Trials in the Sky 1st Chapter – PS5 Review

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter first came out PC in 2004 and then PSP in 2006. Western audiences didn’t get it until XSeed did a localisation job of the PSP edition in 2011 and even then it passed many by, including us. It even came out on Vita a few years later, but similarly it sailed wide of us too. Known to fans of the series by the shorthand FC, for the purposes of brevity, we’ll refer to it as that going forward.

Typically, this reviewer will swerve JRPGs as they’re a complete timesink, with FC being no exception in that regard. In our three weeks with FC, we’ve clocked a cumulative eighty-five hours. But due to having a bit of time on our hands, we took a punt for once.  Our man Gareth used to be the go to guy for these, having reviewed Trails of Cold Steel 2  and 3 on Vita and PS4 respectively in 2016 and 2019, but he’s flown home to his planet of origin.

Actually part of another series, technically the full title here is The Legend of Heroes VI: Trails in the Sky, though the series hasn’t really gained a foothold outside Japan. We’re definitely glad we had this come through for review. Published by GungHo and remade on the Trails Through Daybreak engine aka the Falcom Developer Kit by Nihon Falcom, this is a from the ground up remake of the PSP and latterly Vita game.

You play as Estelle and Joshua Bright, the sixteen-year-old children of a lone father Cassius Bright. Once a soldier in the Royal Army, he is now an S-rank bracer in the Bracer Guild. In effect, a local militia but practically in terms of the game it works as a quest hub. You’ll also have other characters show up to fight alongside you such as the slightly older bracer from your home guild, a travelling bard cum drunkard cum wannabe womaniser and a prodigious girl with an aptitude for tinkering. They complement your two main characters well put it that way.

Across FC’s five chapters, you’ll uncover a plot covering multiple locations across the kingdom of Liberl, all manner of intrigue and shenanigans ensue. The plot is definitely a highlight here, though it does feel like you’re a passenger sometimes with all manner of lengthy exposition, but if you’re not inclined to see them through, you can skip. Certainly, on our first playthrough we watched everything we could for the purposes of following matters, though we did flag a bit during one extended sequence involving a school play and some cosplay type antics.

Although our first action upon starting FC was to change the voice track from American English to the original Japanese as the former was just so jarring. It’s very much why we struggled with a lot of anime dubs back when, the voice acting, while OK when brought to the west is just annoying. That’s not to say the Japanese voice acting is flawless, but still a lot of fun even if it feels like all sorts of anime tropes writ large. Another trap the likes of Ghibli fall into is by casting recognisable western stars as their voice talent, Princess Mononoke being particularly guilty of this, with Claire Danes and Keith David being in that.

After a few tutorials you’re thrown into it. You can either plough ahead with the main storyline and eschew any side quests, but would it really be an RPG without stuff to sidetrack you. Most of them are kill X monster or fix X item if we’re honest, but what’s a cookie cutter quest if not the game equivalent of a tub of Ben and Jerrys.

Combat has one of three types, quick which is you able to take down enemies fast without engaging in the active time battles. You can stun enemies instead if you wish and hit SQ for a head start in the standard turn based fights. Encounters with bosses and special enemies eschew this approach and put you straight into what is called a command battle, although typically these are no different to normal turn based battles.

You can choose between class abilities known as crafts mapped to , spells known as arts mapped to or if you just want to get a quick jab in, tap . Crafts are governed by craft points and arts by what are in effect magic points. To get the upper hand in a fight and stun, a craft is generally the best approach as it’s immediate.

However, if you’re facing enemies who have a weakness to a particular elemental type, you’ll also want to consider, for instance, a fire attack against an ice enemy. You also get a special attack that lets you go full ham on enemies, generally with an area of effect attack or one that attacks all enemies.

Everything is all animated with a flourish, with even the most basic attacks having elaborate animations. If you want to just move things along, you can skip the theatricals and get to the damage assignment part. Then you’ll be presented with your tactical bonus. The magic number to reach is a 3.0 multiplier as that will grant a trophy.

You get bonuses for multiple counters, interrupts, use of items, exploiting weaknesses, winning with low health etc. Let’s just say that we managed a 2.9 without trying for the trophy, so it felt like so near and so far.

The arts you can unlock for use are tied to a magic pocket watch called an orbment with quartz gems derived from elemental shards you find on your travels, typically from combat or in the field. Some slots can only be used with particular elemental types, so it means you’ll get a blend of offensive and defensive arts available for use as well as healing.

You can also use healing items in and out of battle. Some are from drops but you can also cook recipes. The latter part wasn’t particularly well explained at the outset, so we didn’t twig that we had to eat an item to be able to then cook it. Upon doing so you can either cook the recipe successfully or cook a duff variant of it, a little like the cooking system in A Breath of the Wild. Though our recommendation is you grind one particular ingredient, monster roe, a heck of a lot as it is required by a ton of recipes but we came up short.

We could write even more exhaustively about the combat, enemies you face and the plethora of arts you can unlock, but its best discovered as you play. If you’re a completionist you may wish to play with a guide, but we recommend you just enjoy the ride. Anyway, the game menu interface is excellent in terms of tracking, letting you know what tasks you need to fulfil for both trophies and in-game bonuses.

The story is concluded with something of a cliffhanger, teasing a remaster of Second Chapter, we only hope that it comes to pass as we’re in deep now and need to see this out. Upon finishing the campaign, you’re back at the main menu and offered the opportunity to play a New Game+. We had missed one single quest and a handful of early game treasure chests during our normal difficulty playthrough, though thankfully our familiarity allowed us to mop them up not long into our Nightmare difficulty run.

Regards the top difficulty level, there’s a trophy for finishing FC at that level, but we’ve found so far that retaining our level and all the gear we got from the first playthrough has made it little more than grinding battles out. Enemies have more health than the equivalents on normal difficulty, but our high level gear and arts make short work of all but the most troublesome enemies. That said, the first boss fight we had a little trouble with was over very quickly, we suspect due to our being tooled up. It remains to be seen whether batter subsequent bosses in the same fashion, but that’s for us to find out.

In conclusion, Trials in the Sky 1st Chapter is an excellent remaster that retains the core of the original PSP game carried over well into the modern game engine with a graphical uptick. The music is also excellent and we found ourselves humming along the tunes on several occasions. We’ve had a blast with it and look forward to many more hours as we mop things up. We hope this does well enough that the second chapter isn’t long in following.