GamerEscape

So as so often happens, it’s time for a confession first: I have never been a huge fan of the Trails series. I have been aware of it for a long time and I am glad that it has generally gotten more awareness in North America over the years, because it’s a big long-running franchise and a part of a major JRPG tradition that just never got much traction here. This is a good thing! But somehow it has never quite hit that critical mass for me of being a franchise I want to dig into.

As such, I am coming into Trails Through Daybreak II in the spot of being someone who did not play the original Trails Through Daybreak but is familiar with the series as a whole in the same way that you’re familiar with that family you don’t know well down the street who always seems nice. Is this game something that every JRPG fan should check out immediately? Is it just for dedicated fans? Will I stop using the analogy of having a meal with people I don’t really know any time soon?

Van, Down By the River

Right up front, I have to give huge props to the game for showing not just how you can introduce people into a series midway through, but how you should. Trails Through Daybreak II not only has a full summary of the previous game’s story in text form, it also offers you a recap movie explaining the plot of the prior game when you first start the title. It has a database on the main menu of important characters, the prior entries in the overall series, and important concepts. The game is definitely aware and unashamed of the fact that it is coming in as part of a lengthy series with numerous installments and it does not want you to feel as if the game is unapproachable in the process.

That being said, this is… definitely a serialized installment, which is perhaps not surprising. The game wastes no time in flinging you into the plot, which is actually shockingly straightforward. Van Arkride, a spriggan (this universe’s version of “freelance adventurer” in broad strokes), is coming off of a big incident in which he was nearly consumed by a demonic part of his soul and manifesting and powerful creature known as Grendel. However, someone new appears to be roaming around in a Grendel form and murdering people. Elaine Auclair, a friend of Van’s and A-rank Bracer, shows him the video and makes it clear that he is now the prime suspect.

Van, not being the “rampantly murder” type of guy, thus sets off to clear his name and also stop the guy who is doing all the murdering because that’s generally a bad thing. Along the way he’s going to meet his familiar friends and people from previous Trails games and… I mean, that’s kind of what you get in this series, and it’s something that took me a little while to understand but I did finally click with.

See, most JRPGs are very much standalone events, even when they are part of a longer series, but the Trails games are not that. It’d be wrong to say that they’re not story-focused, and indeed the story has a lot of stuff to focus on, but in many ways this is the latest game following a world and some of the characters you know. It’s more akin to a new arc in a manga than a totally new game story; this is part of a long chain, and these characters are familiar with one another, the world, and their place therein.

The problem for me – or what makes this harder for me, at least – is that I don’t find any of these characters terribly compelling. Some of that is because the stuff which does make them compelling is buried in several other games, of course, and some of that is just a me thing; I can recognize that it’s not a failing of the game per se. This is a fine way of telling a story, even if the choice to set it in a basically modern world that’s still a fantasy setting seems odd to me. But it is worth keeping in mind, even though the game is clearly invested in letting new players understand what the shit is going on.

Bracer? Darn Near Petrified ‘er!

For years now, we’ve had fights with people about JRPG combat. People who prefer more active combat, people who like action RPG gameplay, people who like turn-based battles, and so forth. Which is why I greatly respect how Trails Through Daybreak II has taken the fight of real-time combat and turn-based combat and asked “why not both” without the resultant gameplay turning into a complete sludge.

The basics of the game are, as implied, that it lets you do both. Out in the field and in dungeons, you can attack enemies that spawn in, dodge, use quick arts to blast them with magic, and use charge attacks. And for simpler foes you can easily dispatch them this way. However, for bigger fights you have another option by attacking them a bit before entering a turn-based battle system, which allows you fine turn-based control over everything and even gauges your advantage based on what was happening beforehand.

It sounds like it could be a mess, but it actually feels nicely balanced. For little guys that aren’t much beyond a roadblock, it’s easy to just mash past them. Boss fights are always in turn-based mode, and certain enemy attacks can force you into turn-based mode at a disadvantage. And once in turn-based mode you have a wide collection of skills, and arts, and shard boosts, and crafts, and… uh… actually maybe a few too many different abilities, all told.

