Review: The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon

2 weeks ago 11

The Legend of Heroes Trails Beyond the Horizon Review

Christian has three years of experience writing in the gaming industry, including guides and reviews, for publications such as Dualshockers, Attack of the Fanboy, and PC Invasion. He has been an avid gamer since he was a kid, viewing it as the best possible art form and medium. Some of his favorite genres include Survival Horror, Soulslikes, and RPGs, but he finds joy in almost any type of game.

The Trails series has been around for a long time, first starting in 2004. With the recent release and success of the remake of Trails in the Sky, excitement is at an all-time high for this series and fans can't wait for the next installment. While Trails Beyond the Horizon has been available in Japan since 2024, it was unplayable by western audiences — until now.

Trails Beyond the Horizon is considered the 13th main installment in the Trails series and the third installment in the Calvard arc, with the first two being Through Daybreak and Through Daybreak 2. Now players in the west will finally be able to see the conclusion of the Calvard arc and witness everything come together in an intense and exciting conclusion.

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Trails is considered to be one of the greats among the JRPG community, right up there with the Tales and Persona series, but it has always been overshadowed by those two. This isn't because they are better, it's just because Tales and Persona have become more mainstream. However, after playing through Trails Beyond the Horizon, I can confidently say that this series deserves to be in the conversation with the other modern greats. The success of Trails in the Sky has helped with that, and I believe Beyond the Horizon will too.

Trails Beyond the Horizon surprised me in more ways than one, and I am so pleased that I got to play through its 70-hour adventure. While it isn't perfect, and there are some hiccups here and there, it's one of the best JRPGs I have played in a long time. In this review, you'll find out why Trails Beyond the Horizon is worth your time, as we'll delve into its complex combat mechanics, engaging side quests, and exciting story.

Uncover the Secrets of Zemuria

The story of Trails Beyond the Horizon takes place on the continent of Zemuria and follows three main protagonists, Van Arkride, Rean Schwarzer, and Father Kevin Graham. Each of these characters has their own storyline and party members, consisting of characters from previous Trails games, that fans of the series will love to see. The three main characters, Van, Rean, and Kevin, rarely ever interact with one another and instead are on their own journey to uncover the bigger picture of what’s happening — the end of the Zemuria continent.

To avoid spoilers, I won’t be going into the secrets of Zemuria and why the end is near, as some plot twists are enjoyable to discover on your own. However, what I can tell you is that the game begins with the announcement of a spacecraft launching into space, humanity’s first attempt to go “beyond the horizon.” While the people of Zemuria are excited about this event, which will be watched by everyone publicly, our main protagonists have their doubts, which begins a long journey of investigating Zemuria’s past and present.

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Along the way, you’ll discover the involvement of gangs, encounter traitors, watch civilians be possessed, visit old friends, fight villains from past games, and more, all playing a part in the dark fate of Zemuria. It’s an exciting journey that does a good job at keeping the player curious to see the conclusion. However, Trails Beyond the Horizon does have an issue with dialogue, sometimes having way too much of it. This wouldn’t be an issue if the dialogue were constantly focused on the main plot, but that’s unfortunately not the case.

Even though tons of pointless dialogue aren’t unusual in JRPGs, especially the Trails series, it still needs to be mentioned as it can be very frustrating, especially for those who aren’t used to it. Considering that progressing the story involves speaking to numerous characters around a city, most of whom you haven’t encountered yet in the journey, expect to go through introductions constantly and listen to an explanation of the character’s background or role. To an extent, I appreciate this as it’s a good way to get up to speed with the world and characters of Trails, but it becomes tedious after a while.

As you progress through Trails Beyond the Horizon, you’ll switch between “routes,” which are the storylines of Van, Kevin, and Rean. Once you start a route, you must complete it in order to move on to another, but you can’t immediately go into the next route for the same character. For example, after beating Rean Route 1, you must start Van or Kevin Route 1. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it is annoying to be forced into another character’s route, especially when you’re very interested in seeing how a certain storyline plays out. I understand why Falcom does this, though, as it’s a way to slowly bring the overall story arc together, as each route slowly unravels more secrets of Zemuria.

