Something old, something new.
Coming into the Trails series through Cold Steel and then experiencing the Crossbell saga afterwards, I've garnered a deep appreciation for the Legend of Heroes, even if I have yet to embark throughout the Sky trilogy. With the announcement of a successor to Trails into Reverie, I was extremely excited to see the next story arc begin, especially as Trails through Daybreak is the 11th main entry in a JRPG series that seemingly has no end in sight.
After wrapping up the central storyline through Zero, Azure, Trails of Cold Steel, and its follow-up in Reverie, the series became this massive epic that features the largest ensemble I've seen in a JRPG series. It was also a massive undertaking considering few JRPG’s actually share continuity with each entry, usually taking the Final Fantasy route and starting fresh with each new release. This has caused a lot of backstory and lore to develop over the course of ten games, so with Trails through Daybreak, I was excited to visit the Republic of Calvard and explore a whole new landscape.
The Republic of Calvard was constantly referenced throughout the previous games, but the majority of our time was spent traveling to locations within the Erebonian Empire, and that of Crossbell, a state that had continued to fight for its independence for quite some time. With Daybreak taking place entirely within the Republic’s borders, it allows us to get an understanding of what this land has to offer, and how its government had led its people after the events of the previous games, especially as this adventure takes place a year and some after the events of Trails into Reverie.
Trails through Daybreak begins its 80+ hour adventure in Edith, the capital of Calvard, and throughout the game, we get to see several of the other major cities. In Cold Steel, we dealt with a lot of classism. In contrast, Calvard has been hinted in the past via the Crossbell Saga its public unrest caused by immigration and the new president’s radical reforms that saw the banning of discrimination based on status or race. As the story progresses, you begin to see a lot more of that as each new location has its own struggles and obstacles, especially locations that are more old-fashioned in nature.
Something old, something new is largely what Daybreak offers, giving us new lands to explore, but the daily structure we've had in the past. There is a tweaked combat system, but it largely falls in line with what we've had before. There is a wonderful new cast, but then several familiar faces make an impactful appearance. While Daybreak did offer me enough new ideas and experiences, it sadly doesn't commit to fully being its own thing, complete with a localization that feels hollow in its attempt to feel more adult, complete with a pair of characters visiting a strip club to a lot of vulgar language that doesn't feel earned. While Daybreak is a vastly impressive new entry, it's not without its problems.
Daybreak’s central protagonist is Van Arkride, a work-for-hire “Spriggan” who skirts the law when it comes to how he chooses to go about his requests. Where previous leads have been those always looking to do the right thing as your typical hero type, Van accepts whatever job is willing to pay, including his employer. While Van can sometimes skirt the line of being a mercenary version of Rean, he does break out of that mold from time to time; it also doesn’t help that he can often resemble him as well. Van’s day-to-day has mostly been a solo affair, allowing him to not burden anyone with his morally grey choices. However, the game begins with 16-year-old Agnes showing up at his door, a student with a past that has set upon the path for her future. This begins with a job where Van will assist Agnes in tracking down seven devices called “Geneses”. These orbments are the work of Claude Epstein, the founder of orbal technology and seemingly her grandfather. However, as Van and Agnes begin to track them down, they begin to dive into an adventure that will see their existence threaten the world.
Like the previous games before it, Daybreak follows a very similar structure, especially when compared to Trails of Cold Steel. Your day is spent completing tasks called 4SPG that have Van and Agnes, who has taken it upon herself to work part-time, to complete jobs that range from tracking down missing people or objects, to vanquishing a monster within the sewers or via the outskirts of town. While several of the stories here work well and allow you to get to know each member of your party, there are crucial moments across the story where they don’t feel as urgent as the narrative around them allows. However, most of these jobs allow Trails through Daybreak to introduce a morality system called LGC. Law, Grey, and Chaos are three morality choices that will dictate a moment later on in the game. While I won’t be detailing what that choice is, it will determine a particular path in the final hours.
