It makes sense, really; Legend of Heroes games tend to thrust players into a prolonged, chaotic fight at the very start, and then back-peddle to calmer times. I can’t say for sure that that’s how Trails Through Daybreak will begin, but the ability to play such an introduction ahead of release would make sense.

And if you want a taste of what those battles will be like (and whom you’ll be taking into those battles), today’s new trailer will give you a glimpse…along with some quality J-rock, of course:

And just who are these people?

Key characters include Van Arkride, a spriggan or an underground professional that accepts work from any client and acts as a detective, negotiator or bounty hunter with no allegiance, and Agnés Claudel, a first year student at the prestigious Aramis Academy who goes to Van with a unique request. Little does Van know that her request will prove to be more than he bargained for and lead to events that could threaten the very Republic itself!

And just what is the Republic?

In the aftermath of a brief war, Calvard is enjoying unprecedented economic prosperity. However, the public grows uncertain as the number of immigrants increases and questionable political reform runs rampant. Follow the spriggan Van Arkride on a unique request that will prove more than he bargained for. Will the nation fall into chaos?

So, then, more than we bargained for. Got it. But their turmoil is our gain, as The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak is looking to provide more than enough JRPG action and melodrama to satisfy series fans and newcomers alike.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak will be available July 5th in multiple digital and physical editions (the stock meter on the Switch Limited Edition is down to 5% at press time). For more information, visit thelegendofheroes.com/daybreak/.

[Update: June 4, 2024 – The update is now available. We’ve also learned that the Switch demo covers the entire prologue.]

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JRPG gamers (and fans of quality action/adventure games in general) can check out some new footage in the release date announcement trailer below:

And just what can we expect from this new entry in the vast Legend of Heroes series?

Van Arkride is a spriggan, an underground professional that accepts work from any client and acts as a detective, negotiator or bounty hunter with no allegiance. However, the course of his life will change forever when he takes on a strange case that threatens the entire nation. Slash your way through intense combat that springs to life with beautiful visuals, and craft your own gameplay experience in Calvard with features such as Story Mode and high-speed game mode!

Throughout the game, players will:

• Follow the bounty hunter Van Arkride as he takes on a case that will change the nation’s fate…as well as his own. Explore the reaches of the Calvard Republic while immersing yourself in a rich story filled with action and intrigue.
• Transition seamlessly between action field battles and turn-based combat with the revamped AT (Action Time) Battle system, and expand your arsenal of Arts and Skills with the sixth-generation combat orbment, Xipha.
• Affect how the story unfolds via choices and actions in the Under the Alignment system. Your propensity towards Law, Chaos, and the shades in between can influence your status in the city, who will ally with or oppose you, and even what jobs and dialogue options are available to you.

So, it looks like quite a bit has changed since the Trails of Cold Steel arc. No need to panic, though; the game will clearly carry on with the intricate combat, deep lore, complex character development, and high melodrama (not to mention the insane outfits) for which the series is known. And if you haven’t played a Legend of Heroes game, you’ve got four months to get that done.

For more information on The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak and how this new story arc ties into Trails of Cold Steel (series fans will notice some familiar faces), visit thelegendofheroes.com/daybreak. Preorders for the standard and deluxe editions are now being accepted.

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I’ll explain this as clearly as I can. The game follows three separate storylines. One centers around Lloyd Bannings of the SSS, the new police division from the Trails From Zero and Trails to Azure games, both of which were recently released on the Switch. Another focuses on Rean Schwarzer, instructor of Class VII, harem king, and hero of the Trails of Cold Steel series. Games III and IV from that story arc hit the Switch, but not I and II.

Finally, there’s a new group featuring the mysterious, masked C, and a “doll” of obvious importance.

