Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak (Kuro no Kiseki) announced in the west!

[Dreiko]

So NISA finally put a date out for this, but we've known they were translating it for years now, they use the original trailer that came out like 2 years ago, but I avoid spoilers so I hadn't watched it, hype!





This is the start of a new arc (japan has 3 games planned in the Kuro arc so far) so it's a good jumping in point even if you've not played the 10 other interconnected games it builds off of, though it also isn't coming out until sometime next summer so there's time to catch up haha.


Also, they take the brave step of letting you play in real time during mob fights, I guess they're using some of the Ys DNA, but basically you can shift from turn based to action mode any time you want outside of big boss battles, you can see a bit of that in the middle of the trailer, the second combat scene.



I don't know what to talk about cause everything is so new and overwhelming, but finally having a game set in Calvard is insanely awesome. Also the protag seems to have a fairy of sorts that lets him transform into an artificial Aion, not sure what the deal with that is since Aions are like god robots and not people, but hype either way. I hope they take it in just as interesting a direction as the giant mechs were in cold steel.

 

[meiam]

I'm sure I'll try it eventually and I'm sure I'll be disappointed like every time I try this franchise, for better or worse they make JRPG like they did forever ago (gameplay being little more than mild speedbump for a story that's both convoluted and too simple).

 

[Dreiko]

I'm sure I'll try it eventually and I'm sure I'll be disappointed like every time I try this franchise, for better or worse they make JRPG like they did forever ago (gameplay being little more than mild speedbump for a story that's both convoluted and too simple).

The amazing part about this story is how developed each character is, even small time npcs you see around town, they each live their lives and react to things over the course of the game, having many dozens of lines each, and typically there's like 50+ of those. So when you start out they seem irrelevant and unimportant but by the end of the game you remember each and every one's name and circumstances and the world feels so rich and full of life. Add to this the fact that they carry over from multiple games and through various time skips and side quests and so on. You legit can have a guy looking for a girlfriend as he travels for like 8 games, and then he eventually finds the one. It's insane the amount of attention to detail that goes into the story.


And yeah the issue with modern day Jrpgs is that they're not enough like how they used to be, too many things are being changed, so for folks who wish FF was turn based and had towns and so on and so forth, this is the ideal game series. Now, obviously if you never liked golden-era-style Jrpgs this is not for you, that goes without saying.


As for gameplay, this time they're going with a hybrid of action and turn based where you can shift modes on the fly, and also the story decisions you make can affect things like how villains act, so I definitely think that will appeal to more folks than past games.

Honestly, the only real hurdle in this series is just how dense and content-heavy it is, not many games have 11 directly linked stories that follow and reference eachother with high regularity. So when a new arc begins it is the ideal time to jump in, because they won't start bringing in too many chars from all the other games in the universe avengers style in the first installment, and once you finish it you will inadvertently have the burning urge to go back and play every other game so you can know what the hell is going on with all the side stuff that's referenced, which will fill the time of waiting for the next game to come out.