Certain jobs will allow Van to choose the outcome. From handing over criminals to the Bracer Guild or the Heiyue Syndicate, each will result in the LGC system being affected. Most of these choices are similar in their resolution, with choosing to lie to someone to protect the truth or other matters that are not so cut and dry. It’s a good enough system as it is but does lack some depth that I hope we see in the upcoming sequel.
Each chapter generally takes place in a new location, which in typical Trails fashion, will see a new member of the team added to Arkride Solutions. These members make up your core party with plenty of other characters joining you as either a guest or being playable within the group. The characters that join your main roster are as follows; Ferrida Al-Fayed, a young girl who is part of a Jaeger corp, Aaron Wei, a talented martial artist living in Calvard’s Eastern Quarter, Risette Twinings, a contact Van has through Marduk Total Security, a researcher from the Basel College of Science named Quatre Salision, an actress in Judith Lanster, and Bergard Zeman, a man from Van’s past.
Like the previous games before it, the group is made up of people who come from all walks of life and have something to say about key locations within the game. While some have hilarious moments of trying to keep certain secrets secret, such as Judith and her nightlife alter-ego, others have deep emotional ties to the story, such as Quatre, who also brings Fio and Xeros alongside them; an attack drone and robotic dog, respectively. The cast works well together with some generally good moments, especially as you have “Free time” connections to take part in, even if you don’t get enough free time in the game to explore them all in a single playthrough. These moments have you joining particular characters as they shop, take in the city, or have personal issues they need some assistance with. However, due to Van’s age, and most of the women around him being underage, there is no romance option to speak of. That said, there is one particular character who is likely destined to be with him regardless.
I will say that the game oddly places Van and Agnes in situations where many assume they are into one another, with even moments between the two that attempt that as well. Given the age gap of Van being 24 and Agnes being a minor, these moments tend to feel more awkward than anything else. I also want to point out that the localization really wants to paint Aaron in the worst light possible as his comments towards women are simply too much, especially when in front of Agnes and Feri, the latter who is only 13. While there are moments where Aaron does shine, his overall tone and dialogue placed him well down the list of my favorite characters here, regardless of any growth he may attempt to have been given.
One particular aspect of Van that can be a tad too unbelievable is how he tends to know nearly every character and event that has transpired over the course of the past few years, not to mention working with many of them on supposed missions. While much of this is kept from the player, Van will immediately know what is transpiring and often give hints that may leave new players out. I don’t mind a well-connected protagonist, but I feel at times that Van is simply too well-connected to the previous games and their cast despite never appearing in them, and no, I don’t count the single image and text featured in one of the dream stories in Reverie.
While the bulk of the story is told through hours of cinematics and conversation, which is typical of this series, there are a lot of moments and side content where several moments are simply described for us. While some of these are trivial situations of characters ending the night to go share a meal or side quests that include some high-speed races, having these displayed solely through text is sort of disappointing. If this was a budgetary choice to make the sequel bigger and better, then sure, but this sort of presentation occurs pretty regularly and I wasn’t too keen on it.
Trails through Daybreak isn’t the first entry to have real-time combat as previous games have allowed you to attack enemies on the field to garner some sort of advantage. It even allowed you to vanquish weak enemies with a single swipe of your sword. However, Daybreak goes a bit further here by having it be a bit more of its own thing while enhancing the traditional turn-based systems the series is known for. Real-time combat is limited to a basic attack, a special attack, and a dodge. While you can whittle away at a foe in the field, you are far more vulnerable to a counter-attack. However, if you use your special attack and stun an enemy, you can then trigger turn-based combat with the advantage and do a bit of damage as well. It’s a good system that allows you to tend to the more basic battles with a bit of strategy.
However, battles that are part of a cutscene or that of the game’s several bosses are all turn-based and follow the tried and true formula we know and love. This allows Daybreak to continue to rely on its dual systems of Arts and Crafts, with a few twists to shake things up. The major change here is that since the game takes place in Calvard, they don’t have the Arcus system and instead rely on Xipha. While certain fundamentals are the same, albeit with different terminology, there are a few key differences.
