Trails In The Sky 1st Chapter PS5 review – The Legend of Heroes franchise has become a cult hit over the years, but many people didn’t really start playing the franchise until about the halfway point. Though the franchise started back in 1989, much of it remained in Japan.
It wasn’t until the games started to receive updated ports on the PSP that people began to notice. The most significant mark came from Trails in the Sky. The first of what would become a trilogy that would later span out into an epic saga spanning over ten games and one that’s continuing to this day.
Trails In The Sky 1st Chapter PS5 Review
To The Sky And Beyond
Trails in the Sky and its sequel remain my favorite in the entire franchise to this day. What made those games special were the phenomenal characters and the journey they went on. The journey of loss, love, and adventure connected with me more than many games of its kind.
Now 21 years since its release, Falcom, with the help of Gung-Ho, has released the remake of Trails in the Sky, and it comes packed with all the quality of life improvements that the fans of the franchise have become accustomed to.
Trails in the Sky tells the story of Estelle and his adopted brother Josuha as they join the Bracer Guild and set off to find out what happened to their father after his airship vanished during escalating tensions with the continent of Liberl and the Erebonian Empire.
A Cast For The Ages
The story is full of surprises, but it may take a little while to get to those surprises. The majority of the game focuses on Estelle and Josuha as they progress through the content of Liberl, earning their marks in the Bracer Guild.
1st Chapter’s story is an incredible recreation of the original. The story follows the same beats, but the dialogue is more fleshed out. There are no new additions to the story; instead, it provides more context during conversations and scenes.
Your party is what makes Trials in the Sky so memorable. Though the franchise has always had a solid cast of characters and party members, there is just something about the cast here. From Estelle’s passion and dimwittedness that constantly gets her into trouble, or Oliver’s constant advances to everyone he comes across. The chemistry between everyone flows so well. It’s almost as if they were childhood friends their entire lives.
A Gorgeous And Vibrant World
Trails in the Sky was a top-down turn-based RPG. Now, the game is entirely remade in 3D. It feels almost magical to see so many of the original locations brought to life in full 3D. Exploring towns reveals many hidden items and sparks conversations with the locals, while exploring the fields reveals a world full of monsters to fend off.
Exploration takes you to many locations, some of which you won’t visit if you solely follow the story. Undertaking requests from the Bracer Guild sends you to various locations to hunt down monsters and collect items and ingredients for townsfolk. You’ll even undertake a quest to find lost villagers, for instance.
One thing I’ve noticed is a significantly higher number of monster-slaying quests compared to the original release.
However, at the end of the day, they allow you to explore locations you may have skipped in favor of story-centric missions. These quests help build your Bracer rank, which rewards you with various Quartz to equip to utilize multiple combat spells.
Combat That Can Be Embraced Or Avoided
Enemies fill the overworld, and you won’t go far without encountering a mob of monsters. What’s nice is they mostly avoid the main roads you can travel, so you don’t always have to worry about fighting everything you encounter or trying to run from it. If you do choose to take on these foes, you have two ways to go about it.
Introduced in the later Trails games, you can dispatch your foes in traditional turn-based combat, or you can do it with the game’s action combat mechanics.
Though you won’t do as much damage with the action attacks, you can avoid long, drawn-out turn-based battles of easier foes this way. It’s a better idea to take out weaker foes with action attacks than to waste time going into turn-based combat.
As I said, you’re action attacks are weaker in damage than they would be in turn-based combat. The other benefit of attacking your foes before initiating turn-based combat is quickly building up an enemy’s stun gauge.
If you can stun the enemy before going into turn-based combat, your enemies will be stunned, giving you free attacks on them that have a high chance of being critical attacks.
Turn-Based Action At Its Finest
Turn-based combat follows the simplicity of the Cold Steel games more closely than the Daybreak games. You can move your characters around on the battlefield and select between three different attacks: your normal attack, Skills, and Magic. You can also boost your party member if you have enough energy, which will increase the damage you’ll do.
Each attack either takes up MP for your magic attacks or CP for your skill attacks. If you happen to knock your enemy down, you can initiate a combo attack with the closest party member.
This forgoes the mechanics in Daybreak where you had to be connected by a circle with another party member to pull off combo attacks.
The Simple Orbal System Is Very Welcoming
The Orbal system hasn’t changed significantly across the franchise. Though it did receive some upgrades as the franchise evolved in Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, it takes some steps back to a more simplified time.
You unlock slots on your Orbal device and equip Quartz of various types, which in turn allow your party members to use magical attacks.
These quartzes come in different colors, which in turn dictate what kind of stat boosts you’ll get as well as the magic you can use. Red Quartz increases a character’s strength while also unlocking fire magic. Green Quartz increases defense and unlocks wind magic.
Stunning Visuals And Top-Notch Sound And Voice Work
Visually, this remake is the best-looking game in the franchise. The animations are top-notch, and the visual style stands out. The world is bustling with detail. The game’s soundtrack is fantastic to boot; many tracks have returned from the original release and have been remastered.
One of the most significant issues I have had since the Cold Steel series is the inconsistent voice acting. Throughout the franchise, you would get voiced scenes that would then become entirely silent in the middle of a scene, only to start up again for a few sentences and go quiet again.
This issue has seemingly been resolved in this remake, as voice acting is prominent and fully voiced for every primary story sequence, and the voice acting is top-notch to boot. Jonny Young Boch, Josuha, and Mathew Mercer as Oliver really steal the show.
This is the type of remake other developers should look at and learn from.
Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter remakes the game for a new audience without changing or sacrificing what made the original so fantastic. Falcom has truly struck gold with this remake, and I can only hope they look to remake the rest of the franchise in the same way.
Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter releases on September 19th for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2. and PC.
Review code kindly provided by PR