(Copied from my backloggd review).
My entire motivation to get into Trails was to get to this entry, after a stream from one of my closest friends.
I played Sky 1 - 3, and after realizing I didn't give Sky 1 a chance and the hyperfix on the series wasn't starting, I chose to skip to Daybreak, and after it, continue Zero - Reverie.
103 hours later, after doing almost everything you can on a first run, I can safely say, not only is this game special, not only is it my 2° favorite game ever behind Digital Devil Saga duology, this game made me realize what makes Trails as a series so special and worthwile experiencing.
But before that, this game is utterly marvelous.
Graphically its evident its not high budget, but the optimization and artstyle of it really shines, and makes it look super great, the locations and character designs are super good, I like its OST a great chunk, even if its not the best thing ever, lots of banger like Satisfied Madness, Make a Breakthrough, Unmitigated Evil, The Desicive Point, Revolution Anniversary, Rise of the Grendel, Marginal Crisis, and my favorite of them all: Ressonance of Ray, the OST shines a lot on the game.
Gameplay wise, the jump from Sky 3 to Daybreak was wild, but the core of it can still be felt. And the changes done to it feel very good.
For starters, this game is a hybrid of action and turn based RPG. While the action combat feels basic, it adds a lot to the game, its an extention of the overworld exploration, with regular attacking, dodging, charge attack to try and get the advantage to iniciate the turn based combat, which is stellar. The classic turn order determined by delaying based on the moves used is back, as well as craft points earned by taking damage or regular attacks, and arts that need to be charged before thrown. This game however, adds shard boost, they're a passive that can be used to gain bonuses depending on how many levels are used, on Lv. 1, they add buffs dependent on holo cores, modifiers that can be changed from a select pool you can obtain, and they also raise the chance of shard skills happening, on lv. 2, shard skills become guarantee, and you can use S crafts, and in this game, they always consume 100 craft points, and using one, extends the maxium of shard boost bars from 3 to up to 9. Shard skills are passive obtained by customizing quartz, gems that provide bonuses, and depending on the ones you use, you unlock passives for the characters, which encourages a lot of experimentation. By far my favorite change in this game, is movement is part of the turn, instead of an option, which feels SO NICE, and to adapt to it, crafts can have positional bonuses now, which adds to the system, specially since hitting the positional bonuses, fill the shard boost bars faster, it is absolutely incredible and so rewarding to do. Alongside this, bonuses to the EXP multiplier depending on doing certain actions are here, and they make grinding barely be felt, it is so good.
When it comes to exploration, the dungeons can be described as hallways 99% of the time. Which, is not a bad thing, the looks of the dungeons are really good, and while hallway like, there's enough incentive to see all of it for chests and enemies to fight and such, they do their job well, and feels nice to explode, specially with the looks of some dungeons (SPECIALLY the final one). Sidequests are fun to do as well, since there's an alignment system for this game, between law, gray and chaos, and doing sidequests increases them, and when you're offered options, it significantly increases them. The alignment comes into play 3 times, one in CH5 where lv. 3 nets you more options, another in CH4 where Lv. 4 gives you a benefit per alignment reached to it, and a final one in the final dungeon where you can face off a boss dedicated for any alignment you reached Lv. 5, and nets you the ability to make the ultimate weapon of a character, as long as you defeat it. You won't be able to reach Lv. 5 on every alignment in a first run, so its prioritizing what you like, which I LOVE. And fits Van's job as a Spriggan so well.
And now, its time for the writing section.
Story wise, it is amazing. Very early you find the hook with issues regarding the mafia: Almata, and Van suddenly transforming into a monster called Grendel, all done by an artifact called Genesis, and the journey now becomes finding the 8 Genesi, and stopping Almata along the way. The story manages to escalate a lot of times, and provide incredible moments, which I won't spoil here. But by far, the biggest strength of Trails through Daybreak, and the Trails series as a whole, is its characters, and their interactions. The main cast of the game, Van, Agnes, Feri, Aaron, Risette, Quatre, Judith and Bergard, are absolutely incredible characters. Every chapter is mainly dedicated to a character, and everyone gets fun and amazing dynamics as a group, or with side characters, which can be so good, standouts are Shizuna, and my favorite character of the game: Elaine. What this game also does so well with its characters, are the antagonists, be it from the Society like Lucreza and SPECIALLY Harwood, or the main antagonists: Almata. Alexandre and Viola are plot devices for the main villan, but they work well as that, Olympia ended up being great with her deal, and Arioch is pretty entertaining too. Melchior is such an entertaining villan with how unhinged and funny he is, absolutely delightful to hear him talk, his VA really knocked it out of the park with his performance. And then, the main villan: Gerard Dantes. Absolutely marvelous villan who is a threat like no other, and managed to get to me in plenty of times, the way they make him so rotten and intimidating, there's nothing charming about him, nothing redeemable or the like, he's a monster, and one you can't stop, absolutely incredible villan and threat, all while being a paralel to Van as well. And all of this gets exacerbated by the incredible interactions between all the characters, they're so entertaining and impactful, and with how many there are, it just shines so well, and give such a special feeling to this game. This has been present since Sky, and its in this game where I finally realize this is the real strength of Trails, and what makes it so special.
Overall, Trails through Daybreak is such a special game, one that acomplishes so many great things in gameplay, and writing. It is a marvelous experience, and one that I'll remember forever for all it acomplished, and how it served me personally, as a way to realize how far I've come when it comes to my personal issues since the past 4 years.