Overall, the story of Trails Beyond the Horizon is a good one, and it’s a satisfying conclusion to the Calvard arc. Besides some minor nitpicks, such as being forced into routes and a ton of pointless dialogue, Falcom created a clever plot that keeps you constantly curious to see what happens next. Its story may not be as amazing as the Persona series, but it carves out its own lane in the JRPG pantheon as it does a fine job detailing political corruption, gang violence, betrayal, and issues with society. It also includes a ton of callbacks to older Trails titles, which is a nice touch for die-hard fans.

Side Content Worth Exploring

Trails Beyond the Horizon excels in its side content through side quests, character relationships, and the Grim Garten. For starters, side quests are offered periodically throughout the main story, and each brings its own story that is surprisingly in-depth. Absolutely no side quests in Beyond the Horizon feel like filler, and instead, they serve a purpose and are meant to give the player a better understanding of the world of Zemuria. There are even some side quests that can give the main story a run for its money. They are really worth it.

One of my favorite side quests includes hunting down the criminal who is hacking the city's lodging websites, stealing money from tourists. You soon find out that it was someone in city hall who was actually behind the criminal activity. Another great one was looking for a missing grandma, which consisted of speaking to numerous civilians to gather clues. You learn a lot about this grandma here, and why she is missing, which leads to a pretty emotional conclusion. As you can see, each side quest offers a deep and well-thought-out story of its own, and I absolutely loved completing them all.

Side quests are offered periodically throughout the main story, and each brings its own story that is surprisingly in-depth.

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Additionally, Trails Beyond the Horizon offers a great character relationship system that allows players to get to know their party members on a personal level. The way this works is you’ll earn connect points after completing quests, which you can then use to start a relationship sequence with a party member of your choice. This is similar to the Social Links in the Persona series. After selecting who you want to spend time with, the main protagonist (Van, Rean, or Kevin) will go off and have an outing with that character and get to know each other better. This leads to emotional moments between the two and also increases the relationship bar, which improves combat efficiency.

Trails Beyond the Horizon Character Relationships

Lastly, we have the Grim Garten, which is essentially the same as Tartarus from Persona 3. The Grim Garten is a series of domains that act as dungeons, with each higher domain becoming more challenging. Not only does the Grim Garten feature its very own storyline, but it’s also the perfect place for players to grind and level up their characters. Within the Grim Garten, there’s a shop for weapons, armour, items, Quartz, and even a gacha-style mini-game that rewards players with useful items and costumes. I thought the addition of the gacha mini-game was brilliant as it provided a constant source of a dopamine rush due to constantly earning rewards.

Each domain consists of three objectives: one main objective and two side objectives. To move to the next section of the domain, a player must complete the main objective to open the portal. However, completing the two additional objectives will increase the amount of rewards you earn. At the end of a domain is the main boss of the area, which prove to be challenging, but very rewarding due to the amount of experience points and rewards you receive. While the Grim Garten isn’t mandatory, I highly recommend players utilize it, or else you’ll struggle big time against the game’s main bosses.

Personally, I was shocked by how great the side content is in Trails Beyond the Horizon. Everything serves a purpose, and unlike other games, I found myself constantly wanting to engage with optional stuff just because they were so worth it due to the fantastic storylines or useful rewards that made a significant impact in combat. The reason my party became so strong was because of side content, and for that, I’m thankful.

Superb Combat That Demands Strategy

Trails Beyond the Horizon’s strongest aspect is its combat system, as it possibly has some of the best combat mechanics in the JRPG genre. It’s so complex and demands so much strategy from the player that it feels incredible to master. It can be a lot at first, especially if you haven’t played Trails Through Daybreak, but once you understand how it works and everything comes together, it becomes genuinely so addicting and fun to engage with.

Combat consists of real-time and turn-based combat, which players can switch between seamlessly on the fly. Real-time combat will be your go-to at the start of fights in open fields and dungeons, but once you stun said enemy, switching immediately to turn-based will grant you an advantage for additional damage. While this is the main way to engage in combat in these particular zones, major bosses have to be completed in a turn-based manner.

However, the good news is that turn-based is incredibly in-depth and features a ton of mechanics. Turn-based consists of Arts (spells), Crafts (abilities), SCLM Chain (synchronized attacks), and S-Crafts (ultimate attacks). These are only some of the many mechanics, as there are more that are involved that play off the ones mentioned to improve efficiency and add a layer of strategy. As I said before, this may be one of the best and most complex JRPG combat systems I have engaged with.

