Musings from Lythos

Review: Trails Through Daybreak

(This review will contain no spoilers outside of content available in the demo)

I have to admit, Trails and I have a bit of a strained relationship as of late. I bounced off Sky FC a couple times before I finally stuck with Cold Steel 1 and 2, at which point I went back and got caught up with the series, but Cold Steel 4 and Reverie were both points where I was in danger of falling off the wagon. The series writing has always been a bit repetitive, but CS4 is a mess of unsatisfying plot points and both games flagrantly recycle both stories and plot structures from earlier in the series. It was very much time for a break, and since I was busy with 8 other games that came out at the end of last year, it seemed like a good time to let things sit for a bit and wait for a sale. Lo and behold, here we are for a fresh start, with a new series, new systems, and a new chunk of Zemuria to explore.

Like most of the other Trails arcs, Daybreak serves as a "setup" game, introducing us to the core cast, the part of the world we're playing in, and what the stakes are for this part of the story. This time around, we're following Van Arkride, a "spriggan" who operates in the grey areas of the law; in theory, his "thing" is that he helps with problems that the Bracer Guild or police can't (usually for legal or privacy reasons) but in practice he's yet another variant of the "I can't believe it's not Bracers!" model, something that both the Guild itself and most of his employees regularly point out. As for the story itself, it kicks off when a girl named Agnes comes to Van, asking for his help in tracking down a mysterious artifact called a "Genesis" that was stolen from her great-grandfather. There are eight of them in total, and you spend the entirety of Daybreak's runtime collecting them across a series of six assorted incidents. This is, by far, the least interesting aspect of the plot.

I don't say that to suggest that Daybreak has a bad plot or anything - in fact, it probably has the best story of any of the "setup" games in the series. Rather, the justification for the plot is really weak. After the prologue, each chapter has a more or less identical stucture: You start in the capital, Edith, and do a bunch of sidequests to see how things have changed from the last time you did the rounds. Then, Van gets offered some kind of special job which takes him to one of the nearby towns or cities, supernatural shit inevitably happens, and they walk away with a Genesis at the end once they resolve it. This is fine! It's okay that you, the player, know that's how this is going to play out, because it's the specific events and character beats that happen inside the chapter that actually matter. But the story calls attention to this - rather than stumbling into these situations once you arrive at these special jobs, what actually happens is that Agnes's Genesis starts glowing while Van is discussing whether or not they should take the job, and then everyone shrugs as if to say "Well, I guess that's where the plot is going to happen." It's nakedly artificial, and the story would work much better without that attempt to justify it.

Similarly, the tone of the game is all over the place. Much like Van himself, the game is trying really hard to convince you that this is a "mature" or "dark" story, but it's still the same goody-two shoes shounen franchise underneath it all. Make no mistake, it is a 180 from whatever the hell Cold Steel had going on - people regularly die, there are consequences to people's actions, and it's not afraid to swing for the fences in a way that Cold Steel would have walked back within hours. Hell, most of the early party members join you because close friends or loved ones are murdered right in front of them, which is a far cry from "We blew up a massive military base but it's okay, there were no casualties because literally everyone was out on an exercise at the time." But the maturity that Daybreak is reaching for is also surprisingly juvenile: for every thoughtful scene about what Renne or Van have been through in their past, there's another about how there's strip clubs and hookahs now, and one of your party members constantly talks about how he's down to have some drinks or who he would totally fuck. The "maturity" it depicts is largely a 12-year-old's version of the word, although it does get credit for being pretty cool about sex work, and actively calling out white supremacy, which is not something I expected to say about the franchise.

Putting aside the game's story for now, Falcom has also revamped the entire combat system. This was long overdue, as while Reverie's combat system is easily one of my favorite turn-based battle systems, we've also been using it for five straight games now. First, Master Quartz have been split up into Holo Cores (the stat boosts part) and Arts Drivers (your spell list). Quartz have also undergone a big change, reverting to something closer to the Sky/Crossbell style; they no longer grant specific artes like in Cold Steel, and most of them just offer some kind of stat boost, which you can combine to create "Shard Skills" that replicate some of the more interesting Status quartz. For example, instead of having a "Leg Breaker" quartz, it's a skill you have to unlock by having so many Fire and Time points on your attack line.

In the field, Daybreak now uses a hybrid system where combat begins with some rudimentary action combat before switching to turn-based once you've done enough damage to stun an enemy - and if that sounds familiar, now you know where Metaphor ReFantazio got the idea. The action combat is extremely half-baked and not very interesting, but it's also not really intended to be used for anything more than mopping up extremely weak enemies, so minimal harm done, I guess. Once you switch to turn-based, it's functionally identical to the last few games, with the only really notable change being the boost gauge mechanic. By "boosting", you activate your Holo Core's stat boosts, and a second one unlocks your S-Craft (your limit breaks), provided that you have at least 100 CP to burn. In theory, this is supposed to be more restrictive, but it's pretty trivial to keep the CP flowing and using S-Crafts also increases your Boost Gauge cap for the fight, meaning more boosts and more S-Crafts. Also, big shout out to the turn indicator at the top of the screen, an absolutely godawful change that makes it impossible to tell exactly who goes when aside from whoever is up next. I'll allow that some of this is up to taste, but this is an objective downgrade from literally every other game in the series, even as far back as the Sky games.

Aesthetically, Daybreak is...fine? It has some interesting environments, and the engine is a decent step up from what they were doing in CS4/Reverie, but it's still really clearly a PS4 game at heart. The animations are at least a clear improvement over Reverie's, and it's cute to see some cameos from an old friend if you know where to look (Ark Feather is just blatantly Rion's wing lasers from Tokyo Xanadu), but there's pretty clearly some tech issues going on behind the scenes. Nothing in this game should be pushing the PS5 enough to cause major framerate dips, but battles with lots of enemies or heavy spell usage causes the engine to chug all the same. Musically...it's okay, I guess. While it's never bad, I found that pretty much the entire soundtrack went in one ear and out the other without leaving any sort of real impact. Some of the boss themes are okay, but the real standout for me was the event theme What is Ahead of You. What can I say? I'm a sucker for jazz.

Some stray thoughts before we end this:

Finally, I want to briefly talk about the ending (no spoilers, I promise). Aside from the fact that the finale is about 4 hours and at least 3 boss fights too long, it's actually remarkable how complete of a story Daybreak manages to tell for being a "setup" Trails game. The main plot regarding Almata is wrapped up by Chapter 5, leaving the finale wide open for the Festival scene that the series loves to do, along with a series of character beats that serve as a denouement for both the story as a whole and each member of Arkride Solutions. It is...also impressive that it manages to not actually answer a single one of the questions posed by the narrative. Now, I'm not expecting Calvard Game 1 of (at least) 3 to reveal all of its secrets, but despite collecting all but a single one of the Geneses over the course of 65-ish hours, you are no closer to knowing anything about them than you were when the game started. What are they? How do they work? Why is Agnes trying to collect them in the first place? You will get none of these answers, save for a few examples of things they can do as a result of the chapter climaxes. Frankly, it seems best to just treat them as a plot device that can do whatever the writers want them to, because that sure seems like what Falcom is doing.

And that's all she wrote for Trails through Daybreak. I enjoyed it a lot! But it's also blatantly padded in places and could have easily been about 15 hours shorter without losing anything, and I would have loved it instead. The cast is great, and I can't wait to see them again in Daybreak 2, but for now it's time for a JRPG detox. 'Til next time, Arkride Solutions.