Like every Trails game it demands your attention undivided, but it's worth it. The cast is likeable, the plot is solid, the music is good. Additionally, it's a great entry point into the series, until Trails in the Sky 1st Remake isn't out that is. Looking forward to the next installment of the Calvardian arc

3

I''m too far in to stop

This one in my opinion much better than the mostly forgettable trails into the reverie

Story: the concept is not really unique, MC is some kind of private investigator. I feel like playing judgement at the beginning of the game. His moral compass isn't 'hero of justice' but more practical and he's willing to resort to 'gray area' option to solve problem. Maybe kind of like Rufus, if we compare to the 'knight in shining armor' rean & lyod. The whole story is based on a device not-artifact not-magic created by prof Epstein that somehow very much function like an artifact (whatever). A girl is looking for a set of it, our MC agreed to help, and the adventure rolls from there.

Gameplay: they add ability to move around freely during your turn, which make the game a whole lot easier. You can also dish out scraft with just 100 cp, the catch is you need 2 bars of an additional resource but it's easy to get too. They also expand the 'hit the monster' mechanic in dungeon, making you need to try a bit harder to start in an advantage but had the option to straight up kill the monster without entering the turn based battle.

The MC concept is quite unique here in terms that he's a tank (at least that how i use him). He has a skill similar to taunt in MMO. So you just place him on one side and the other team members on the other side of the boss. The boss largely will only attack him and as long as boss doesnt do large AoE attack, the other team members are safe. The game also has system where your teammate has a random chance to cast a barrier shard when you get attacked. This made the game even more easier. Imagine you have 10k hp and the boss attack damaged you 300 when barrier is on. To take things further, you have a teammate who can debuff now, so whenever boss start buffing themselves, you just pop her out from the spare line and cancel the buff.

Romance: I don't see romance option yet although our MC sure has a few admirers. I'm just hoping they don't do this like Rean and just pair him with someone in story. Romance option is cool when it's one game, but when it's multiple games across years of character development, the enforced status quo is just sad. I mean class VII is consist of attractive boys and girls and yet from their school days until now (they're like 22 years old now?) everyone is still single but Gaius (and maybe jusis & machias?) . Rean cant choose anyone without upsetting fans and the girls cant be with anyone because they're rean's option. Anyway I'm team Elaine here although it's very clear that our main heroine has a big crush on the MC, so we'll see

Just about finished with yet another excellent entry in the legend of heroes series of games. Having been playing them from the start It's hard to believe they they are ending the series in just two more games. With that said this game doesn't miss a beat so heres what to expect

- A completly refined battle system using the same old strategy turn based combat we all love with an added action system which melds perfectly together

- Exploring the vast realm of calvard with in a total of 7 chapters to tell it's story ( if you thought crossbell was big you are in for a shock )

- A criminal mafia gang just crazy enough to good entertainment. In some ways you eventually feel bad for them when they lust on nothing but fear and intimidation.