All of these groups have a multitude of characters from previous games who come and go at different intervals. If you have no previous experience with The Legend of Heroes, you definitely do not want to start here; keeping track of everyone in the three storylines is difficult enough when they’re already familiar. You may be fine if you’ve only played the Trails of Cold Steel games, but if you’re starting fresh, take on Zero and Azure first, move on to Cold Steel III and IV, and only then dig into Reverie.

All that aside, what’s going on? Well, without giving away important elements of the previous games, I’ll just say the City of Crossbell is about to declare its independence when a character believed to be imprisoned stages a coup and seizes control of the town. Ends up some people just aren’t happy with how the war wrapped up at the end of Trails of Cold Steel IV, so the long-awaited happy ending will have to wait a little longer. Our various groups are splintered, so much of the early game centers around regrouping to figure out exactly who’s behind this rebellion and how they can thwart it.

Anyone who’s played a single Legend of Heroes game knows to expect plenty of political intrigue and ambiguity as to exactly who’s on which side. That certainly carries over here, especially as characters from the different series flow in and out of the three groups. I’m glad they’re better than I am at recognizing one another, but I’m even worse at that in real life where I don’t have the assistance of brightly colored anime hair.

Players can mostly bounce between the three stories at will, although there are points where you can’t push forward in one without reaching a certain point in the others

There are times when the three stories intersect, and you can expect multiple battles between our heroes as they slowly figure things out. My first complaint stems from that, as there’s an early segment when two groups fight multiple times in quick succession. You’ll switch perspectives and locations, but it still felt like I was doing the exact same thing for a couple of hours. That portion of the story did not need to be so drawn out.

And while I’m talking about the story, my long-standing complaint about The Legend of Heroes still stands; although I enjoy the deep lore, I wish the developers didn’t dump so much narrative on us at once, especially between boss battles where you can’t save the game. There are still segments that require you to play upwards of an hour without saving, so don’t start a big fight before bedtime comes or the bus arrives.

Those boss fights, as all the fights, use the same turn-based mechanics as the previous games. For those not familiar with the series, you basically have immediate physical attacks, arts that can target weaknesses but usually come with a delay, or special skills that can cause more damage and inflict status effects. Arts use EP that slowly disappears until you rest or replenish with potions, while skills use CP that quickly drains and is restored mostly through regular combat. Breaking an enemy allows you to cause more damage and prevent them from unleashing their powerful attacks on you. And, of course, you’ll need to spend plenty of time healing and buffing your group as you cycle through the available party members (often of your choosing) during the bigger fights.

You can still power up your abilities with quartz and orbs that can be enhanced and interchanged, and you’ll be able to swap out and upgrade your weapons, armor, and accessories. The battle system is very deep, and optimizing your party for the individual battles is a big part of the fun. If you disagree, playing on easy mode allows you to push through without requiring much fiddling around in the party menu.

Of course, new Legend of Heroes games don’t arrive without new elements, and this time we get the United Front. When this gauge is full, the full party (four active plus one support) can launch an enhanced physical or arts attack that comes with additional benefits. There’s also a party-healing option if you need it. United Front isn’t available at all times, but it can be a godsend during tough battles (or when you just want to quickly clear through a group of lesser enemies).

The biggest change, however, is not battle-related. Trails Into Reverie forgoes the typical town/field/dungeon flow by adding a new True Reverie Corridor. When accessible, all three groups come together to engage in a multitude of tasks completely separate from the story. Here, for example, is where series fans will be playing Vantage Masters and Pom! Pom! Party! You can purchase rare items you may have missed earlier in the main game. There are randomly generated dungeons to enter and unique battles to initiate to improve your skills and acquire rare items. There are completely unrelated mini-games to play, including a franchise trivia competition and an on-rails shooter.

This is also where most of the fanservice has gone, thanks to a beach segment that allows everyone to lounge about in their swimwear.

The men get to show off their toned abs while splitting watermelons, and Rean returns to his harem while sharing drinks and flirtatious conversations with the women. If you had issues with that kind of content in previous games, it’s easily skipped here. Personally, I had a bigger issue with Vantage Masters. I know it’s a popular trend, but I’d really rather developers not wedge extra video games into my video games.

