In a world where Japanese publishers have finally started to embrace global simultaneous releases, and there’s no longer much stress over whether we’ll see niche role-playing games come to the West, one series remains woefully behind: Trails, also known as Kiseki, also known as the best JRPG series out there.

If you are wondering what the top-selling item on Steam is right now, beating out the likes of Battlegrounds and the Star Wars collection, wonder no further: it’s Trails in the Sky the 3rd, a PC-only JRPG that’s out today.

Trails in the Sky 3rd, the sequel to FC and SC, will be out for PC on May 3, publisher XSEED said today. They’re also bringing Cold Steel and Cold Steel II to PC in the future. For more on this convoluted, incredible RPG series, read this primer.

In the last couple of years, I’ve developed a strange relationship with JRPGs. I found myself tiring of their beautiful exteriors that lacked heart. Since writing that article about my growing frustrations, I took a break—distancing myself from the genre that dragged me into gaming. It was a necessary betrayal.

Well, this is unexpected. The next Trails in the Sky game is coming to North America, publisher XSEED said today. It’ll be out for PC in 2017.

Take a dash of Suikoden’s world-building, add some Grandia-style combat, stir it all in with the setting and social links of Persona, and bam, you’ve got Trails of Cold Steel, which comes out for PS3 and Vita today.

We’ve only got one day to finish Jason Schreier’s favorite JRPG and its recently released in North America sequel before The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel arrives. I just finished the first part of the first one. I think I can make it.

There have been many JRPGs released over the past five years, and many of them are great. Only one can be safely labeled the best.

I think this qualifies as a pretty good easter egg. It’s a hidden message in the PC version of Trails in the Sky SC, which came out last week after four and a half years of localization hell. Poor guys.

One day in March of last year, video game writer Andrew Dice wrote out a check for all of his company’s money. He stuck it in the doorframe at his business partner’s apartment in Portland, Oregon, then went back to his own place. (They live in the same complex.) He closed all the windows. Then, as he tells it, he laid…

There’s a new PSP game out today. To some people that might come as strange news, but to a certain circle, today has been eagerly anticipated for over four years: The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter (SC) is finally out.

Yesterday, the publisher XSEED tweeted a picture of pigs flying. Today it’s clear why: Trails in the Sky SC is actually coming out. NEXT WEEK. On October 29.

We’re just a week away from E3, and even if the big press conferences fail to deliver the JRPG goods we’re all craving, at least the smaller publishers have us covered.

If you read Random Encounters with any regularity, you have probably seen me obsess over The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, a wonderful role-playing game that came out for the PSP back in 2011.

There are a lot of big, highly-anticipated games coming out next year: Watch Dogs, Titanfall, Dragon Age Inquisition. But in certain circles, there's only one game worth counting down the days for: The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC.