The original Trails in the Sky kicked off a story arc that’s still going strong over a dozen games and two decades later. There’s really nothing else like Falcom’s commitment to this world in gaming, so it’s only fitting that they’ve shown the game itself the same love and brought it into the modern era. While the original is still a classic, it very much shows its age and suffers from having so many obscure interactions that you’re almost guaranteed to miss content unless you follow a guide.
For those unfamiliar with the original, you play as Estelle Bright and her adopted brother Joshua and journey across the kingdom of Liberl while solving all kinds of random quests. It’s a famously verbose game that, even beyond telling a lengthy story, also contains an absurd number of unique background NPCs who all have their own small plot lines you can follow throughout the game. While the main appeal is seeing how the grand story plays out, it also has a unique combat system that gives you a ton of freedom in how you build each character and that makes it easy to use your most fun skills frequently.
Rather than fully overhaul the game like Square is doing with FF7, Falcom opted for a remaster that makes major changes to the graphics, minor changes to the gameplay, and minimal changes everywhere else. Visually, the game has gone from running on the PSP to being a visual treat with all sorts of modern features. It’s easily the best looking JRPG I’ve played that doesn’t have “Final Fantasy” in the name and even looks great on Steam Deck thanks to support for AMD’s upscaling software. There are new details added throughout the world to flesh out areas that weren’t visible to the original camera and tons of new visual effects added to things like stained glass that show the remastering team really cared about this world.
The gameplay is largely unchanged outside of the new Quick Combat. This allows you to fight action RPG-style in the overworld, much like in Metaphor. Also like that game, the primary purpose of Quick Combat is to trigger a stun and thereby get in advantage in regular combat, but unlike Metaphor, it is perfectly viable to beat most enemies entirely in Quick Combat if you want to. It will take longer (ironically) and be a bit tedious thanks to the simplicity of the QC controls, but it does mean that you can avoid damage entirely if you’re good at dodging. The only other notable change to combat is that the turn-based mode has more freeform movement than it did before and battles take place on the exact spot you trigger them. This doesn’t make a huge difference, but it does feel more modern.
Outside of combat, most gameplay changes are focused on reducing the need to play with a guide. The original Trails was infamous for having loads of missable content that was hidden in places the game sometimes explicitly told you not to go. Now, all important quests and books are marked with indicators on the map, so you know if you need to go back to town and talk to a completely random NPC in order to get the next chapter of a book. The indicators don’t tell you what you need to do, though, so the small puzzles that a few of these had are preserved.
Beyond that, this is pretty much the same game it was in 2004. There are new versions of the soundtrack, but they are remasters in the most literal sense and the differences are little more than audio quality. The text has been retranslated, but not notably modified, and the plot follows all the same beats that it did before. Unfortunately, the frequently hilarious empty treasure text dialogue of the original translation is entirely gone since that was an addition made by the localization team and not a feature of the original story. It’s sad to miss out on that, but I can live with it when everything else is done so well.
Conclusion
Trails in the Sky: First Chapter is very much a love letter to the original game. If you liked it, this is the best version there’s even been. If you didn’t, this is not trying to change your mind. And as much as I do think there’s a place for wildly ambitious remakes like FF7R, I’m glad that Falcom went this route. This is the sort of RPG that feels timeless, and a visual overhaul was all it needed to be able to pass as a brand new release. There’s certainly room to complain about the ridiculous $183 of pointless DLC available on Steam, but I easily got my money’s worth from the base game. Besides, I can accept some stupid DLC from a company that’s willing to re-record tons of dialogue a year later to make pronunciations consistent with later games and who makes the demo for the sequel have 15-20 hours of content.
Rating: 90%
Time to beat: 80 hours for a playthrough in which I tried to get every line of NPC dialogue. 40-50 hours is more realistic if you don’t do that.
Price: $60
For another RPG, see Final Fantasy X-2 Retro Review: Not a Dream, Unfortunately
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