The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak

The game was provided by NIS America for review. Thank you!

If you have seen other posts, articles, and reviews I have written on SteamDeckHQ, it would be obvious that The Legend of Heroes / Trails is one of my favorite JRPG series. With so many that I have played, the Trails series stands out thanks to how it handles its overarching story, making it digestible for newcomers who have not played the previous games while also leaving in talking points and characters that those who played the older games would understand and get a kick out of seeing. The newest entry, Trails Through Daybreak, continues this trend while evolving the series' gameplay mechanics to feel much more enjoyable than previous titles, and I couldn't put it down.

As I have said with other Trails games I have reviewed or talked about; I highly recommend playing the series from the beginning. All the games are available on Steam, and we made sure every game is playable on the Steam Deck; this is the best way to experience it. While you can understand and still enjoy Daybreak without playing the older titles, significant characters and events that are referenced that you won't feel the full impact of unless you know the story before this. I recommend starting with Trails in the Sky.

I also want to mention that there may be spoilers since I will discuss the story. Due to the game's heavy story focus, I will avoid talking about specific plot points and events that will happen, but there will be some discussions about certain characters and how the story felt. If you wish to skip this, please scroll past this point until you see the "End of Story Discussion" text.

-Start of Story Discussion-

On that note, let's begin by talking about Trails Through Daybreak's story, which is easily one of the big high points for playing this entire series. You start the game off as Spriggan Van Arkride, someone who takes on dangerous jobs that people can't go to the police or guild with. One day, he gets a job from a girl named Agnès Claudel, who is searching for an artifact that runs in her family, and together, they end up going on a journey across the country of Calvard to recover more of these artifacts from the mafia group Almata and hopefully avert the horrors that were predicted to unfold.

There were plenty of times throughout the game that followed similar tropes in the JRPG genre, but I felt it was still airing more on the unique side. The whole storyline was exhilarating, even if a little bit obvious at times. There were some key points that I had a feeling were coming, and I wasn't completely surprised by, though there were some elements that did surprise me a lot. I was pretty satisfied throughout, while the ending surprised me. I thought it ended earlier than I expected, so it was a nice surprise that it continued. And I felt it set up the next games beautifully, leaving some lingering questions I am curious about.

The cast of characters is wonderful, too. I was very elated to see how the main characters working with Van interact with each other. Each one has a very distinct, unique personality that all mesh together in interesting ways. Some characters fall into regular JRPG tropes, but even still, they all feel essential and communicate interestingly with each other and other individuals. All of them have their quirks, which we can learn about more in special connection cutscenes that we can trigger, and they are all quite fascinating. I found myself laughing a lot at the jokes around Van, specifically his sweet tooth and how he acts when called old (which happens a lot).

It was also a joy seeing old faces pop back up. I don't want to go into detail specifically about who appears because I'm trying to avoid story spoilers, but it is handled well. Falcom, the developer, has fine-tuned its process for creating the Trails games and masterfully incorporating characters and events from what happened in past entries, and it is on full display here as well.

I was on my seat the entire time, and while I do have other games to review, I felt compelled to keep playing and beat the game. Story-wise, Daybreak has been one of my favorites in the Trails series and transcends many other JRPGs I have played. It isn't perfect, but there were significantly more pros than cons.

-End of Story Discussion-

Now, we can get right to the gameplay. The Trails series has a very signature combat gameplay loop. You enter turn-based combat and use regular attacks, craft skills (which use Craft Points or CP), Arts (Which use EP), and Special Crafts that count as ultimate attacks. Crafts are something like physical skills, while Arts are essentially magic. Both can have different status effects that affect enemies when used, while Arts can also have an element attached. Combining the two allows us to diversify our attacks and strategize who will use what and how to handle each foe.

Trails Through Daybreak also uses the same gameplay loop for combat, but it does evolve a little. Just like the last entry, you pick an attack and choose an enemy, while Arts and Crafts can have an area of effects that can hit multiple foes. Sometimes, you can choose the area you will attack freely, but others may require you to select a specific enemy to hit, and anyone around could be affected. There are also some Arts and Crafts that heal or buff allies, and they are very useful.

The two biggest changes in turn-based combat are the ability to move around and S-Boosting. You are able to freely move around the battlefield and attack enemies within your range of movement, and if you are close enough to specific allies, you can trigger follow-up attacks from them or have a higher chance of activating additional effects. S-Boosting is a new bar that fills up as you attack, and when you have enough, you can boost specific stats. Boosting twice gives you access to your special cinematic attack, called an S-Craft. Doing different things during the battle can also give you extra experience or exp to level up your characters.

You can also run around and attack enemies in real-time combat. It is basic, with only one attack button, a dodge, and a charged attack, but this isn't the main way to engage with them. You can take out weaker enemies easily, and you do get exp, but the main goal for real-time combat is to build up and stun enemies, which allows you to get extra damage done when you switch to turn-based combat. It's a neat mechanic that I love utilizing, and going between real-time and turn-based at-will for most enemies is a nice touch.

We also have a new way of enhancing our characters. You will equip different orbments to give different stat boosts, like strength or defense increases, and each orbment has an assigned type and number, which can give different effects for your team like extra wind damage or a health boost when entering turn-based combat. Picking and choosing different orbments to build up your characters are essential, and having to balance both the stat boosts and effects are a nice touch. You can also switch out and level up holo cores, giving you different and improved S-Boost bonuses. Different orbments can be aquired via battle drops, chests, or synthesizing/creating them using different seriphs, which you get through battles and chests.

