This was a title I was curious about after getting into the Trails series. It was something I saw listed on the Wikipedia page of releases but yet for a large series of interconnected games with one long continuous plot thread, this one seemed to be passed over by a lot of the fans in discussion and was even named differently.
Well that's because The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is a spin-off that seems to be at this moment (having played the first 5 Trails games) something that has a couple of references to Trails more than anything else. Mishy can be found as a strange creature and the Herschel surname of Nayuta and his family is reused for another character from the Cold Steel games from what I'm aware of. Basically, what I'm saying is despite this carrying the Trails name, it is very much an independent spin off and it's narrative should probably be judged without the expectations of it possibly maybe being intertwined with the mainline Trails series as a whole.
As a spin-off game, The Legend of Nayuta takes the opportunity to change up the gameplay and mix and match a few different elements. You have the RPG elements of leveling up and getting stronger etc with Remnant Isle being your core base of operations where most of the traditional Trails elements can be found. You can cook, take on requests including hidden requests, and meet a bunch of characters whose dialogue changes throughout the story to react to the different events that happen. It's a nice quaint place that feels very homely but it is also the whole of the traditional RPG side of things.
The bulk of the game is actually spent in this mysterious other world where things have gone haywire due to Zechst taking the gears needed to keep this place functioning correctly so Nayuta and Terra's administrator Noi team up to stop him by visiting each of the four continents and freeing the trapped guardians. It's here where we place the action stages where you run through stages taking on platforming challenges and fighting enemies through action based combat. Nayuta fights using his sword and can jump and dodge roll out of the way or guard while Noi has arts that can be used and swapped through as you unlock more equipment slots. For me, despite having a decent amount of things to unlock for the combat, it always felt very shallow, like it was lacking a punch to it. A lot of the enemies felt like I was cutting through paper and once I unlocked the gear spin ability I was literally steamrolling through enemies. The stages themselves are also very short and can be blasted through in a minute or so. They're designed this way on purpose because you can earn 3 stars through multiple objectives so if you miss anything it's quick enough to replay it and find what you're missing. The 3 objectives will always include finding the 3 large purple crystals, the hidden chest (or two chests in the larger two part stages) and a specialised objective different for each stage (defeat X enemies, fall less than X times etc). These stars can be used to further expand Nayuta's abilities through training on Remnant Isle. The other reason these stages are so short is because each stage has four variants - one based on each season. Two can be played through in the main story, one in the after story chapter and the final one unlocks on new game plus. The different seasons vary the stages up slightly but when you're playing through these stages multiple times trying to 100% them, it does start feeling awfully repetitive and draining.
Boss fights are the highlight here. Aside from a couple of really simple ones, boss fights will actually require a little bit of strategy to find when a weak point is available to be hit. The final boss and one of the after story bosses in particular are really cool and spectacular and were more like what I was hoping for from the game. Once the guardians have been freed, each one gives Noi an ability to help Nayuta out and explore previously inaccessible areas of stages. You get stuff like being able to swing to floating gear points or use a shield to traverse through harmful areas and they're pretty fun to use.
The story itself is alright. The characters believe the world is flat and random parts of large debris fall from the sky and people believe that's from Lost Heaven so there's some good stuff that ends up explaining what all that is actually about. I really enjoyed Noi's character growth going from hating humans and being extremely wary of them to growing alongside Nayuta and coming to love people and wanting to protect. It's pretty simple but also effective. Everything else kinda fell a little flat for me though. Like I liked Cygna and Lyra and Eartha but I can't really say I was ever truly attached to them in a meaningful way which was unfortunate. With bouncing between the two worlds so often and neither side having a lot of depth to it, I don't think the game manages to build a deep connection between the player and the characters, definitely not in a way like the namesake it borrows from does.
I don't think The Legend of Nayuta does anything I would call outright bad but I think it lacks the depth to reach the potential it has. It's an enjoyable experience with an incredible soundtrack, and is probably one of the most this is alright games I've played.
Well that's because The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is a spin-off that seems to be at this moment (having played the first 5 Trails games) something that has a couple of references to Trails more than anything else. Mishy can be found as a strange creature and the Herschel surname of Nayuta and his family is reused for another character from the Cold Steel games from what I'm aware of. Basically, what I'm saying is despite this carrying the Trails name, it is very much an independent spin off and it's narrative should probably be judged without the expectations of it possibly maybe being intertwined with the mainline Trails series as a whole.
As a spin-off game, The Legend of Nayuta takes the opportunity to change up the gameplay and mix and match a few different elements. You have the RPG elements of leveling up and getting stronger etc with Remnant Isle being your core base of operations where most of the traditional Trails elements can be found. You can cook, take on requests including hidden requests, and meet a bunch of characters whose dialogue changes throughout the story to react to the different events that happen. It's a nice quaint place that feels very homely but it is also the whole of the traditional RPG side of things.
The bulk of the game is actually spent in this mysterious other world where things have gone haywire due to Zechst taking the gears needed to keep this place functioning correctly so Nayuta and Terra's administrator Noi team up to stop him by visiting each of the four continents and freeing the trapped guardians. It's here where we place the action stages where you run through stages taking on platforming challenges and fighting enemies through action based combat. Nayuta fights using his sword and can jump and dodge roll out of the way or guard while Noi has arts that can be used and swapped through as you unlock more equipment slots. For me, despite having a decent amount of things to unlock for the combat, it always felt very shallow, like it was lacking a punch to it. A lot of the enemies felt like I was cutting through paper and once I unlocked the gear spin ability I was literally steamrolling through enemies. The stages themselves are also very short and can be blasted through in a minute or so. They're designed this way on purpose because you can earn 3 stars through multiple objectives so if you miss anything it's quick enough to replay it and find what you're missing. The 3 objectives will always include finding the 3 large purple crystals, the hidden chest (or two chests in the larger two part stages) and a specialised objective different for each stage (defeat X enemies, fall less than X times etc). These stars can be used to further expand Nayuta's abilities through training on Remnant Isle. The other reason these stages are so short is because each stage has four variants - one based on each season. Two can be played through in the main story, one in the after story chapter and the final one unlocks on new game plus. The different seasons vary the stages up slightly but when you're playing through these stages multiple times trying to 100% them, it does start feeling awfully repetitive and draining.
Boss fights are the highlight here. Aside from a couple of really simple ones, boss fights will actually require a little bit of strategy to find when a weak point is available to be hit. The final boss and one of the after story bosses in particular are really cool and spectacular and were more like what I was hoping for from the game. Once the guardians have been freed, each one gives Noi an ability to help Nayuta out and explore previously inaccessible areas of stages. You get stuff like being able to swing to floating gear points or use a shield to traverse through harmful areas and they're pretty fun to use.
The story itself is alright. The characters believe the world is flat and random parts of large debris fall from the sky and people believe that's from Lost Heaven so there's some good stuff that ends up explaining what all that is actually about. I really enjoyed Noi's character growth going from hating humans and being extremely wary of them to growing alongside Nayuta and coming to love people and wanting to protect. It's pretty simple but also effective. Everything else kinda fell a little flat for me though. Like I liked Cygna and Lyra and Eartha but I can't really say I was ever truly attached to them in a meaningful way which was unfortunate. With bouncing between the two worlds so often and neither side having a lot of depth to it, I don't think the game manages to build a deep connection between the player and the characters, definitely not in a way like the namesake it borrows from does.
I don't think The Legend of Nayuta does anything I would call outright bad but I think it lacks the depth to reach the potential it has. It's an enjoyable experience with an incredible soundtrack, and is probably one of the most this is alright games I've played.