One of those differences is that link attacks are now handled through a system called SCLM. Instead of picking pairs of characters to engage in link attacks, you can now simply use basic skills alongside another member of your party for a joint strike. While this system allows for a rapid succession of chained attacks, it does group up your team, making some boss attacks really hurt when everyone is all huddled together. Xiphas also replaces Master Quartz with Holo Cores that each have their own AI voice and stats. You also have the S-boost mechanic that can be used to boost the capabilities of your character based on the Holo Core and Skill Shards equipped. S-boost is gained during battle through the use of S-Crafts, so it allows their use to be contained and not something you can just put on repeat.
We also have a new mechanic called the Shard System that are passive bonuses that have a set chance to activate based on certain conditions being met in battle, such as adding elemental damage to your attacks, resisting certain status ailments, or reducing incoming damage. Combat also allows characters to have a free-movement system this time that allows certain crafts to benefit from being used to the side or behind enemies, making combat more strategic as a result.
As has been the case for several entries thus far, Quartz plays a huge factor in your capabilities. While I do wish this system was a bit more streamlined to not have several menus devoted to it, such as individual menus for both unlocking slots and also equipping quartz into those slots, let alone choosing your Holo Cores and your Drivers, which are now responsible for how your arts are used. While many of the changes are minor or simply retooled from the previous games due to the use of Xipha, these refinements are welcomed as combat is remarkably more slick and polished as a result.
The final bit of changes to the combat system results in the form of Van himself. Where the Cold Steel series saw the use of the Panzer Soldats, Van can transform into a beast called the Grendel that is somehow connected to his Holo Core, an AI named Mare. While there are still secrets surrounding this transformation yet to be revealed, this ability itself is great on paper but lacking in execution. The Grendel is sold to us as this powerful ability for Van to gain untold power, but with everyone else still joining in those same fights, it usually amounts to Van simply having better stats until the end of the encounter. Hopefully, this system is enhanced further as Van and his allies start to explore deeper into just exactly what it is and that it becomes something more impressive than something slick for a cutscene.
While the series has provided some incredible voice work over the years, it’s a shame in how Trails through Daybreak handles its voice work here. Throughout the game, there are countless instances where either limited voice work is used or that there is none at all, albeit for maybe one character. It’s also a gamble on what will be voiced as a deeply emotional moment may be entirely silent whereas Van’s love for sweets is presented in a fully voiced moment. I lost track of the times where Van would be silent whereas another character would be entirely voiced. While I understand that it is a budgetary choice, I would have preferred that voice work be used for essential conversations than any of the silly moments that don’t truly require it. It simply becomes very offputting and inconsistent.
Trails through Daybreak uses a new proprietary engine created by Falcom and replaces the PhyreEngine used throughout the Cold Steel series. While I played through the entirety of the game on the PS5, the Switch version of the game is currently being reported as not performing all too well with significant loading issues and plenty of pop-in and poor texture work. However, on the PS5 and PS4, this new engine shines without changing any visual identity of the series whatsoever. In fact, had I not been aware of the new engine itself, I would have assumed it was simply running on the existing tech.
Trails through Daybreak begins a new story arc in a whole new land that is ripe for potential. It has a great cast of characters and returning favorites and does a lot of good with them, even if the voice acting is inconsistent on when it is used. When it was announced that it would inject a level of real-time combat, many were expecting it to be fairly in-depth and instead is a slight variation on the systems already present in previous entries. That said, Trails through Daybreak does what it needs to do to be a very entertaining new entry will all the action and spectacle needed to succeed. I think it certainly stumbles with some localization issues and a few too many menus for its core systems, but overall, I still rather enjoyed seeing this new era of Legend of Heroes unfold, even if its nowhere near my favorite.
Developer - Nihon Falcom. Publisher - NIS America. Released - July 5th. Available On - PS4/PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC. Rated - (T) Blood, Drug Reference, Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes. Platform Reviewed - PlayStation 5. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.