Review: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

 

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a landmark remake for one of my favorite video game series of all time, it's pitch perfect with only minor flaws holding it back.

 

 

 

Trails is my favorite video game series of all time. The world and characters are incredibly memorable and all of the games building off of each other is one of my favorite parts of them. However as much as I like them, the biggest hurdle with recommending the series to anyone is the first three games being locked to PC and said three games being a bit of a slog to get through for most people. I have multiple friends that have completely bounced off of the series because they found the first game to be boring and the gameplay monotonous. That's why I'm glad there's a new, fantastic version of the game available for consoles with updated gameplay and presentation that I can recommend anyone even slightly interested in the series.

From a gameplay standpoint, this game is incredible. Taking the hybrid action/turn based combat from Daybreak and applying it to this game along with other elements from the rest of the series was a really smart idea. Follow up and burst attacks from Cold Steel are a great addition to this and help keep the combat interesting. Also glad they kept the original orbment system, but made it WAY more clear on what's happening. It's the best this hybrid system has felt in the series so far (not sure how Horizon is) and really probably the best change is rebalancing some of the skills and crafts. I finally used Estelle's crafts in this version and she actually feels like a useful party member this time around. My playthrough of this version wasn't fairly boring like when I played the original, since I didn't just rely on spamming arts the whole time and the bosses felt tougher than the original which made this a blast to play.

I've seen some people complain that the gameplay additions go against the series philosophy of updating the combat based on the worlds technology and I really don't agree with this assessment (I also think some people are being way too self-serious when they mention it). With the action combat you're not popping off quick arts or deploying shards when you start combat, some things introduced in Daybreak's new orbments, you're just doing a craft attack that you charge up. The follow up attacks in this game don't include things like not being able to burst with less than four party members and other benefits of combat links in Cold Steel. These elements were adjusted for the level of technology that's available in the Sky trilogy so it definitely feels like something that the team still cares about. They also make the gameplay way better than the original so I'm not gonna complain about it.

On a presentation level, this is the best the series has ever looked. Both Joshua and Estelle have two animations for all of their crafts so they never really get old, and the presentation of crafts in general is excellent. The handful of action cutscenes are incredibly well directed and I was so shocked to see a Falcom game with this level of production value, putting games from larger JRPG developers to shame. Of course the music is great and I love that you get three different options, original, EVO, and newly arranged (which sticks closer to the original). I stuck with the new arrangements the whole time and they're excellent, but I switched to the EVO tracks occasionally when I wanted something different.

The story is still the same as it was in the original, so it's great. Following Estelle and Joshua around throughout Liberl while meeting plenty of interesting faces still hits hard. But it's further improved with field dialogue that adds a surprising amount of characterization. It feels like your party's always chatting it up and makes some moments hit even harder than the original. The new sidequests give some more things for some of the side characters to do and are good enough. There's no big, new connections to the rest of the series but I'm glad it fleshed out some of the NPCs some more. Tita's new quests was probably my favorite. 

The only real blemish this game has is a slightly rushed localization. People on YouTube, Reddit, and even on tracking sites like Backloggd however are over exaggerating its issues. There's the occasional awkward line here and there, and some of the item names are translated slightly different. All of the towers now use their Japanese names, which isn't a problem since they're only mentioned in the Sky games. The biggest issue is probably that they refer to "archaisms" as "orbal golems". This being localized by a different company that doesn't have access to the localization bible sucks, but considering they went in and fixed the issues from the demo for the final release I'm hopeful that they're going to go back and fix a few that are left in the game. It's not as polished as XSEEDs script, but it's nowhere near as bad as what others are making it out to be. I'm actually of the opinion that the XSEED script punched up lines of dialogue a little TOO much and made some characterization feel weird once you get farther in the series.

I also went with the English dub on this since I'm attached to the English cast for the series (I also REALLY don't like Tita's Japanese voice) and it's really solid. Don't really have any issues with Estelle and I'm always glad to hear Johnny Yong Bosch in a dub. They keep all of the same voice cast from the latest games in the series aside from a few side characters. The only issue with the dub is that the voice director for the game obviously hasn't worked on the series before since characters mispronounce "Liberl" and "Liberal". It was distracting at first but I slowly got used to it. There's a few other odd lines here and there but they didn't detract from my enjoyment.

Overall Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is one of the best remakes I've ever played and is now the best place to recommend people start the series and I'm SO excited for 2nd Chapter (which seems to be pretty far along, hoping for a 2026 release). If you've ever had any interest in the series before I highly recommend you grab the demo for this game and check it out. You might find a new favorite.