HIGH Fantastic combat system that is both modern and an homage to classic RPGs.

LOW Sluggish pacing in the middle chapters.

WTF “How about a hundred smacks on the ass?”

About a month ago I started seeing buzz online for Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter.

The Trails/Legend of Heroes series, despite its vast library, is one I knew very little about, but this remake of the first in the series seemed to check a lot of personal boxes — realtime combat that transitions into turn-based, a captivating art style, and a high fantasy setting harkening back to classic JRPGs. So, I booted up the free demo, and by the end of its generous eight-hour playtime, I was completely hooked and thirsty for more. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a beautiful RPG with top-notch combat, memorable characters, and also serves as a perfect entry point into the long-running Trails series.

1st Chapter follows the story of sixteen-year-old Estelle and her adopted brother Joshua as they aim to become top notch Bracers — people who help protect the citizens of Liberl from monsters, thieves, and any threats to the kingdom. Over the course of their journey, they will travel across the kingdom to aid as many people as possible while balancing each other out perfectly — Estelle is captivatingly optimistic and reactionary, while Joshua is more reserved and calculated. As they blossom into powerful bracers, so do their feelings for one and other.

The story Falcom weaves is a complex one commencing with Estelle and Joshua’s hunt for their missing father, which eventually matures into a struggle for military power, treason from within the government, and other powerful forces at work behind the scenes. When firing on all cylinders, Trails is captivating and engrossing, simultaneously balancing the intimate and personal story of two kids trying to find their dad, and the larger, more sophisticated political drama. However, I found myself disengaged in the middle chapters because the focus shifted off both these potent storylines, and more into side characters that are ultimately important to the overall plot, though they feel gratuitous during their runtimes. 

Besides the sluggish middle section, another issue is that each chapter tends to focus on two characters that will join in battle with Estelle and Joshua, but their residence in the party is short-lived as they always depart at the end of each chapter, leaving Estelle and Joshua effectively starting from scratch. Each of these side characters are memorable — from over-the-top traveling musician Olivier, to the mysteriously powerful swordsman Agate, the cast is top notch. However, it felt like just as soon as I got to know the characters on a deeper level, they would set off on their own journey.

That said, all of the intermittent party members reappear in an epically-bombastic final act that ties everyone’s stories together quite well, but the thickness of the middle chapters does lessen the overall experience. Also puzzling was that some of these itinerant characters have voice acting while Estelle and Joshua do not, which did occasionally pull me out of the immersion. 

What does remain engaging throughout 1st Chapter’s runtime is the phenomenal combat system. When approaching wandering enemies, players can enter into a basic, but effective real-time battle complete with normal attacks, dodges, and a special meter that charges over time. Once the enemy’s stun meter is full, the player will have a huge advantage when they enter into turn-based combat, which they can slickly switch into with the press of a button.

In the turn-based combat, characters will have a range of options at their disposal, with different resources for each. The key to successful battles is knowing how to balance spells and abilities, and also knowing how to correctly position party members. For example, some buffs and healing spells are only effective when party members are positioned near each other, but certain enemies might abuse this proximity with powerful AOE attacks. Understanding both party strengths and enemy attack patterns is crucial. 

In addition to a traditional level-up system and equipment management, Trails adds a deeper level of preparation to combat with the orbment system. Each playable character has the ability to equip an elemental quart into a total of six slots. Depending on the element of the quartz and its proximity to other quartz, the character can obtain varying spells to use in battle. For example, equipping a water-based HP quartz will give the character healing spells, while a water-based mind quartz will give the character an offensive aqua attack. As the adventure progresses, players will obtain more powerful quartz to create incredibly powerful offensive and defensive spells. The level of customization here is high, and finding the correct quartz for each character is enticing. (There’s is also an auto-equip for those who want to enjoy battles without too much experimentation.) 

The world of Liberl is one brimming with history — it’s filled with collectable books that outline how the kingdom came to be, and mysterious towers hint at the many wars and struggles the country has endured. Trails does a great job at making the land feel lived-in and real, though I do wish the environments were a little more varied when exploring. The sun is always shining brightly over the samey-looking rolling meadows, with the occasional cave or forest thrown in.

Overall, I truly enjoyed my time with Estelle, Joshua, and their many companions in their quest to become senior bracers. Falcom does a commendable job creating a world and story that feels real for the majority of its runtime, despite a few occasional stumbles. As a newcomer to the series, the combat system captivated me from the first battle and never let me go. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter feels like a classic JRPG I might have grown up playing, yet produced in a modern and nuanced way at the same time. Thanks to the obvious pride and care put into this remake, consider me the newest fan of the Trails series. 

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Nihon Falcom & Nihon Falcom Corporation and published by GungHo Online Entertainment America, Inc. It is currently available on Switch/Switch 2, XBX/S, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 39 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood, Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco. The official description reads: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is rated T for Teen by the ESRB with Blood, Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes, and Use of Alcohol and Tobacco. This is an action role-playing game in which players assume the roles of adopted siblings searching for their missing father. From a third-person perspective, players explore a kingdom, interact with characters, complete missions, and engage in battle with human and fantastical enemies (e.g., plants, robots, soldiers). Players use swords, staffs, guns, and magic spells to attack enemies. Players can use special moves that depict brief cutscenes of the attacks. Combat is highlighted by colorful light effects and impact sounds. Still-images sometimes depict bloodstains near bodies and on characters’ faces/clothing. One female character is designed with a somewhat revealing outfit (e.g., deep cleavage) and breast-jiggling effects; some camera angles focus on her chest. Story elements also allude to a romantic relationship between adopted siblings (e.g., struggling with their feelings, kissing). One scene depicts two characters under the influence of alcohol (e.g., flushed faces, slurred speech), with accompanying dialogue (e.g., “Come and drink with your big sister. You drink or I bring the whole place down”; “Wow, I really drank. Feels like it’s been forever since I last got to cut loose.”) One character is seen smoking a cigarette, and a side mission involves finding stolen cigarettes. The words “sh*t” and “a*sholes” appear in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There is no colorblind mode.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, though they are not resizable. Audio cues are not needed for progression, making the game fully accessible. 

