The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie Reviews

Perfect cap off to Erebonia. Now onto more adventures!

Overall, this game is a huge disappointment. **Please, DO NOT purchase any consumable items, btw.** Eff these guys, eff this company. **Honestly, DO NOT buy this game at all**. Sail the high seas if you REALLY wish to buy this trash title. My main issue with it is that It's incredibly boring. I had to force myself (I've completed ALL the previous titles; Sky I and II FTW; III is trash, apart from Renne's storyline FYI), to finish this one, which is something completely unexpected. The story is incredibly short and linear, not to mention basic. The usual exploration aspects of the game are almost completely absent. The Reverie Corridor is a **horrible** addition to the series. It completely breaks the pacing of the story AND of the game itself. It forces you to grind/farm for an untold amount of time, in order to progress comfortably. Quartz, EXP and Eq farming is just such an effing chore, it sucks to even have to think about it - this entire thing still gives me goosebumps. I could write even more about the overabundance of unnecessary playable characters present in the story, the harrowing simplicity of encounters and choices presented to the player, the overuse of famous and loved soundtracks - but I will not. Eff this title. DO NOT BUY THIS. IGNORE THIS TITLE, IT DOES NOT PROVIDE CLOSURE OR ANYTHING CLOSE TO IT. IT'S AN INCREDIBLE CASH GRAB AIMED AT THE PEOPLE, WHO HAVE PLAYED THE PREVIOUS TITLES. THAT'S IT. DO NOT BE AN IDIOT, DO NOT BUY THIS. Effing trashy game, Jesus. I've never thought I would see myself saying this while referring to this series. Holy Moly.

Where to even start with this game, and how much I love it? This is my favourite Trails game, by far. I love the combat, I love the characters, I love the story (even if it's a bit confusing at times), I ADORE the music. It's with great sadness that I have to put it down after more than 100 hours. As a side note, don't play this until you've played all the others first (at least starting at trails from zero), otherwise you'll have absolutely no idea what's going on. If you want to see if you will like the series, play Trails through Daybreak, since it's less connected to the rest of the series, with cameos rather than a continuation of the story. Devs, I can't wait till the next trails games. They are some of my favourite games of all time.

Aidios this game... Full spoilers ahead, mostly about Rean. This game had some of my FAVORITE moments in all of Trails. And unfortunately, it also had some of my least favorite. This game, split into three routes that play out simultaneously, is both wonderful at storytelling and dogshit at characterizing 80% of its 50 PLAYABLE CHARACTER ROSTER!!!!! It's honestly ridiculous. C's route is far and away the best route as far as story, characterization, and world building go and it's not even close. C's route starts you off with a cast of new characters (two of which are a cool Easter egg from the previous game!) and the party dynamic is unlike anything we've ever seen before. Rather than a strapping group of moral youths (as we see in the Liberl gang, SSS, and Thors), we have a group of PROBABLY criminals with extremely shady pasts and an amount of Gen Z banter that puts really any modern sitcom to shame. Watching C's growth with LP is magical and funny and heartwarming, and the found-family dynamic of this new cast is so extremely touching.... Lloyd's route brings back one of my favorite character in the opening seconds and the hype for Crossbell fans never really stops throughout it, if I'm honest. I don't personally feel like the SSS were the best party ever as many of my friends do, but holy hell I'd be remiss to pretend that this route didn't have me extremely psyched to see bits of Crossbell in 3D for the first time. And then there's Rean.... Rean's route is... Honestly not very impactful in my opinion. If he'd had the extremely minor revelations about his worth he had in this game two or three games ago, I might have thought way higher of his character development here. But instead, after four 80-150 hour games of being the main character and a third of this 100 hour game being a featured protagonist, he finally realizes that his plan A of sacrificing himself whenever it's easiest might hurt his friends' feelings? Bro is toxic af for that. The worst part (granted it's way less prevalent in this game unless you seek it out) is the ceaseless affection and compassion Rean gets FOR constantly unnecessarily putting his life on the line from everyone in his life (barring maybe Crow, who dissuades him from his martyrdom at nearly every turn). Rean needs some serious therapy, and probably new friends and love interests. If this had solely been another game about Rean, then I couldn't recommend it on the slightest. But! This game is primarily a Crossbell game that wraps up the SSS's narrative, introduces the next arc, and puts a pin in Rean's development (either fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you feel about him). The "gacha" mechanics that people warned me about didn't get in the way of anything. If anything it just sped along progression without needing to grind sepith. Solid entry into the franchise. Not anywhere near my top game but I'm so glad to be done with Rean.