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Two of my favorite systems are the Shard Commands and the Boost Charge. The former can be used to buff the entire party, such as increasing defense or raising attack, for a set number of turns. What’s so cool about this feature is that enemies can use it too, but you can cancel theirs by activating your own. However, you need to have two Boost Charges to do so, which are earned by landing attacks on the enemy. Boost Charges are the most important resource in boss fights, and utilizing them correctly will lead to success, while using them incorrectly will lead to death.

Since Boost Charges can be used for multiple situations, such as gaining additional turns, using S-Crafts, and Shard Commands, you need to decide when is the best time to use these charges. Should you use it to cancel the boss's Shard Command and remove their buff of increased attack power? Should you use it to execute an ultimate attack to deal heavy damage? Or, maybe, you should use it to gain an additional turn.

These questions were constantly running through my mind when fighting tough enemies, and it’s proof that the combat system is focused on strategy. One wrong decision could lead to your entire party taking a ton of damage. Taking your time is crucial in Trails Beyond the Horizon, since going into a fight and just choosing a standard attack will not cut it. You need to play smart, especially on normal and hard difficulty.

Deep Customization Outside of Combat

The game's focus on strategy is also found outside of combat through its deep customization systems such as Quartz, Crafts, and Holo Cores. These three features are the bread and butter of your character's "builds" and determine how strong your party is in combat. For starters, Quartz are items you can insert into a grid that make your characters stronger, such as increased cast speed, attack power, defense, and more. Some Quartz even grant you special abilities, such as going invisible for a set amount of turns when health is low.

I found the Quartz system incredibly complex, to the point where it can be pretty confusing and time-consuming. Since there is so much Quartz to find in the game, knowing which one is best to create the build you're aiming for can be overwhelming. However, the game has a fantastic quality of life tool that allows you to auto-equip Quartz to focus on a specific playstyle. For example, if you want a character to focus on speed (casting Arts faster and having more turns), you can have the game select the Quartz for you to fit that criteria. Once I discovered this tool, which is easily missable, I instantly utilized it, and equipping Quartz felt less like a chore.

Then there is the Craft system, which determines your character's abilities in combat. Unlike other games, where leveling up will increase the strength of abilities, players can manually upgrade Crafts through the Skill Stone system in Trails Beyond the Horizon. Skill Stones are items found in the Grim Garten and by defeating enemies and can also be purchased. These Skill Stones can then be used in the main menu to further strengthen Crafts. Once I realized how important this was to my character's performance, I found myself grinding the Grim Garten and exchanging Mira (currency) for Skill Stones. This led to stronger Crafts that dealt more damage, increased healing, better shields, and more.

The game has a fantastic quality of life tool that allows you to auto-equip Quartz to focus on a specific playstyle.

Last, but not least, we have the Holo Core system. Holo Cores help determine the buffs a party member receives when using the Boost Charges. This is where you can truly make a character overpowered, as there are some Holo Cores that can dramatically increase a character's efficiency. One example is the Alter Bathym Holo Core, which grants the "Dread Soldier" buff when using a Boost Charge. Dread Soldier extends how long an enemy is stunned, increases damage to stunned enemies by 80%, increases physical damage by 20%, and raises the critical rate by 40%. Yeah, that is a massive advantage.

There are plenty of Holo Cores, Quartz, and Skill Stones to be found in Trails Beyond the Horizon, meaning players will be constantly adjusting party members to try to make them as strong as possible. All of these systems work together so perfectly, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how deep they go. It's hard to say, but honestly, the systems in Trails Beyond the Horizon may be better than what you find in the Persona series. That is saying a lot, especially since I consider myself a die-hard Persona fan.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon is an incredible JRPG with a strong focus on strategy. It's a challenging game that requires players to utilize all upgrade systems and master its complex combat mechanics to achieve success. The Crafts, Arts, Boost Charges, SCLM Chains, Holo Cores, Skill Stones, and Quartz systems all complement each other so well, leading to incredible build customization and a deep sense of progression. While Trails Beyond the Horizon excels especially in its combat and RPG systems, it also succeeds with its main story and side content, such as the Grim Garten, character relationship system, and side quests that all tell unique stories worth listening to. Trails Beyond the Horizon is a game that deserves recognition and is up there with some of the best the genre has to offer.