Remappable Controls: Yes, the game’s controls are remappable.

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HIGH: It feels just like the JRPG classics of old.

LOW: It feels JUST like the JRPG classics of old.

WTF: After 30 hours I still don’t know how some things work.

I Am Setsuna unabashedly cashes in on nostalgia for classic JRPGs. From its silent protagonist to its turn-based combat system, this work is clearly inspired by greats from the golden age of the genre spanning from the late SNES to the early PS1 era. The problem is that by drawing so much from those hits, it sets itself up to be directly compared to them. Sadly, the pantheon which Setsuna so wishes it were a part of remains well beyond the reach of this ultimately forgettable RPG.

Setsuna‘s plot starts off as an amalgam of other JRPG stories, with several characters having clear counterparts to its would-be contemporaries. A silent mercenary (Cloud, Squall) is hired to assassinate the shy, pacifistic Setsuna (Aeris, Yuna) but quickly has a change of heart and instead chooses to escort her to the Last Lands (Zanarkand) in order have her sacrifice herself (Final Fantasy X) to bring peace to the world. Other characters joining the party include a swordsman who was a bodyguard from a previous sacrifice (Auron) and the knight-commander princess (Beatrix) of a lost civilization. All the while, the group is being opposed by a mysterious, scythe-wielding villain (Magus).

In case it wasn’t obvious at this point, I Am Setsuna is very much a chimera of other, better role-playing games.

The only thing about Setsuna that comes close to feeling fresh and unique is the frost-covered world in which the game takes place. However, after a few hours, even this becomes dull and repetitive because the same small handful of environments are recycled over and over again.

In this land, most every village can be easily mistaken for another, each icy cavern looks identical to the one before, and even the forgotten ruins peppered throughout the world use the same tileset with few exceptions. Enemies fall into a few archetypes and rely upon palette-swaps to differentiate them. Given that Setsuna also has a fair amount of backtracking involved, everything starts to blur together into a wintery, sterile world.

One of the biggest selling points of I Am Setsuna is the combat system, which tries to compare itself to Chrono Trigger. Much like what’s found in that venerable game, combat revolves around waiting for an action bar to fill up before a character can act. Waiting for other characters to fill up their own bars allows them to join their attacks together for a greater impact. Waiting even longer fills a secondary bar which includes extra effects. While this sounds good in theory, the balance isn’t nearly tuned enough. I quickly found a simple, low-cost skill which would rapidly wipe out most encounters, making the costlier, flashier, and ultimately useless team attacks pointless.

The skill system also borrows heavily from other classic RPGs. In the case of Setsuna’s ‘Spiritnite’, it’s easy to make a comparison to Final Fantasy’s Materia.

Every skill in the game is tied to Spiritnite, which must be equipped to be used. The slots which hold said Spiritnite are limited, restricting the skills each character can have at their disposal. This in itself is perfectly fine. The problem is that the system for determining which Spiritnite successfully combos with another is poorly laid out, forcing me to fiddle with item management between each fight to truly learn what synergizes together. It’s needlessly cluttered and time-consuming for a mechanic that’s already been done better years ago.

The final components of combat revolve around Singularities and Fluxes. Singularities trigger during combat, giving party-wide buffs that can benefit the group to varying degrees. After just over 30 hours of playtime, what causes these Singularities is still a mystery to me. The frustratingly vague tutorial hints that certain conditions can be met to increase their frequency, but their exact mechanism still eludes me.

Fluxes are additional effects which can be added to Spiritnite. A Flux can reduce the cost of a skill or increase its power when used in a combo, for example. The Flux I wanted to add was determined by which Talismans I would equip, most of which give a chance of permanently applying its ability to a skill every time it was used. Sadly, these buffs were just another layer of complication that ultimately felt pointless because the effects were minimal.

In the end, I Am Setsuna is just a competent JRPG. How could it not be, considering how much it liberally lifts from its betters? Looking at it with a purely analytical eye, this Frankenstein’s Monster of a game has haphazardly pieced everything needed to make it stand among the giants it aspires to be, except the most critical of requirements–a spark of life. Rating: 5.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Tokyo RPG Factory and published by Square Enix. It is currently available on PS4, Vita, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Snow, Fantasy Violence, Snow, Alcohol References, Snow, Mild Language, and Snow. In my opinion, there isn’t anything objectionable here, but as always, I suggest watching an hour or two of the game with your children to make sure it falls within your boundaries.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing: There are items that can be picked up which are invisible except for a small flash on the ground and a noticeable audio cue. If you are unable to hear these cues they are much easier to miss, but not impossible to get.

Remappable Controls: The controls are not remappable on the PS4.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

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