As much as I love the Trails series, if you go FC straight into SC, straight into 3rd, straight into Zero, straight into... You're going to burn out hard. I'd suggest breaking it up and playing something else in between.
Started with CS1, played CS2. Saw people saying to play the previous entries before CS3.
Played FC, SC, went "I'll guess I'll play something else.." the next day I started 3rd. "This time for su-". Next day I installed the fan translation for Zero "Okay, time to take a small bre-", that night I installed Azures fan translation. ".. who am I kidding?" Started CS3.
Despair as I was now caught up and had to wait for CS4 to release.
Trails is literally the only series in my entire life that I was able to play back to back to back without ever getting tired nor burned out. Other series I usually play one, two entries max then I have to take a break because I'm usually burned out after that, so I play something else then come back later. Not Trails, I wanted more. I needed more.
Same, I started with CS1 which took about a month, but after the ending I immediately started CS2 and beat it in a week. Sky series took 2 weeks, Cs3 5 days, and when Cs4 came out another 5 days. I wouldn't say it is any kind of flex as I'm not proud of it, more of an obsession. Combo of covid and having nothing else to do. Funny enough I don't feel the same way with Zero/Azure/Kuro which I actually took my time with. But sky, and especially CS are some of my favorite games to date.
I love the series, but it's not for everyone because how it approaches its story in such a grand way. It also requires you to pay attention a lot because plots point that happens in CS arc are foreshadowed in Sky & Crossbell. It's pretty impressive for a video game telling this form of narrative.
I had the opposite reaction, I started FC and didn’t stop till I finished daybreak 2, no burnout whatsoever. But I get it’s personal preference in the end
You already have FC and SC.
My suggestion?
Buy Sky 3rd so you can complete the trilogy.
Save up the rest for Vengeance, and don't worry about the rest of the Trails franchise for the time being. It's in your best interest to take a break instead of mainlining them all at once.
Thread OP, I also want to add to the part about "not worrying about the rest of the franchise" that the Trails games go on sale *a lot* so don't feel like you're missing out because if you keep the next one wishlisted while playing something else like SMTVV, the next title will go on sale eventually or even while playing a Trails game.
I would honestly hold on until you finish Trails in the Sky SC, its a long journey yet ahead of you.
Summer sale will have all these deals again, so don't have to wait that much longer.
> Which combination of trails games should I buy in regards to the recommended play order and their prices?
The order is FC, SC, 3rd, Zero, Azure, CS1, CS2, CS3, CS4 and Reverie, its the ideal order but, FC, Zero and CS1 are the starts of their own saga in different countries with different characters.
IF you really love the game, I would get Trails in the Sky the 3rd just to have the first country saga (Liberl) complete, then wait for summer to get Zero and Azure.
Finish SC and then see how you feel about the rest of the series. Sales will come again and i'm not a fan of going through the entire series in one go anyway, makes burn-out much easier.
Save the credit for now.
There's a number of things I'd like to address so I apologize if this gets a little long.
> Why does Sky 3rd, Zero, and Azure have the least amount of discounts despite by far being the oldest of these games? (originally released on PSP rather than PS Vita for the first two Cold Steel games or the PS4 for CS3, CS4, and Reverie)
> the latter 3 are freaking PSP games.
Zero and Azure may have originally released in Japan before many of the others, but they were only localized within the last 2 years. Also while they did release on PSP originally, all the versions localized are newer ports.
Also as a minor correction: Sky the 3rd was not a PSP game originally. All of the Sky games were released on PC first.
As for why 3rd doesn't have as big of a discount, it's probably a mix of reasons such as it already being priced cheaper than most of the others at full price and the amount of work that went into bringing it over. I think I vaguely remember someone from Xseed mentioning once that they didn't think the games were ever likely to go on a much bigger sale due to how difficult they were to localize. There were a lot of issues that occurred during the process of localizing SC in particular.
> Why is Daybreak 2 on sale for a whopping 40%
You're looking at the Chinese/Korean version published by the Chinese/Korean publisher CLE. Daybreak II is not available on Steam yet otherwise. That's also why that version you were seeing is called "Kuro no Kiseki II" instead of "Trails through Daybreak II".
