The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon Review (Switch 2)

The long-running Trails series needs little introduction, as Falcom has been chipping away at this JRPG narrative for the better part of two decades across a variety of arcs and perspectives spread over more than a dozen interconnected games. While newcomers have traditionally been discouraged by the mountain of homework necessary to ‘get it’, Trails Through Daybreak offered a nice on-ramp for the series a couple of years ago, kicking off a fresh arc. After a somewhat disappointing sequel, many hoped Falcom would right the ship with Trails Beyond the Horizon and start offering some payoffs for the many plot threads it’s set up. Luckily, Falcom has started to get things moving, and this entry overall feels like an improvement over Trails Through Daybreak II, though it isn’t without its flaws.

Centred on the initiation of humanity’s first steps into space, this is narratively a continuation of the ‘Calvard arc’ that started with the first Daybreak game, but there’s also a good reason why this wasn’t simply called Trails Through Daybreak 3. While Van is (debatably) the primary character of this release, there are also two parallel story routes starring Kevin and Rean, two protagonists from previously concluded arcs who still have a role to play in the all-encompassing storyline now approaching a grand conclusion that the technological developments of Zemurian space exploration are bringing into focus.

This three-route narrative approach proves to be both a blessing and a curse. On the more positive side, it’s interesting checking in with these older characters to see how they've grown and changed ‘offscreen’ while the focus of the series shifted elsewhere. Plus, bringing some legacy characters into the fold demonstrates how Falcom has begun to unite the previously distinct casts in the run-up to a finale years in the making.

On the other hand, these additional cast members dilute the Calvard characters' story a bit and contribute to turning what is ostensibly a ‘payoff game’ into yet more table-setting for a later resolution. Given the mixed reception to Daybreak II's relatively inconsequential storyline, it feels like a rug-pull in some ways that we have to keep waiting for things to really kick into gear.

Not all players will consider this more indulgent pace a bad thing, but Trails Beyond the Horizon sometimes feels a little too comfortable in keeping the narrative in neutral, coasting towards a finale and making lots of promises that will hopefully be delivered on in the future.

Combat continues the hybrid battle system implemented in the last two Daybreak games, mixing simple action combat with a much more in-depth turn-based system. When you first encounter enemies in the field, batting at them with your weapon to chip their health down will also build a gauge for a more powerful stun attack which can combo nicely into the turn-based mode.

This action combat acts as a nice way to clean up trash mobs or to soften up foes before a proper battle starts, but it can fall apart the longer you engage in it and realise how surface-level it tends to be. Falcom has done a good job of making it more interesting over time with the addition of things like reaction attacks and quick arts, but the mechanics here are still relatively sparse, particularly when compared to the significantly more complex turn-based mode.

Once you transition into turn-based combat, things play out more akin to a typical Trails game. When it’s a party member’s turn, you have a variety of attacks and active skills at their disposal, most of which are affected by character positioning. Not only can you freely move characters around within a fixed area before taking an action, but casting arts or crafts usually requires you to ‘aim’ an attack or area of effect to just the right spot to maximise passive buffs and how many enemies get caught in the blast.

Amid all this, it’s important to also be cognisant of how your potential actions affect the ongoing battle timeline. Not only are there stat bonuses that you can use (or steal) if you’re careful about how you organise party actions in the turn order, but there are ways you can delay enemy actions to create more openings for your party. Though there’s a learning curve to its management, the timeline adds a fun and dynamic layer to combat proceedings that keeps you engaged not just in what you’re doing, but also when you’re doing it.

This hybrid battle system wasn’t just copy-and-pasted into this entry, however; Falcom has added even more mechanics in the form of ZOC, Awakening, and Shard Commands.

ZOC acts as a way of slowing down time, which either lets you get in a lot more hits on the field or gives you an immediate extra turn in turn-based combat, while Awakening acts as a ‘beast mode’ that can supercharge your damage. The most interesting of these are Shard Commands, which ultimately allow you to burn some boost points in turn-based fights to activate party-wide buffs that can massively turn the tide of battle if you time them properly.

The new mechanics don’t feel like revolutionary new ideas and ultimately result in a lot prettier effects and bigger numbers, but it’s nice to see Falcom continuing to iterate on the new combat. Yet when considering all the different features together, it can sometimes feel like there’s a bit too much going on, particularly for the majority of the average encounters you’ll find yourself in. All the same, there’s lots to sink your teeth into with the gameplay here, and the system really shows its potential in the occasional tough boss fight that demands you pull out all the stops.

When it comes to building your team, Trails Beyond the Horizon also borrows the Orbment system from previous games, wherein each character can be equipped with various elemental crystals that grant them new arts, passives, and stat bonuses depending on how you lay things out.

Though there’s no explicit class system here, how you choose to configure a character’s Orbment can significantly affect the sort of role they occupy in your party, and you’re encouraged to really get into the weeds with experimenting with party compositions as the narrative unfolds. It can feel a bit confusing at first, but fooling around with it reveals lots of depth for tailoring your party, and I think it manages to strike an elegant solution to offering deep party customisation without needlessly bogging you down in menus and comparisons.

While the expected mountain of side quests is still present and accounted for, the Marchen Garten makes a return as a significant portion of the optional content. Here, it’s been dubbed the ‘Grim Garten’ and gotten a creepy makeover to reflect a story event that led to its change. The structure largely follows its previous appearance, wherein you put together a party and delve into procedurally generated dungeons in pursuit of fresh rewards and unique story content.

Not only does this provide a convenient way to put together characters who otherwise have little to no interaction with each other in the main story, but it also has an interesting feature where you collect and view 'memories' that fill in some really critical pieces of plot information.

Grim Garten doesn’t necessarily offer much that you can’t find when playing through the rest of the game, but it's a fun side mode that strips away a lot of fat and just lets you get to the meat of the thrilling combat. Plus, it can be a nice distraction from the occasionally glacial pace of the main narrative, where you can kill some time and gather resources to power up your team in the main story quest.

As far as visuals are concerned, this is one of the most beautiful Trails games yet. The new engine that Falcom debuted with Trails into Daybreak really sings on the Switch 2 hardware, holding to a mostly stable 60fps while maintaining an impressively sharp image quality in both docked and handheld modes.

Most notably, the text is actually readable on the Switch 2 screen this time around, clearing up an irksome issue from the last couple of games. Animation quality has also gotten a nice boost this time around, with many of the bigger attacks and arts having a nicely cinematic quality to them that hides some of the ‘Falcom jank’ that gives these games some of their charm.