The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II Preview
Trails through Daybreak was a much needed and very welcome refresh for the series and while sequel looks to very much pick up where it left off, it is far from resting on its laurels.
It’s been a good few years for western The Legend of Heroes fans. Not only have they finally been able to sample the Crossbell duology, but NIS America has been hard at work narrowing the gap between new Japanese releases and their localised launches. Indicative of this is the short turnaround between The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak earlier this year and its direct sequel, The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II, which arrives in February. With just a few months until it launches, NIS America gave RPGamer a quick look at what lies in store for players.
Trails through Daybreak II takes place three months after the events of Trails through Daybreak. Van Arkride keeps the mantle of protagonist, working as a “Spriggan” — effectively a hybrid of private detective and bounty hunter — based in the capital of the Calvard Republic but willing to go wherever jobs take him. The game begins with Van approached by his past flame, Elaine Auclair, who seeks his help in investigating a series of gruesome murders. Connecting Van to these murders is the apparent appearance of a red beast-like creature that looks eerily similar to the blue Grendel form that Van was able to take on at key points in the previous game.

Trails through Daybreak introduces a narrative timeline as time manipulation plays a major role in its story.
The game takes a significant structural departure in its story with the introduction of a timeline system. The element and manipulation of time is a major factor of the game, thanks to the involvement of the Oct-Genesis devices controlled by Van’s assistant Agnès Claudel. The way this works in the game is by having a timeline where certain nodes can branch into multiple routes. However, many of these routes end up in “Dead Ends”, at which point players are taken back to the diverging point in the timeline with the option to take another decision after retaining a sense of what befell them initially. NIS America is keen to stress that it is very much a story mechanic and not a gameplay mechanic; players unlock the full timeline by witnessing the other routes in order as opposed to trying to solve the puzzle themselves, with nodes before the current one of interest there just to offer a reminder of events so far.
Trails of Daybreak II will take players to new places across the Republic of Calvard. One of the new places is right in the capital Edith with its Centre Marché marketplace, with players also being taken to the port city of Messeldam that was only mentioned in the previous game. While the previous game was fairly tight with its list of playable characters, Trails of Daybreak II expands its offering. The full Arkride Solutions Office team returns, but there are also more playable characters, both new and returning from the previous game, with Trails into Reverie‘s Nadia Rayne and Swin Abel also added as full party members as they come to Calvard on their own mission. The game also spreads out its viewpoints between multiple characters this time around, such as an early portion of the game that follows Elaine, Nadia, and Swin.
The game very much develops from the previous entry, but ensures that fans are well catered for with NIS America confirming that Van’s three loves of his car, sweets, and saunas are still very much accounted for, as well as plenty more of Trails’ trademark game-spanning storylines and associated subquests for its minor characters. The alignment system from the previous game is retained, with players earning towards the Law, Chaos, and Gray alignments, which provides access to various bonuses, though it doesn’t have the same full story impact that it had in a certain chapter of the previous game. Many of the other elements and systems also return, such as the Gourmet Rank system, which encourages players to seek out and use food items for extra bonuses, with Trails through Daybreak II also seeing the return of various mini-games.
Combat builds on that of the first Trails through Daybreak game with upgrades to the real-time field battles, adjustments to the turn-based command battle UI, and some new high-level abilities. Field battles are designed to have a snappier feel than in the previous game and allows characters to cast magic during them, giving players more flexibility and options with how they approach enemies on the field. Players also get bonuses for actions like perfect dodge timing, which lets an ally perform a counter attack. Meanwhile, switching to the command battle mode after stunning an enemy on the field rewards players with EX-Chains, allowing allies to get a bonus hit in as well.
For the command battle system, the turn order gauge has been adjusted to make it clearer where the enemy turns line up in relation to the party and allow players to plan their turns out more effectively. In addition, the expansion of the game’s Driver and Holo Core systems with new layouts and cores allow for greater character build customisation, including determining the abilities available to them on both field and command battles. This customisation will lead players to potentially unlocking the game’s new Dual Arts, high-level arts that combine multiple elements with impressive animations and effects. There are a few other tweaks, including one to reduce the overpowered nature of S-Crafts by not letting a character unleash two in a row.
Nihon Falcom has taken care to prevent players from having to fully repeat the same dungeon paths again and again as a result of time rewinding. Secondary run-throughs will unlock different paths or shortcuts through them, with an example shown by NIS America seeing an extra character not originally present using their abilities to knock down a stuck ladder, while previously opened treasure chests are still marked as being opened and the items within kept.
Trails through Daybreak was a much needed and very welcome refresh for the series and while it sequel looks to pick up where it left off, it is far from resting on its laurels. The new timeline narrative offers something new for the series, while Nihon Falcom has ensured that the gameplay isn’t standing still either and the changes look like they will successfully address some of the minor foibles of what was already an incredibly engaging system. There’s much for fans to look forward to when The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II launches for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch on February 14, 2025.
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