Everyone knows at least one super fan who won’t shut up about the Trails series, Nihon Falcom’s sprawling universe of beefy RPGs with an overwhelming number of sequels, subseries, and interwoven narrative arcs spread out across multiple decades. Fortunately, the latest game in the franchise, The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak, is out now and probably the best jumping-on point that would-be fans will ever get.
Van Arkride is a private detective and bounty hunter working in the Calvard Republic during a tumultuous post-war boom. A young woman enlists his help to find a lost artefact, and all sorts of political intrigue, sinister plots, and brutal showdowns ensue. Out July 5 on PS5, PS4, Switch, and PC, initial reviews have been generally positive for the game, with critics lauding its side-quests and turn-based combat even if some were occasionally underwhelmed by its main story and real-time combat hybrid system. I’m a couple of hours in myself and not regretting it.
The real question facing prospective Daybreak players, as with almost every Trails game, isn’t whether it’s worth playing but a worthy starting point. It’s the 11th main game in the series, technically a subseries of Falcom’s The Legend of Heroes games. For that reason, in addition to the fact that, until recently, some key games hadn’t ever been localized, it’s always been incredibly confusing for outsiders to wrap their heads around how each sequel relates to one another and the best order to play them in, a challenge former Kotaku editor Jason Schreier tried to tackle nearly a decade ago.
In the years since, Falcom has finally brought overseas players up to speed with a steady drumbeat of ports, localizations, and new releases. But this also meant that every time a new Trails game arrived, uninitiated RPG fans would often go from “oh neat!” to “oh, oh god…” In part, that’s because diehard Trails fans will always tell you to start at the beginning with 2004’s Trails in the Sky. There are payoffs and reveals that players will miss if they jump past it. That game made its way west on PSP before getting a Steam version in 2014. Unfortunately, there’s no modern way to officially play it on a console unless you want to spend over $100 on a used copy.
More importantly, starting at the beginning means playing all ten games that preceded Daybreak. The Trails in the Sky trilogy contains two other games, Trails in the Sky SC and Trails in the Sky the 3rd; both are exclusive to PC among modern platforms and take approximately 120 hours to complete. Then there is the Crossbell saga, which consists of Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. Despite initially coming out over a decade ago, both were recently ported to PS4 and Switch in addition to PC. Combined, that’s another 80 hours of playtime.
Finally, you have the Cold Steel games, which build on the previous games’ worlds, characters, and conflicts in a five-game arc that wraps up with Trails of Reverie. The first two games are only available on PS4 and PC. Cold Steel III, IV, and Reverie are also on Switch. For these games, you’re talking for roughly another 250 hours. If you’re looking to go on an epic RPG adventure with deep worldbuilding and character arcs growing across several games, well, you’re in luck! But if that’s you, you probably already decided to dive into Trails long ago. And even if you don’t need to start at the beginning, telling someone to play five games before starting Daybreak is still a tall order.
I’ve dabbled in a handful of Trails games over the years to see what all the fuss was about but never got deep into any of them, let alone finished a complete arc. If you’re like me, desperate to become Trails-pilled but short on time, Daybreak might be your saviour. It’s the start of a completely new storyline that, while it weaves in history and pivotal moments, isn’t going to bog you down with the guilt of coming into a messy drama in the third act. Even better, there’s a free demo on PlayStation and Switch if you want to test it before committing.But if you are looking to learn more and want a decent review of where to start and which Trail is right for you, then check out this review from the team at Push. it’s a good overview of what to expect and where to begin.
Trails Through Daybreak II has been in Japan since 2022 and will likely get ported west next year or the year after. Then there’s Kai no Kiseki, the latest game in the Trails series and the third game following the exploits of Van Arkride. There’s no formal release date yet, but it’s supposed to come out in Japan before the end of 2024. For now, it seems like U.S. players will be waiting until 2026 or beyond for that one, and there is plenty of time for Daybreak converts to dig back through the rest of the series, and enjoy great music while you do.