Beaten this game on Nightmare difficulty on my first playthrough, can't recommend it enough, i would place it higher than some of the Cold Steel games.

I really like the way they did this game. It is a little more focused on story and not as much on the side stuff. Still a bit corny at times but less of that in this game then previous. I'm really liking this one better then the previous series. Hope they continue down this route.

Played up until around ACT III, then got burned out for a bit. Meaning I haven't finished it, but feel I've played 'enough' to give some thoughts. Purely from a gameplay perspective of someone who isn't a blindly loyal fan, the game plays fine. It's not revolutionary, but it's not bad either. It's the same as the other 3D titles in this series, with slight tweaks here and there to make things interesting. Stark difference from the humble days of the first Trails of Cold Steel's janky 3D models for sure. A little UI overhaul here and there. Tad bit sharper graphics, but not a world of difference. If you've never played one of these games before or are new in general, it's a standard JRPG. Walk & talk to NPCs, party mechanics, switching characters in and out, and turn-based combat. There are extensive materials in game that explain how to play, previous game synopsis, useful abilities to take note of and much more. Don't worry about being lost, this game is rather handholdy if you're willing to listen and read the tips. And if you don't care about story at all and just want to play, you can skip ENTIRE scenes if you wish until you get to the combat. Nice quality of life feature for those types of players. If you have played these games before, it's like I've said. More of the same game as the last yadda yadda. My main criticism is, as you might've guessed, how exploitable the game still is. Game has Brave Order system that are essentially 'get out of jail free' cards that are an inevitable part of combat. Just spam shield skills, recharge, spam whatever else you need, rinse and repeat. Only difficult part of the game for me so far was the beginning since you don't have everyone geared up and tuned to your preferences. Boss battles are long (on hardest difficulty because bullet sponges), but again, everything is exploitable if you know what you're doing. Reverie Corridor or whatever? Oh my god. Don't even get me started how badly you can break that dungeon. My 6-7 team honestly never changed after I unlocked most of the cast. Crow -> Fie spam. Crow -> Fie spam. Crow -> Fie spam. Tio shield spam. Tita's a god damn near UNKILLABLE arts tank/jack of all trades with the right Quartz setup. Lloyd utility abuse as per usual. Renne's instant kill (K.O) + Sara for trash mob control if built right. Spam everything in existence. Abuse items. Break the game. Oh yeah, Gaius is also broken, but who tf actually USES Gaius? The list goes on and on. Since time immemorial we find the most efficient ways to break the hell out of Trails games like they're the heroine in an NTR doujin. I may make it sound off putting as a combat system, but it's probably the best combat in the series if I'm being honest. Rather have it flow like this than not at all. Story... This is just a personal issue, but I was done with the series after Trails of Cold Steel 4. Seemed like most everything wrapped up nicely for the most part. A high note, but not too high. Some aspects of the wrap up felt unsatisfying/rushed, but for the most part I felt content and enjoyed the tale. Anything other plot points? I couldn't care less or just don't find them interesting. Had this mindset going into this game and it went as expected. Narrative this time around in Reverie? Ehh, it was disappointing at times, but I didn't hate it. Rather, I just didn't care all that much. Plot point, story beat, route climax, repeat until the end. Sounds like a dicey visual novel, right? Some things felt contrived, others felt bloated. I won't spoil anything and can't anyway because of the review limit. Yes, this game works off a split route "meet you in the middle" type of narrative system. Reach the stopping point/cliffhanger in one route and you'll be prompted to 'switch' perspectives. Cool, but I think this is where I just lost interest even further. Felt like it dragged me away when a route 'gets good' and you come back a while later after switching and lose interest in what was going on before. Is 'bloat' too negative of a connotation to use for Reverie as a whole? Hard to explain what I mean if I don't use that term. You'll hop back & forth between perspectives of 3 different groups of characters. Not gonna get into specifics of describing all the routes, but I will say that I found one of the three routes to be rather disappointing. If you've played the entire series before, it's the Crossbell team route lol. My favorite cast and what a BOTCHED route! That's the best they could come up with? Ugh, let me tell you... If I ever replay this game, I'll dread this route. Sue me. The route with the new characters and Rean's group were much more interesting and had better set pieces. 3rd route was my favorite of the two simply because it was something NEW with NEW faces. Like Cold Steel goes on for 4 games with the same chars. I ended up liking most of the new characters (yes, even 'C'), even though they're kinda oddities as Trails characters. Just feel like they're from a different game entirely. Also, C's identity is funny. No spoilers, but you can see it coming a million miles away if you paid attention to a certain character's animations. Nice try though. Characters are fine. I generally 'like' everyone in the series, so they aren't really any different from what you might know of them. New players won't know who anyone is, but they all do have character bio entries in the notebook and of course, Falcom likes to introduce characters as if they're new EVERY SINGLE GAME, so there's at least some backdrop to the cast. Nothing more to say really. Tita, Renne, Tio, Fie and Altina are in this game, so that's quite important. If we have the same taste: hell yeah dude. Minigames return. Like fishing, Pom Pom Party and whatnot. Some new stuff too. I'm a dirty Pom Pom Party addict since Ao no Kiseki so I like it. Reverie also has a weird model viewer thing in the main menu. No real camera tweaks, filters, or prop placement. Small amount of backdrops and animations. Not sure why this was included, but uh cool? Performance is excellent on good hardware. I'm used to playing this series on PS4/Vita/PSP and this was my first of the series that I've tried on PC. Picked up the classics as well. World of difference in enjoyability. Decent graphics options (MSAA, scaling, shadows, post-processing, etc.). You don't need most of these as this IS a Falcom game, so turning them off is a must for lower end systems. Runs 'okay' on Legion Go if you set everything to low. 30% of my playtime was on there. Not as bad as Cold Steel II on the Vita, but that's probably too extreme of a comparison. It's not an unplayable slideshow or anything. Not too jarring, but you're NOT running Reverie at 144fps maxed out at 2560x1440p on that thing. I stuck to an actual PC in the end, but just thought I'd say Legion Go IS playable if you're interested in getting this for that. I also play 100% with an Xbox controller for these games. Can't say how well PC controls are. Reverie's graphics aren't amazing, but it is rather impressive how far Falcom has come in terms of graphical fidelity and attention to detail with the engine they have. I still find their passion impressive. Will also say that PH3 did a good job co-developing this for a global audience, with lots of nice, subtle quality of life features that otherwise go unnoticed by the general public who just play and don't really care about the development side of games. Menus, graphical limitations being expanded upon. All sorts of stuff that makes the game BETTER. They deserve a lot of credit for their work. Those are my thoughts on this game. Mixed, but overall I'm here for characters + combat and I enjoyed those to an extent. It's recommended to at least play one of the previous games for narrative sake, but you don't have to if you don't care. Interested and wanna play? Play! Don't let some chump tell you what to do! Buy on sale to save money. 'DLC' is a joke.