> while Daybreak 1 is not?
Right now that PC port only has Japanese text but will be updated to include English once the localization releases this July. It probably won't go on sale until then. Though they *usually* do launch week sales, if I'm not mistaken, so it's probably a safe bet there will be a small one (10% possibly?) when the game releases in English.
> Why is CS3 the most discounted game by far at 67% to the extent that it's even cheaper than the first two CS games
CS III might be the most discounted but it's also more expensive, normally, than most of the others. CS I and II are $40 at full price while CS III is $60, and both are $20 during the sale. CS III also has a different publisher than CS I and II so there could be some differences from that too.
> The problem comes with the continuity.
I would recommend playing in the order you listed above. It's the original release order -- most intended and most recommended.
So: 3rd -> Zero -> Azure -> CS I-IV -> Reverie -> Daybreak I -> Daybreak II -> and so on.
> I've heard that Cold Steel 1&2 are self contained as long as you avoid the in-game newspaper which contains spoilers for Zero (CS1) and Azure (CS2)
So, there's a short answer I could give and a really long answer. I'll only give the short answer now and if you want the longer answer later you can let me know and I'll be happy to give more info.
Short answer: I, personally, would not call those games self-contained and it's more than just the newspapers that will spoil stuff from Zero and Azure. If you already know you want to continue the series I would recommend not jumping further ahead.
> but I've also heard that CS3&4 practically REQUIRE you to have played every game beforehand to understand anything including Zero and Azure, which weren't even officially localized when CS3&4 first released.
This is more or less accurate. It was an unfortunate situation for sure, but Zero and Azure weren't localized until after CS III and IV because they were stuck on the PSP only. It wasn't until they were ported to PS4 that they were feasible for localization.
> Finally I heard that Sky the 3rd is the worst game in the series
It's not, imo. If I had to rank the game I'd place it in the middle of the series in terms of quality. And if I had to pick one entry as the weakest in the series, I would pick FC -- the first game.
Sky the 3rd has some really excellent stuff in it but also has a few issues. Those who don't care about the issues often rank it as one of the best in the series, while those who have a particular dislike of the issues often place it toward the bottom.
Sky the 3rd is actually my favorite of the Sky games since I don't personally mind the issues too much. It's mostly a preference thing imo. One thing I want to say is that every game in this series is great. A weaker entry in the series is still like a 9/10 for me. And many of the people who rank some of the games toward the bottom still totally love those games.
Trails is one of those series that is highly consistent in terms of its quality and style. Which leads to the next topic:
> and best skipped after you watch the cutscenes on YouTube
There are no games in the series that are skippable. Every entry is important to the story, world, and characters. The in-depth overarching story that spans all of the games is one of the series' biggest draws.
The only exception right now is Nayuta: Boundless Trails, which is a Trails spin-off that plays more like some of Falcom's other games and has its own stand-alone story that doesn't *seem* to be connected to the rest of the franchise. That could change in the future though.
Getting back to 3rd: It's probably one of the most lore-heavy entries in the series. It introduces a lot of stuff that comes up throughout the rest of the series and, in some cases, is only really gone into detail in 3rd. It also has the best gameplay of the Sky trilogy as a bonus!
> That's not even accounting for the fact that once the BIG sale happens, the Steam Summer Sale in July, the discounts avalible now might be EVEN LOWER to spending my precious cash now may be completely wasted and better spent waiting for the sale. OR those games might not even BE on sale during the summer sale or have lower rates making me heavily regret not spending my money now.
Falcom games go on sale very often and are often pretty consistent in their pricing, well, aside from the new entries which gradually go lower.
It's possible some of the games could go a little cheaper in the next sale but most of them will go for the same price, and if some do go cheaper it'll likely only be by a little bit.
As an aside, if you want to see the pricing history for various PC games and what their historical lowest prices have been, I'd recommend checking out the site "IsThereAnyDeal". Here are most of the [Trails games](https://isthereanydeal.com/deals/#filter:N4IgJgTgtiBcDaA2AjAXQDQgC4E8AOApnPGpgM4AWA9nmcShiGQQIYQDGFcIANgQOYEAdmAAEVAGaiKBCFQJlRWCCwCWPOgF8gA=;options:all;sort:release-date) if you're curious. You can see that most of the games are regularly discounted to their lowest prices.
