It is a Ys game not a trails game. The main character is almost Adol and I think the story follows the (French) Legend of Ys more closely than any of the Ys-labeled games. It is a game where Falcom tried out a bunch of new ideas, some of which they tweaked a bit into the new style Ys games (Seven, Memories, VIII).

I liked the story and the game in general. There were a couple of things that I found annoying, the pseudo-3d thing (four fixed rotations) wasn't too bad but not really that good either and frustratingly they changed the buttons so that the button that starts a conversation also ends it rather than selecting the menu item or continuing. The button issue prevented me from playing it again more recently but I did enjoy the game when I played it earlier and would still recommend it. I think Falcom made good choices about what to keep so would personally say the later Ys games are better.

Ark was the last of the old style Ys games (or middle style, since the bump attack of the first two was also different) and of those Oath and Origin are harder IMO (I didn't play V that doesn't have an official English translation). I'd say Origin has a bit more in-depth story and Oath the least in-depth story. My strongest memory of the game is first thing after you wake up on the island you are supposed to go attack some super cute creatures :( (though not according to the story, just what the game wants you to do). There are a few harder to reach items in Ark.

My suggestion is to try Origin first and if you like that style also play Oath and Ark and if not skip them (Origin is the only one where you play multple characters through the same story and Yunica's mechanics are almost identical to Adol's in Oath and IIRC Ark is not much different).

In terms of the Ys series, Origin, Ys I & II, and Memories would give a good overview of the styles. The two Zwei games and Gurumin are similar, with Zwei II the best of those (I also like Gurumin, it is quite cute). If you think you might be interested in playing the full Trails series then Tokyo Xanadu or Ys VIII would give more of a sense of the trails-style story without the potential spoilers of jumping to Cold Steel (some people say it is fine to play the first two Cold Steel before the earlier Trails games while others say it is better to play in order), although with different mechanics. And Trails in the Sky is nice so that is also a good place to start :).

Ok, that sounds a bit like "everything", so:
-Trails games are more story oriented than the rest and turn-based, although Tokyo Xanadu and Ys VIII are also story heavy
-Ys story order is Origin, I&II, Memories, Oath, (V), VIII, Ark, Seven (however spoilers are very minimal); Origin, Oath, and Ark are harder than the rest
-Trails order is Sky, Crossbell games (fan translation only), Cold Steel (well, release order, I think in world everything but the last two Cold Steel games take place at the same time)
-Don't start with Arges, but Zwei II or Gurumin are good and often overlooked, also more difficult than Trails games or the newer Ys games
-Maybe don't start with Xanadu Next since it has some annoyances that the others lack
-If you want to jump into the most modern ones, Ys VIII or Cold Steel might be good choices or Tokyo Xanadu to avoid any spoilers

Ark actually came out first, then Oath, then Origin.

The last game to use the bump attack system, I believe, was one of the classic Ys IV games (there are two, not counting Memories which came much later).

Ys III: Wanderers of Ys is interesting for being the only side-scroller in the series (and I note that Oath is really an entirely different game, to the point where describing it as a remake of Wanderers doesn't really make sense to me).

Story order is Origin, Oath, Ark, not that it makes that much difference (there are spoilers for V in Ark and a brief mention of one minor bit of Memories and IIRC I&II, but I can't recall any of those three directly referencing the others). And all three were released in a three year period, so it makes sense that they are very similar. Although there are also potential benefits to playing release order in general (however, of those three the help text is best in Origin :) ), although I'd recommend story order. (I finally get what you are saying, that Origin is the last of the old style not Ark... maybe that is why they did the three characters thing in Origin).

Thanks for the info on the classic versions. I'll also mention that IMO Ys II more than Ys I hit the core feel of the Ys series (by adding magic as well as direct attacks) and has some great stuff like being able to turn into a roo and talk with the monsters (who occasionally have really funny things to say or hints). So anyone who is meh on Ys I might want to push through into Ys II. Ys II also had even more of a maze than Ys I, so a walkthrough can be handy to speed things up.

Ys II also has better boss design, but that's not hard given how Ys I's bosses, particularly that one bat boss (if you've played to that point, you know *exactly* which boss I'm talking about), are.

(That bat boss appears again in Ys Origin, but the Ys Origin fight is *much* better, to the point where it feels reasonably well designed, unlike the fight in Ys I.)

Thanks for the suggestions!

I guess that Trails in the Sky might be a good place to start with the Trails series. Origins seems to be a prequel to Ys I and II?. Also I see there are options if I feel like I want to suffer with a higher difficulty :-) Thank you!

