Somehow, Falcom is delivering perhaps the best PC port of the year with Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter
If you've played any Falcom games on PC within the last decade, chances are you've played a version of their games that wasn't handled by Falcom themselves. That changes with the release of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter next month, which Falcom confirmed was being developed internally to GameSpark late last year. Naturally, this came with a whole host of questions; when a company hasn't developed for a platform in over a decade, there's always the concern that the first crack at it after so long might have some issues. That's not uncommon for PC development, even now - but to make matters worse, nearly every Falcom PC release since Trails of Cold Steel has been handled by Durante or PH3, the undisputed kings of PC port development. Falcom had some very large shoes to fill. When GungHo reached out to offer early access to the PC demo that has released today, we were waiting with bated breath to see how the port was turning out - shockingly, Falcom has turned in something extraordinary.
Let's start off with the PC options - and anyone who has played Ys X or Trails through Daybreak on PC might be having some deja vu. While Falcom have confirmed that they were handling the PC port internally, it's clear that they either did end up consulting with PH3, or based their PC settings off the existing Japanese PC versions of their games handled by Durante's studio. You've got some nice quality-of-life features, such as being able to toggle whether the game pauses while alt-tabbed or when the Steam Overlay is opened; there's the option to uncap the framerate, and indeed on my desktop I was able to play the game at 160FPS with no issues. There's proper HDR support, a field of view slider, and a host of graphics options including a render scale that allows players to supersample if they wish. The game features full Steam Input support, and will use bespoke Steam Deck buttons in the UI when played on one.
There's some small complaints I have with the options, but they're merely nitpicks when what's available is better than 99% of PC ports as it is. While I wish there were some features like DLSS included so we could access DLAA, the game looks and runs well as it does. On my desktop - which is admittedly far beyond the normal scope of what players might have - I managed 4k160 at max settings with extra headroom and no problem, even with my FOV expanded from the default. I'll leave more in-depth Steam Deck impressions for Mikhail, but 60~ FPS at low settings and native resolution is more than capable, and still looks great. There's some clear scaling between the different settings, as the medium preset dropped the averages to closer to 45~50 FPS. I didn't notice any stuttering on either system, outside of the expected shader compilation on Steam Deck. Frametimes were solid otherwise. I didn't have the chance to test on my laptop as per usual, but I'd expect it to handle 1440p 80+ FPS at max settings without too much of an issue. Considering this PC demo is available publicly, I'm sure it won't take long for owners of more entry-level PC setups to report their results.
While it's difficult to showcase HDR in screenshots, the implementation seemed similar to what you might find in recent PH3 ports. It looks great, and worked out of the box on my Steam Deck OLED. Visually, the game looks astounding on the max settings; far beyond anything else that Falcom has released prior. As I mentioned in my full preview, the world is far more open than the original, and truly makes Liberl and Zemuria feel like a realized world. The fact that such a technical leap has occurred while still developing an excellent PC port makes me excited to see how future projects like the upcoming Tokyo Xanadu sequel will shape up.
Frankly, I'm shocked that things have turned out as well as they have. I was well and truly bracing for the worst, and not in my wildest dreams did I expect Falcom to put their own name on a PC port that really does stand alongside PH3's work. It's the sort of release I never dared dream of; while I played Trails in the Sky on PC back in the day, I resigned myself to playing the rest of the franchise on PlayStation over the years, especially once I started playing the games in Japanese. The fact that not only am I able to play a new Falcom release on PC day-1, but with an excellent port, is all I could have ever hoped for. PC Trails fans are in for a real treat.