The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon Review

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of… series is a bit of a strange one to review. The latest entry, Trails Beyond the Horizon, marks the fourth of these games that I have reviewed here at RPG Site, and the ninth overall, with my first being the enhanced PS4 port of the first Cold Steel game. With every new Trails game, the less I feel like my review, or frankly, any outlet’s review, matters all that much. This is especially the case for entries coming in at the middle or end of a storyline arc, like Beyond is, coming in as the third part of the Calvard Arc. I would never recommend a mid-arc title for a new player to start with, and if you have been riding the longer you’ve been riding this orbal train for, the less likely anything I say will change that, and I count myself in that same camp. Beyond the Horizon, while not without its blemishes, is my favorite so far of Arkride Solution’s adventures, and offers up one of the most bat s*** endings of the series, right up there with Cold Steel 3, which I very much appreciated. But at 13 games deep into this wild interconnected storyline, you could tell me it’s the worst entry in the series so far, and I would still be lined up day one to sink another 50-100 hours into the lovely world of Zemuria just to see what happens regardless.

All of this is a bit of a preamble and setup to let you, dear reader, know that I am approaching things a little differently than in my previous Trails reviews. I’m going to do a sort of lightning round of information  that I think will be more helpful to fans of the series, before going into my more nuanced thoughts, without going into spoilers. 

• Gameplay feels nearly identical to the previous Daybreak titles, from combat to menus, and how side quests work. All of it. There are some new toys to play with, such as Van being able to transform into the Grendel more often during Command battles and even in some field areas, alongside the new “Shard Commands” that act similarly to Cold Steel’s Brave Orders (less overpowered but still powerful) that buff your stats.
• Beyond adopts a similar route system to Trails Into Reverie did, where you will be following three different protagonists - Rean Schwarzer, Kevin Graham, and Van - seeing what each group is up to over the course of the three days in which the story takes place. 
• You will get the most out of Beyond if you have previously played and remember the events of the Cold Steel + Reverie games and Trails in the Sky 3rd.
• Crafts can now level up and get stronger the more you use them.
• Quartz like EP Cut no longer reduces cost by a set percentage, but instead multiplies the cost by a set fraction (example: Glodia no longer reduces cost by 40% and now multiplies it by 0.6), meaning you can no longer cast things for free. 
• You can no longer steal turn bonuses like Zero Arts cost or Guaranteed Critical Hit by calling in an S-Craft to shift turns around. Those bonuses are now set and tied to the character they appear on, regardless of when their turn happens.

Beyond the Horizon largely takes place over the course of a three-day period in which Roy Cramheart, Calvard’s President and Agnes’ father, after announcing his intention to launch a human into space, is following through on his promise. Nothing ever goes quite according to plan, and Beyond has some truly wild twists and reveals that made me see even some of the previous games’ various background characters in dramatically different ways. All I want to do is talk about them, but I will have to save them for another time, after the game has been out a bit in the West, to do so. 

When it comes to how the story is told with the three routes, I would say it largely succeeds in that endeavor, certainly better than Daybreak 2’s “reliving days” gimmick in any case. That said, much like in Reverie, not all of the routes are created equally, with me finding that I enjoyed Rean and Kevin’s routes' plots more intriguing and rewarding to play through. What really surprised me, perhaps even more than some of the plot twists, was just how disconnected each route is from each other. With the exception of the prologue and the Grim Garten — Beyond’s grindy dungeon, where everyone meets up via the wonders of virtual reality — the three groups have no real interaction with one another. This includes the end of the game. I kept expecting them to meet up or for some reason for the plot to bring everyone together, as it has in previous games, but that never came.

With Van’s route, for a majority of the game, it all felt a bit like retreading familiar ground … that I had done it all before, but in typical Trails fashion, everything popped off in the final chapter. Kevin’s on the other hand was by far the most mysterious and intriguing of three for me, while Rean’s felt the most personal. Kevin was solving a mystery and was full of reveals that shocked and surprised me, and when the curtains were all pulled back, my mind was slow trying to work out all the implications. Playing Kevin’s route makes me hope that the team behind the Trails in the Sky remakes will go on to eventually remake Trails in the Sky 3rd as well, which is Kevin’s big game, as events from that game and his connections come up fairly regularly during his route.