That complaint encompasses the True Reverie Corridor as a whole. Trails Into Reverie forces you in this area at multiple points, absolutely killing the momentum of the story. And considering the narrative is so important to the game, it’s weird to yank us away from it for mostly superfluous mini-games and disconnected “memories.” Players don’t need to spend a lot of time in the True Reverie Corridor, but considering the obtainable items and level progression are so important, you’d be crazy not to.

Also, there’s one particular area in chapter three where the game crashed on me every time after catching a fish. I imagine that’s a bug that will be addressed via an update (if not already), but to be safe, be sure you save your game before fishing!

The result is a more disjointed experience than the previous Legend of Heroes games. The combat is still great, the characters are vivid and fun, and the story pushes along at a decent clip (when it’s not bogged down by prolonged battle segments). It also looks great and plays wonderfully on the Switch.

It’s a thrilling world to dig into, and Trails Into Reverie serves as a great thank-you gift for those who did so with the whole The Legend of Heroes series. If you accept it as such, you’ll be entertained.

But if you’re expecting a game that’s as gripping as the previous Switch-compatible entries, you’ll be happier taking a different trail.

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Originally released in 2011 for PSP, Trails to Azure is the direct sequel to The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero, which was updated for the Switch in 2022. If you skipped that, you may still recognize many of the characters from the Trails of Cold Steel games since they’re all set within the same timeline. It’s a massive universe of politics, friendships, heroics, and betrayals that’s pretty difficult to keep track of. Trails to Azure includes plenty of background information (both from the menu screen and various bookshelves scattered throughout the game) to bring you up to date.

As such, I’m not going to bog down this review with backstory; I don’t feel like writing another college thesis. You should definitely play Trails from Zero before starting Trails to Azure, but you’ll otherwise pick up most of what you need to know just by playing the game. Also, the story’s plot points never stray too far from the typical JRPG tropes. There’s a big bad coming, and it’s up to our rag-tag crew of upstarts (and countless friends…and sometimes enemies) to save the day.

This is handled across two main types of environments. First, you have numerous, massive towns to explore.

These areas are where you meet most of the game’s characters and get the narrative. The central location is Crossbell, where the Special Support Section (SSS) that you kind-of lead has its base. Here, you’ll accept numerous requests that either drive the story along or serve to just level you up and get you good stuff. Most tasks have to be done within an in-game day, so keeping track of what you accomplished is very important. Move too far ahead and you won’t be able to complete your missions, thereby losing out on their rewards.

The trouble with this is that some tasks require plenty of town exploration. You can quickly zip to the specific borough you want, but each is filled with a mixture of stores, offices and residences to check out. These often contain bonus items and hidden quests you can miss, so completionists will spend a lot of time revisiting locations and rechecking shelves to make sure nothing new has appeared. Thankfully, there are numerous walkthroughs available to guide you along.

Also slowing down the adventure are the need to play mini-games and gamble. I prefer my games not have games within them, and I like it less when obtainable items are essentially locked behind those games.

Maybe it’s the Methodist in me, maybe it’s just that roulette and card games bore me, but I’d rather be adventuring than sitting in a casino.

So, let’s adventure. Your party’s initial trip to a new town always happens by foot, and those linear but long paths give you plenty of opportunities to fight monsters, acquire the numerous items you need to level up, and wrap up a few of your assigned tasks (monster control is always a pressing need). Enemies can be seen on the screen, giving you the option to engage or avoid. If you attack them from behind you get a slight bonus when going into battle.

The turn-based combat system itself is complex, but we can boil it down to the usual elements. Turns are assigned based on speed, and each character can select to move, attack, use an item, or use an art.

