Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is Looking to be a Delight on the Steam Deck

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Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a remake of the 2004 classic JRPG from the long-running series. Using the more up-to-date "Trails Through Daybreak" engine to give us plenty of visual, as well as gameplay, improvements.

A demo has just launched on Steam, and we wanted to give it a try to see if it runs as well as previous games in the series do on the Steam Deck.

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter Demo - Steam Deck Performance Tested

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter does have good controller support, making it easy to play on the Steam Deck, but it is restricted to 16:9 resolutions, so you'll be playing the game at 1280x720 with slight black borders along the top and bottom of your screen.

The game defaults to the "Low" preset, which curiously still has some options on their "Medium" setting, but it's what I would recommend for Steam Deck users. These settings allow us to maintain an almost rock-solid 60 FPS throughout the demo experience, with just slight dips when a lot of "arts" get fired off in a battle. The visual difference between the graphical settings actually isn't very large, so I would recommend you aim for 60 FPS and sacrifice the slight visual improvement that running at 30 or 40 would give you.

The game is locked to 60 FPS, with no possibility of reaching 90, even if the Steam Deck could run it that fast (it couldn't), but it really is an enjoyable experience on the Steam Deck; it looks good, it feels smooth, and the controls are designed for gamepads.

Final Thoughts

Although we only have access to the demo of the game right now, I think you'll be able to buy Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter with confidence on the Steam Deck. The fact that we can run at a stable 60 FPS throughout the demo means that even if a more intense area comes along in the full release, it's highly unlikely to drop close to 30 FPS. The only downside is the 16:9 aspect ratio the game locks to, giving us those black borders at the top and bottom of the screen.

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