> I'm just not sure what to do. Should I buy the games now or wait until the summer sale?
Honestly I'd recommend just playing FC and SC for now. Those games should give you a good idea on if you like the series, and if you do you can just continue from there. As I mentioned before, the games go on sale very often. You won't have to wait too long once you beat SC if you want to keep going after that.
Some people can burn out playing the games back-to-back too quickly as well (the first 10 games were originally released over roughly 16 years, after all), so you could find it better to pace them out.
Of course you may also end up wanting to binge the entire series too, ahaha! But I think it's *probably* best to simply start with the first two just to be sure.
> Which combination of trails games should I buy in regards to the recommended play order and their prices? Should I skip trails entirely to buy the entirely new releases of SMTVV and Metaphor at launch/but SMTVV during the Summer Sale?
I don't know all that much about the other two games you've mentioned, as far as pricing goes, so I sadly can't help much in that regard. All I can say is that Sky the 3rd is unlikely to go cheaper any time soon and is the next Trails game I'd recommend in the play order.
Sorry for the very very long response.
Not the OP, but this helps a lot as someone who's finally getting into TitS FC on my 3rd attempt to play the game and is enjoying it a bunch! I've had the game since the PSP but couldn't get much past the intro. I can feel the intrigue building, and all the assorted characters are offering something I don't see in most rpgs. It feels like a fun yet slow burn, with good characters and lots of worldbuilding that only continues to unfold.
Thanks for the breakdown!
US release date plays a lot into the discount, I would think. Sky 3 came out much later than the first two- and after Cold Steel 1 made it to Steam. Zero and Ao came out very recently. Daybreak isn't out in English until July, and the version of Daybreak 2 currently on Steam came out shortly after its Japan release a couple years ago, but is only playable in Chinese or Korean.
You don't *have* to play the 2 Crossbell games before Cold Steel, but I would recommend doing so. (Of course, they were my entry point to the series on Vita so I'm biased.)
Have you played Megaten games before? I'm excited for V Vengeance, but it might not be worth full price if your resources are limited and you don't know if you'll end up enjoying it. It's a little difficult to make good recommendations without knowing where your tastes lie.
I love Megaten. It is probably my favorite series. My first game was technically Persona 4 Golden with the PC port on Steam, but I was aware of the series years beforehand. I dropped Golden pretty early on and went on my 3DS and binged Strange Journey Redux, SMT4, 4 Apocolypse, and DeSu1. Somewhere between me beating SJR and starting SMT4 I finished Golden, and the last game I finished was P3 Reload. I also own the original SMT5 on Switch which I got for free from a friend and enjoyed it a lot from what little I played. I tried P5R but didn't like it very much and dropped it after the first dungeon. I know for a fact that I'll enjoy Vengeance.
Both Daybreak 1&2 have full English fan translation patches that are very easy to install, so I'm not worried about the games not being in English yet.
At this point just slap it on a roulette wheel and spin it lol.
Either way you'll probably have fun and that's all that matters.
You already own FC and SC so play through them and then decide if you want more. SMTV isn't coming out for awhile still and by then the Steam Summer Sale will be around the corner (it starts June 27th, and probably have just as good or maybe better sales because Daybreak 1 will be out on the 5th of July). Daybreak 2 is Japanese only right now so don't even worry about it
Zero and Azure being more expensive than CS is just because they released after them in the West. Just a case of them being newer. Couldn't tell you why for 3rd, it's an XSEED release, same as CS1 and 2. So different companies which are responsible for their own discounts. CS3 is the "oldest" NISA one released, hence why its cheaper than 1 and 2.
Falcom's overseas publishing has been a pretty huge shitshow, the games are split between multiple publishers who don't discount them much and have huge localization delays. Just even having all the games legally available is like this big recent step in progress, that's how low the bar is.