Arts are great for targeting an enemy’s weakness, but they usually can’t be cast right away, giving the enemies a chance to get attacks in before you. The arts available for each character are determined by the player, so learning to optimize your party with the various items you’ve acquired and upgraded becomes the key to victory. You can balance your characters to make sure you’re somewhat covered no matter what you’re facing, or you can go heavy with a specific type of art (fire, earth, wind, etc.) if you know what you’ll be up against. I tended to stay balanced for general battles, and would only get precise with character and skill management after getting my butt handed to me in a boss fight…which happened more often than I care to admit. Combat is rarely unfair, but the game does make sure you continually manage your party.

Thankfully, Trails to Azure gives you plenty of special combat abilities to force your way through the tougher battles. Acquiring, optimizing, and equipping quartz materials gives you access to a wide array of abilities, buffs, and enemy debuffs. There are always new weapons and armor to find or purchase. Saving up to unleash powerful S-Craft attacks can make things a bit easier, as can the Combo Crafts between specific characters. Timing these attacks in the bigger battles can be tricky to pull off, but it’s a rewarding system. The bosses and mini-bosses can often take quite some time to defeat, providing a nice change of pace from the repetitive fights between towns.

Speaking of being between towns, Trails to Azure has something I’ve never seen before in a video game; the treasure chests are comedians. If you click on them again after retrieving their item(s), they’ll tell you a joke—some of which are actually pretty clever.

The best part of The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure, however, is the story. Specifically, the characters who drive the story. The complicated plot sometimes gives us too much to read, but that allows the numerous people you meet to have surprising depth. Many don’t see eye-to-eye despite having similar goals, and it’s intriguing to watch their relationships develop—for better or worse. There will certainly be some you like more than others, but I can’t imagine anyone will play this game without rallying behind Lloyd, Elie, Noel, Wazy, and (of course) KeA. Even the enemies are engaging…although some require you to accept a couple troubling character flaws.

I also quite like the way the game looks and sounds. The updated graphics are still a bit dated, but in a comforting kind of way. They’re quaint, but detailed, and they’re a fantastic match for the Switch in handheld mode. Some of the attack animations are underwhelming, but that’s to be expected on a game this old. The music fits the visuals perfectly, and is surprisingly diverse—changing tone based on the vibe of your current location.

All of this comes together to provide an experience that rivals those of JRPGs developed a decade later. The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure may look cute and simple, but make no mistake; this is a very complicated, very rewarding game that will take a lot of your gaming hours.

Just make sure you start from Zero before heading to Azure.

The post Review: The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

Thankfully, once IV decides to get going, it rarely lets up. I won’t go into too many details on the plot for fear of spoiling the ending of Trails of Cold Steel III. I’ll just sum up by saying we start two weeks after that game’s final battle, with New Class VII attempting to pick up the pieces. This mostly involves teaming up with Old Class VII and various others to find their missing allies and answer some big questions.

This isn’t easy, however. The kingdom of Erebonia is on the brink of war, exacerbated by some form of a curse that has driven the citizens to an agitated state.

As such, our large band of heroes has to move clandestinely throughout the kingdom, always unaware of exactly whom they can trust. As players, we know we can trust New Class VII—Juna, Kurt, and Altina—but this series is determined to swap alliances often and put us in control of people we were fighting just hours ago. You never really know what’s going to come next.

Confused? That may be the point. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series provides a massive tale of friendship, loyalty, betrayal, political intrigue, history, and (of course) heroics. It’s so big that there’s a difficulty mode set specifically to let you breeze through battles so you can just enjoy the story. Even then, this entry will take you upwards of 100 hours to complete.

And if you’re a fan of JRPGs, you’re going to love every minute of it. Nintendo owners who read up on I and II (or were lucky enough to play them on the PS3) and worked through III will be rewarded with an epic adventure full of exhilarating moments that rival the best animes you’ve seen lately.

