After over 650 hours, I'm officially up to date on the English releases of the Trails series! My oh my, what a long, strange trip it's been.
Trails into Reverie is the wrap-up chapter for the Crossbell + Erebonia arcs akin to Sky the Third, and the format shows it. It balances three different storylines + protagonists and the side content of dungeon crawling, minigames, and more. The story is as you expect from Trails this time around, and it was engaging as ever with interesting stakes despite being more of an epilogue chapter. I'd say that some other games might've had stronger endings, but this game certainly had so much to offer across the board that it does what it set out to do quite well.
Music is awesome as always, I'm a fan of the characters and still mentally flip flopping about the trope-y-ness this series frequently envelops while ultimately leaning into it. There are so many fantastic characters and storylines across these games, and with the tiny bits of content at the end with certain spoiler characters and elements we'll see in the next arc, I'm excited to see where it continues. The combat is as usual in the series, with a bit more flavor added and the fact that the Reverie Corridor lets you use and build whoever you want making this game easily the best in the series if you want to go knee deep into combat and building your characters for perfection. Seriously, my main core team was a beautiful killing machine team by the end of the game. You love to see it.
There's only so much I can say at this point about trails. It's my favorite JRPG series at this point. There is so much to love here in this game and this series that I'll hold onto it dearly. It's a great longform series that allows you to get invested in the world, story, and characters with a level of quality that should keep you satisfied.
I didn't 100% the game and left a lot of side content on the table, but mainly due to me feeling a bit of burnout as I approached the finish line. Despite that, this is a great game and sends off these characters well (for now, I'm sure they'll be back someday) while we look forward to what will happen in Calvard. Love this series, great game all around, and I'll eagerly await Daybreak's release in Summer 2024.
Trails into Reverie is the wrap-up chapter for the Crossbell + Erebonia arcs akin to Sky the Third, and the format shows it. It balances three different storylines + protagonists and the side content of dungeon crawling, minigames, and more. The story is as you expect from Trails this time around, and it was engaging as ever with interesting stakes despite being more of an epilogue chapter. I'd say that some other games might've had stronger endings, but this game certainly had so much to offer across the board that it does what it set out to do quite well.
Music is awesome as always, I'm a fan of the characters and still mentally flip flopping about the trope-y-ness this series frequently envelops while ultimately leaning into it. There are so many fantastic characters and storylines across these games, and with the tiny bits of content at the end with certain spoiler characters and elements we'll see in the next arc, I'm excited to see where it continues. The combat is as usual in the series, with a bit more flavor added and the fact that the Reverie Corridor lets you use and build whoever you want making this game easily the best in the series if you want to go knee deep into combat and building your characters for perfection. Seriously, my main core team was a beautiful killing machine team by the end of the game. You love to see it.
There's only so much I can say at this point about trails. It's my favorite JRPG series at this point. There is so much to love here in this game and this series that I'll hold onto it dearly. It's a great longform series that allows you to get invested in the world, story, and characters with a level of quality that should keep you satisfied.
I didn't 100% the game and left a lot of side content on the table, but mainly due to me feeling a bit of burnout as I approached the finish line. Despite that, this is a great game and sends off these characters well (for now, I'm sure they'll be back someday) while we look forward to what will happen in Calvard. Love this series, great game all around, and I'll eagerly await Daybreak's release in Summer 2024.