Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak is a JRPG by Nihon Falcom. It is the 11th game in the "Trails" story line. And the 16th game in the whole series. The story takes place in the Calvard Republic for the first time. Many long term fans, like myself, are excited to finally have a story told in this area. The story does tie back to the story told by the older games in ways that are fantastic moments of story writing. I am reviewing this game on the Nintendo Switch.
Visuals
Trails Through Daybreak uses anime style graphics, and it’s very colorful in some areas. Great draw distance. However, playing on the Switch they do look a little "muddy" at times. Character models look good, but they still move kinda blocky when controlling. Altogether though, it’s still a great looking game.
Audio
Trails Through Daybreak has the most voiced dialogue of any Trials game yet. But there is still going to be a lot of reading as there is a lot of lines of dialogue in this game that are not voiced. All main story parts are voiced, the side stuff is not. Also there are times when the characters will chat with the each other while walking around.
The music helps set the tone very well. When I play in handheld mode I usually turn games down, but this game I didn't want to. The music just works great all the time. The only negative I have is there is an AI helper for the main character and her voice is kind of annoying and you hear it a lot. Reminds me of Navi from Ocarina of Time.
The Good
Trails Through Daybreak does a lot to ease in new players; If you hear the 11th game in the story and that startles you, don't worry. There is a backstory option on the opening menu to help you. It'll explain the story of every game to help catch you up, give you the timeline, and explanation of the different fractions. It's even great for veterans of the series who would like a refresher.
New Characters: this one is kind of a double edge sword. While I love the old characters that I have been through the story with, it is great to see new blood. The main character is named Van, he is a "Spriggan", which is this world's version of a private detective. Also there’s a host of great side characters for new players and veterans alike to fall in love with.
New combat system: while it still mostly turn based like the older titles in the series, Trails Through Daybreak is different. Now you can move freely around the battlefield. Also you can fight like an action RPG without having to go into turn based combat. You throw "shards" on the field to initiate turn based battles. Some battles will be mandatory to be fought one of the two ways. It may sound confusing but I promise once you learn it's really easy to get the hang of it.
The Story: like other "Trails" games the story is deep, well written, and has twist and turns everywhere. I'm going to keep it spoiler free, as even most of my pictures are from the first 10 hours of the game. It rivals some movies in my opinion with their story telling.
The Bad
Load Times: now I am playing on the Switch which is 7 years old at this point, but the load times are long. Some up to 20 seconds. And you get load times from initiating and completing turn based battles. Luckily though this is really the only thing Trails Through Daybreak struggles with (and the muddy looking visuals – but again the Switch is 7 years old)
Final thoughts:
Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak is a great game, I highly recommend it if you like JRPGs. The length of the game can be long, but a lot of that is side content. You could probably beat it in 60+ hours, but I put 110+ hours into it doing a lot of side stuff. You will find yourself going through areas trying to fight every enemy, find every chest, and find all the extra info you can. It was hard to find anything I did not like about this game as it checked a lot boxes I look for in video games. It is definitely a game of the year contender for me.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak released on Nintendo Switch on July 5th 2024
