In videogames, you may have already faced incredible challenges, whether you faced off against that annoying dragon on the bridge in Dark Souls or even got through Shao Khan at the end of a grueling hard mode tournament in Mortal Kombat 9, but nothing comes close to knowing exactly everything what’s going on in any The Legend of Heroes game. Especially one that has the herculean task of tying off two of its subseries like The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon.
Like Trails into Reverie from a little while back, Trails Beyond the Horizon is here to put to rest the latest arc from Trails Through Daybreak, which comprised of two releases I’ve recently reviewed, both starred by “spriggan” – that’s a sort of do-it-all detective type who works on off the grid jobs – Van Arkride and his merry group of helpers, as well as give props to both Trails of Cold Steel and Trails in the Sky. If you’ve been following my coverage of all of those, you’ll know there’s a ton to get through on any of those games, so it’s no surprise that Trails Beyond the Horizon can be a little intimidating, if not scary to dive into.
And Nihon Falcom doesn’t really help things in the way it delivers the core experience. Much like Reverie, you’re dumped right into the deep end as soon as the game begins, with a reunion of characters pulled from those games, all of them sharing conversations that we’re basically supposed to know what they’re talking about right away. Sure, there’s some context that’s tried to be given through a glossary you can access at any time, but it’s a flimsy solution that doesn’t do nearly a good enough job at filling gaps in our knowledge.
To make things worse, once you’re through the intro, a training exercise of sorts where the game’s three main protagonists are in, with aforementioned Van, Rean from Cold Steel, and Kevin who hails from Trails in the Sky 3rd Chapter – the one I was least familiar with since I haven’t gotten to the second part of that saga yet in hopes of playing the remake following the excellent 1st Chapter – you’re invited to and attend a party with an even bigger group of characters from past games. References are thrown about all willy nilly with part of the saga’s huge cast being introduced at brisk pace, either on or off screen in the form of monotone stills from past games.
It’s a good thing that once that’s through, Beyond the Horizon dials it back and splits gameplay between those three main guys. Starting with Van, we drive back to his home turf of Edith, the capital of Calvard, in order to pick more odd jobs up as he investigates the game’s main plot device. We’re talking about the unmanned rocket that was just fired off into space, which has left everyone running in circles trying to make odds and ends out of since it’s Zemuria’s – that’s the name of the world the series takes place in – first foray off the planet in its history, and Calvard’s been pushing schedule ahead in order to put a human up there right away. It’s the thrust if you will of the plot and it’s a neat one given the whole mystery surrounding just how the heck they’ve managed to get it up and running so quickly in the first place, something that spins well with the investigative nature of the games that led up to Trails Beyond the Horizon.
In this section, it’s more of a rethread of what you’d get to do in previous Trails Through Daybreak, which is by all means fun, thanks to the more laidback approach of not just plonking you into political intrigue in favor of dealing with some good old urban drama. Then again, you also run into a lot of backstory right away as the game attempts to recapitulate not just the story so far for Daybreak, but also a fair amount of the worldbuilding that’s taken place during the time we’ve been away. It’s something that also happens during Rean and Kevin’s sections too to some degree, so patience where it’s due; there’s a bunch of stuff you’re not likely to get even after dozens of hours playing this, unless you have caught up by reading wikis or have a photographic memory after playing through all of The Legend of Heroes over the last couple of decades, which I honestly doubt.
Thankfully, for as convoluted as it can be and Falcom has no qualms making it, the story that there is here is at least interesting and pushes you to actually want to get into it. Dealing with the complexity of all the politics at play between all the nations of the world like Erebonia, Crossbell, Liberl, and Calvard, all of which have factored in all of the releases over the course of the last 20 years, while positively brainbusting can be rewarding. Surely, as I’ve mentioned in the past, there’s a decent helping of anime in there for good measure, with exaggerated designs and colorful cosplay-friendly outfits, but to counter it you’ll find that character building is surprisingly mature and serious mixed in with the usual, and welcome, silliness from time to time.
As with the last few entries in The Legend of Heroes, when it comes to fighting, it can be done in both real-time and in turns with Trails Beyond the Horizon, having you soften up baddies in simple button-mashing affairs before deploying shards and taking them in more traditional menu-based battles. There are new elements to more recent entries though, like a system where your fighters can buff themselves up in a similar way to orders from Trails from Cold Steel, as well as a charged up mode that can be used to speed encounters up even more, not giving any room to the opposition to put up much of a fight. Given that I’ve usually been bumping the difficulty down in these games in order to get the story moving, these additions make at least amusing to see how powerful your crew can be, unashamedly so.
If however you’re into all the fighting, you’ll be glad to know that Reverie’s dungeon game mode is back in the form of Grim Garten, which outside being slightly annoying in its introduction by basically forcing you to finish a run before moving on, is completely separate from the main game and can be tackled whenever you wish. It’s a more stripped down way of playing Horizon without any story hurdles whatsoever, a nice excuse for those who enjoy partaking in all the orb-mashing tactical shenanigans of The Legend of Heroes. It’s just not something I enjoy but can definitely appreciate the game having the option in case I happen to change my mind, even if I doubt that it will.
As with every January, I think back to the old ambition of finally getting in line with all of this long-running series and with Trails Beyond the Horizon, it’s no different. Knowing that Trials in the Sky 2nd Chapter is around the corner, that it’s also part of the saga and is mercifully not an extra part of the story certainly softens the blow of having yet another layer piled up on top of a never-ending backlog. With that in mind, I do hold hope that I’ll somehow be able to both get up to date with all that’s going on and, most importantly, be able to recall all of it when the time comes. If this latest game is any indication, probably not. But at least I’m having an okay time being lost in it.