Outside of combat, you will be running around the cities in Calvard to continue the story and buy items, new equipment, and food while also completing side quests. Some of the side quests can be a bit boring, and I found myself powering through them to get back to the mainline quests, but they do give extra mira (money) and points to increase your rank for extra stat bonuses at the end of chapters. Completing all the requests can give you some extra free time, allowing you to use more time for "Connections." These are moments where you have side moments with specific individuals to learn about them. I love these moments, and it helps give us more clues as to who they are, their background, and their connection to Van (and some stat boosts). I dislike that you must complete some side quests to advance the story, but with the boosts all of them can give at the end, it's worthwhile.

One thing I wish could have been changed was the voice lines. I liked the voice acting, but in some conversations, some people had voice lines while others didn't, or some lines were voiced and some weren't. For example, Van could be conversing with Agnès, but only Agnès's lines were voiced, and one line for Van was voiced at the end. I understand this is also how some of the older games handle voiceovers, but I wish it was either all voiced or none. The lack of consistency bugs me.

The world of Trails Through Daybreak is gorgeous, though. It feels like a wonderful step up from the previous entry, Trails Into Reverie, while also keeping the signature style that I recognize for the series. It isn't extremely detailed, but it has just enough to feel very advanced, while the shading on the characters made each of them stand out more. I also like how the shadows of the world sit, and mixing all of this with the awesome soundtrack just made me want to see more of the world.

Each city felt very distinct too. We have the main city of Calvard, which feels a lot like a budding metropolis, while we also have the gorgeous scenery of the rural Creil Village, the asia-inspired areas of Langport, and the desert oasis of Tharbad. All of which feel wholly unique with different buildings, vibes, and experiences.

And it all can be enjoyed on the Steam Deck, with some compromises.

Trails Through Daybreak - Steam Deck Performance

Trails Through Daybreak is a joy to play on the Steam Deck, and I can't see myself playing it any other way. It is a massive game that, while doing most side content, spans at least 50 hours. While it can be played, it has some issues that I think should be addressed.

The biggest one for me is RAM. No matter what settings I had, the game would continually use up more and more RAM, which did cause a couple of crashes. I had to ensure I was saving and monitoring the usage so that I could save and close the game when it got close to the maximum. Reopening it right after did fix it, so you can just do that, but it was something I had to monitor and be conscious of.

I also noticed specific attacks, usually Arts, Crafts, and S-Crafts, that would drop the framerate, as well as some areas that can (usually the ones with reflections). Due to this, the settings I am recommending do have this in mind. Most areas in the game can hit above 50, with a lot getting above 60, but due to wanting the most stable experience during combat and lower battery drain, I will be taking this into account.

Recommended Settings

Overall, the highest framerate we can go without making the visuals too blurry is 40 FPS, and with how smooth it was, this was my favorite way to play. Too many attacks will take it below 41 FPS, even when all the settings are at the lowest. We can get to 55 and even 60 FPS in many areas, and those can expand if we lower the rendering resolution, but for the most consistent experience with good visuals, 40 will be the way to go. We won't have a TDP limit here, just in case we need to use extra power for some cutscenes, but it should stick to 40 for all combat and general gameplay.

Quality/Battery Saver Settings

For my preferred way to play the game, I went with a quality build that saved on battery. To do this, we are able to put graphical options up a bit, set the game to 30 FPS, and set a TDP limit to 8. With this, the game will look and feel phenomenal, and while a 30 framerate doesn't feel as smooth, especially for real-time combat, it is consistent throughout the game. A few attacks can bring it down, like Aaron's S-Craft or some Arts, but these are minimal with the rest of the game sticking to the framerate. You can increase the TDP limit if you want to fix this.

60 FPS Settings

Now, I know what I said about 60 FPS in the recommended settings, but if you are fine with some visual compromises, it is possible without draining a ton of battery. You will have to decrease the resolution scale to 75%, turn everything to low, and have no TDP limit. Doing all of this gets 60 FPS in almost every scenario, with some drops when going to new areas, running around the world and inside and out of buildings, using some S-Crafts, and in some cutscenes. It sounds like a lot, but it isn't. And with this, the combat will be stable. It's just a lot blurrier than I would like, personally.

Accessibility

We have many different settings we can change to customize our experience. You can change your text and voice language, how often the game will auto save, font size, messages auto-advancing, the high-speed mode toggle and speedup factor, camera auto center, audio bars, and different input changes like inverting the camera.

As for the Steam Deck, the game does support 16:10 resolutions, and has both cloud saves and controller support. The game also has HDR support.

Text Size Issues

While most of the game's text is large enough for the Steam Deck's screen, some menus are too small to read. This primarily happens at the orbment screen. Seeing the names and effects of each orbment is readable, but very small, while the extra effects that come from equipping certain orbments is impossible to read. Even when the font size is set to large, it was still way too small to read.

Conclusion

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak is possibly the best entry in the series. Falcom has continued the amazing story-telling with memorable characters and a great overall narrative that kept me excited and engaged until the end. I love the way Falcom incorporates older characters to make a return, and they do so wonderfully here while also setting up the scene for future entries in this subseries. The evolution of the combat and gameplay mechanics is fantastic, and while there are some nuisances with the side quests, it doesn't overtake the great moments in the game.

As for playing on the Steam Deck, Daybreak runs wonderfully for the most part. It does require some compromises to get the game running stable throughout, but it works extremely well, and it's the best way to experience the game. It does suffer from some small text in some menus, and the RAM usage is an issue, but as long as you turn the game off every hour and a half and reopen it, you won't have the problem. It isn't something you should have to do, but it is. Even still, I wouldn't play this any other way.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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