Review | The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie PC - We've Come A Lone Way

After six games starting from Trails of Zero in 2010 all the way to Trails of Cold Steel IV in 2018, Trails into Reverie is the end of a storyline that has been building up over the last 13 years.. We’ll be working with almost every character from our adventures both good and evil, to help us not only help Crossbell become independent and freed from the tight grasp of the Federal Republic but help to decide the fate of all of Erebonia for years to come. We also get the pleasure of playing with a new group of characters led by a guy who calls himself “C” and his ragtag group of fighters who quit their day job of being part of an evil organization to join us in finding out what’s going on with Rufus, the leader of the Federal Republic with the actions for complete world conquest.

Seeing the huge jump in the graphical quality and the frame rate going from consoles in 2010 to the PS5 and modern PCs is truly breathtaking. Having the game going past 60 FPS in both cutscenes and battle, made me do a double take to ensure that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me, as the fluidity of the animation adds an energy and excitement to every action. I also wanted to take this chance to see if the game would run on the Steam Deck and it seems it runs well on the handheld device. Playing on the Deck felt like I was playing Trails of Cold Steel II on my PSVita years ago, only on a much bigger screen and missing the touchpad on the back of the device. I also found myself enjoying the ability to use cloud saves to go between desktop and Steam Deck. It doesn’t drain the Deck’s battery too badly either if you optimize your setting, meaning it could last me when I found myself waiting at the hospital for a few hours and wanted to continue where I left off. 

When it comes to the music battling different enemies, or exploring the overworld location you’ve become familiar with previously in titles, Trails Into Reverie excels without changing much. The sounds exactly like before with just a few new notes among and remixes in the soundtrack that seem to have been thrown in to signify the changing world. I’m not complaining about there being little changes, because if it isn’t broken, why fix it? 

Nihon Falcom, the developer of the entire Legend of Heroes series, has jammed a lot of creative ideas into this send-off for both the Crossbell and Erebonia arc. This game has plenty of mini-games that range from a slightly too addictive card game or a snowboarding mini-game that creates a ball of stress for you as you try to land the perfect round for more rewards. Though, the only way to unlock these mini-games is by venturing into the True Reverie Corridor. 

If you’re trying to get all the achievements in the game like I did, these mini-games may make or break the experience for you. Certain mini-games like Who Wants to be a Mirannaire? Will test your extensive knowledge of not only the characters but of different locations and random events that were either told to you by cutscenes or material you could have read through your journey from every game so far in the series. There are obviously online guides you can use to help you get answers to several questions, but it's not exactly the most exciting side activity.. The other mini-games vary from a rail shooter to the game turning into an anime-style Beach episode where you can choose the girl you love the most and woo them in a dating sim-style game. If these mini-games don’t click with you and you still have an urge to see everything you can, it’s going to be a long playthrough. Luckily if one isn’t grabbing you there are plenty of other options.

Something I hope becomes a staple system in future Legend of Heroes games is Trails to Walk. This system allows you to switch between the three protagonists of Rean, Lloyd and C throughout their journeys at any point in the game or story of each character. I absolutely love systems that show more than one character in the expansive world has their own adventure going on at once. It’s also so nice that if you don’t switch,  you can access the chapters later in scenes where they explain what they were doing while you were busy trying to save the world. The unique part of this system is the fact that if I reach a critical point in Lloyd’s adventure and feel like I want to do more things with Rean or want to go farm levels with  C, I have the full ability to just do that. 

I found myself spending a large amount of my time grinding not only the levels of my most used characters but also grinding materials thanks to the True Reverie Corridor and the Shuffle Scuffles and Dreamland Hills systems. These mechanics can only be found throughout your exploration of the Corridor and can give you some amazing rewards when you come across them. Shuffle Scuffles will give you time to adjust your party before attempting to start a series of fights to destroy the shield surrounding the chest. While the Dreamland Hills are great for farming sepith that are used to make different elemental Quartz which are key to  making different spells. Though there is a hidden element when facing this room and it’s the change of seasons from every visit of a new hill portal. Which affects the monsters and the materials you’d find while visiting. 

Trails Into Reverie had me make some noises of glee when I saw some of my favourite characters appear in the story and explain where they had been in the last few games. It has unabashed fan service but it has been earned over the course of a decade. Watching these characters progress over the course of the last ten years has been a joy and levelling them up in-game has been made more rewarding than ever thanks to the addition of the corridor. Watching the story end the way it did felt like a kind of graduation for everyone involved. Seeing all my hard work from the last 13 years lead to this very outcome felt satisfying. Seeing that the ending of the game still left a lot of lingering questions that we might get answers to in the next instalment. These games have already been developed, Kuro no Kiseki and Kuro no Kiseki II -Crimson Sin-, however, haven’t yet been localized for a Western release, but are already out in Japan with the third instalment coming in 2025. I don’t know how much of a time leap we’ll have next time, but I do know that this will not be the last time we’ll see these characters again. It was announced at the Tokyo Games Show that Kuro no Kiseki will be released as  Trails Through Daybreak in the Summer of 2024 and will continue the story from where we left off and introduce not only a new cast but a new power that could shake the very core of Erebonia.