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Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter Review
- Taylor Rioux
- Sep 18
- 7 min read
Bracer yourselves.
The Trails series is one I’ve long meant to get around to. It is exactly the type of series I’ve been craving, as I’ve been searching for an RPG that captures that PS2-era feel after a recent slew of roguelikes and visual novels. But I was extremely reluctant to jump into the long-running series knowing that all of the entries are closely interconnected, and that some of the games are by now quite old, and many are very long. Thankfully, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter presents a unique opportunity for new players like myself to jump into the series from the beginning, presenting the first entry with a fresh coat of paint, as well as numerous mechanical adjustments.
Action RPG Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is the tale of the adoptive siblings Estelle and Joshua, following them on their journey to become bracers (functionally mercenaries in the Trails series). While the game starts slow, with a heavy focus on world-building and tone-setting, the adventure really begins when Estelle and Joshua’s father goes missing.
The series is perhaps most well-known for its varied and interesting characters, this remake takes a different approach early on, as it aims to wow you with its presentation. The first cutscene alone showcases how far the series has come from its earliest iterations, visually, with some truly stunning character models and excellent animation. The cutscenes are a bit overzealous with some presentational flair, leaning heavily into cuts between characters and at different angles to an almost absurd degree. The characters are intensely expressive in these scenes, not just in their animations, but also with hyper-stylized facial expressions and great vocal performances. They’ve captured the early 2000s anime aesthetic flawlessly in the presentation, including the presence of flashing backgrounds and silly asides.
While the cutscenes themselves look great, there’s some room for improvement in the environments. Low fidelity foliage and low quality textures on field objects comes across as a bit jarring when the character models look as good as they do, especially in motion. The visuals for your actions and special abilities are gorgeous, with S-crafts and chain attacks having expertly animated cutaways that show off a lot of confidence in the game’s style. This confidence is well-earned. The world is well-crafted, with various regions visible in the world at all times off in the distance. When you walk through a town, you can see the mountains, giving you both a great sense of scale and terrain. You can also see the people in each town going about their day, living in and moving about the world alongside you.
The ambient dialogue and conversations with the world’s NPCs evolve as the game goes on, making the world feel more lived-in and the NPCs less disposable. Each region you explore comes with new surprises for not just you, but those NPCs as well, and they’ll always react to the world around them. They grow and change, they love, they explore — each existing within the world as their own person with their own story. Those NPC storylines and dialogues update after nearly every cutscene, making speaking with everyone at any given opportunity a daunting task.
Ambient dialogue and evolving conversations with the world’s NPCs as the game goes on is a nice touch, making the world feel more lived-in, and the NPCs less disposable.
My one issue with this is that NPCs very often repeat dialogue (or partially repeat it) when spoken to consecutively, but the indicators will only disappear after you have fully exhausted that conversation, repeats included. I am not sure what kind of consequences there are for fully exploring dialogue with everyone, but as someone with a near obsession with clearing maps, the repeated dialogue was a major detriment to my exploration of the world, increasing my time spent talking to NPCs by nearly two times as much as would be needed under normal circumstances.
Thankfully, the mini map indicates which NPCs you need to interact with. Additionally, it shows you quest markers, environment maps, interactable items and objects, and treasure chests all at a glance. If the mini map isn’t sufficient, you can pull up the full map with the press of a button. I’m a bit torn on this design as the map and mini-map are so useful that there is a temptation to stare at them for most of the adventure, but if you do that you miss out on all of the great work put into making the world as vibrant and varied as it is.
The world itself has a lot to love, from great locales, interesting lore, to fun NPCs, everything is a delight — the characters most of all. The cast of the main party is an eclectic group ranging from mercenaries (bracers in this world) to vagabond bards, each with their own distinct personalities, stories, and abilities. Estelle has a bubbly and determined personality, while Joshua is a more calculated (sometimes brooding) and cunning figure. Tita is earnest and cheerful, Olivier is eccentric and carefree, and so on. These personality traits make the cast well-rounded, each offering unique perspectives or voices to the world in which they live.
