The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is more of the same in the best way possible, and its release brings the West one step closer to full parity with Japan, with just one title left before full parity is achieved.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak feels like a game created by developers who want to try something new but are afraid to commit to it to avoid upsetting their fanbase fully. As a result, its hybrid action/turned-based combat system feels lacking.
Don’t get me wrong, the combat system isn’t terrible; it is perfectly fine, but I cannot help but wish the developers committed fully to one system or the other, as mixing turn-based and action combat systems doesn’t always work well.
Few games have been able to combine two combat systems as skillfully as Final Fantasy 7 Remake, and unfortunately, The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is not one of them.
Overall, it’s a solid system that does what it is supposed to, but I cannot help but feel it could be so much more if the developers were given the freedom to embrace one system or the other fully.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is a bit of a mixed bag visually; while it is visually consistent (for better or worse), compared to games such as Final Fantasy 7 Remake, it is downright primitive and feels like a title that would be more at home exclusively on the Nintendo Switch than one that is available on multiple platforms, which is a shame, as while the Nintendo Switch is an excellent console with a great library of games, it is by far the weakest 9th generation console just as it was the weakest 8th generation console performance-wise.
While many developers optimise for different platforms, The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak developers seem to have developed it with the Nintendo Switch in mind, resulting in subpar visuals and awkward texturing on all platforms.
In one scene, background characters appeared to be made of silicone, with blurred and patchy skin.
Performance issues aside, The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak does sexuality almost every female character, and most female characters have very large (and often bouncy) breasts, which, even when covered, attempt to steal every scene they are in.
In one early scene, while typing on a keyboard, a character keeps triggering jiggle physics on her chest, which looks terrible and distracts from the important narrative events unfolding.
Voluptuous figures aside, most characters look fantastic, and fans of good-looking characters will enjoy The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak, as it seems everyone and their grandpa (literally) is incredibly good-looking unless they are the stereotypical big rough brute, in which they only get to be ruggedly handsome or stereotypically ugly.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak’s narrative is swayed between brilliant and cringe-inducing in all the worst ways. From grown men commenting on a schoolgirl’s figure to baby-faced gang members with big anime eyes and perfect hair using profanity to sound tough, they look like they are about to drop a new J-Pop album about kittens and unicorns.
That being said, it’s not all bad. The narrative has some excellent and emotive moments, making enduring the cringe worthwhile.
I particularly love the plot points that perhaps unintentionally run in parallel to biblical virtues such as compassion, mercy, forgiveness and charity; if only the developers could stop making all female characters over 12 and under 65 appear to be created purely for the male gaze, we would have one heck of a great game, that being said, The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is not as egregious as some older JRPGs, and overall the good outweighs the bad, even If I feel the developers could have done more to make the game more palatable to modern audiences.
While Fanservice is not the exclusive domain of JRPGs, the two pretty much go hand in hand and The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is no exception; throughout the game, you will encounter female characters in various states of undress, including a female character whose robe accidentally opens wide, revealing massive of underboob, midriff, and as close to privates as the game rating would allow.
While some may dismiss this as a non-issue, I feel strongly that making content purely to titillate is wrong, and while there is a time and place for nudity in games, making every female character eye candy is offensive, and for those who are prone to acting on their lust, dangerous.
Base game issues aside, like most JRPGs, swimsuit DLC is available for players who wish to see their female party members even more exposed. This is one of the most cringe-worthy parts of what is otherwise one of my favourite genres.
This year, The Legend of Heroes series turns 20 years old. As a result, it is visually and socially inconstant, with older titles looking and acting like games for the era, which can result in instances which are just not as accepted in 2024 as they were, unfortunately, in 2004 or in the case of western releases 2011, which saw the series make its first steps into a wider market, and as a result gamers in the west have been forced to wait several years for ports of older games, while new gamers rationally have seen shorted translation times.
As of 2024, western gamers are just one title behind their Eastern counterparts, with The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II scheduled to release in early 2025, and the publisher showing interest in releasing future games closer together, with an eventual goal unified releases sometime in the not so distant future.
However, I would not expect that to occur for a few years, as the publisher has no experience with global releases of this magnitude.
While I would prefer not to wait for new entries, I would be a happy camper if they could keep releases within the same calendar year.
The Legend of Heroes series has some of the best world-building in gaming. Each game is a self-contained story and part of a wider shared world, and characters and events regularly cross over between sub-series.
For fans of immersive world-building and deep characters, The Legend of Heroes is a real treat. However, it does require a substantial time commitment, with the currently released games taking between 550 and 900 hours to complete, depending on playstyle and sidequest completion.
To put this figure in perspective, in 900 hours, you could:
That said, just because something takes time doesn’t mean it is not worth doing. For gamers who want to begin an epic journey and can afford to put in the time, The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is a great place to do so.
However, as a fan of the series, I recommend at least watching a few story-so-far videos to truly appreciate the depth and wonder of the lore and history of The Legend of Heroes, even if I feel the games would work just as well with a run time of 25 hours or less, if the developers focused on telling the main narrative, and didn’t include so many side quests and optional encounters.
However, I appear to be in the minority, at least as far as fans of JRPGs are concerned. Many Japanese gamers and fans of Japanese games prefer longer titles because they are perceived as better value for money.
I can understand this point of view; however, I feel the option to play through the main story, bypassing non-narrative optional content, would be a great way to make the games more palatable to a wider audience while still allowing longtime fans of the series to enjoy the amount of content they are used to, without forcing less enthusiastic fans and casual gamers to play through almost 900 hours of games to expierance all the series has to offer firsthand.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II is a 4x strategy video game developed by Nihon Falcom and published by Clouded Leopard Entertainment Inc., it was released on 29 September 2022 and retails for $59.99.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II is available on the following platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, Playstation 4, and Playstation 5.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II is rated PEGI 12+ and contains:
The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is fantastic, but that is not a surprise, as every Legend of Heroes game is exceptionally high quality. While they require a lengthy time commitment, fans of JRPGs could not ask for better games with more immersive world-building and interconnected lore.
While Final Fantasy is still the king of the genre, it is no longer lonely at the top thanks to franchises like The Legend of Heroes and Bandi Namco’s “Tales” series.
Overall, The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak is an excellent game, even if it could use less Fanservice and a substantially shorter runtime.