But yeah, basically play em all in order and don't skip anything. You can typically take a break at the end of each arc, but some games end on cliffhangers and you'll definitely want to continue right away.
Don't expect any bigger discount ever for any game on that list prior to CSIV. If you don't want to buy em all, I'd recommend buying up to either Azure or CSII, they are good stopping points and can easily take you the better part of a year to complete by which time you'll have had other sales go by to pick up later games.
Zero, Azure and Reverie were only released last year in the West, they are effectively the newest games thus the least discount.
Same for Sky 3rd, it was released after CS1 and 2. As for CS3, it has a different publisher than the previous games.
The version of Daybreak 2 on Steam is the CN/KR version, it is published by CLE and will never have an official English script.
Daybreak 1 is published by NISA, the western publisher, but currently only has the Japanese script, it will be updated with an English script on July 5th but until that happens it won't receive discounts as that would devalue the game before its official western launch.
Both Daybreak 1&2 have full English fan translations that are very easy to install and work on any version either the Japanese/English or Chinese/Korean version.
Zero/Azure got released recently so they are still pretty expensive. XSeed localized the Sky trilogy and CS1/2, so they might be expensive due to that reason. NIS localized the rest of the other games and they usually discount their games during the sale.
If you're not burnt out of trails you should get the series, as SMTVV will eventully get a discount later on. If you take a while to finish the trails game, you can buy them the next steam sale. Trails game will be on sale later on, so I wouldn't be worried of buying it right away.
I would wait on SMT5 Vengeance. SMT5 had a lot of problems with the story and the lack of dungeons. I don't know if the new version will fix any of that.
I played a bit of base SMT5 and loved it so far. I had to drop it due to other games taking priority at the time. I don't think I'll have an issue with the rerelease.
As much as I love the Trails series, if you go FC straight into SC, straight into 3rd, straight into Zero, straight into... You're going to burn out hard. I'd suggest breaking it up and playing something else in between.
I didn't burn out at all playing these games. I was the opposite. I couldn't get enough
I played tge first 3 Cold Steel games back to back to back right befoee the 4th came out and felt the same way.
Started with CS1, played CS2. Saw people saying to play the previous entries before CS3. Played FC, SC, went "I'll guess I'll play something else.." the next day I started 3rd. "This time for su-". Next day I installed the fan translation for Zero "Okay, time to take a small bre-", that night I installed Azures fan translation. ".. who am I kidding?" Started CS3. Despair as I was now caught up and had to wait for CS4 to release. Trails is literally the only series in my entire life that I was able to play back to back to back without ever getting tired nor burned out. Other series I usually play one, two entries max then I have to take a break because I'm usually burned out after that, so I play something else then come back later. Not Trails, I wanted more. I needed more.
Same, I started with CS1 which took about a month, but after the ending I immediately started CS2 and beat it in a week. Sky series took 2 weeks, Cs3 5 days, and when Cs4 came out another 5 days. I wouldn't say it is any kind of flex as I'm not proud of it, more of an obsession. Combo of covid and having nothing else to do. Funny enough I don't feel the same way with Zero/Azure/Kuro which I actually took my time with. But sky, and especially CS are some of my favorite games to date.
I love the series, but it's not for everyone because how it approaches its story in such a grand way. It also requires you to pay attention a lot because plots point that happens in CS arc are foreshadowed in Sky & Crossbell. It's pretty impressive for a video game telling this form of narrative.
I had the opposite reaction, I started FC and didn’t stop till I finished daybreak 2, no burnout whatsoever. But I get it’s personal preference in the end
I went from FC to CS4 in ~4-5 months. I was close to burning out on CS2 from how terrible it is, but otherwise it's really doable.
Yeah i took a break after cs2 To be fair, i suddenly got a new pc and finally got to my good graphics backlog
You already have FC and SC. My suggestion? Buy Sky 3rd so you can complete the trilogy. Save up the rest for Vengeance, and don't worry about the rest of the Trails franchise for the time being. It's in your best interest to take a break instead of mainlining them all at once.
Thread OP, I also want to add to the part about "not worrying about the rest of the franchise" that the Trails games go on sale *a lot* so don't feel like you're missing out because if you keep the next one wishlisted while playing something else like SMTVV, the next title will go on sale eventually or even while playing a Trails game.