Those unique traits are expressed somewhat through their abilities in combat, as well. Estelle shows off some of that personality during her chain attacks and craft animations, but mostly serves as the all-rounder one would expect of her personality, Joshua is fast and powerful, with some passive protection skills, Scherazard has great support skills, etc. During the action combat on the field, characters have their own movesets, providing unique pros and cons to using them specifically. This action combat is pretty fun in spurts, but you’re unable to use any arts or crafts in the field — those are reserved for the turn-based mode only — so your options are limited. Still, when it is available to you, it is a powerful tool as the dodging mechanic makes the player character functionally invincible when in the right hands.
The turn-based mode is much more involved and is the primary way you engage with the big threats of the game such as bosses. Each character has several of their own abilities in the form of crafts and can have any number of Arts based upon what quartz are equipped to their orbment. Most characters have specific types of quartz that they need to have slotted into their primary slot (excepting Estelle), but they are otherwise fully open to customization. During the command mode (turn-based), any time a character knocks an enemy off balance or scores a critical hit, another character can jump in to do additional damage in the form of chain attacks and follow-up. When you have a full party, using a burst attack with a full gauge allows everyone to join in for even more damage. All of these systems combined with each character's passive skills and abilities makes combat feel increasingly involved as you move your characters around a battlefield for optimal positioning. There’s just a great flow or rhythm to the fights that keep encounters fresh even late into the journey.
The exceptional art direction makes the world feel vibrant and alive.
Perhaps that is the most surprising part of the game to me: the freshness. For a game that is a remake of a title released over 20 years ago, it’s a wonder how new and exciting the whole package feels. The vibrant visuals, excellent soundtrack, memorable characters, and stellar combat all combine to create a title that has me excited to see where things move going forward. Even with the slower pace of the opening acts, I have been engaged with it from the start — something that feels harder to come by as titles get longer and more bloated with stuff to do.
This is a bit at odds with my more general stance towards remakes. I typically do not like them and would much prefer a remaster or re-release, leaving the original experience untouched. So many remakes come at the expense of their source material, being pushed as the only available version, or otherwise indicated as the definitive edition of a game. So what purpose does a good remake serve? What should a remake do for a game aside from making money? How can I justify my love for this title in the face of that longstanding assertion? I think it boils down to why the remake was done and what it entails.
If a game is made in an earnest attempt to bring something to life that more closely aligns with their current vision, and it does not come at the cost of the original game’s availability, I’m on board. That means it doesn't necessarily have to be seen as a ‘fix’, but rather a new iteration or translation of the existing material. Similar to the way many other mediums have translated or updated stories over time, a well-done game remake is simply a new interpretation, rather than a replacement. Still, it does feel a bit hypocritical to say “remakes for me and not for thee”, and I’m not sure that is a feeling that will ever be reconciled on my end.
So many remakes come at the expense of their source material, being pushed as the only available version, or otherwise indicated as the definitive edition of a game. So what purpose does a good remake serve?
As a newcomer to the series, it’s impossible for me to accurately state whether this game is extremely faithful to the original Trails in the Sky. I know for many that particular aspect is an important part of the decision on if they’ll buy it, so hopefully what I’ve laid out here can give those players an idea of how closely that matches their prior experience. What I can say, though, is that this feels like an RPG from the 2000s in all of the best ways. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say it feels like an idealized version of those titles, as if the thoughts and memories of a young child who was dreaming of the perfect PS2 RPG have been made manifest.
Verdict Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a phenomenal blend of Sci-Fi, fantasy, and anime aesthetics that manages to balance the expressive and silly nature of the visuals with the oft serious and somber subject matter of the story. With a thriving world to explore, nuanced and interesting characters, and exciting, deep combat, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is sure to find its way on many end of year lists.  |
Image Credits: Nihon Falcom Corporation
Disclosure: We received a free review copy of this product.
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