The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure – Simple Brilliance
- Developer: Nihon Falcom
- Publisher: NIS America
- Release date: PC: 14th March 2023 / Consoles: 17th March 2023
- Genre: 3rd Person Adventure, JRPG
- Platforms: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC
- Reviewed on: PlayStation 5 (via backwards compatibility)
- Game Supplied by: Publisher
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure Review
Playing any Legend of Heroes game is like putting on your favourite, most comfortable pair of shoes and remembering why you enjoy them so much. However, there will be very little reason to play The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure unless you have played and completed the previous game of the duology, Trails from Zero. The newest instalment to the series literally starts the game directly at the point where Trails from Zero finished. With scant little exposition to get new players up to speed with the story thus far, you are expected to have already been familiar with the world, characters and the game. That being said, if you have completed the previous game, you will be rewarded with new character dialogue, existing bond points and many more little perks, so there is a good incentive to have played and finished Trails from Zero before starting Trails to Azure.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure, continues with the story of Lloyd Bannings and his team from the Special Support Section (SSS for short) as they have to deal with rising tensions in Crossbell and the neighbouring political powers that threaten the fate of Crossbell. There are a lot of new characters to meet and play as in the newest instalment of this duology.
As to be expected from Falcom, this is yet again another fantastic story full of wonderful lore, world-building and colourful interesting characters. The character building of not just your own team, but that of the people you meet (even enemies), is great to experience. It is also one of the game’s biggest drawbacks that as the game’s story is so complex and deep, it can be hard to remember just who is aligned with who and what significance this has to any particular scene. This complexity is exacerbated by the fact that the writing at key plot moments tends to be a little obtuse by deliberately leaving out key information just when you need it the most. It’s done on purpose to heighten tension, but when the world is so complex, it would have been better to have spelt it out (quite literally) to the player so that they could understand the significance without having to fill in the blank themselves. Even reading the copious amounts of in-game lore, I was still at times lost with what was happening.
Despite the drawbacks mentioned, I still had a fantastic time, as the story eventually wraps things up well towards the end, and the characters are so well fleshed out, that their own interactions and relationships become even more enjoyable at times than the main story itself. The publisher should seriously consider creating full-blown written novels to accompany these games as the story is that deep and convoluted but ultimately, interesting. Interspersed amid the drama are genuine moments of humour not just from the cast and NPCs, but even from the unlikeliest of places; opening chests! Each chest found in the field has a little message to read, ranging from jokes to breaking the 3rd wall with the player!
To get you through the game there is the same identical mechanics as with the previous game, with only a few tweaks. Combat is the standard turn-based affair with each character having the ability to cast spells through a device called an arcus. They also have special skills via craft points; or simple melee/weapon attacks. As JRPG combat systems go, it’s really quite simple. However, with the wealth of options available, it becomes deliciously tactical as you are forever tinkering with your setup to try and gain the best advantage you can in each fight.
This is achieved by finding, crafting or making gems to slot into a player’s arcus that, depending on its type, can open up new spells to cast. Mix that in with the individual skill sets each player has via the craft points, and it’s unlikely that two characters have the same build or abilities so that means each battle can be unique. With so much variety, each encounter gives the player ample opportunity to find new and inventive ways to become more efficient whilst having a lot of fun in the process. This applies to both basic grunt fights and powerful bosses.
Trails to Azure excels at making the player feel comfortable with its difficulty. In a new world of accessibility for all (despite needing prior knowledge of the previous game), this is something new games could take a lesson from. If, for example, you are playing the game on Normal difficulty, and you are having trouble defeating a boss, upon death the game will give you the option to: ‘Try Again’ or ‘Lower the enemies health and raise your attack and try again’, or go ‘back to the last save point’. If you choose to lower the stats of the enemies and still lose, you can lower them yet again. Once defeated, the game reverts to the previously chosen difficulty and you have not become frustrated, plus there is no detriment to having lowered the enemies’ stats to continue. It’s touches like this that set this game in the JRPG genre apart from its competitors.
All series-specific familiarities now considered, there are new mechanics in Trails to Azure. They are called Burst attacks, which use burst points; Back attacks, and breaking objects (Yes, that is a new thing!) Back attacks are (put simply) if you let an enemy get a jump on your team in the field they will wreak havoc on your formation and allow the enemies to attack first. The Burst attack, however (although a great system), didn’t arrive until far too late into the game to really enjoy it. So for the majority of the playing time, it was the same systems I had used before.
However, even though the systems were mostly the same, there were so many meaningful RPG decisions to make per character with how to build their Arcus, clothing items and perks. I was still exploring new ways to experience combat late into the game, experimenting with the many tools I’d had since the start, as there is so much variety.
Aside from new combat mechanics, there is a wealth of things to do and places to explore around the world and in the town of Crossbell. There are too many to mention here but for example, you could go to the casino and play blackjack and poker, shop for items to upgrade or trade, improve your weapons or Arcus, or fish for different types of fish and the items they contain. There is never a dull moment to be found!
Players also get to choose how deep they want to go into the game via the hub they can access in the SSS main building. Here on a computer terminal missions are sent to the team. Missions highlighted in Red are the main missions that will progress the story, whereas the others are side quests with their own rewards. Spending time doing side missions not only takes you to places you normally wouldn’t explore but also comes with the added bonus of more loot and EXP to rank up each character before moving on. The added bonus to each side mission is that it gives yet another layer of depth to a world rich with history and lore.
The graphics and audio of the game are identical to Trails from Zero, which although not unpleasant, is an HD remaster of a 2010/11 PSP game. The improved visuals are very clear, and full of visual expression, colour and energy, despite the main characters only represented as fairly small sprites on the screen. With the limited abilities of the previous hardware, they have still managed to make the game exciting to view despite the lack of polygons.
The audio and sound design of the game, much like the graphics, have been somewhat constrained by the abilities of the technology of the day. However, much like the graphics, the little they have had to work with works exceptionally well. The special effects during a character’s cinematic build-up to launch a spell or craft attack, alongside the excellent voice acting, meant that the game was pleasant to listen to. The game is only really hampered by the limitations of the technology it was originally made for.
Summary
The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure punches well above its weight. This all stems from the stable but brilliant blueprint the game has inherited from its predecessor.
This game is utterly engrossing, with a fantastic main storyline full of excellent, interesting characters. It’s well made, with simple yet deep gameplay mechanics that are superbly presented and quite simply, a lot of fun to play. This masked the scant few negatives of occasional moments of obtuse writing and the fact that you might not get any pleasure out of playing Trails to Azure unless you have played the previous game (Trails from Zero).
Falcom has further cemented its place as a major player in the genre, as it has once again knocked it out of the park with a beautifully crafted, brilliant and classic JRPG.