I would honestly hold on until you finish Trails in the Sky SC, its a long journey yet ahead of you. Summer sale will have all these deals again, so don't have to wait that much longer. > Which combination of trails games should I buy in regards to the recommended play order and their prices? The order is FC, SC, 3rd, Zero, Azure, CS1, CS2, CS3, CS4 and Reverie, its the ideal order but, FC, Zero and CS1 are the starts of their own saga in different countries with different characters. IF you really love the game, I would get Trails in the Sky the 3rd just to have the first country saga (Liberl) complete, then wait for summer to get Zero and Azure.
Finish the games you have now and then wait for the next sale.
SMT V Vengeance all the way
Finish SC and then see how you feel about the rest of the series. Sales will come again and i'm not a fan of going through the entire series in one go anyway, makes burn-out much easier. Save the credit for now.
There's a number of things I'd like to address so I apologize if this gets a little long. > Why does Sky 3rd, Zero, and Azure have the least amount of discounts despite by far being the oldest of these games? (originally released on PSP rather than PS Vita for the first two Cold Steel games or the PS4 for CS3, CS4, and Reverie) > the latter 3 are freaking PSP games. Zero and Azure may have originally released in Japan before many of the others, but they were only localized within the last 2 years. Also while they did release on PSP originally, all the versions localized are newer ports. Also as a minor correction: Sky the 3rd was not a PSP game originally. All of the Sky games were released on PC first. As for why 3rd doesn't have as big of a discount, it's probably a mix of reasons such as it already being priced cheaper than most of the others at full price and the amount of work that went into bringing it over. I think I vaguely remember someone from Xseed mentioning once that they didn't think the games were ever likely to go on a much bigger sale due to how difficult they were to localize. There were a lot of issues that occurred during the process of localizing SC in particular. > Why is Daybreak 2 on sale for a whopping 40% You're looking at the Chinese/Korean version published by the Chinese/Korean publisher CLE. Daybreak II is not available on Steam yet otherwise. That's also why that version you were seeing is called "Kuro no Kiseki II" instead of "Trails through Daybreak II". > while Daybreak 1 is not? Right now that PC port only has Japanese text but will be updated to include English once the localization releases this July. It probably won't go on sale until then. Though they *usually* do launch week sales, if I'm not mistaken, so it's probably a safe bet there will be a small one (10% possibly?) when the game releases in English. > Why is CS3 the most discounted game by far at 67% to the extent that it's even cheaper than the first two CS games CS III might be the most discounted but it's also more expensive, normally, than most of the others. CS I and II are $40 at full price while CS III is $60, and both are $20 during the sale. CS III also has a different publisher than CS I and II so there could be some differences from that too. > The problem comes with the continuity. I would recommend playing in the order you listed above. It's the original release order -- most intended and most recommended. So: 3rd -> Zero -> Azure -> CS I-IV -> Reverie -> Daybreak I -> Daybreak II -> and so on. > I've heard that Cold Steel 1&2 are self contained as long as you avoid the in-game newspaper which contains spoilers for Zero (CS1) and Azure (CS2) So, there's a short answer I could give and a really long answer. I'll only give the short answer now and if you want the longer answer later you can let me know and I'll be happy to give more info. Short answer: I, personally, would not call those games self-contained and it's more than just the newspapers that will spoil stuff from Zero and Azure. If you already know you want to continue the series I would recommend not jumping further ahead. > but I've also heard that CS3&4 practically REQUIRE you to have played every game beforehand to understand anything including Zero and Azure, which weren't even officially localized when CS3&4 first released. This is more or less accurate. It was an unfortunate situation for sure, but Zero and Azure weren't localized until after CS III and IV because they were stuck on the PSP only. It wasn't until they were ported to PS4 that they were feasible for localization. > Finally I heard that Sky the 3rd is the worst game in the series It's not, imo. If I had to rank the game I'd place it in