Musings from Lythos

Trails: Beyond the Horizon

It is functionally impossible to talk about Horizon without spoiling (at minimum) Daybreak and Daybreak 2. I will do my best to keep things as spoiler-free as possible, but like the game itself, I will assume that you are, at minimum, vaguely aware of what happens in the previous entries, even if you have not played them.

The Calvard arc as a whole has been done incredibly dirty by Falcom. After years of buildup in Cold Steel 3 and 4 followed by direct teases in Reverie, Daybreak released at the height of Switch Mania in Japan...exclusively for the PS4 and PS5. Not only that, it released in an incomplete state, missing multiple series staples (most notably NG+) and had to have at least one plot-related cutscene patched in after the fact. While both of these would be corrected within the year, the reputational damage was already done, something only exacerbated by the extremely rushed release of Daybreak 2. As I mentioned in my review, while not explicitly confirmed, pretty much everyone agrees that Daybreak 2 launched in the state it did because Falcom had to release something and what they had was about half a game's worth of content. It was blatantly padded, didn't really advance the story in any meaningful way, and it's only with the benefit of hindsight that we can go back and see what the game was actually trying to do and set up.

Trails: Beyond the Horizon, for better or worse, does not have any of these problems. It is stuffed with things to do - arguably TOO much stuff - and that even extends to the plot itself. Though it isn't called Daybreak 3 (even if that's very clearly what it is), we pick up four months after the secret ending of Daybreak 2 - Van, Rean, and Kevin (plus a few others) are at Marduk HQ to do a combat test, when they're interrupted by President Gramhart performing a test launch of the rockets at Zeku Space Base, formally unveiling Project Startaker to the world. With three days to go before the next rocket launch, each of the three protagonists go their own way to investigate some aspect of the project: Rean heads to Basel and ultimately ends up looking into the true aims of Project Startaker, Van gets caught up with the Alter Dawn cult back in Edith, and Kevin finds himself in Tharbad searching for the truth behind how Calvard got itself into this position in the first place. The pacing is a little rough early on - Act 1 is a 15 hour re-introduction to Edith and the general Daybreak "style" that is entirely unnecessary and about 75% of it could have been cut with no loss - but the game gets into a good rhythm once it introduces the route segments. Each is 4-5 hours long, and consists of a sidequest time period, a mandatory plot dungeon, and almost all of them end with meaningful new information being revealed - it's a similar structure how to Trails into Reverie worked, and what Daybreak 2 was trying to do but utterly failed at.

And speaking of Daybreak 2, one of Horizon's biggest successes is simply taking what that game set up and doing...well, anything with it, to be honest. When it was all said and done, DB2's biggest contributions were:

This isn't an exhaustive list, mind you - there's plenty of other things that are revealed in DB2, but are immediately explained again in Horizon as soon as they become relevant, so...not a lot that DB2 can actually lay claim to. And while Cao and Gaolong are still as unwelcome as ever, Dominique and Chloe Lanster are a delight every time they appear on screen, and the game immediately starts doing interesting things with Jorda and Ixs simply by breaking them up and having them be at odds with each other. It may not excuse the quality of DB2, but it DOES make it go down a little bit easier in retrospect when you can see the fruits of its labor in Horizon - and Horizon has its fingers in A LOT of the previous games' pies, so to speak.

Plot threads from all across the series, ranging from Sky 3rd (the third game) to Cold Steel 4 and Reverie (games 9 and 10 respectively) get their due in Horizon, in a way that most closely resembles the "Avengers: Endgame" feeling that Cold Steel 4 had. And this is great! We're clearly gearing up for the finale of something; the problem is that it isn't entirely clear what we're gearing up for. Daybreak 1 sets up the arc, Daybreak 2 largely fills in the gaps of DB1 without moving things forward much, and then Horizon comes in and...sets up a whole bunch more stuff. Narratively, it most closely resembles Cold Steel 3: a game that took place after a short time skip, established a new set of core characters, and the plot beats it did have were largely in service of getting things ready for the big showdown in Cold Steel 4. But that part of the series works because Cold Steel 2 took most of stuff from Azure and Cold Steel 1 and brought them to a satisfying conclusion; Cold Steel 3 has the luxury of slowing down again because Cold Steel 2 has like, four finales, each of which answer major questions that Cold Steel 1 and Zero/Azure had posed. The Calvard arc has a Cold Steel 1 and a Cold Steel 3, but is missing that crucial capstone between them that answers the lingering questions from Daybreak 1, and while there are parts of Horizon that feel like they're trying to serve that purpose, the whole thing feels kind of half-assed in that regard.

