes in many of those that make the game and the characters much less appealing or straight up uncomfortable to me.

I guess I would genuinely prefer to spend my time on media starring adults while still remaining in the genre of JRPGs.

Yeah, 3 is moody but I think that makes for more meaningful social links sometimes. Tbh they are all different enough and imo this is why they're all decent

This. It even has a built-in CRT filter if you're into that. You can definitely feel the inspiration from Silent Hill/Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Dead Space, and even some Evangelion in its artistic direction.

All the numbered personas are independent from each other. There are some games that are basically fan-servicey crossovers (Persona 4 Arena, Persona Q), so I recommend starting with either 3(Portable), 4(Golden) or 5(Royal). You can pick just one and go!

Depending on how you're feeling:

• Persona 3 has an amazing moody vibe to it: I'm sadly afraid it'll be a little toned down in the remake in favor of something more akin to P5. It can be grindy, but you can play it on easy if you can't be bothered. Maybe it's because it's the first one I played, but I still deem it my absolute favorite of the tree.
• Persona 4 is something of an in-between, but a banger nonetheless. It's a game in which the usually upbeat soundtrack is placed in direct contrast to a mysterious foggy countryside town.
• Persona 5 is, in terms of gameplay and fluidity, the absolute best. I highly suggest you NOT to start here simply because after you get used to the gameplay of P5, dealing with P3/P4 will be slightly harder imo; those are still highly relevant to play nonetheless: they all have very different stories, very different characters, some may be for you while others may be not. For me, P5's story tried to be so grand that it failed in delivering the same "personal connection" that the player could feel with P3/P4. Or maybe I grew out of highschool settings by the time P5 came around, who knows.