Origins is indeed a prequel, but given the release order, it's actually intended that you play it after you play 1 and 2. In particular, you'll appreciate Origins more if you do it in the order, especially seeing all the references, including familiar bosses with new tricks, and even some musical references.

With that said, I should warn you that Ys I has some awful boss design, with one boss in particular that has a tendency to drive players batty (which I may have already mentioned before in the thread). Fortunately, Falcom got better at boss fights as the series went on.

Also, at lesat for the Naphistim engine games (including Oath and Origins) the easiest difficulty setting can sometimes be *too* easy, unless you decide to impose restrictions like foregoing armor upgrades. (I don't recommend skipping weapon upgrades, as then boss fights take too long to be fun, but skipping armor keeps the boss fights short while making them dangerous.)

(Also, note that the Ys games are action games, not RPGs, and this is especially apparent in boss fights, which are all about dodging the enemy's attacks and finding openings to safely attack the boss; this is unlike RPG bosses where determining when to heal and use support spells is a large part of the strategy.)

Thank you for the advice. Also about Ys being an action game. I heartily agree with playing titles (and reading books) in their writing/publishing order.

Is it possible to turn off the in-game music in these jrpgs ?

I agree with that in general too; however, for Ys games in particular, it really doesn't matter (other than for Ys 1 & Ys 2 only, in which 2 should be played after one...although if you skip them both, then that's no big deal) what order you play them in, or what games you skip or not.

They are totally standalone games and you really aren't missing anything at all if you skip games and/or play them in a different order than how they were released.

In contrast, the Trails games are the opposite of that. In those games, they are not standalone, and playing in the Japanese release order is extremely important in those cases. And the separate sub-serieses of those games are also sequential in their continuity, with the later games continuing the stories that started in the earlier ones. For example, the Trails of Cold Steel series continues stories from both the Sky series, and also the Crossbell series too.

Yes, Trails in the Sky is a good place to start with the Trails series, and in fact, it's the best place to start by far. Otherwise, if you were to play the later games first, then you'd both be missing tons of context and background information necessary to understand the full nuances for many of the conversations, but also the later games heavily spoil many of the major plot points & characters' secrets from the earlier ones.

Hence if you were to start at a later game and then go back to the earlier ones afterwards, then a lot of the fun would be ruined, because the big plot twists wouldn't have their intended emotional impact on you, since you already knew those outcomes were coming and the intended element of shock & surprise won't be there.

Yes it is. They have an Option in the "sound" sub-section of the options screen which is called "BGM" and it has a volume slider. You can drag that all the way down to zero, and once you do that, then the game won't be playing any background music any more.

After reading the thread, I decided to buy The legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky and Ys 1 + Ys2. Thanks to everyone who commented on the timeline for these games. I hope to be able to buy the sequels over time :)

I think the main advantage of release order is being less likely to be frustrated by playing the improved mechanics before the later improved form (and improved bosses in Origin). Origin before I seems fine to me, although I only played Yunica before moving on after taking quite a while to make it through Origin once. Either way you play them it is neat to see what they did with the location and bosses (almost like a remake in some ways but also a quite different game). After I&II I played Memories then got stuck fairly quickly on Oath, finished all three stories in Origin, replayed I&II, and still got stuck on Oath even with a walkthrough until I restarted on easy (and even that is a non-trivial challenge later in the game :/ ).

There is a trick to the bat boss in Ys I, although it isn't fully reliable (and I'm bad at all the bosses so it doesn't seem that bad :/). IIRC, I didn't have unusual difficulty after realizing I needed some equipment. That is one important thing for people new to the series to rememeber, if you are doing almost no damage to the boss then that means you need to find some equipment (and I think with the bat boss it might be less obvious than usual that you need other equipment). The boss I really remember in Ys I was the last one, who is the only one I had quite a lot of difficulty with on hard on my second playthrough (but did manage eventually!).

Also, if anyone playing on older systems starts getting crashes in Origin (you don't loose much progress at all), check the forum for a link to a utility that twiddles a magic bit that makes it work (not sure why they don't ship it that way :/ ). Otherwise, if you are like me you end up with a 100% reliable crash after defeating the last boss but before seeing the final bit of story :/. I didn't have trouble on my newer game system (might be related to having integrated GPU, or just old integrated GPU).

Related trick: If you want to stop playing and are not near a save point, try forcing the game to crash, through something like task manager (or sending the game a signal if you're using WINE). The game makes a back-up save just in case of a crash, and by forcing the crash, you can force the game to let you load this save instead of starting from the last save point.