And speaking of half-assed, also returning from Daybreak 2 is the Marchen Garten, this time dubbed the "Grim Garten" and given an edgy makeover. To its credit, it's been integrated into the story a little better than the Marchen Garten was - it's been taken over by Ouroburus this time, it has a plot of its own that...sort of(?) gets looped back in to the main overall story, and it even has a dedicated set of villains - complete with an appearance by the Grandmaster herself, should you complete the entire thing. It's been given more of a board game theme this time, where you can navigate tiles to pick up buffs or treasure and have the option to avoid at least some of the combat zones. It's also shorter than Daybreak 2's version, with only 9 floors (compared to 16), all of which are accessible before finishing the game. All in all, it is...fine, I guess. I'm not a fan of the (seemingly?) random goals that each floor has, especially since you can't actually see what they are the first time you clear it, but the hub area works well and the fact that it provides a means for you to see the Connect Events that you missed almost makes the entire ordeal worthwhile by itself. But did it really need to be here?

Horizon, as mentioned at the start of this review, is a REALLY full game, absolutely stuffed with content from top to bottom. For every new thing it brings to the table - be it a new location or dungeon, an interesting plot point or character beat, etc - there's three more that have been brought back from the previous two games with minimal or no changes. The Garten itself is the most obvious example, but Rean and Kevin will spend most of their routes in Basel and Tharbad respectively with one (1) new dungeon a piece over all three of their chapters. Van is only slightly better with two new districts of Edith to explore (bringing us up to 12 altogether), and he'll spend three of his six chapters in an entirely new city, Anchorville - but he has the entire 15 hour intro to himself, and twice as many chapters as Rean and Kevin. Beyond that, pretty much everything prior to the Finale involves redoing stuff from the first two games in some capacity. Occasionally there's a gimmick to spice things up - Kevin has a dungeon that doesn't allow shard combat so you have to do the whole thing in action mode, which is kinda neat? - but the game generally doesn't go much further than "What if you had to redo the Rare Metals Mine, but you played as REAN this time?" It feels like padding, and that's simply inexcusable for a game that can easily run anywhere from 70-90 hours to hit credits.

The story, too, suffers from this "recycling" of ideas. While the core thrust of the plot is strong and interesting, it's not hard to see where Falcom seemingly wrote themselves into a corner, and nowhere is this more evident than the Alter Cores. You might think that since Agnes and friends collected all 8 of the Geneses after Daybreak 2 that we were done with that particular plot point, but we still need a reason for supernatural or otherwise impossible stuff to happen. Enter the Alter Cores: white orbments that look and function exactly like Geneses (read: whatever the writers want them to do). Similarly, while Horizon does a pretty good job of maintaining the more serious tone of Daybreak 1 and 2, some of their bad writing habits from Cold Steel are starting to creep back in. Daybreak 1 had a couple of these moments (primarily bringing back Viola, Alexandre, and Olympia in the final dungeon, even if you chose to kill them in Oracion), but Horizon leans into it far more. For all the focus that the Van-Agnes-Elaine love triangle gets, it's made clear in this game that if Falcom were to implement romantic choices, Van would have plenty of options open to him. There are lots of repeat offenders in the villains' ranks (most prominently in the Garten, which has several "yeah, idk, here's Harwood I guess" fights), nor will your allies hesitate to be like "Okay but we need to test your resolve before we let you pass" - with one particularly egregious example being "We need to test OUR resolve so we're going to fight you to prove YOUR resolve." And who can forget this tried and true classic? "Yes, what we are doing is wrong. Yes, we know that we have no chance of stopping you. But we just trust the President so damn much that we're going to fight you anyway!"