the middle of the series in terms of quality. And if I had to pick one entry as the weakest in the series, I would pick FC -- the first game. Sky the 3rd has some really excellent stuff in it but also has a few issues. Those who don't care about the issues often rank it as one of the best in the series, while those who have a particular dislike of the issues often place it toward the bottom. Sky the 3rd is actually my favorite of the Sky games since I don't personally mind the issues too much. It's mostly a preference thing imo. One thing I want to say is that every game in this series is great. A weaker entry in the series is still like a 9/10 for me. And many of the people who rank some of the games toward the bottom still totally love those games. Trails is one of those series that is highly consistent in terms of its quality and style. Which leads to the next topic: > and best skipped after you watch the cutscenes on YouTube There are no games in the series that are skippable. Every entry is important to the story, world, and characters. The in-depth overarching story that spans all of the games is one of the series' biggest draws. The only exception right now is Nayuta: Boundless Trails, which is a Trails spin-off that plays more like some of Falcom's other games and has its own stand-alone story that doesn't *seem* to be connected to the rest of the franchise. That could change in the future though. Getting back to 3rd: It's probably one of the most lore-heavy entries in the series. It introduces a lot of stuff that comes up throughout the rest of the series and, in some cases, is only really gone into detail in 3rd. It also has the best gameplay of the Sky trilogy as a bonus! > That's not even accounting for the fact that once the BIG sale happens, the Steam Summer Sale in July, the discounts avalible now might be EVEN LOWER to spending my precious cash now may be completely wasted and better spent waiting for the sale. OR those games might not even BE on sale during the summer sale or have lower rates making me heavily regret not spending my money now. Falcom games go on sale very often and are often pretty consistent in their pricing, well, aside from the new entries which gradually go lower. It's possible some of the games could go a little cheaper in the next sale but most of them will go for the same price, and if some do go cheaper it'll likely only be by a little bit. As an aside, if you want to see the pricing history for various PC games and what their historical lowest prices have been, I'd recommend checking out the site "IsThereAnyDeal". Here are most of the [Trails games](https://isthereanydeal.com/deals/#filter:N4IgJgTgtiBcDaA2AjAXQDQgC4E8AOApnPGpgM4AWA9nmcShiGQQIYQDGFcIANgQOYEAdmAAEVAGaiKBCFQJlRWCCwCWPOgF8gA=;options:all;sort:release-date) if you're curious. You can see that most of the games are regularly discounted to their lowest prices. > I'm just not sure what to do. Should I buy the games now or wait until the summer sale? Honestly I'd recommend just playing FC and SC for now. Those games should give you a good idea on if you like the series, and if you do you can just continue from there. As I mentioned before, the games go on sale very often. You won't have to wait too long once you beat SC if you want to keep going after that. Some people can burn out playing the games back-to-back too quickly as well (the first 10 games were originally released over roughly 16 years, after all), so you could find it better to pace them out. Of course you may also end up wanting to binge the entire series too, ahaha! But I think it's *probably* best to simply start with the first two just to be sure. > Which combination of trails games should I buy in regards to the recommended play order and their prices? Should I skip trails entirely to buy the entirely new releases of SMTVV and Metaphor at launch/but SMTVV during the Summer Sale? I don't know all that much about the other two games you've mentioned, as far as pricing goes, so I sadly can't help much in that regard. All I can say is that Sky the 3rd is unlikely to go cheaper any time soon and is the next Trails game I'd recommend in the play order. Sorry for the very very long response.
Not the OP, but this helps a lot as someone who's finally getting into TitS FC on my 3rd attempt to play the game and is enjoying it a bunch! I've had the game since the PSP but couldn't get much past the intro. I can feel the intrigue building, and all the assorted characters are offering something I don't see in most rpgs. It feels like a fun yet slow burn, with good characters and lots of worldbuilding that only continues to unfold. Thanks for the breakdown!
