Even at the time of its announcement, the general idea of Trails into Reverie raised a lot of questions in me. The game was announced both as a prologue to a new chapter in the history of the series, and as an epilogue to both the history of Trails of Cold Steel and the history of the inhabitants of Crosbell from Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. And as if this wasn’t the case in the first series – there is Trails in the Sky The 3rd, which just as smoothly transferred players from Liberl to Crossbell, while at the same time telling the story of the wandering priest Kevin Graham. But The 3rd was, on all fronts, a much less plot-driven game, focusing on Kevin’s personal experiences and various small stories about familiar characters that unfolded as the game progressed. Reverie planned to tell not one, but three stories, not only about heroes familiar to us, but also about new ones, completely unknown before. And such ambition, along with the return of both Rin Schwarzer and Lloyd Bannings to the plot, to be honest, was annoying. And that’s not to mention the completely uneven Trails of Cold Steel IV.
How nice it is to know that fears are sometimes completely unjustified.
Opening of The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie
As mentioned above, in Trails into Reverie we follow three stories. Stories that eventually converge to one point. On the one hand, we have Crossbell police detective Lloyd Bannings and his friends from the SSS department, who intend to finally give Crossbell freedom from the imperial invaders, encounter an unexpected barrier on the way to their goal. On the other hand, Rin Schwarzer and his friends from Class VII are trying to restore the country from the turmoil after the Great War and at the same time find Prince Olivert, who disappeared during his honeymoon. On the third, young mercenaries Pig and Nadya deliver a cargo to the mysterious “S” – a living doll made by the master Rosenberg. The doll, who prefers the name Lapis, remembers nothing about herself, but is sure that “S” is the key to her memories.
At first, you think that Falcom has taken too much on themselves again. Okay, three storylines, but there are also an incredible number of characters in them. How can you balance the narrative between them all and still give weight to each of the game’s three plots?? And now, imagine, you can. It is worth understanding that each of these lines is important for the central conflict to one degree or another. And Falcom will try very hard not to let the player get bored.
It’s really difficult at first, though. Especially if, like me, you choose Lloyd Bannings’ line as the first plot. Here the game stands still for the first couple of hours in order to give the player a nostalgic trip to familiar locations from Zero and Azure, to show familiar characters and what they are doing after the events of Trails of Cold Steel IV. The beginning of Lloyd’s route provides nothing but fan service. And it’s clear where it comes from – after all, for players from Japan, nine years have passed between Azure and Reverie. And for those who first went through Azure in the form of a recent release from NIS America, such attention towards Crossbell may look strange.
But these are small things. At least because the fan service is nice. Some of these characters, of course, were shown to us during Trails of Cold Steel IV, but not all. Here they will show almost all their favorites – the tsundere officer of the Crossbell Guard Mireli, and the cute waitress Sansan from the oriental restaurant, and they won’t forget about the local former hooligans from the slums. And in the best Falcom tradition, their personal stories will be a joy to watch.
Well, yes, the plot comes into its own quite quickly. It doesn’t take much time to present the main riddles to the player, and most of the problems are solved relatively quickly, covering one mystery with another. The story almost never stands still in any of the scenarios, except perhaps the first chapters. And as the plot develops, more and more details will be revealed about the overall central conflict, which are quite capable of turning the perception of the world of the series on its head. Moreover, sometimes stories intersect with each other, and in a rather unexpected way. At times, the game will literally pause the passage of one of the routes due to the fact that in a parallel scenario you have not reached an important point in the plot.
Moreover, the principle of storytelling in Reverie differs quite sharply from other issues in the series. Despite the fact that most of the game’s events take place in locations already familiar to us, there is no full-fledged exploration in the game. Just as there are no sidequests in the usual sense, and no backtracking – at least until the last chapter. No, structurally Reverie is completely linear, as much as a JRPG can be. On the one hand, look at it – downgrade. But on the other hand, the plot moves forward much more actively and never sags.
And here it makes sense to mark the presentation. In my understanding, already in Trails of Cold Steel III the picture within the series has reached a fairly acceptable level. And purely technically, Reverie doesn’t change much – the game looks quite nice, especially in dynamics, but, of course, there aren’t enough stars in the sky. But when it comes to cutscenes, the situation sometimes changes dramatically. Of course, there are plenty of moments where the characters just stand there like idols, but there are also much more full-fledged staged moments in the game. And they are staged just perfectly – the camera angles and the staging of some moments leave you in a pleasant shock. Partly, of course, simply due to the fact that you are observing a similar level of production in a seemingly budget game from a small developer. But partly due to the fact that some scenes look really great.
And the script corresponds to this level of production, which is most important. Trails of Cold Steel IV, despite all its scale and theoretically interesting plot points, sometimes made your head hurt with incredibly tight dialogue with a bunch of lines thrown in from each character that did not play any role in the narrative. In Reverie, this also happens occasionally, and Falcom is still afraid to kill characters – and sometimes it gets literally ridiculous. But even so, in its best moments, Reverie produces a script of almost the best level within the series.
