The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II Review (PS5, PS4, Switch, & PC)

The sequel’s here a lot sooner than expected. Not that I’m complaining. We’ve had to wait two years to get new entries in the Trails series. And over time, the West has lagged behind in the two-decade-old series. But no more. With The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II launching just a few months after the first game in the Calvard arc, we just might be settling into a more tight launch schedule. 

But does the speedy release window affect the end result? Also, the Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter remake will be launching in Fall 2025. It leaves Nihon Falcom with quite a bit on their plate. Still, Trails games have almost never disappointed. Whether it’s the story or gameplay, which has now been refined to deliver top-notch combat, it’s hard to imagine that you could come off Trails with a long face. 

Yet here we are. Even after the heavy anticipation, there are a few kinks that could have been ironed out to exploit the full extent of all the sequel can truly offer. Anyway, let’s stop speaking in code and get to the nitty-gritty of the beautiful, raw, and lackluster moments in our The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II review below. 

Two Months Later…

Van Arkide is still running Arkride Solutions that solves problems for different folk, gay areas be damned. His party members have dispersed, too, tending to their personal dramas and all. However, when a vicious serial killer emerges in Edith, the party from The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak regroups to embark on a new adventure. 

I’ll just come out and say that you’ll probably be forced to play through the first game in the Calvard arc. And not just the first game but likely also the previous games in the Trails series. Hey, we’re 12 games deep in the JRPG, and well, this isn’t the kind that tells a brand-new story in each new sequel. 

The stories in the series connect with one another, developing deep characters with branching arcs, so much so that it can be a bit difficult to grasp what’s going on. However, for absolute newcomers, you can make do with the text summary of the events from the first game. There’s also a quick catch-up before The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II jumps right in two months later after the events of the predecessor.

Without giving spoilers, the story has its high highs and low lows. Perhaps the biggest issue I have is with the delivery of the twists and turns. Trails games have always mastered the art of building anticipation. Moreover, you reap a huge reward of having patiently unravelled the story. 

But The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II comes out and reveals the biggest twist at the start. There’s also an interesting time-travelling concept. However, the concept itself feels used in a more filler way than actual significance to the story. 

A Little Distracted

Rather than grapple with the repercussions of wielding such power or, alternatively, pursue how each timeline might affect the plot, time travel is solely used as a way to backtrack severally to certain points in the story to go through the same dialogue and cutscenes only to unlock an alternative action. The alternative action is pre-determined, and so are the points in the story that you can travel back to, taking away player agency. 

And then there’s the overarching plot. Remember, we were chasing down a serial killer. However, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II chooses to focus on developing returning and new party members’ story arcs rather than the cohesive whole. It would have been fine had the branching story paths fed back into the overarching plot. However, the overarching plot is often ignored as you pursue individual stories before jumping back to the forefront of the plot in an often filler and meaningless way.  

That’s not to say that The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II’s story entirely sucks. Some story moments are truly endearing. Some conclude suspenseful bits from previous games in such creative and emotional ways. There are characters with impeccable personalities and memorability. This is by no means a terrible plot. 

Yet something feels missing. Something hardcore fans crave in Trails games. That sense of satisfaction is taken away, especially in Act III. By then, time travel is at its maximum, leaving quite significant events incomplete and the alternative action lackluster for being predictable. When time travel happens over and over, the repetitiveness of the dialogue and cutscenes take their toll. 

Why Choose One When You Can Have Both?

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak hit the mark with its hybrid combat system. So, the sequel retaining it is definitely a wise choice. You can launch at the smaller, pestering enemies in real-time. Previously, though, your attack arsenal was pretty limited. Now, you have the Quick Arts, too, which is basically your magical attack.

Quick Arts has a pause, though. So, you probably want to smack foes with the basic and charged attacks to stun them. And then go in with Quick Arts. It’s also not quite perfect, but it does enough to spice things up. But the joy of combat comes in turn-based when a stronger boss comes in. Depending on how you fare in real-time, you can enter turn-based at an advantage or otherwise.

Switch It Up

Switching to turn-based, the combat systems from previous games are all intact. Well, except for a few additional ones. When you perform a perfect dodge, you can initiate Cross Charge that swaps to another character and allows them to inflict more damage that has a higher likelihood to stun an enemy. It gives you more incentive to swap through the characters at your disposal while achieving a smoother combat flow. 

You also keep in mind the characters’ positions to take advantage of Ex Chain, allowing you to join forces with an SM-linked party member and inflict double damage. Whenever the bosses become too hot to handle, you can always hop into Marchen Garten. Here, you can have your fill of all of the playable characters in your roster, fulfilling specific objectives in gradually unlocking dungeons. 

By killing X enemies or breaking Y objects, you can earn upgrades for your Crafts, costumes, and more. There are side quests you can engage in. Some are pretty well-crafted with intriguing storylines. But the minigames are probably the other feature you’ll enjoy besides the Story and Battle. Yup, the minigames are back, from fishing, hacking, basketball, card games, etc. Their quality varies, with fishing and basketball being nice ways to break up the pace, but card games and hacking may need more baking in the oven.

Look and Feel

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II’s visuals won’t blow your mind. At least by industry standards. In fact, if you were to assess them with fresh eyes, you might find them a little past their time. Listen, Trails has stuck to its guns as far as the particular visual style they have been using over the years. 

The fundamentals, though, remain. For one, the sequel barely introduces new areas to explore. Many of the environments you’ll visit will be familiar to veterans of the series. Marchan Graten can also get repetitive at times despite its random generation. In any case, the voice acting is pretty great. The translations are superb and really show how far the genre has come.

Meanwhile, the soundtrack, uhm, gets the job done. There are certainly better bangers Trails has come up with. And perhaps that knowledge leaves you forlorn over the lost opportunity to introduce some hot tracks. But that can also be the consoling factor, as there’ll be another entry soon, and with the high reputation the series has earned over the years, it will most likely make up for all the ways you may feel let down this time. 

Verdict

The thing is, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II has legendary stories to compare it to. And by the high standards its predecessors have set, the plot here lags behind by a mile. It’s certainly not the worst story you’ll play through. However, hardcore veterans of the series will likely leave disappointed. 

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t snag yourself a copy of The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II. Sure, the story is a vital aspect of the series, but so is the combat. And on that front, the sequel achieves an impeccable playthrough. Unsurprisingly, too, given that many of the mechanics are inherited from tried and true systems.

Meanwhile, there are some minigames that you may find fun. Marchen Graten, too, can be a great way to blow off some steam without enduring the slower-paced story or replaying a boss fight. There are certainly commendable aspects of The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II. And yet, when placed side-by-side with its predecessor or even previous games, the sequel to the Calvard arc falls a little too short.