The Legend of Heroes: Trails By way of Dawn is the contemporary begin the collection wanted. It’s an odd declare to make, contemplating we’re apparently solely midway by way of the Trails collection, which started all the way in which again in 2004. We’re now ten video games deep, not together with spin-offs, solely about half of which have been launched for Nintendo methods.
Daunting? Sure. However once more, Trails By way of Dawn serves as a contemporary begin. Though some areas, characters, and references will probably be acquainted to collection followers, there’s little or no right here that can make newcomers really feel misplaced. The sport begins, as an illustration, not in the course of a big battle like earlier Trails video games have, however with a younger girl, Agnès Claudel, hiring an investigator, Van Arkride, to assist her discover a household heirloom. Appears harmless sufficient, proper?
Yeah, you realize higher than that.
Van isn’t your typical PI, for one factor. He accepts missions which are authorized, however barely so—the sort of missions the place the purchasers can’t go to the police (or the Bracers, collection followers) for no matter motive. Van is keen to stroll the road between legislation and chaos, which is one thing you, the participant, will do as nicely. On the finish of many missions, Van should determine easy methods to deliver them to a detailed. This may have an effect on his rankings in legislation, chaos, and the grey space in between. What you determine has some impact on late-game proceedings, however it’s by no means an enormous deal, and the alternatives you’re given are by no means utterly morally mistaken.
In typical Legend of Heroes style, it’s not lengthy earlier than this get together of two turns into a celebration of three. Then 4. Then a rotating group of visitors to shuffle out and in. The excellent news is that regardless of counting on a (largely) new solid of characters, collection followers will really feel immediately at residence with all of them. Their character quirks and dialogue beats are tonally according to earlier video games, proper all the way down to everybody making enjoyable of Van for being the outdated man regardless of his fixed reminders that he’s solely 24.
I’ve targeted this evaluation up to now on characters as a result of that’s what the Legend of Heroes video games do. They’re decidedly dialogue-heavy. This was useful in video games previous, because the conversations introduced gamers on top of things. Right here, numerous the dialogue is character targeted, doing nothing to drive the plot or deepen the lore. I favored that. It helps the participant come to know the folks on the journey. Everybody will get a punchline to ship, a objective to achieve, a previous to beat (or not less than come to phrases with). They’re accessible.
However the accessibility doesn’t finish with the brand new characters; there are many new gameplay components, too. The most important of those is the addition of real-time fight. Though The Legend of Heroes: Trails By way of Dawn remains to be a turn-based fight sport at coronary heart, gamers now have the choice of participating lesser enemies in easy, action-oriented battles. Assault, dodge, and stun are your solely strikes, so there’s not a lot to them, however they let you acquire mandatory expertise and assets with out stopping for extra calculated turn-by-turn strikes.
Boss battles are nonetheless totally turn-based, and hacking away on some enemies in actual time isn’t essentially the most environment friendly method to deal with them, however the possibility means you’re extra prone to enter into all out there battles, in flip guaranteeing you’re leveled up and prepared for the massive, unavoidable ones.
Flip-based fight is just about the identical throughout these greater fights. You may select between fundamental assaults, arts, and CP assaults, with the timeline of who will get to maneuver when dispalyed on the high of the display. Arts can take some time to solid. CP assaults are extra highly effective however extra restricted in use. Characters will be extra freely positioned within the fight area this time, and you’ll entry boosts from group members simply by standing with in proximity to them.
It’s additionally simpler to activate every character’s particular CP assault, though they appear much less highly effective than earlier than.
Oh, and in case your ability ranges (or persistence) range between turn-based and realtime battles, no worries; you possibly can set the issue settings for every individually.
Collection followers can even discover the modifications to the orbment system of arts and enhancements. Earlier Trails entries have been pretty inflexible in the way you assigned a personality’s skillset and enhanced their skills—you sort of needed to get it proper from the beginning. Trials By way of Dawn makes it simpler to rapidly shuffle their Arts Driver (which supplies their fundamental skillset) and the Quartz enhancements for every. Going through a troublesome boss that’s weak to earth assaults? Swap out the characters’ present Quartz set with extra earth-based expertise. Win, then swap them again. You don’t must plan so fastidiously this time round, and also you gained’t end up with out correct therapeutic expertise, for instance, when the story quickly takes your greatest healer away from you.
Even the stream of the city exploration has been modified a bit. Sure, Trails By way of Dawn has the identical loop—enter a brand new city, discover it, purchase stuff, settle for and carry out sidequests, after which full the primary job to maneuver on. Earlier video games, nonetheless, made it very simple to overlook objects that might’ve been an enormous assist in a while. That didn’t appear to be the case this time, with reward objects and key equipment being extra simply identifiable at shops. Or, possibly I’ve simply performed sufficient Trails video games to understand how the system works. Both means, I felt like I spent much less time backtracking by way of city to ensure I’ve acquired every thing that will be locked away after transferring on.
Talking of cities, the setting of Calvard is a little more numerous than regular, too. The assorted cities have apparent worldly inspirations—Chinese language and the Center East, for instance—which helps them turn into extra memorable.
This additionally results in some fascinating costume designs. Who cares about costumes, you ask? Trails followers, I suppose, contemplating the myriad choices out there by way of DLC. Relatively costly DLC, too. $30 to decorate the characters in swimsuits? No thanks. Correct footwear is vital in fight.
The general visuals are nice. The settings are colourful however oddly fundamental and angular. They offer the collection a particular look that gives stable efficiency when taking part in docked or in handheld mode (though I wouldn’t advocate the latter as a result of the sort is tiny). The music can be good, though it’ll largely simply disappear into the background. The battle animations appeared to have been toned down, and so they’re nonetheless skippable. After seeing the extended assault animations a few times, you’ll wish to use that characteristic.
My solely actual grievance about The Legend of Heroes: Trails By way of Dawn is that it takes too lengthy to get transferring. Midway by way of the sport, it nonetheless felt like I used to be simply accompanying a bunch of associates on a vacation lark. Hints of higher risks, secret pasts, and ulterior motives are scattered all through, however nothing appears terribly vital for fairly a while. After the political weight of the Trails of the Chilly Metal video games, it was an odd choice for a lot of Trails By way of Dawn to focus on a movie pageant.
The sport nonetheless suffers from extended narrative dumps, too. You don’t wish to hit a big story marker simply earlier than an obligation or bedtime, as you can get caught in a half hour of animations and textual content throughout which you’ll’t save. Oh, and there additionally appears to be no rhyme or motive for what dialogue is voiced and what isn’t. Characters simply randomly cease speaking for no motive, as if the script was expanded or altered after all of the actors had gone residence. Bizarre.
However it’s simple to look previous these faults due to The Legend of Heroes: Trails By way of Dawn’s deal with what issues in these video games: fight and characters. This entry delivers them far more successfully than Trails Into Reverie and extra accessibly than Trails of Chilly Metal III. It’s a stable option to occupy your time in the course of the Change’s twilight, throughout which you’ll atone for the Trails video games you missed.