Review: Trails into Reverie Is a Complicated Culmination of the Series So Far

With how massive The Legend of Heroes franchise is, Trails into Reverie has a daunting task of essentially being the climax of everything in the Crossbell and Erebonia arcs. Across three sub-series and nine mainline games, it is a quite a lot that this game has to accomplish, and it does so in a mostly nice manner on the Nintendo Switch version I played.

Unlike past games that focused on a singular protagonist, Trails into Reverie features three heroes at the crux of its story: Rean Schwarzer, Lloyd Bannings, and C. The former two have the opportunity to round out their storylines, while the mysterious C is a brand new protagonist. This system of switching between the three heroes and their perspectives is the core of this game’s features and plot.

Often, you have the opportunity to pick which character you wish to follow, but this only lasts for a period of time. You’ll inevitably run into a cliffhanger in their story or a puzzle you can’t complete. This will then require you to check out another hero’s story to progress. This fascinating approach makes the scope of this game enormous, which is a positive and negative in the end.

Each individual story doesn’t get nearly the amount of attention and love it deserves, even with the most playable characters in the franchise to date. Each route has its own party , areas, dungeons, and more. At its core, though, Trails into Reverie will be familiar to anyone who’s played the Cold Steel or the two Crossbell titles. On that note, this is also not the place to start this series fresh, as you should honestly complete every other game before this to get the full appreciation for what it does; you’ll be lost otherwise.

Gameplay features exploring dungeons and interacting with monsters you find to switch to a tactical turn-based system. You’re able to maneuver characters within a limited space to avoid attacks and hit enemies. You have a mix of arts, crafts (physical skills), and S-Crafts (think Final Fantasy’s limit breaks).

Trails into Reverie brings back some of the more recent gameplay components, such as Brave Orders and combat links. The one main addition is the new United Front. This allows you to frequently use a full team attack with everyone in the party to heal or attack. This new addition isn’t too wild, but it does just enough to give more strategic options. I honestly used it quite a bit, since it is so readily available and it is possible to one-shot random mobs this way.

In the end, though, the progression is starting to feel a bit stale in Trails into Reverie. The dungeons don’t feel all that interesting, especially when you visit familiar locations from past games. The same goes for the towns you visit, which are heavily limited in this title. It’s honestly is a bit odd that there are almost no side quests and events to encounter in the story. You pretty much have the main plot and whatever chests you find along the way, and that’s about it. Sure, you can speak with NPCs in Crossbell, Heimdallr, and the like, but there is almost no reason to in this surprisingly linear experience.

Where Trails into Reverie lacks in its optional content and exploration, it makes up for in one area: Reverie Corridor. This is a brand new, semi-optional location you visit between chapters. This spot acts as the bulk of your free time in this game when not doing the story, and there’s a surprising amount of content to do here. Outside of exploring the dungeon itself, you have numerous minigames, optional events, and even some gacha mechanics to enjoy.

This is the one fresh part of Trails into Reverie that excited me, but I feel like it limits you too much at first. It encourages you to keep coming back and unlocking more bizarre minigames (like the magical girl one above), missions, floors, and events, but it drip feeds it almost too slowly. Even still, this was the highlight of my time with this game when other aspects felt stale. It doesn’t quite make up for traditional side quests and optional content, though.

The repetitive nature of Trails into Reverie is even the case for the main story, which doesn’t quite reach the heights of most other games in the series. This is partly due to its divided perspective nature, and also because everything feels far too familiar. For instance, Lloyd’s plot is all about taking back Crossbell for the, what, fourth or fifth time? The same goes for Rean, whose story is pretty paper thin and feels like just an excuse to not leave him and the of Class VII out.

And don’t get me started on the lack of an Estelle and Joshua storyline, which is tragic. That said, the new protagonist C, and his band of new characters is easily the best part of the main plot. This intriguing and alluring character has some impressive development that some fans may not see coming.

It helps, too, that his party of Nadia, Swin, and Lapis are equally memorable new characters. The C route almost made me wish the entire game was all about them, instead of trying to give equal attention to Rean and Lloyd.

On a side note, I only had the opportunity to play the Nintendo Switch version. Despite having similar graphics to the Cold Steel games, Trails into Reverie runs rather poorly on Switch. In busier areas like Crossbell, the frame rate slows down considerably. It doesn’t happen everywhere, but it gets annoying to play when you’re in a more populated area.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie, ultimately, doesn’t feel like the most required game in the series. Despite pushing the world and its characters forward into a new direction, its scope is a bit too large at times. The gameplay remains as sharp as ever and the Reverie Corridor is a fun new addition, but it would have benefited more from a tighter story about C and his group.

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The Legend of Heroes: Trails Into Reverie will release for the Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC on July 7, 2023 in North America and Europe and on July 14, 2023 in Australia.

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