The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak Review

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak Review

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is the latest entry in the incredible and incredibly niche Trails series, and the first in the new Calvard arc. It is a dense series packed with intricate plot, worldbuilding, and characterization details.

Trails happens to be my favorite niche JRPG franchise, so I knew I would love this game. The real question was, ‘can I recommend Trails through Daybreak to gamers who don’t enjoy 40-minute cutscenes about a fantasy world’s economy?’ To my relief, the answer is yes.

Business is booming in the Calvard Republic, and Van Arkride is in the thick of it. He’s known as Spriggan, a problem-solver who will take cases that can’t be brought to the cops or more upstanding troubleshooters. Jobs so close to illegal that the cops hate him.

One day, a student named Agnès Claudel approaches him with a job to find her grandfather’s stolen piece of magical technology, an Orbment. Things go awry when Van’s suspect ends up dead. Now the missing Orbment and seven others are in the wind, and every faction in Calvard is looking for them. As Van grumpily teams up with a variety of people whose lives have been altered by these relics, his own past comes back to haunt him.

Agnès’ quest to find the eight Genesis Orbments her grandfather left behind is far bigger than it appears. If they aren’t recovered in time, the world as Van knows it may end. He’ll need connections on all sides of Calvard’s underworld to make it through. With monsters, criminals, and politicians stoking fear and corruption in Calvard, Van must stop running from his demons and fight. Even if that means becoming a monster himself.

I Hope You Like Fantasy Noir

Trails through Daybreak is something of a fantasy noir story. Van is constantly getting in trouble with the police and calling in favors with Calvard’s seedy underbelly. And he splits his time between fighting monsters and hunting down Almata, a criminal organization that seeks to plunge Calvard into an age of terror.

This game takes on issues of culture clash, xenophobia, and the horrors that a campaign of fear can bring. It’s as much about the issues of modernizing life as it is about fighting monsters and malicious organizations. The characters have their roots in standard noir and JRPG archetypes, but each puts their own twist on the formula. And the tone can be quite dark.

There’s plenty of cheesy JRPG sincerity to go around, but there’s also a relentless cynicism to Van’s story. People die, systems are untrustworthy, and a brutal gang war is brewing. But Trails through Daybreak is about plunging through the long night to reach the dawn. Even if Van’s life falls apart, he will keep going.

As usual, this is a long game that is packed with optional content. And it’s full of lengthy cutscenes. Despite that, I genuinely think Trails through Daybreak has a solid opening pace in the early chapters. It’s still a slow-moving JRPG, but the constant infodumps that plague previous games have been cut back or made optional. I can happily say that Trails through Daybreak is a good way to get into the Trails series and a good game for long-time fans.

Trails through Daybreak has More Combat Customization Than Ever

Trails through Daybreak combines the series’ trademark action RPG gameplay with a choice between a Command Battle system and a Field Battle system. You can get away without burning valuable resources in real-time Field Battles. However, a proper conflict means turn-based Command Battles with a focus on careful positioning and managing turn order. You can switch between modes to gain an advantage in combat and unleash a variety of skills in either mode, though mostly in Command Battles.

Switching modes was pretty cool and added an extra strategic element to lengthy dungeons. However, combat can be kind of noisy. The game seems to think it needs to remind you of your recommended options every few seconds. This would be more annoying if there weren’t so many options that I did need reminding sometimes. Also, the battle camera sometimes got stuck behind a wall or at a weird angle, which was not fun for me at all.

Field Battles got pretty repetitive fairly quickly, but they don’t take long. And if they start to overstay their welcome, I just switched to turn-based combat as soon as I had an advantage. In contrast, the turn-based mechanics are fascinatingly layered. After a while, I started viewing the field battles as just another part of the turn-based battle system rather than a separate mode.

I like the quick travel system, where you can choose which part of a given location to start at. This is great, especially since the hub area of Edith, Calvard’s capital city, is pretty big. I found myself constantly turning on High-Speed Mode to travel and then switching it off for cutscenes.

Darkest Before the Dawn

Trails through Daybreak is as focused on its setting as it is on its characters. Edith, the capital city of Calvard, is a bustling multicultural metropolis, and each location the party visits has its own look, feel, and subplots. But the game is more restrained than its predecessors, so it drip-feeds the player fantasy geopolitics instead of forcing down their throats. Most of the remaining infodumps are wrapped up in fun character quirks or interesting plot developments.

Calvard is lovingly realized, from its bustling capital city to its immigrant quarters to its remote farming villages. The developers went far out of their way to make it feel like a real place full of people living their lives. The cast is less immediately charming than some previous titles, but they’re solid enough, and Van himself is a delight. The character designs are striking, though the graphics aren’t exactly spectacular.

The script is overall quite solid, if a bit long-winded in places. There are a few typos. More interestingly, the game is only mostly voiced. The unvoiced lines appear pretty random. Sometimes just half a scene is voiced. Sometimes side characters will be the only ones talking while the main characters are silent. This is such an odd approach to voice acting I had to make note of it. Otherwise, the soundscape is nice.

All in all, The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is a strong introduction to the world of Zemuria. And it may have the best pacing of any game in the series. If you’ve ever been curious about the Trails series, love the Trails series, or just want a new RPG, check this title out.

***Switch code provided by the publisher***