As someone who started with Trails of Cold Steel, getting to play as Rean again put a smile on my face. Class VII and the members of Thors will always hold a special place in my heart, so seeing some of them now older and with new designs. Rean’s route felt like the culmination of many things we had been told about previously, from finally getting to meet people only spoken about in reverent tones before to finally getting that rematch Cold Steel fans have been waiting for since the secret stories found in the post-game of Reverie. I can’t see how his route will really impact the wider world like Van or Kevin’s will going forward, but Rean’s was the one I got the most closure from, too, which is a bit odd since all the routes don’t really have conclusions. Some questions we have had get answered, sure, but so many new ones are created that I am still trying to work through. 

Beyond features more returning characters than brand new ones, with the two new Enforcers being the ones you get to know the best, with one - the Influencer - I can see being incredibly divisive for players. If cringy streamer lingo, an overabundance of modern-day lingo and terms (things like “rage-baiting”, “bruh”, “gigachad”, "deadass" or “vibemaxxing”), and reading abbreviated words like “IYKYK”, then hold onto your butts. Credit to the voice actress and her delivery, because she nails the overly hyped streamer-girl stereotype. For better or worse. The other, the mysterious hat-wearing one, is far more subdued and plays up that “I’m going to be mysterious, but I’m super powerful” motif that so many other characters have in Trails’ past. He sprinkles enough breadcrumbs for him to be included on my long list of points of intrigue found in this game, and he has the added benefit of not wanting me to rip off my ears every time he speaks, unlike his other Enforcer coworker.

When it came to the normal Arkride Solutions cast, with the exception of Risette, none of my opinions of the characters changed all that much from what I’ve felt about them since Daybreak 1. Feri and Agnes I find rather bland, Agnes especially so, and I adore Van, Judith, Shizuna, and Aaron. Aaron once again has some of my favorite lines in the game, always speaking the mind of the player, shouting things that don’t make sense or what the hell is going on. His banter with the others and with Judith still makes me chuckle every time. 

On the topic of Risette, in the prior two games, I felt like she leaned too heavily into that emotionless, super-strong aide persona, and just never found her all that interesting of a character. Developments with her in Beyond make her situation and history far more interesting, and have shot her near the top of the characters I NEED to find out more about in the next game. 

In the days since rolling credits on Beyond the Horizon, while my mind still hasn’t quite wrapped its head around what all transpired in those last few hours, one constant thought I have had is just how globally impactful all of Beyond is. Whereas the previous arcs dealt with other countries , nothing until this game has felt like its events will have global and far-reaching implications for everyone on Zemuria. I realize that we are over halfway through the (currently) planned series, and I feel like this is setting the stage for the eventual finale, leaving me anxious and excited. The more I sit and think about what this game does and introduces into the lore of the Trails series, the more my brain hurts, as one thought splinters off into three or four others. Seriously, I can’t understate just how wild some of the things that happen are and how they recontextualize moments from previous games into a whole new light. As a little further bit of info that will mess with your head, as you play Beyond, realize that microwaves - yes, the same thing that heats up your food - aren’t widely available or known about yet to the public in Zemuria (this is discovered via a small random 4SPG during Rean’s route).  I went expecting answers, and instead, I came out with my mind feeling like Charlie Day’s conspiracy board meme from  Always Sunny in Philadelphia. It is both wonderful and infuriating, as I love to theory-craft with my friends, but with no word on the follow-up yet or on Japanese sequels I can import, I’m left in this constant state of “what if” questions. 

If you had asked me prior to a few months ago, on my list of “what I will live to see happen”, I would have put the West catching up with Japan around the same level as seeing someone walk on Mars. It still amazes me that English speakers are all caught up, and I hope that Falcom and NIS America’s endeavors to reach simultaneous worldwide releases will succeed, and the long days of waiting for localizations are behind us. 

I don’t know what is coming next for our friends in Zemuria, or when we will get to see it, but The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon has still been the most fun I’ve had in Calvard yet. Yeah, it still plays, looks, and feels like Daybreak 1 and 2 for the most part, but with the exception of the time skip and engine change between Cold Steel 2 and 3, games of an arc tend to do that, so it was expected. Beyond ends on one of the biggest cliffhangers the series has seen, which will make the wait feel even longer, but as I said at the start, I’m so far deep down this rabbit hole at this point, the only way I’m escaping it is getting through it, so hopefully the wait won’t take too long.