We had the opportunity to dive in to The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter and have many thoughts about it.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails series has quickly become one of my favorite video game series. Thus, when I learned that the first game in the series was being remade for modern consoles, I knew I had to check it out.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter
Developer: Nihon Falcom
Platform: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows
Release Date: September 19, 2025
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky was originally released on 2004 for Windows and later ported to the Playstation Portable in 2006, both in Japan. The North American version of the game wasn’t released until 2011, with the worldwide Windows release not coming until 2014. The remade version coming to Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Windows starting September 19, 2025 was made using the Trails Through Daybreak engine.
For this review, I played the PS5 version of game and primarily stayed in Easy mode.
The Story
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter takes place in the Kingdom of Liberl, a small country on the borders of the Erebonian Empire (the setting of Trails of Cold Steel) and the Republic of Calvard (the setting of Trails Through Daybreak). The game follows Estelle Bright and her adopted brother Joshua Bright as they are setting out on a journey to become senior bracers like their father Cassius Bright.
What starts out as a fun adventure quickly turns serious as Estelle and Joshua find themselves caught up in major world events that threaten their beloved home of Liberl. It’s up to these two young bracers to figure out what’s going on before it’s too late to stop it!
The Gameplay
As is usual with games in the Trails series, gameplay is broken up between conversation scenes and battling monsters through a series of dungeon-like areas. The player starts off by controlling Estelle and Joshua in battle, but more characters become available as the story progresses.
As I dove headfirst into the game and finished up with the first section, it dawned on me that I’d never seen gameplay of the original 2004 version of the game. It took some digging, but I found a lengthy gameplay clip on YouTube and couldn’t believe my eyes.
I knew some major upgrades had been done to update Trails in the Sky, but I didn’t realize they had been this extreme. Aside from the basic character designs, there is almost no comparison between the games. It felt like the first time I saw the differences between the original Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VII Remake. They’re clearly the same story, but the experience for each is very different.
Combat follows what I’ve come to expect after playing Trails Through Daybreak II. As the characters approach an enemy (or group of enemies), they have the option to engage in “quick combat” which looks like regular hack-and-slash style fighting, or, they can choose to engage in turn-based combat. There’s no right or wrong way to approach fighting in the game, but I have found that turn-based combat can make it easier to strategize and set up for combo attacks.
It is also entirely possible to avoid combat simply by running past the enemies and refusing to engage with them. However, I don’t recommend doing this unless you know you’re in an area where you’re overpowered compared to the foes around you. Most of the time, fighting through each group of enemies you encounter is a great way to level up the characters en route to the next boss fight. And this being a Trails game, there are boss fights in abundance.
The best advice I can give is to assume each mission/encounter you head out on will end in some type of boss battle and plan accordingly. Even on Easy mode, the margin for error is relatively slim and it doesn’t take much for the damage to pile up. As different monsters have different weaknesses, it is also prudent to make sure the different characters have access to as many different Arts as possible. Trust me when I say you do not want to depend on just one or two spells, it will come back to bite you eventually.
Another important part of the gameplay is the side quests. As has become common in the Trails series, the characters have the option to participate in a number of side quests as the game progresses. Most of them have time limits, though there’s no penalty incurred if the player chooses to skip over them or fails to complete them on time. However, completing side quests does confer a number of rewards and bonuses that help in the overall leveling up process. They also provide an opportunity to practice spells and combat before proceeding with the main story, so feel free to take part in as many side quests as you can.
Stealth (Still) Isn’t Fun
The one part of the game I found challenging were the stealth sections. They’re not frequent, but every once in a while the game presents a situation where the characters have to sneak up on a person or creature and do so without being noticed. Failure means starting over until it’s done correctly.
I found this frustrating because later releases in the series, notably Trails Through Daybreak II, provide an option where sections like this can be skipped over upon failure to keep the story going. To my surprise, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter didn’t provide this option, which seems odd as I would’ve thought the developers would’ve added that feature when they remade the game. However, it’s possible the option exists further on in the game and just wasn’t available for this instance.
A Remake Worth Playing
All of this is to say that The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a remake that is well worth your time and money. The story is well-crafted and you’re quickly drawn in to the story of Estelle and Joshua and the world-shaking events they find themselves caught up in. This is easily one of the best JRPGs I’ve played this year and everyone should check this remake out as soon as possible.
