I have a lot of thoughts about the Trails series. I had only ever heard good things about it from Jason Schreier[^1], so I decided to pick up **Trails in the Sky: FC**. It was...fine. I didn't have the words to explain at the time, but I am not particularly dazzled by games with lots and lots of dialogue, which is Trails' bread and butter. Every NPC in TitS had something new to say about the events of the game, but reading it all stopped being quaint and started being irritating pretty quickly, especially because it would get very repetitive. If monsters attacked a village, it would go something like this: - Tough Guy: monsters attacked the village! I should have been there to stop them. - Chef Guy: monsters attacked the village! I'm preparing meals for everyone who got hurt. - Shy girl: monsters attacked the village...I hope my sister on the other side of town is okay (she is, because there are never stakes in Trails games). The main plot wasn't much better. There's "slow-burn," and then there's what ever **Trails in the Sky** was doing with its storytelling. The plot was pretty much non-existent for the entirety of the first game. In fact, Trails' notoriously dogmatic fanbase told me the series doesn't truly pick up until the second game, which according to HLTB, would take me about *51 hours* to get to (because of course I have to do all the side-quests, including the hidden time-limited ones, or else I wasn't getting the full experience). ![[6 Hours of Trails Through Daybreak-20240706114251409.png]] So I said *fuck that* and dropped it until **Trails of Cold Steel** dropped in America in 2015. I was told that this new arc would be a good jumping-in point, and I was on a Vita kick, so I figured why not? I was in college at the time, so a meaty game that I could spend hours on for only $40 seemed like a good deal to me. I played **Cold Steel & Cold Steel II** and. Well. Let's just say [[Cold Steel 2 is a Travesty - 2018-11-14|I wasn't exactly impressed]]. And apparently they only doubled down further with **Cold Steel III and IV**. So I chalked the whole series up as a wash. Fast-forward to 2024, and **Trails Through Daybreak** is releasing and reviews are pretty good. I hear this is a good new jumping-in point, given that it's apparently the start of the second half of Trails series' overall plot (there are 11 of these games so far btw). There's a new cast of characters, a new country to explore, and a new combat system. I approach games like an anthropologist at this point, so I decided to check it out. Here's my thoughts after 6 hours of play: ## Rolling Around at the Speed of Sound **Daybreak** has a turbo button and it is one of the greatest parts of the game. With a simple click of the left stick, you can make the game-speed move up to 5x faster, and that's for the entirety of the game by the way: cutscenes, combat, whatever you want. This alone is enough to make **Daybreak** bearable. As I mentioned on Cohost recently, I don't usually mind the *plot* of games I play getting in the way of the gameplay, but rather the *pacing*. I do not have time for drawn out panning shots, or static shots of the protagonist holding their hand to their chin for two or three seconds before speaking. In isolation that sort of thing is fine, but across a 40-70 hour JRPG, that shit adds up! Being able to fast-forward through all that nonsense so I can get to the actual important cutscenes is very helpful. This is particularly true because Trails games are so wordy. The cast will talk about how delicious Erbonian coffee is for two minutes before getting to the matter at hand. Cool world-building guys! Can we get back to the side-quest please? ## I'm a Big Kid Now! Probably the best part about **Daybreak** so far is that it no longer stars a bunch of high schoolers. I mean, the two party members you first pick up are a 16 and 13 year old girl...but the main character is 24 at least! And they don't even make it seem like he's 500 years old, in contrast to [other JRPGs!](Raven). Van is a Spriggan, basically a Private Investigator that operates between the boundaries of the Cops and the Bracers (also cops, but fantasy flavored). He takes on jobs that others won't, and so you'll see a lot of people describe him as "morally grey." I wouldn't really say that up to this point in the game, so much as he's pragmatic. He's still a do-gooder, but he also expects payment. Rightfully so! Saving lives still needs to pay the bills. I'm barely into the plot, even 6 hours in, but the idea that this being a good jumping in point to the Trails series rings true - it feels like an entirely fresh new start. Obviously places and characters and past events get referenced here or there, but unlike your average Trails fan, I trust that you're a smart cookie that can just infer things and put two-and-two together when said things get referenced. I haven't had to google anything nor am I lost. We'll see if that holds up, but Trails games' plots aren't nearly as dense as the fanbase might lead you to believe, particularly given that the overarching plot barely moves between games. The nice thing is that it's paced pretty well. Because Van is a Fantasy PI, you have different cases that you delve into, all with some sense of mystery and investigation. It justifies Van's willingness to nose about in people's problems. And because he's not a Bracer or a Cop, there's room for more interesting side-quests from the jump. One of the early side-quests involves smuggling advanced medicine from another country for a dying kid because there's no time to wait for customs or the courts to approve them. Pretty neat! ## Stand and Slash **Daybreak** is actually the pioneer of a combat system you might have seen in Atlus' upcoming game **Metaphor Re:Fantasio**. It's a mix of hack-and-slash and turn-based combat, which I am now coining as "Stand-and-Slash" because I think that's funny. You can mash attacks and dodge enemies on the overworld map to start with. For smaller / weaker mobs, this can be more than enough, and you can go about your merry way. But if the enemy is bigger, you can use fill up a bar during the real-time segments, then cash it out for a stun move that gives you advantage before switching to turn-based combat. It's pretty cool! Turn-based combat is pretty standard Trails fare, where you move around a ring before deleting enemies with all manner of spells (arts), skills (crafts)[^2], and ultimate attacks. There's nothing ground-breaking here, but it sets itself apart from the older Trails games thanks to how snappy it is. Everything just feels *faster* compared to something like **Cold Steel**, and that's even before you hit the turbo button. In fact, combat moves so quickly that I rarely felt the need to hit fast-forward at all, other than when six enemies are consecutively getting attacks in. The meat of the game's customization comes from the Orbment system. I really don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of it, but basically picture a more in-depth version of **Final Fantasy 7**'s materia system and you're 75% of the way there. ## Oh it's still a sleazy anime huh Everything I mentioned above is great, but that **Cold Steel** stink is still clinging to Van's coat in **Daybreak**. One of the first "jokes" in the game has Van pointing out that his assistant Agnes has big titties for a 16 year old, and one of the first major bosses you fight is a slime monster that disintegrates a female reporter's clothes. I don't know where this shit came from but Falcom has got to chill out with it. It's even infecting their vastly superior series **Ys**, albeit not as much, but I'm so tired of it. I'm getting old, man. Aren't you? Beyond that, **Daybreak** is probably going to be the best Trails game I've played, assuming it doesn't shit the bed before I finish it - which is *very* possible, given Falcom's track record. If you're already a fan I don't need to convince you, but if you're new, this is probably the best place to pick the series up, unless you have the time and energy to pick up five 50-hour PSP games, 2 50-hour Vita games, and 3 50-hour PS4/5 games! [^1]: This would be when I began to learn that he's a great investigative reporter with dogshit taste in games, but that's a piece for another day. [^2]: Yes, arts & crafts. It's cute, I'll admit it.