What a long jouney!!!.... Crossbell and Erebonia arc finally finished...Man looking back I was starting just want to try trails game... here I am playing until this series...What a wonderful game and so many characters here...see you on the next trails game series

Was a very fun game that had a lot of cool final moments from the arc's leading up to it. I think the story was pretty interesting although it at the end dumped an amalgamation of all of the other games main plots into one ... which ruined it a little bit. Beyond the main story there's a ton of fun dungeon esque gameplay with a ton of characters/builds that suits the games strong points. Very fun entry and far better then all of the Cold Steel games combined.

The combat is alright so I ended up finishing it. I played on Nightmare which felt appropriate for someone who's played previous Trails games and tends to grind. The game forces a LOT of multi-party formations (the most I've ever seen) and sometimes does so without warning. I'm not personally a fan of this but it wasn't this part that annoyed me as much as it was the lack of ability to save quartz loadouts when you reach upwards of 40 characters. The auto-equip options help a bit, but not as much as you'd hope for such a large cast. The story felt a bit strange. If you exclude [spoiler] Rufus's route [/spoiler], it's mostly remixing previous arcs that already happened before but now due to different circumstances. Even for the spoiler route, save for a few cutscenes I didn't feel very engaged with the story, and I think it largely has to do with [spoiler] redeeming a character who, based on your recollection of his past crimes, shouldn't be redeemable. I didn't finish CS4 and think "wow, if only Rufus had a second chance. I think he's a great guy who was misunderstood!", I thought "OK so he finally gets his comeuppance and rots in jail, good riddance". Genuinely confusing choice! [/spoiler] Reverie Corridor makes a comeback unsurprisingly, if you like the brave orders era combat and the dungeon crawling from CS2, I'd say this game is worth playing, otherwise I'd just read a summary and skip.