What am I talking about? Yes about https://21hitcasino.co.uk/ route “C”, for example. Its entire plot looks extremely fresh within the series, is well written, and the characters in it have incredibly powerful charisma and interact well with each other and with the world around them. This story alone would be worth the entire Reverie, but there are also storylines between Lloyd and Rin. Which, of course, are not so well written, and do not change the traditional ideas for the series so much, but still offer us quite good stories in themselves, and very skillfully integrate characters we have known for a long time into these stories.
All due to the fact that the game skillfully juggles in each scenario and playable games. There is most often one constant in each game – and this is the main character. And that’s not always the case. In each chapter, the game takes away one of the party members previously given to you, and throws in a new set of characters to complete the next level. Due to this, Reverie achieves things that are unique to her specifically.
At a minimum, each character now has a place in the plot. Yes, sometimes small, yes, only in one chapter, but absolutely everyone will get their moment of fame. And with a cast of 35 characters, this is quite an achievement. Of course, you shouldn’t expect any development of the heroes, unless it concerns party “C”, of course, because all their development was shown to players in previous games in the series. But everyone will be able to prove themselves. At least for some a little more than for others.
In addition to this, the pure gameplay of Reverie, even within the framework of the plot, skillfully forces the player to create new builds and experiment with party compositions. You won’t always come across a set of characters with a clear “tank” or a dedicated mage, and you’ll have to rebuild your approach to building a party and conducting combat. There will be no problems with building a party – heroes always come to you with equipment corresponding to your position in the game and with their own set of quartz, and new crystals for orbment can be found in sufficient quantities in dungeons. And there is always somewhere to test the party – as you move towards the final boss of the chapter, you will always come across a couple of especially strong opponents who will test both your tactical skills and the builds you have built.
Fortunately, if you move to Reverie after Trails of Cold Steel III and IV, and I really hope that’s what you’re doing, then all the basics of combat will be familiar. Semi-tactical format – on site. An orbment development system that relies on individual abilities in each quartz, and on combining different effects from the central crystals. The connections between the characters, and the abilities associated with the development of these same connections, have not gone away. Brave Order system – present. Even the wonderful feature of Cold Steel III and IV with an almost seamless transition into battles was also left in place – where you came across the enemy, that’s where the battle will take place. But the Reverie system also has its own changes.
For the most part, these are little things – more points for using Brave Order, more frequent use of similar systems by opponents, more varieties of central quartz for different tastes and colors. But there is a major change – the United Front system. If there are five or more people in your party, then you can spend a turn hitting your opponents with the whole crowd, or get a good heal in a difficult situation. The system isn’t bad, but it’s very situational, at least on normal difficulty. There is most often no need to turn on a rush on all opponents at once, and if half of the game was killed by the status of sleep, or, even worse, paralysis, then you will not see any large-scale treatment. But at higher difficulty levels, or with a different playstyle, I’m sure United Front will be quite useful.
Of course, at the end of the game, when the storylines finally come together and the unexpected central villain of the game finally raises his head, Falcom’s gigantism will enter into all fields. It’s no joke – almost 40 playable characters will be available for the final dungeon. And of course, the game will once again force the player to once again mix up his favorites and build a new version of the uber-party. And taking this into account, the scale may unpleasantly surprise. Fortunately, the game has a way to prepare the player for such a course of events. And it’s called True Reverie Corridor.
I said above that there are three main storylines in the game, yes? So, me and the entire advertising campaign of the game, you all were deceived. There are four main lines here. Due to this, Reverie practically turns into a “get two games for the price of one” offer.
How so? Yes, it’s very simple – True Reverie Corridor is, roughly speaking, Trails in the Sky The 3rd, fully integrated into the full-length plot representative of the series as side content! In reality, of course, not entirely, because you still have to explore it a little to advance through the plot, but most of it is absolutely optional to complete. Although quite desirable.
At a minimum – because levels and unique equipment will not be superfluous. True Reverie Corridor is a set of small automatically generated levels, divided into several stages. At the end and in the middle of each stage there is a boss. The structure is as simple as possible, but the process of moving through the dungeons is quite addictive. Moreover, there is also something to look for in them.
Hidden in chests at levels are most often equipment that is good enough for that particular moment in the game, good quartz, and books that you can sit through for an hour or two. But even this is not the most important thing. Bosses and powerful mobs drop special stones called Sealing Stones. They come in different types – the simplest ones, namely silver, give out good items of equipment, quartz and suits. With the rest the situation is much more interesting.
Gold drops additional characters for True Reverie Corridor. There aren’t that many of them, maybe less than a dozen, but that’s where some of the fan favorites are hidden that didn’t find a place in the main plot. They won’t go into the central storyline, of course, but it’s incredibly nice to see them, and even more so to play with them.