- The falcom music team hits a home run again with another excellent sound track They seriously never disappoint.

- The story is well told through a vast array of new characters van and alkride solutions will always get the job done for those that don't want to use the police or the guild so long as its nothing shady it's not as much of a slow start as previous entries but once the plot ramps up it doesn't stop.

What more can i say other then i love this series just as much as final fantasy so when the chapter finally closes on it and the worlds story and lore building comes to an end it will be a sad day. But we have more to look forward to as im sure falcom will cook up something new to sink our teeth into.

Hats off to you falcom for one heck of a tale. :)

Being a YS fan I've always wanted to dip my toes into the Trails series but as most of you know it’s pretty daunting due to the nature of all the games being connected to the overarching story. So if you want to get the most out of the story then most people recommend you to play through all 11 games in chronological order. I tried my hand at where most people in this fanbase tell you to start your Trails journey from, Trails in the Sky FC. I bought FC and SC thinking I would play through them both but FC didn’t really hook me in during my first 10 hours (both in story and gameplay departments, I never really was into turn-based games) and I ended up dropping it shortly.

Then 2 years later I saw that the newest game in the series, Daybreak, was on sale and I decided to look into it. The gameplay is what stuck out at me the most being a hybrid between real-time action combat and turn-based with the ability to switch on the fly. I also heard that it’s story was mostly self-contained with side characters from past games showing up so I decided to give it a shot cause maybe this will be the game that hooks me into the series and after losing a little under 2 weeks of my life I can safely say it has done just that.

Starting on the gameplay side of things my biggest gripe with turn-based games is how tedious combat becomes when clearing zones, especially when it comes to trash mobs. But with Daybreak, I can fight in real-time action combat weakening the enemy then jump straight into turn-based combat to finish them off which I personally find way more engaging and fun. And being able to move around during turn-based made fights WAY more engaging and having bonuses on skills based on where I hit the enemy from is a nice touch.

But where I didn’t really expect to love so much was the story. In most jrpgs, you’re someone who from the get-go has a quest to save the world or something along those lines. And while yes Daybreak eventually follows the same trope, it doesn’t start out as such. You start out as a spriggan, someone who just does the odd job that people can’t turn to the government or guild for help. So, the story starts out small and slowly progresses upward. My lack of knowledge from past games did have me lost and confused as to what some characters were talking about at times and I don’t really have an emotional connection to returning characters from past games. I’m also pretty sure that I’ve been spoiled about the fate of certain characters from past games but oh well I knew what I was getting myself into. Also, all the characters in the main group are all likable each one having their own little quirk. Van especially is just such a likable MC due to him being an adult and acting as the dad in the group. The OST is also really good and makes some of the moments in the story way better. And when the credits rolled I couldn't help but feel a bit sad that I wouldn't get to see how the story of these characters end since I would have to play through the past 10 games to get the most out of Daybreak II.

I would recommend the game to someone starting out in Trails but do be warned that you will be spoiling yourself about things that happened in past games so if you do care about that then just start at Sky FC. But if you’re looking to get a taste of the game and the world to see if it’s for you then I’d say go for it cause if it does hook you then it’ll hook you hard just like it did with me. Now I’m planning to play through the whole series so I can get to see how things turn out in Daybreak II. Safe to say I'm in it for the long haul now.

TLDR: I’m a YS fan, wanted to get into the trails series and didn’t really get hooked on Sky FC then tried Daybreak, LOVED it, and am now going to play through the whole series to get the most out of Daybreak II and would recommend this game to newcomers looking to get into the series.