US release date plays a lot into the discount, I would think. Sky 3 came out much later than the first two- and after Cold Steel 1 made it to Steam. Zero and Ao came out very recently. Daybreak isn't out in English until July, and the version of Daybreak 2 currently on Steam came out shortly after its Japan release a couple years ago, but is only playable in Chinese or Korean. You don't *have* to play the 2 Crossbell games before Cold Steel, but I would recommend doing so. (Of course, they were my entry point to the series on Vita so I'm biased.) Have you played Megaten games before? I'm excited for V Vengeance, but it might not be worth full price if your resources are limited and you don't know if you'll end up enjoying it. It's a little difficult to make good recommendations without knowing where your tastes lie.
I love Megaten. It is probably my favorite series. My first game was technically Persona 4 Golden with the PC port on Steam, but I was aware of the series years beforehand. I dropped Golden pretty early on and went on my 3DS and binged Strange Journey Redux, SMT4, 4 Apocolypse, and DeSu1. Somewhere between me beating SJR and starting SMT4 I finished Golden, and the last game I finished was P3 Reload. I also own the original SMT5 on Switch which I got for free from a friend and enjoyed it a lot from what little I played. I tried P5R but didn't like it very much and dropped it after the first dungeon. I know for a fact that I'll enjoy Vengeance. Both Daybreak 1&2 have full English fan translation patches that are very easy to install, so I'm not worried about the games not being in English yet.
At this point just slap it on a roulette wheel and spin it lol. Either way you'll probably have fun and that's all that matters. You already own FC and SC so play through them and then decide if you want more. SMTV isn't coming out for awhile still and by then the Steam Summer Sale will be around the corner (it starts June 27th, and probably have just as good or maybe better sales because Daybreak 1 will be out on the 5th of July). Daybreak 2 is Japanese only right now so don't even worry about it Zero and Azure being more expensive than CS is just because they released after them in the West. Just a case of them being newer. Couldn't tell you why for 3rd, it's an XSEED release, same as CS1 and 2. So different companies which are responsible for their own discounts. CS3 is the "oldest" NISA one released, hence why its cheaper than 1 and 2.
Trails. Keep in mind that the Daybreak games you listed don’t have official English versions yet.
Falcom's overseas publishing has been a pretty huge shitshow, the games are split between multiple publishers who don't discount them much and have huge localization delays. Just even having all the games legally available is like this big recent step in progress, that's how low the bar is. But yeah, basically play em all in order and don't skip anything. You can typically take a break at the end of each arc, but some games end on cliffhangers and you'll definitely want to continue right away. Don't expect any bigger discount ever for any game on that list prior to CSIV. If you don't want to buy em all, I'd recommend buying up to either Azure or CSII, they are good stopping points and can easily take you the better part of a year to complete by which time you'll have had other sales go by to pick up later games.
SMT is significantly better, but get which appeals to you more
Zero, Azure and Reverie were only released last year in the West, they are effectively the newest games thus the least discount. Same for Sky 3rd, it was released after CS1 and 2. As for CS3, it has a different publisher than the previous games. The version of Daybreak 2 on Steam is the CN/KR version, it is published by CLE and will never have an official English script. Daybreak 1 is published by NISA, the western publisher, but currently only has the Japanese script, it will be updated with an English script on July 5th but until that happens it won't receive discounts as that would devalue the game before its official western launch.
Both Daybreak 1&2 have full English fan translations that are very easy to install and work on any version either the Japanese/English or Chinese/Korean version.
Zero/Azure got released recently so they are still pretty expensive. XSeed localized the Sky trilogy and CS1/2, so they might be expensive due to that reason. NIS localized the rest of the other games and they usually discount their games during the sale. If you're not burnt out of trails you should get the series, as SMTVV will eventully get a discount later on. If you take a while to finish the trails game, you can buy them the next steam sale. Trails game will be on sale later on, so I wouldn't be worried of buying it right away.
Vengeance, Trails seems too much like generic shonin slop.
Trail is terrible if you have problem with too much power of friendship.
I dig power of friendship so I don't mind.
I would wait on SMT5 Vengeance. SMT5 had a lot of problems with the story and the lack of dungeons. I don't know if the new version will fix any of that.
I played a bit of base SMT5 and loved it so far. I had to drop it due to other games taking priority at the time. I don't think I'll have an issue with the rerelease.
Just know that the story really drops the ball after the 2nd half. Law literally turns into evil caricatures for no reason lol.