The Nintendo Switch 2 version of The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon seems decent so far

Last week NIS America invited RPG Site to their LA office in order to check out a few of their upcoming releases, including The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon. Now, while we were offered the chance to play the upcoming localization on PlayStation 5, longtime readers are probably aware that I've long since played Falcom releases with their original Japanese launch - as such, I played the original release on the PlayStation 5. I was far more interested in the state of the game on Switch 2.

That being said; let's talk to the localization a bit, shall we? We had a few hours to check out the opening moments of Rean and Kevin's Route's in Act II, which meant hearing the dubbed voice lines for both. So far, and acknowledging I haven't played a Trails game in English excepting Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter since Trails of Cold Steel IV, the dub seems pretty good! Sean Chiplock's take on an older, more experienced Rean - just a hint of of a gruff tone underneath it all - is quite nice, and fits the state of the character in Beyond the Horizon. The rest of the cast sounds great, too; NIS America has always had great dubs for their Falcom releases, and so far it seems no different here, though of course this is only accounting for a small slice of the overall game.

Now, for the game itself - I already reviewed it, and Scott will have our "official" review for the full game in the coming weeks, but what about the state of the game on Switch 2? Well, Mikhail will have to be the final judge on the the technical state come launch, but it's looking similarly promising. The game's assets appear to match that of the PlayStation 5 release, and the game includes two options for visuals in the settings; 30FPS capped, or "Variable" framerate. While the former option is straightforward, the latter is markedly more interesting; while the game features "up to" 60 FPS while in docked mode, it's noted that Variable runs completely uncapped up to 120 FPS in handheld mode, with VRR smoothing out and frametime irregularities.

In handheld mode, the game looks and runs great. We weren't able to measure the framerate, but VRR does its job and any dips aren't distracting - the game looks sharp, runs well, and looks great. If you've been playing the series on Nintendo Switch up until now, you'll probably find it hard to go back to earlier titles following the upgrade. Docked mode is a bit tougher to judge; NIS America had us playing it through an OBS window - which anyone who's played games through an OBS capture window can attest, that it adds yet another variable for perceived performance. 

That being said; there's definitely performance dips in docked mode, especially in Grim Garten. It's hard to say what resolution the game is targeting while docked on Switch 2 - the capture card was limited to 1080p60 FPS for the capture - but with expectations set it seemed fine; it's worth noting that on PlayStation 5 was rendering at a lower resolution than 4K in its performance mode, so a Switch 2 rendering the game at what we assume is targeting 1080p60 internally makes perfect sense. It's tough to say the exact specifics of the game's technical specs - I'll leave that up to Mikhail once he has access to the game on its myriad platforms - but it seems decent, at least to my eye. We'll see how it holds up!

It's a bit of an awkward situation, previewing a game that I've already played to completion - which makes it a little tricky to discuss in such a context. If you want my thoughts about the Japanese release of the game, it was linked above. I enjoyed it a lot! The Western release of The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon launches for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2 and PC on January 15. Stay tuned for Scott's review in the weeks ahead.