Legend of Heroes Trails Through Daybreak | Full Game Walkthrough | No Commentary
84Today we archive a very special game. I came across the Legend of Heroes games for a while on Steam, but never had experienced any of them. The style looked really cool and there were many titles in the series. So a few weeks back I decided to take the plunge and have my very first experience with The Legend of Heroes Trails Through Daybreak. And I am very glad I did as the expereince was absolutely awesome.
Trails Through Daybreak tells an epic story where we play as Van Arkride. Van has a job that is similar to a private detective. People can hire us to do some dirty work that the official channels like the Guild or Police cannot do. One day we meet the lovely Agnes and stumble upon a sinister organistion known as Almata. Members of this organisation are popping up throughout different cities and it is up to us to stop them.
The game has a lovely vibe and atmosphere and a setting I really haven't seen in any other RPG. Its a mixture of the modern metropolis like Tokyo or Dubai mixed in with more ancient cultures from medieval Japan and Germany. You will be spending a lot of time in these different cities doing quests and side jobs and this is where the game truly shines. Its so incredibly relaxing and cozy to just explore and traverse through these cities and perform the tasks you are given. A lot of the quests revolve around dialogue and luckily the writing is superb. Even the most mundane sounding sidequest often has a twist written in that make you tear up by the end of it.
The cities feel alive and bustling and each feel unique with different stores, NPC's and even unique food you can purchase at the different vendors. It made me excited each time we would visit a new city as I was curious what the cultural inspiration would be next and to experience a brand new atmosphere.
The combat system has also been reworded from earlier games in the series and now has a mix between real time battles and turn based. The real time battles are simple and responsive where you can quickly deal damage to trash mobs in dungeons while the turn based battles offer more strategy with bosses or forced encounters. There is quite a lot to learn here and it took me a few chapters into the game to fully understand all the mechanics.
In that sense this game can still be seen as a great entryway for newcomers to the series. From what I understand there will be a few revisiting characters from other Legend of Heroes games, but a lot of the world and its lore is explained for those that are new. The cast of characters is wonderful and you will meet a lot of them. There are also some hilarious moments that had me laugh for a good while as the dialogue and responses can definitely take you by surprise.
Probably the weakest point about the game is its lack of voice acting in some parts. There are cutscenes where its fully voiced and those are fine, but there are other sequences where during a conversation between multiple characters only one is fully voiced while the others are silent. So someone will be actually talking with voice acting and then the response will be silent with only the text showing up. That took me out of the dialogue every time and I think it would have been better to either go fully silent for the cutscenes where they did not have all the actors at the ready.
Other than that it was an amazing experience and I am so glad I finally took the plunge and got introduced to this wonderful world and all these amazing characters. I will definitely see them all again in Trails Through Daybreak 2.
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