That’s not to say that the combat is too easy, just that it is (much like the story) clearly all based on the idea that you probably know how all of these parts work. This is an interesting choice. On the one hand, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing that the game doesn’t feel the need to explain that the Cure spell cures damage and I can use it when I take damage so select the “Cure” spell on the menu and so forth. On the other hand, there are a lot of systems at play here and the quick explanation does not immediately make it clear which skills to use when and how frequently – and given that JRPGs are, at their heart, something of a game of resource management, that’s important!

Having said that, I don’t feel at all bad calling the combat system here an absolute win. Indeed, I think it’s probably the brightest part of the whole experience. The addition of an endless dungeon that can bring in all of your allies is a truly inspired gameplay mode, because it lets you just indulge in this as much as you want. In an odd way, this almost feels like a JRPG wherein the story just hits me colder and the gameplay itself is a lot more fun, and if you just want “More JRPG To JRPG In” this game offers you tons of it between the sidequests and extra objectives.

And that’s not even getting into things like the game’s fishing, which is… well, it’s fishing. I don’t care for fishing. But it contributes to the general atmosphere. The story is the latest episode of Stuff Happens, but the gameplay is robust and detailed.

Playstation Five Minus Two

When it comes to graphics, I have to say something that probably sounds mean but isn’t really meant that way: the graphics in this game look like the game is still basically existing on older hardware. That doesn’t mean they look bad. Everyone is well-animated, the cityscapes are solid, and so forth. Rather, it just means that everything would not look out of place if I were playing this game on a PlayStation 3. It doesn’t feel deliberately retro so much as it feels like a consistent art style that the series has been using for a while that sort of necessitates staying in the same lane.

To be clear, I am not saying the game runs on an old engine, but rather that the graphics are solid and functional but not outstanding. You will not be amazed at hair animation but neither is everything a horrifying mass of polygons, and while the environments feel a bit crowded in places and perhaps not up to some ideal standard… I mean, my system never started chugging during combat, so it’s fine? It’s fine. Not outstanding but not bad. Solid work.

Unfortunately, the voice acting commits one of the cardinal sins in my book when several character lines are not the same as the ones written in the text boxes. This is just really upsetting to me. It’s not a fatal flaw but it is a flaw, and it’s also not a consistent one. It’s not even like there’s tons of daylight between them, but it comes up a fair bunch. And the performances are also… fine? Not outstanding, solid.

Gosh, this is turning into a consistent refrain here, isn’t it?

Well-Worn Trails

I walk away from Trails Through Daybreak II feeling very little beyond “well, that all worked distressingly well.” In some ways, that is kind of a bad thing. This is a game that does nothing badly in a large sense. There is nothing I can point to and say “holy crap, that is a huge misfire on a fundamental level,” and in some ways that makes the game a bit boring. It accomplishes all of its goals in a very reliable fashion and doesn’t shoot beyond those goals and, as someone who generally gets invested in characters and story, the fact that those didn’t totally connect renders the experience a bit lukewarm for me. Sorry.

But I also think that is unfair of me. Trails Through Daybreak II is a good game. It is a good game in the way that we actually don’t get a lot of, a solid installment in what seems from the outside to be a very solid series. Oh, sure, having nothing spectacular in it is kind of a flaw, but I think it is a good game all the way through. If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll have a blast with it, and if you’re not a fan but want to get into it, maybe you really do want a JRPG that’s more fun for the combat than the story. Heck, maybe the story will do it for you! So cheers to you, Trails Through Daybreak II. I don’t know if I want to stay at your house, but you welcomed me in and I enjoyed the experience.

~ Final Score: 7/10 ~

Review copy provided by NIS America for PS5. All screenshots courtesy of NIS America.