Premise:
The game follows the protagonist Estelle Bright and her adoptive brother Joshua. They go on a journey throughout the kingdom of Liberl to complete their training to become full-fledged Bracers. Bracers are the members of a non-government multinational organization that acts to keep the peace and to help and protect civilians.
Review:
This game is the beginning of a narrative that spans over 10+ games and as such it is pretty slow as it builds up and establishes the lores and world building for the entire series. You can compare this series to a novel series where the first book takes a lot of time to properly establish the world. But this doesn't mean that it will not pick up the pace. Believe me, even the first game has a lot of twists and turns later on in the game.
The story writing of the first game is excellent, most of the twists in the game have a lot of subtle hints and foreshadowing for the player to pick up on. The game explains and gives context on most of the things that happen in the story and to the characters to keep the player immersed on the plot.
The characters are what I am most interested to talk about when I am discussing this series. Each and every playable character in the game is written sublimely throughout the series. All of them get relevantly fleshed out background and story throughout the plot, they are all characters that you can get immersed and engrossed in. The important non-playable characters are also really well crafted to stay relevant to the story. I can't praise Trails' character writing enough. All of the townspeople and non-playable characters all have their own story and relationships that you can get immersed on. I highly suggest doing all the sidequests, even the hidden ones, in the game, they are well worth your time as they flesh out all of the in-game npcs.
Trails world building is simply phenomenal, there are so many different factions, nations and races in this world. The conflict and relationships between these different organizations are portrayed brilliantly. And as this is the first game of the series, it establishes the context about a lot of those organizations and builds up the lore of the world.
The battle system is really dynamic and enjoyable. It has some elements of tactical rpgs but in essence, it is a turn based rpg series. The combat is pretty deep as it has many things for you to consider, with very diverse setups for your characters. Strategy is important to win many of the battles in the series and even in the first game. There are three difficulty modes in the game, Normal, Hard and Nightmare. I would recommend Normal mode to anyone. The higher difficulties of the games aren't that balanced, mostly just increases the stats of the AIs rather than making the AIs more advanced. That isn't to say the higher difficulties aren't hard, they can get very very challenging at times. If you do want some challenge, go ahead and pick Hard or Nightmare mode.
I really love the aesthetic and artstyle of the series. It is a 3D environment presented in an isometric, rotatable camera perspective with charming sprites for the characters.
The dialogues in the game are written with passion, ambition and intelligence. It is recommended for you to talk to all of the characters(plot important characters, residents, random npcs) after any major event in not just this game but the whole series, as they have really interesting things to say. Interacting with treasure chests twice is also recommended as they contain random tidbits and hilarious messages from the developers.
The soundtracks of this series contains some of my most favourite and memorable osts of all time. The sound team working on this series "Falcom Sound Team Jdk" really are an exceptionally talented and passionate musical group.
In conclusion, if you are interested in a large well built narrative with tons of characters then you should definitely give this series a shot and start with this game.
Personal Rating: 9/10
I will try to write a review for the Second Chapter soon as well but I can't promise when.
The game follows the protagonist Estelle Bright and her adoptive brother Joshua. They go on a journey throughout the kingdom of Liberl to complete their training to become full-fledged Bracers. Bracers are the members of a non-government multinational organization that acts to keep the peace and to help and protect civilians.
Review:
This game is the beginning of a narrative that spans over 10+ games and as such it is pretty slow as it builds up and establishes the lores and world building for the entire series. You can compare this series to a novel series where the first book takes a lot of time to properly establish the world. But this doesn't mean that it will not pick up the pace. Believe me, even the first game has a lot of twists and turns later on in the game.
The story writing of the first game is excellent, most of the twists in the game have a lot of subtle hints and foreshadowing for the player to pick up on. The game explains and gives context on most of the things that happen in the story and to the characters to keep the player immersed on the plot.
The characters are what I am most interested to talk about when I am discussing this series. Each and every playable character in the game is written sublimely throughout the series. All of them get relevantly fleshed out background and story throughout the plot, they are all characters that you can get immersed and engrossed in. The important non-playable characters are also really well crafted to stay relevant to the story. I can't praise Trails' character writing enough. All of the townspeople and non-playable characters all have their own story and relationships that you can get immersed on. I highly suggest doing all the sidequests, even the hidden ones, in the game, they are well worth your time as they flesh out all of the in-game npcs.
Trails world building is simply phenomenal, there are so many different factions, nations and races in this world. The conflict and relationships between these different organizations are portrayed brilliantly. And as this is the first game of the series, it establishes the context about a lot of those organizations and builds up the lore of the world.
The battle system is really dynamic and enjoyable. It has some elements of tactical rpgs but in essence, it is a turn based rpg series. The combat is pretty deep as it has many things for you to consider, with very diverse setups for your characters. Strategy is important to win many of the battles in the series and even in the first game. There are three difficulty modes in the game, Normal, Hard and Nightmare. I would recommend Normal mode to anyone. The higher difficulties of the games aren't that balanced, mostly just increases the stats of the AIs rather than making the AIs more advanced. That isn't to say the higher difficulties aren't hard, they can get very very challenging at times. If you do want some challenge, go ahead and pick Hard or Nightmare mode.
I really love the aesthetic and artstyle of the series. It is a 3D environment presented in an isometric, rotatable camera perspective with charming sprites for the characters.
The dialogues in the game are written with passion, ambition and intelligence. It is recommended for you to talk to all of the characters(plot important characters, residents, random npcs) after any major event in not just this game but the whole series, as they have really interesting things to say. Interacting with treasure chests twice is also recommended as they contain random tidbits and hilarious messages from the developers.
The soundtracks of this series contains some of my most favourite and memorable osts of all time. The sound team working on this series "Falcom Sound Team Jdk" really are an exceptionally talented and passionate musical group.
In conclusion, if you are interested in a large well built narrative with tons of characters then you should definitely give this series a shot and start with this game.
Personal Rating: 9/10
I will try to write a review for the Second Chapter soon as well but I can't promise when.