The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak Review [IGN]

Daybreak follows a mercenary named Van Akride who finds himself on a grand adventure that’s noticeably darker in tone than previous Trails arcs. He takes on the dirty jobs local law enforcement aren’t able to handle, and sometimes even work from underground organizations – things like negotiating deals with shady middlemen or hunting bounties. That’s a welcome change from the series’ past protagonists, who have tended to be a bit unrealistically altruistic.

The story itself effortlessly weaves topical themes into your actions, with shadowy figures taking advantage of anti-immigrant sentiment to gain power and the meteoric rise of a new mafia group threatening the status quo of the underground world. These themes aren’t entirely apparent early on in Van’s journey, but he eventually starts to realize just how much influence the different factions of this world have, making Daybreak feel more like an engrossing political drama the deeper you go.

This is a great jumping in point for the Trails series, free from the shackles of having to directly connect to previous games, but Daybreak does also treat longtime fans like myself by incorporating lore from them when it suits the story. For example, it takes place in the Republic of Calvard, a place referenced in previous Trails games but never actually shown. Similarly, when Van fights against the local mafia early on, they take performance enhancing drugs to get an edge on him, and he deduces that they may be similar to the ones that the local gangs in Crossbell took, referencing both Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. It’s a fantastic way to keep this universe interconnected while creating a blank slate to work with for new stories.

The lovable, tight-knit cast of main characters helps set the stage, too. Some standouts include a young girl named Feri Al-Fayed, who Van takes in after she is exiled from her village, slowly growing to accept her teammates as her second family throughout the story. A personal favorite of mine is the fun Grimcat, who is clearly an homage to Persona 5’s Ann, wearing a skintight suit and cat mask. (Grimcat even calls herself a “phantom thief.”) Her strong willed personality amusingly contrasts with her role as the comic relief – she’s a terrible liar and often slips up when trying to talk her way out of a situation, which is not something you’d expect out of a supposedly slick trickster.

It’s also great that Daybreak’s comparatively smaller cast means each character’s development is much more focused. They’re able to get more attention throughout the story and have room to grow, which is something the Cold Steel arc in particular had trouble handling as its storyline progressed and its cast ballooned. Veterans will catch a few character cameos from the previous Cold Steel, Sky, and Crossbell arcs in supporting roles as well, but they’re smartly placed so as not to steal the spotlight or alienate newcomers.

When you’re not tied up in the political intrigue of the main story, you’ll be completing various side quests that can earn you points towards Van’s Law, Gray, or Chaos stats. These are framed as a sort of morality system, but they operate more similarly to the way Persona handles its social stats. Certain side quests give out predetermined values for these stats, and you can see which will increase before accepting them – however, they’re all worth accepting and completing anyway, as having a high level in one alignment doesn’t lock out the benefits from the others. This approach offers a greater degree of freedom since you won’t feel like you’re being railroaded into one single morality path.

It also adds an extra layer of depth to Van’s personality and influences how he handles certain encounters outside of his default cool, bad-boy demeanor. Some quests let you decide how they end, providing extra points to a certain alignment based on your choice. For example, one quest has you chasing down a cashier who is stealing money from his job, but it turns out he was being extorted by someone else: You have the option to encourage the cashier to return the money and come clean as the Law approach, or take the Gray route and return the money but keep it a secret. Because I didn’t feel pressured into following a strict path like with the morality systems of some other games, I loved that I could pick the decision that I would most likely do if I was in Van’s shoes. (If the money is back where it belongs and the business is still running, no one is hurt and ever has to know, right?)

Daybreak’s quests also provide great worldbuilding. One particularly fun one has Van’s party travel to a secluded island to clear its monsters so tourists can safely explore. In an amusing twist, a tour guide appears and gives the party a guided expedition while they’re busy fighting. They’ll periodically stop at certain points to describe local legends, but while the party keeps hoping to learn fun facts, each of the tour guide’s stories instead involves something horrifying, such as people getting devoured by monsters when a high tide occurs or a certain cavern being named “Death’s Head” because it was littered with human remains. The length and effort that these side quests go to in order to make them genuinely entertaining is one of the best aspects of the series.

Later on, depending on how high Van’s morality is in certain alignments, you can choose to team up with certain factions. While picking any given faction doesn’t change the overall story, Van’s decision can make battles easier for that specific chapter. Some factions have stronger playable characters that can make the enemy encounters and bosses a cakewalk while you have access to them. On the flip side, the faction I picked had two purely AI-controlled characters, so sometimes it was frustrating not being able to give them direct commands when I needed to. Choosing certain factions over others also leads to unique character interactions, which adds some fun replayability for future playthroughs.

One of the biggest gameplay changes in Daybreak is its battle system, which is now a hybrid between real-time and turn-based combat. On the field, you can run up to enemies and start hitting them, but you can also initiate turn-based combat at the press of a button any time. By breaking their shields first, you’ll start the turn-based portion in an advantageous state, with enemies dazed and unable to act for a short time. Unfortunately, these real-time elements are very rudimentary; normal hits and charged attacks that stun enemies are all you can do besides dodging. It gets incredibly repetitive over a 50-plus-hour RPG, and I wish more options were introduced throughout the campaign to keep the real-time moments from stagnating.