But we could be here all day if I just wanted to critique the story, so let's talk a bit about how the game actually plays. Both the turn-based and action combat have seen a number of interesting tweaks, starting with ZOC. In the field, this new mechanic will slow down time, allowing you to hammer enemies with impunity. In combat, it allows you to take two turns in a row, which is pretty situational (though devastating when appropriate) - unless you're an enemy, of course, in which case you get up to four turns in a row. Thanks, Horizon. Another big enhancement to field combat is "Awakening": characters who have a relevant boost ability (Van's Grendel, Rean's Spirit Unification, etc) can trigger it to get a big power boost, which makes it far easier to deal with the strongest foes. Meanwhile, the big new thing for turn-based combat is Shard Commands, which are...just Brave Orders again. For the cost of 1-2 boost gauges, you can get a buff for a few turns that does something like "increase physical damage by 30% for 4 turns" or "decrease damage taken by 50% for 6 turns." They're slightly more limited than the CS3/4/Rev versions, but they are admittedly a bit more straightforward.

Something else that I appreciate, even if it's a small thing, is that each of the three groups not only play completely differently, but play like the games they came from. While the Daybreak crew is largely unchanged, Rean's group is pure gas, an all-offense group that has very few good defensive options and crumbles when pushed into an extended fight. The Thors crew lives and dies on striking first and striking hard, while relying on defensive Brave Orders to mitigate incoming damage - something that will sound very familiar to anyone who's played Cold Steel 4 and Reverie. On the other side, Kevin's party consists of two casters, a somewhat tanky hybrid character, and a fast, physical character - a party dynamic that matches the Sky crew almost to the letter. And frankly? Not only is Rufus the only thing keeping most of them alive (between his craft that heals everyone and his craft that drops a defensive buff for the whole party), he himself is a quite capable caster to boot, meaning that the vast majority of the party's damage comes from casting and magic crafts. Given that everyone still uses the same underlying systems, the fact that they managed to wring out this much variety in builds and gameplay styles is really impressive.

Some rapid-fire notes before we wrap up:

I'm putting this last because like Daybreak 1, I need to talk about the ending at least a little bit before we go. While there will be no explicit spoilers, I will talk about the game's structure and when some of the reveals happen (though not what those reveals are) - if that's your cue to leave then the takeaway is this: Horizon is a good game, a MASSIVE improvement over Daybreak 2, but the house of cards is dangerously close to tipping over. A lot is going to be riding on whether or not Horizon 2 can stick the landing, because this could just as easily crash and burn and ruin an entire trio of games in the process.

Everyone else good?

Last chance.

Alright, so: while the split routes work great in the moment, they all kinda feel...ineffectual(?) once you have the whole plot in front of you? Like, don't get me wrong, I understand the purpose they serve in the bigger narrative - Van learns the most about (and has to directly deal with) the main threat that the party faces in the here and now, while Kevin and Rean are more about learning background information and how we got here in the first place. But how it plays out in practice is that Van spends like 80% of his routes chasing down the cult until he just gets outright told the plot at the end of Van 6. Rean and Kevin each discover a different side of the same big reveal, but neither of them know this because no one in this game talks to each other, ever. Kevin's discoveries are almost entirely things that happened in the past and are well beyond his ability to actually change or affect in any way, while Rean never does much with his side of the information, period - he has a GOAL for Horizon 2, I suppose, but otherwise he could have been removed from the game entirely and nothing would have changed. And then both of them get completely swept aside for the finale so Van can go kick the President's door in? Seriously, I cannot believe that they get half the runtime that Van does in Acts 2 and 3 and are completely absent in both Act 1 and the Finale. Given that the three groups never directly interact in any way AND Van explicitly gets told the plot at the end of his route, did we really need the other two groups at all? Could we not have saved ourselves about 20 hours and just folded those reveals into Van's storyline somehow?

That said, for all my grousing about the story, I did really enjoy Horizon. The finale sequence is fantastic, the character writing as a whole is definitely the best in the Calvard saga, and while it takes its sweet time to get started, the middle bits of it where everyone is progressing along their own storyline and learning different bits of information might actually be the best part of the game. It's a shame, then, that all I can do is give it an "incomplete" for right now - if Horizon 2 takes what this game set up and sticks the landing, then this duology could easily be the best in the entire series. If it falters, then we're left asking what the point of any of this was, as it retroactively takes down Horizon (and maybe even Daybreak 1) with it, in the same way that Cold Steel 3 was massively undermined by how Cold Steel 4 actually resolved its open plot threads. Which one will we end up with? I suppose only time will tell.