Greatest of all time. Zenith of the medium. Hallmark of media. Gold standard of storytelling. Apogee of creativity. Vertex of invention. Crest of ingenuity. Acme of imagination. Pinnacle of innovation. Epic of epics. Legend among legends. Peak fiction.

I've been trying to finish trails through daybreak for the past few months and finally found it in me to sit down and beat the game. I played the game on normal difficulty, mainly so I could finish the game before University kills my free time again.

For reference, I've played every other Trails game and a bunch of other JRPGs. The long and short of it is that this game is most similar to Trails from Zero with a mix of Tokyo Xanadu.

Overall, I think the game is pretty good, but not as good as others have made it out to be. There are quite a few flaws with story pacing, and areas where you can tell the game was rushed. (no fishing, sudden jumps in plot points, same NPC store owner voices, re-used models almost everywhere, many more nameless NPCs, etc)

This makes sense given the year of development between Reverie and this game, coupled with the work the new engine would cause.

Basic List:

Story: 8/10
-I think it ends up being pretty different from any other trails game, in a way that is both good and bad. The game keeps the main character's backstory until practically the very end of the game, and a lot of questions are left unanswered. However, I do think it did a good job of maintaining intrigue throughout the game.

Music: 6/10
-There are some solid songs in the OST, Unmitigated Evil and What is Ahead of You being my favorites. Other than that, most songs end up either forgettable or somewhat grating.

Gameplay: 4/10 Early Game, 5/10 Late Game
-I didn't really like the new Xipha System, and I think the action combat ends up being pretty boring and repetitive. If you have ever seen the memes of people saying FFXV plays itself if you mash A, it's practically the same thing in action mode. I also don't like how enemy HP feels inflated throughout the game.
-Builds are a massive part of Trails, and I do think that the character-building process got a lot more fun later on in the game, yet it still fell short compared to others in this series. Most builds ended up boiling down to "Arc Feather Spam".

Port: It Just Works/10
-The PC port is very solid. I've been able to run this game on every system I've tried, from my high-powered desktop to my steam deck to my age-old laptop.

Graphics: Eh???/10
-The graphics in Trails through Daybreak are standard for a Trails game. The new engine brings improvements, but you don't play this series for the graphics. I would say it is probably somewhere between Tales of Berseria and Tales of Arise.

Goodbye, haha man. Hello, Van the man.

We are so back boys.

Looking forward to Crimson Sin and Kai.