However, the turn-based combat picks up the slack thanks to some noticeable improvements over its predecessors. Loading screens are gone outside of boss battles, so fights in Daybreak transition seamlessly from the field to battle. It’s so much smoother now that the party isn’t magically whisked away to a separate dimension just for battles; the battlefield is the same exact size as the room Van was in when he encountered an enemy.

This battle system also sees the return of the series’ timeline mechanic, which is relatively unchanged but just as great as ever. Bonuses land in random spots in the action timeline, so if you see that a critical hit bonus is going to land on the enemy’s turn, you can cleverly manipulate the order by using an attack with the Delay effect, pushing the enemy’s position and hopefully having the icon land on one of your allies instead. This makes for some incredibly engaging battles since it’s important to take advantage of these bonuses whenever you can, especially during boss fights and other high difficulty moments.

Another welcome change is that characters are no longer required to use up their turn to simply move around the battlefield, and can instead roam freely within a certain movement range. While moving your party into advantageous positions before attacking isn’t exactly a new RPG concept, this tweak opens up a whole new aspect of tactical gameplay when combined with Trails’ already excellent combat mechanics.

For example, Van’s Stun Slash has the Impede effect, which can disrupt enemies in the middle of casting spells, but it also does more damage when Van hits an enemy from their flank rather than the front or back. That gives it a dual purpose, letting you choose whether to increase your damage by prioritizing positioning with your new movement options, or utility by focusing on manipulating the order of the timeline. It helps some attacks stay useful even when their primary effects don’t apply in certain situations, which wasn’t always the case in previous Trails games since moving around counted as its own action.

Daybreak’s customization system offers plenty of flexibility in how you build out each character’s stats and abilities with different gems. What’s great about the customization is that it can be as straightforward or as complex as you want it to be. Every gem has an element associated with certain stats and abilities, which can then be placed in any of the four customization lines of each character: Weapon, Shield, Drive, and EX. For example, red gems are associated with the fire element and have traits that benefit physical attackers, as well as give them fire-based attributes when placed in certain lines.

It’s all fine and dandy if you simply want to slot in the red Attack +1 gem in any available slot as the character will get the attack stat boost no matter what. If you want to take it a step further, however, you need to be strategic in where you place your gems. Daybreak introduces Shard Skills, which act like passive buffs influenced by the different line options. Placing a red gem in the Weapon line has a chance of adding fire elemental damage to normal attacks, while putting them in the Shield line boosts your chances of avoiding the Burn status. Knowing how to utilize these passive buffs can be the difference between winning and losing, especially during late-game boss battles and when playing on higher difficulties

The way gems and Shard Skills synergize also makes customization fun. Activating more powerful Shard Skills requires meticulous gem placement. Burst Gain, for example, has a chance of recovering HP when attacking, but requires both a red gem and water-based blue gem in the Weapon line to unlock. I could happily lose track of time optimizing each character and trying different combinations.

Bonding events called Connections make a return in Daybreak, letting your protagonist casually hang out with other characters during their free time, which is always a lot of fun – especially for returning fans. In one standout scene, Van catches up with Rene, his friend inside Calvard’s intelligence division, and ends up discussing a double agent of theirs who also happens to be working for a key political figure from the Cold Steel and Crossbell games. So not only are these bonding moments entertaining and well-written, the Trails series is able to use its extensive history to incorporate past events for even more impressive worldbuilding, which is something that games with similar features can’t go nearly as in-depth on.

Other features from past entries are conspicuously gone, though. Minigames in previous Trails RPGs that were entertaining distractions, such as the card games Vantage Masters and Blade, aren’t in Daybreak at all, and there’s nothing new to fill the void they’ve left when I’m between missions and looking for a change of pace. Cooking has also been drastically limited, with each party member now only able to cook a few select dishes rather than having their strengths and weaknesses within the full menu. For example, if someone was strong in the curry recipe, they had a chance to create an enhanced version that restored more HP than usual, while a weaker curry cook could potentially screw up and give you a dish that could be detrimental. That variety added personality to characters outside of battle, so it’s a little disappointing that each character only cooks their specialized recipes without fail here.

Fishing is missing, too, which is surprising given it had previously been included in every single mainline Trails game – though that’s not to say that Daybreak is lacking in content. There’s an enormous amount of stuff to do and see between all of the side quests and the morality system, but the absence of these traditional Trails minigame staples does make Daybreak just a little bit less charming.

And while it can’t make up for everything, Daybreak’s soundtrack is excellent. It incorporates the rocking guitars and melodic piano that the series is known for, and while both the opening theme and the song that plays as the credits roll sound a bit more laid back compared to past games, that’s a fitting reflection of Van’s personality. As always, the battle themes are explosive and designed to get you in the mood to fight, and the lively tunes in the metro areas make exploration fun.