The Legend of Heroes: Trails beyond the Horizon Review

The Legend of Heroes: Overview of Trails Beyond the Horizon

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon is finally out and it's a no-brainer. Thirteenth entry in Franchise of tracks and the third entry in the Calvard arc begins shortly after Paths Through Dawn II stopped. What's waiting over the horizon? More fantasy noir, more hilarious character interactions, and more sci-fi geopolitics than ever before.

We return to the continent of Zemuria to find it taking its first steps into space. Satellites expand Orbal's network in entirely new directions, and an astronaut prepares to make its first space flight. But not all is well in this fantasy world.

As it turns out, the space race is directly related to the predicted end of Zemuria. An end that is fast approaching. Needless to say, the heroes who fought to protect this land are not about to give up.

Spriggan rogue Van Arkride, war hero Rian Schwarzer, and church agent Kevin Graham all join the fray. However, saving the world may require a more terrible price than they realized. And although everyone is willing to sacrifice themselves, the cost of failure may be borne by someone else. A treasured friend that Van would do anything to protect.

Everything is here

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon features solid sound design. The soundtrack is excellent, as usual for a Trails game. The title is not fully voiced, but the voice acting, when present, is reliable.

It also features a solid visual design and surprisingly high-quality graphics. This is one of the best-looking Trails games, on par with the Sky First Chapter remake. However, storytelling and writing are still definitely prioritized over graphical fidelity, and that was the right decision.

Similar to: Paths in dreamsTrails Beyond the Horizon has rotating protagonists and multiple routes. Van's plot takes center stage, but Rian and Kevin have their own roles to play in what may be the final days of Zemuria.

This game ties the more accessible Daybreak games into the rest of the convoluted franchise. This is quite a difficult task. Still, it gets the job done quite well, even if the running hours end up being extremely cutscene-heavy.

And since the Trails franchise is known for a lot of fantasy world-building and long cutscenes, calling this game “cutscene heavy” is saying something.

“The Legend of Heroes: Paths Beyond the Horizon” – the crown jewel of the franchise

Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon features the most advanced combat system yet. This game is based on the Trails Through Daybreak combat system. It switches between turn-based team battles and real-time field battles with the press of a button.

The new ZOC feature slows down enemies and gives players unprecedented control over the battlefield. In team battles, it gives the character an extra turn. This can be the difference between finishing a battle unscathed and being victorious.

I encountered a slowdown bug while repeatedly jumping in and out of team fights while fighting the same opponent. The same problem was repeated several times in the prologue, seemingly at random. It's not that it was impossible to get through, but it was very annoying.

As always, the game features an incredible amount of world building, side encounters, and collectibles. The Impending End of the World still offers plenty of room to interact with people, complete side quests, and explore. Zemuria truly is a lovingly crafted setting, and it's always great to see how the NPCs develop as the game continues.

You can complete certain quests in several different ways to influence your alignment. This is another feature returning from the Daybreak games. This will add flavor to the outcome of your decisions.

The price of good storytelling

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon has five difficulty levels, ranging from Very Easy to Nightmare. However, the Normal difficulty level is a reasonable difficulty level for new players to start with.

Like other Trails games, Trails Beyond the Horizon will search for previous clear data. Players who complete Trails in Daybreak 1 or 2 will receive a small bonus reward.

There are too many cutscenes at the beginning of the game for that amount of gameplay. However, most of these videos are about two decades of careful planning that has finally come to fruition. So I can't even be mad about it. If you have enjoyed the ride so far, this game will be a real treat for you.

However, there are too many loading screens between cutscenes. This definitely annoys me.

Overall, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon is a great entry in the franchise. It sounds good, looks good, and the narrative really picks up. It will probably be confusing for new players, but this is the thirteenth game in the series. Just play the rest, I promise they're good too.

***Steam code provided by publisher***