Trails In The Sky 1st Chapter Review

Back in 2022, I published a review on The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure—the second of a two-game arc, and the fifth title in the now 14-strong Trails series. I concluded my Azure review by recommending the colloquially known Crossbell duology as the best place to dip a toe in the series without fully committing or going back to the first entry on PlayStation Portable (or PlayStation One). I no longer stand by that recommendation, as we now have Falcom’s full and adoring remake of its saga opener with Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. Not just an authentic remake, it modernises every element with now series-standard quality-of-life options and systems tuning. Everything you would expect from a team that has been working on this series for over two decades. Whether it’s your first time meeting professional problem-solving siblings Estelle and Joshua Bright, or you’ve seen their story soar through the many sequels, 1st Chapter makes everything in the small tech-revolution nation of Liberl feel fresh again.

This remake of 2004’s Trails in the Sky is beat-for-beat the same story and questlines. Characters, foes and faces have all been translated from their rich little sprites. The initial couple of dozen hours with Estelle and her mysterious adopted brother are spent running errands around a given chapter’s key town locale and the monster-ridden roads that branch from it. Having played through the original game in the last couple of years, I’m enamoured with how I automatically know most of the world’s hidey-holes and location layouts, while also curious to find new, hidden surprises. Don’t expect the visuals of a Final Fantasy, however 1st Chapter instead looks great by PlayStation 3 anime-flavoured JRPG standards; everything is glistening and performing at a flawless 120 frames on my base PlayStation 5. Falcom have fired off on all cylinders to bring their PlayStation One classic to 2025 with its yesteryear art style intact while remaining technically flawless. Not only that, but boldly cast it in a new perspective where everything, every rivulet and tree and pathway, is just how I remembered it. 

Being familiar with these streets hits different this time

Except for the chests. The chests aren’t how I remembered them. As is the case with Falcom’s gradual transition from top-down to full 3D with the Trails series, attempting to talk with opened chests no longer reveals the most profound of philosophies (and one-liners). 

A small-scale character narrative that anchors a looming, larger geopolitical thriller—the telling of Trails’ first chapter is heavily told through character dialogue sequences. The many chatty cutscenes used to have the camera remain overhead as the tiny character models bounced about and relayed information between 2D portraits. Now we have thoughtfully framed and smartly edited cutscenes that flow with cinematic sensibility, making all that talking much more dramatic and involved. Nothing feels lost, and everything feels gained in how cutscenes have been reimagined.

The consistency of voiced dialogue can be a bit spotty (even on the critical path). The English voice actors will be recognisable to anime fans, with mostly fine voice acting, but sometimes reaching into the whiny and hammy spectrum. Estelle, Joshua, and their father, Cassius, all hit their lines endearingly. The large, rotating supporting cast sounds good enough, but some main scenes will have characters voiced and then suddenly voiceless for parts. The voice acting we get is, nevertheless, a welcome addition to the remake.

Combat out in the world begins with you simply passing into the vicinity of roaming enemies. Keep running on by, or start mashing attacks and aggressively dash at them. This is called quick battling, and it is quick. You will be dodging, dashing, charging powerful attacks and just generally unleashing fast-paced chaos while the flora around you struggles to remain intact. Beat enemies up enough, and they will be stunned, giving several advantages when pressing ‘square’ and initiating turn-based combat. Enemies three levels or more below your characters will disintegrate during real-time quick battles, no turn-based showdown necessary. Do you prefer the faster-paced action combat of Falcom’s action-RPG series Ys, or the turn-based battlegrounds of Trails? Here, you get to enjoy both, and that’s swell.

Trails combat looks, feels, and sounds as great as it ever has

In the service of player comfort is Falcom’s growing suite of standardised quality-of-life features. Fast travel is free, covers every explored location of interest, and can be used throughout most of the game outside of critical main path events. A long-standing issue I’ve had with Falcom’s Ys series is the spotty and underwhelming haptic feedback. The DualSense feels great here, especially during the bombastic real-time fights, and is otherwise a welcome addition in a game that probably would have been forgiven for overlooking it. My favourite ease-of-play addition is the speed controls. As is becoming standard in turn-based role-playing games, players have options and controls to advance the speed of play and animation. This game gave me plenty of speeds to switch between at will, in and out of combat, easing my flow state and blissfully blurring the line between real-time and turn-based strategy games.

One aspect of Trails that hasn’t been rejigged since 2004 is the reliance on shorthand symbols and abbreviations throughout the UI. It has meant needing a reliable manual or guide in order to be sharp with the many unique systems. Tapping the touchpad in the relevant menu will take me to an in-game reference library with concise system breakdowns within two clicks. If even that is too much, the game is more than happy to offer a generous suite of automation options to effortlessly tune this experience to something more similar to your traditional Japanese RPG experience (or whatever you’re comfortable with). Relatively speaking, this is the least intimidating this series has ever looked and felt. The combat symbology could be a little larger on the TV, though.

Yeah, we’ve got the awkward anime bath scene

The only issues I have with Trails’ 1st Chapter are largely a matter of taste. One exception is that the regional maps often show me in the correct zone, but in a completely different section of it. Players won’t reference this map in the moment-to-moment, so it’s whatever. My biggest hangup is the formulaic character progression, a feature of the series. Each of the game’s chapters will funnel the player into a region with a specific set of enemies, gear, and soft level ceiling. Upside: it keeps the player in a steady difficulty range and all but eliminates the need for grinding experience points. Downside: My party’s power curve feels less exciting. I start a chapter feeling weak, and gradually feel stronger by the time the chapter wraps. There’s a tiny set of new gear and items to obtain, so I can’t really hamstring myself. Then I get to the next chapter, and virtually start the process over again. It’s safe, it’s fine. It gets a little stagnant by the 50-hour finish line.

Final Thoughts

Hands down, 1st Chapter is the Japanese RPG that I will recommend to anyone this year. It has all the anime eccentricities of the genre that would make you embarrassed to play it in front of your mum, but I’d still recommend it to mine. Come to this Trails in the Sky remake with an open mind, and it will respect your time. Any nerves you might have regarding its dense turn-based systems are remedied by letting you literally hack and slash through much of it. Falcom have brought their learnings from the years of Ys and Trails, and condensed the strengths of both RPG series into a revitalised entry point into its grand tech-fantasy saga.

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

Click here for more information on WellPlayed’s review policy and ethics