Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Review
for the PSP
In the early 90s, Working Designs localized an RPG series called Lunar for the Sega CD. These games took advantage of the latest (at the time) in CD technology to provide a high quality soundtrack and fully animated cutscenes, but what these games are most remembered for these days are their endearing characters and amusing scripts.
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky comes the closest to capturing the feel of a Lunar game of any game I’ve played since the Sega CD era.
Trails in the Sky does this by featuring a fantastic localization with a ton of dialogue. Many reviews have likened Trails in the Sky to a novel and that’s an apt comparison. The game isn’t afraid to take its time to fully develop the game’s world and memorable characters. Even skipping much of the bonus content and non-essential dialogue, it still took me about 35 hours to complete the game and I daresay that story and dialogue took up at least half of that time. You’d be hard pressed to find another RPG so focused on story.
That’s not to say that the non-story elements in Trails in the Sky are lacking. Combat plays out like a streamlined Strategy/RPG offering more planning than most traditional turn-based RPGs while not being as slow paced as your typical Strategy/RPG. Stat and ability development offer a nice mix between allowing customization (a Materia-esque magic & accessory system) and making each character unique. Secondary characters join and leave the party on a regular basis, keeping things fresh. To go along with the heavy emphasis on story, most non-boss fights can be avoided without much difficulty. And despite being a port from the Japanese-only PC original, the UI works well, graphics look good, and load times are negligible.
Trails in the Sky’s methodical pace and focus on characters and world building isn’t for everyone, but for gamers looking to lose themselves in an RPG, it’s a rare treat. Ending on an especially exciting cliffhanger, the sequel can’t come out soon enough.
I agree. This was a wonderful little game. I felt the dialog got heavy-handed rather often, but the biggest part of the conversations ended with me learning something. The end was quite good.
I played through the Galgharv Trilogy (the US PSP ones) and did not think them too bad. Compared to Trails, however, they are just instantly forgettable.
I always preferred Vay to Lunar, but both were fun.
You aren’t kidding about that cliffhanger ending. That was a scene I can only qualify as ‘epic’.
Trails in the Sky does most things well and as a package the whole thing is great. The game focuses a great deal of focus on character building and the writing is good enough so that it manages to be both endearing and significant. The best part is that every single NPC seems to have a personality that is displayed through multiple lines of dialog… every time there is a new scene the dialog for NPCs refreshes (I can only imagine this is where most of the text in the game comes from).
Trails in the Sky certainly doesn’t break any new ground, but it executes a ‘traditional’ RPG so well that it doesn’t matter. The game is fantastic.
Maybe this will be one of the titles that gets the “PS3 treatment”. The Lunar comparisons make me interested in playing, but I’m not a fan of handheld consoles anymore.