Combat is turn-based, fueled by a mixture of standard attacks, arts, and special attacks at your disposal. Although the story focuses on around 10 specific characters, you’ll cycle through a few dozen throughout the course of the game. This helps to keep the battles fresh over the long haul, although it also means you could devote hours to customizing and tweaking them all. They each get specific weapons, and it’s not hard to just upgrade armor when it becomes available (provided you have the mira), but there are also many orbs you can acquire, assign, and upgrade to control the arts that are available to each character. Many enemies are really only vulnerable to arts, so you want to have the right ones handy. They can be used to attack, heal, apply and remove buffs/debuffs, etc. They take time to cast, however, which can allow the enemy time to wreak their own havoc.

With smaller battles (and there are many), you can push through using just your main attacks and arts. Larger battles, however, require you to eventually work the enemy into a break state, at which point you can unleash devastating attacks for severe damage. Strategy and timing are key to this system, but there’s more…

You can also increase the relationship between characters, which allows them to utilize a growing list of support skills that can be crucial. You can even set up the initial battle formation to ensure your ranged attackers and support crew are in the right spot. Trails of Cold Steel IV has upgraded some elements of this battle system, but anyone who worked through III will quickly become comfortable.

As before, the gameplay is split between tasks to complete in towns, battles to fight between towns, and dungeons to explore. You can expect plenty of conversations as you explore, as many citizens will have tasks for you to complete or items to hand over if you talk to them. You can trade in certain items for better ones if you complete their collection, but they’re often easy to miss. I do recommend a walkthrough if you want the best stuff. There are also recipes to learn and cook for trades and for buffs in battle. There are fish to catch and sell. There are even minigames to play, including a tactical card game (of course) and a version of Puyo Puyo. Thankfully, you don’t need to do all of this…it’s just there. Play on the easier modes and most of the customizations aren’t necessary. On the harder modes, however, you’ll definitely want to make use of the items you get through these diversions.

Whether you’re traveling between towns or exploring the dungeons, you can see the enemies on the battlefield. Sneaking up on them puts them closer to their break state when you start the fight, but you can also choose to avoid them altogether. Whether you need to spend time grinding will depend upon your selected difficulty level, but you can switch it at any time. In fact, after losing to the game’s bosses, you’re asked if you’d like to try again at an easier level. It’s a nice feature if frustration is starting to set in.

Unfortunately, a few issues do hamper what would’ve otherwise been a stellar gaming experience. The game is constantly loading something, and those black loading screens sometimes kill the flow of the more dramatic moments. Worse, some of the boss battles and exposition are so lengthy that you can become stuck with half an hour to forty-five minutes of gameplay without a save point. Pro tip? Never approach an exclamation mark right before bed or a trip out the door.

The audio occasionally seemed off, too, especially at the beginning. It was so empty that I ran a speaker check to make sure they were working. Also, the results of beating the trial chests lacked key information throughout the game’s entirety.

Finally, the story does start to drag in the back half of the game, and we descend a bit too far into the harem approach that JRPGs often take. It felt unnatural and cheap with these characters, but thankfully never gets too bad.

Still, none of that scarred the overall experience of racing through Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV. Although the myriad customization options do get convoluted, you can push through the game without having every single character perfectly decked out. The battles remain fun throughout, and the game is constantly changing the scenery and the people who populate it (including many options for different outfits that you can acquire in-game or purchase via DLC).

What really pushes things along, however, are the game’s characters. Even the most incidental participants—good, bad, or somewhere in between—have backstories and motivations that will hit home with players. The developers use this to drive us towards many big moments that can elicit cheers (although they perhaps rely a bit too much on third-parties coming in for the dramatic save). And honestly, it’s refreshing to have the heroes attempting to prevent a war as opposed to trying to win one.

The story and the battle system ultimately come together to create an incredibly rewarding experience for those who have spent so much time on these games. Switch owners who completed Trails of Cold Steel III will be thrilled with IV, but you in no way, shape, or form want to start here. We should probably abandon hope for Switch ports of Trails of Cold Steel I and II, but I’m thankful for the abbreviated time we did get with the series.

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