The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon Review – Crowning Glory

The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon Review

The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon is finally here and pulling no punches. The thirteenth entry in the Trails franchise and the third entry in the Calvard arc picks up soon after where Trails through Daybreak II left off. What awaits beyond the horizon? More fantasy noir, more fun character interactions, and more fantasy geopolitics than ever.

We return to the continent of Zemuria to find it taking its first steps into space. Satellites expand the Orbal network in entirely new directions and an astronaut is preparing to take the setting’s first space flight. But all is not well in this fantastical world.

As it turns out, the space race is directly related to the prophesied end of Zemuria. An end that is rapidly approaching. Needless to say, the heroes who’ve fought to protect this land aren’t going to take that lying down.

Rogue ‘spriggan’ Van Arkride, war hero Rean Schwarzer, and agent of the church Kevin Graham all move into action. However, saving the world might exact a more terrible price than they imagined. And while each is fine with sacrificing himself, the toll of failure might be exacted from someone else. A precious friend that Van would do anything to protect.

Everyone’s Here

The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon features some solid sound design. The soundtrack is lovely, as usual for a Trails game. This title isn’t fully voiced, but the voice-acting is solid when present.

It also features solid visual design and surprisingly solid graphics. This is one of the best-looking Trails games out there, right up with the Sky First Chapter remake. That said, it’s still definitely placing narrative and writing above graphical fidelity, which was the right call.

Similar to Trails into Reverie, Trails beyond the Horizon features rotating protagonists and multiple routes. Van’s plot takes center stage, but Rean and Kevin both have their parts to play in what might be Zemuria’s final days.

This title links the more accessible Daybreak games with the rest of the convoluted franchise. That’s quite the difficult task. However, it does a pretty good job of doing so, even if the opening hours are extremely cutscene-heavy as a result.

And since the Trails franchise is known for massive amounts of fantasy worldbuilding and long cutscenes, calling this game ‘cutscene heavy’ is saying something.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon is the Franchise’s Crowning Jewel

The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon features the most refined combat system yet. This game builds on Trails through Daybreak’s battle system. It switches between turn-based Command Battles and real-time Field Battles with the touch of a button.

The new ZOC function slows down enemies and allows players unparalleled control of the battlefield. In Command Battles, it grants a character an extra turn. This can be the difference between clearing a battle unscathed and scraping out a victory.

I did run into a slowdown bug by jumping in and out of Command Battle repeatedly while fighting the same foe. The same issue reoccurred a few times in the prologue, seemingly at random. It wasn’t impossible to fight through, but it was very annoying.

As always, the game features an incredible amount of worldbuilding, optional encounters, and collectibles. The impending end of the world still offers a ton of space to talk to people, do side quests, and explore. Zemuria really is a lovingly-realized setting and it’s always good to see the NPCs develop as the game continues.

You can complete certain quests in a few different manners to affect your alignment. This is another returning feature from the Daybreak games. It adds a nice splash of flavor to the outcome of your decisions.

The Price of Good Narrative

The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon features five difficulty levels ranging from Very Easy to Nightmare. That said, Normal is a perfectly reasonable difficulty for new players to start on.

As with other Trails games, Trails beyond the Horizon will search for previous clear data. Players who cleared Trails through Daybreak 1 or 2 will receive a little bonus reward.

There are entirely too many cutscenes for the amount of gameplay in the early game. However, most of those cutscenes are dedicated to two decades of careful plotting finally paying off. As such, I can’t even be mad about it. If you’ve been enjoying the ride so far, this title is going to be a treat.

That said, there are also entirely too many loading screens between cutscenes. This, I am definitely annoyed about.

All in all, The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon is a great entry in the franchise. It sounds good, looks good, and the narrative is truly kicking into gear. New players will definitely be confused, but this is the thirteenth game in the series. Just play the rest, I promise they’re good too.

***Steam code provided by the publisher***