The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie is an amazing JRPG that expertly handles its extensive cast to conclude this arc. The pacing respects the long history players have had with these characters to deliver a narrative that respects fans. This isn’t a game for those who haven’t played the previous titles, as it addresses overlooked plot points and relationships that could spoil those games. It doesn’t bog down progression with feeble recaps and instead marches ever onward with confidence. Trails into Reverie is a reunion among reunions, a capstone among capstones, and a soul-stirring special experience you won’t find in any other game.
A feature-rich (at times astonishingly so) package of content — major, minor and entirely optional alike — Nihon Falcom have proven once again with Trails into Reverie why they remain one of the best and most renowned RPG developers still going. The story of Reverie may find itself branching out into three routes, but that holds no sway when it comes to presenting a familiar brand of quality. In a narrative that’s as much intriguing in its larger story beats as it is surprisingly effective in its accompanying smaller ones alongside. Add to this a combat system that’s still as fun to work out and tinker with, a wealth of customization potential and generally the kind of design philosophy that’s both ridiculously over-the-top yet thoughtfully engaging all the same, The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie serves as both a culmination as much a proud celebration of the series’ grand accomplishments.
Played on PS4. The long-awaited ending of the series. I wished more story about my favorite characters from previous games, but in the end was satisfied. Falcom will never stop to amaze me.
Pros
- a beautiful epilogue to the first three arcsthe cross-story feature works great to gate story progress in certain points
- the biggest playable cast in the series (51 characters that are fully customizable)
- plethora of post game content that will keep you playing
- the daydreams (reminiscent of the doors from Trails in the Sky the 3rd) give exciting glimpses into the lives of our favorite characters
- the addition of the Abyssal difficulty and the options to increase enemy levels by 50 or 100 allows the gameplay to remain engaging
Cons
- the lack of voice acting makes some of the games more pivotal moments feel way less epic than they could have been
- the controls for Project Tyrfing minigame are god awful
The tenth game in the Trails series is an optionally massive game. From the amount of content, to the story significance and some quite bold directions the story goes, Trails into Reverie takes the training wheels off and relies on you playing all the previous games. And it feels fantastic.
The story is interesting from start to finish, using everything and everyone you met through the Sky, Crossbell and Cold Steel arcs of this series. It also takes some of the previously established concepts and takes them in such a direction that nobody could predict yet it feels right. And the emotional one, two punch that is the ending for the main story left me with a smile on my face and a wash of new excitement for the next arc.
But the main story ending does not mean the game is over. Through the introduction of the Reverie Corridor, you are offered a section of the game mostly focused on the gameplay, offering a plethora of post game content to lose hours to. Gameplay that never gets boring thanks to the introduction of the United Front attacks and the frankly absurd cast hosting 51 characters from all the previous arcs.
Outside of the outstanding Trails combat, the Reverie Corridor also offers previously unseen amounts of minigames and daydreams. All of these offer glimpses into past and future events, giving you an idea of what certain individuals have been up to since their arcs concluded. What is exciting in particular are the two daydreams received in the Post Game, where you are offered a glimpse into the future arc.
All in all, Reverie quickly climbed to be one of my favorite games in the series, owing that fact to its bold story and the sheer amount of characters it lets you play. Reverie not being an entry game allows it to shed some of the burdens of having to reintroduce concepts in each game and allows it to soar to ever greater heights.
Even with a conclusion that may leave many with a heavy heart, Trails into Reverie is the farewell that fans deserved after following the adventures of so many beloved characters. In the making for over 10 years, Falcom has delivered one of its most complete packages thanks to the immense replay factor, making it a must-buy for any fan of the franchise.
Trails into Reverie is an all-star excursion that feels like one big franchise festival; your more traditional Trails campaign being the spine of what can be a brilliantly robust RPG, complete with more than enough gameplay depth to keep even the most hardcore players happy. As an epilogue to the Crossbell and Cold Steel games, it can seem a little tired in terms of creativity, but its faults are easily overlooked when you're back in the saddle with all of your favourite heroes.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie is one of the best games in this almost 20-year-old franchise and a great RPG. While its overall story is a bit of a retread, its amazing pacing, and in-depth battle system, make it a satisfying conclusion to the Crossbell and Cold Steel arcs. It also makes good use of its admittedly way-too-large cast of playable characters. That said, newcomers who are unfamiliar with the series will certainly be lost without having played the previous games. However, it's well worth doing so in order to experience one of the best RPG universes ever crafted.
Although it feels like there’s a lot of padding
to justify another instalment, Reverie
nonetheless gives the Trails series’ Crossbell
arc a satisfying conclusion. [Issue#30, p.91]
Trails Into Reverie is a hard game to recommend at the best of times. Are you a long-time Trails fan who wants one last hurrah with some of your favorite characters? Do you find it exciting to see how that baker NPC turned out? Then it has a lot to offer you. As a stand-alone RPG, however, it's almost inaccessible, and you should play the other games first. The extremely poor QA work in this title means that even die-hard fans will likely have a hard time enjoying the game; the well-translated script is surrounded by a truly unacceptable amount of bugs. If you're still on the fence, I'd recommend waiting for a patch. Otherwise, it's a crappier experience, as without those problems, Trails into Reverie could've gotten a much higher score.
A great send off to the Cold Steel saga and a proper conclusion to the Crossbell series. C's route is also a breath of fresh air to the Trails cast. Lots of fun things to do in the Reverie corridor and the turn-based gameplay remains as solid as the previous entries with tons of more customization. Not as great as Sky the 3rd, but this will definitely satisfy Trails fans if you have been following the series since the Sky saga.
Trails into Reverie falls short of my expectations. With two established protagonists sharing the spotlight, the story could have been better than this. Instead it turned out to be a disjointed mess. Out of the 3 routes, only one of them was good. Lloyd's route had a strong 'rinse and repeat' vibe. Rean's route heavily revolved around Rean only, the rest of his party felt like mere cheerleaders. The third route featuring the new protagonist C was by far the best. It felt fresh, and while C was indeed the center of the plot, each of his teammates had significant role to perform.
Thankfully the battle mechanics were still pretty fun although the bloated roster made battle setup feel cumbersome. I understand this was intended as fanservice so every player could build their own dream team consisting of their favorite characters which I can appreciate but they really should make team management a little easier and streamlined. In the end I only regularly used like maybe 10-15 characters, the rest were perpetual bench warmers, neglected and forgotten.
The Reverie Corridor and side contents were a nice addition but they weren't able to raise the game to the standards I'd expected it to meet.
Gameplay is reiteration of past games, story is garbage, new protagonist is uncool and obnoxious, side contents are meh at best. This is the perfect example of an 'epilogue nobody asks for'.
The game was released in 2020, but because Falcom doesn't give a **** about western fans it took 3 years for localization. Enough time for NISA to introduce game breaking bugs, wrong descriptions and Link Attacks are not working.
SummaryWhat destinies await these three fateful figures? Use the Crossroads system to switch between Rean Schwarzer, Lloyd Bannings, and the masked figure "C", and determine the fates of key characters and locations within Zemuria. Dive into refined tactical combat with new features such as United Front, and discover new allies and challenges w...