Red stones hide various mini-games. And this is where the fun begins. From the minigames Reverie offers as usual for Cold Steel IV Pom! and Vantage Masters, as well as a lot of new entertainment. And the Who Wants to Be a Mirranaire quiz doesn’t raise any questions yet – something similar happened in The 3rd at one time. But the rail shooter Magical Girl Alisa and the action game Project Tyrfing are already something new. Moreover, it was still possible to shoot in Trails before, but full-fledged action is already a new thing. And the mini-games are executed quite well, and some also reveal some details about the lives of characters we have known for a long time.
But if you are interested in such things, then you need to look towards blue stones. Hidden there is what is called Daydreams. These are small and not so stories about the main and minor characters of the franchise. As in Sky The 3rd, these can be both large-scale stories about the past of important characters in the series, and small sketches from the lives of third-rate, but memorable characters. If you want to see how Freddie from the second Tors campus went hunting, or how the little businesswoman Jingo earned her first airship, come here. Are you looking for a story about the past of the young witch Emma and a story about how Olivert and Sherazard prepared for the wedding – this will also be here. If you want to prove yourself in a knight’s tournament, playing as Rin with your team, there is that too. There are a little more than 20 Daydreams in the game, and almost every one of them is interesting in one form or another. What can we say about a few that shed light on some of the characters and plot threads of Calvard’s arc?. Which should certainly reach us sometime in the future.
But even in the depths of the dungeons there is something to do. Some chests contain keys to various challenges for certain characters, and the central corridor terminal constantly gives out simple and not so simple missions in order to dilute the exploration process. Make five arts, call S-craft or fight while wearing bath towels – why not?. There are more difficult tasks, for example, using a certain set of characters in a certain way. It is not necessary to complete these tasks, but for the rewards you receive you can easily simplify your life – increase the number of segments on the United Front or Brave Order scale, recruit more people into the reserve, or exchange useful items. Doing local missions is both rewarding and fun, and allows you to try out and take notice of characters you otherwise wouldn’t have considered. And who knows, maybe this is how you will find the perfect match for yourself.
And how useful it will be to you. The complexity, both in the game and in Reverie Corridor, is constantly growing, and, most importantly, very smoothly. Moreover, here the opponents will begin to receive more interesting abilities over time, and their level will simply increase as the game progresses. There are moments when you come across completely out-of-the-box things – like one of the bosses in Reverie Corridor, who with a snap of his fingers can reduce the health of the entire party to 8, but this is rather rare. Moreover, the local abundance of quartz allows you to build very destructive builds, even in the story campaign. And if the challenge isn’t enough for you, the new Abyss difficulty level will help you. True, after this you will most likely need help. Perhaps even psychological.
And yes, Reverie Corridor has its own plot. Quite optional and rather existing to reveal local lore and close some tails of the history of Reverie itself, but still. There is some intrigue here, and you want to move through the levels of the corridor right up to the very end. And after it, I don’t really want to leave this huge cast of characters who, without exaggeration, have become family over these ten games.
What else, music? Well, things are clearly better here than in Cold Steel IV, at least. Unloved by many, Singa is, of course, still in place, but either he pulled himself together, or Falcom used his compositions more skillfully in the game, but the game sounds more complete, and of higher quality too. Other composers also gave it their all, and I really want to rate Reverie’s soundtrack positively. Although there are also some punctures.
True Reverie Corridor main battle theme – Infinity Rage
There are also complaints regarding localization and port. The game works pretty well, but that’s not surprising. But some mistakes of NIS America and their long-time porting contractor PH3 Games cannot be ignored. And I’m not even talking about the creative antics of the translators – I’m neither hot nor cold from them, although I understand the complaints of some fans. And not about the dubbing – it’s traditionally excellent here, and the abundance of first-tier actors is simply stunning at times. I’m afraid to imagine how much the dubbing cost the company. Especially considering that there are more voiced lines in the English version than in the Japanese version.
No, I’m talking about broken links at the start, and other minor technical problems of the Western version. On PC, the game sometimes froze in a black screen, the descriptions of some items still haven’t been fixed and don’t say what they actually do, and at one point my character just fell through the floor in battle. And I had to replay the boss, and the battle preceding it at the same time, in a new way. The problems, compared to the large-scale bugs of some other modern games, are insignificant, but in the heat of the moment they spoiled the impression. After all, this didn’t happen in the previous parts of the series.
But the previous parts of the series, to be fair, did not surprise me at almost every turn in the same way that Reverie did. It’s clear that those games were structured differently, their stories unfolded more slowly, and gradually immersed the player in themselves. Reverie starts right off the bat and doesn’t stop until the very end. And this is, perhaps, its main strength. This is a powerful, smashing adventure that benefits from the established and well-developed mechanics of Trails of Cold Steel III and IV, as well as the new Reverie Corridor mode. And if Trails of Cold Steel IV, with its plot content, slightly, but still undermined faith in the series in principle and in Falcom in particular, then Trails Into Reverie not only restored it, but raised it to previously unprecedented heights.