My Journey with the Trails Series: Part 1 — The Journey

I’ve been playing video games for close to 40 years, first discovering them at the tender age of 5. While my early gaming years were spent playing platformers, side-scrolling beat-em-ups and shooters, my taste in games changed significantly around the age of 10.

In 1992, growing up in suburban Toronto in a strict Indian household, my exposure to video games was limited. My parents had gifted me an NES for Christmas in 1990, but were very strict about how many games they were willing to get me. Any Indian immigrant can attest that parents tend to shy away from gifts and toys that don’t hold immediate educational value. As a result, the edutainment titles in my childhood library far outweighed the number of mainstream games. They were more interested in getting me games like Trivial Pursuit and The Incredible Machine than Mega Man or Super Mario.

I used to spend weekends at friends’ houses playing games my parents didn’t want to buy for me. It was at one friend’s house that I discovered Dragon Warrior (the series we now know in the West as Dragon Quest, its original Japanese title). I didn’t much understand the concept of an RPG at the time. My friend’s warrior was “gaining levels”, but he wasn’t warping to a new world to discover. The new level looked like the last level!

It wasn’t until Nintendo Power, the one non-educational magazine my parents allowed me to subscribe to, advertised a simple offer in the magazine that I got my chance to more deeply understand this strange genre of video game.

In the mid 1990’s, Nintendo Power advertised a simple offer that was hard to pass up: subscribe to a year of the magazine, and Nintendo will send you a free copy of Dragon Warrior. That was it. No catches. Sub to Nintendo Power, and get a free game.

The letter that started me on a long journey. Photo Credit: Frank Cifaldi

My parents actually relented this one time, and I was lucky they did. When I began playing Dragon Warrior for myself, I still didn’t fully understand it, but it changed the way I looked at video games entirely. Up until this point, games were stage-based, action-laden affairs where traversing from left to right was about as much navigational awareness as was required.

Dragon Warrior changed all of that. There was a persistent world to discover, interesting (albeit simple) characters to interact with, and my character was also growing stronger with every battle. I had never seen a grand adventure so well approximated in the comparatively primitive world of video games at the time. If this was what RPGs were all about, then I was going to be a fan for life.

Since my first experience playing Dragon Warrior, the video game RPG has occupied a considerable portion of my gaming time, and my thoughts. The first series I truly fell in love with was Final Fantasy. Being the most accessible series in the RPG space for any kid with access to a NES and SNES, Final Fantasy offered incredible journeys with likable characters, and a fresh, new adventure with fresh, new characters to meet in every single entry.

Over time, the Final Fantasy IP has ebbed and flowed and morphed into a great many things as its creators continue to reinvent the brand, and my interest in it would wax and wane. When it was at its least compelling, I began looking for other game series that would scratch the itch.

That led me to the rest of the Dragon Quest series, Lufia, Lunar and later in life, the Shin Megami Tensei series, and through that, Persona. As I grew older and started to explore RPGs of a different sort, I discovered Ultima (both VII and VIII were on an OEM disc that came with my Soundblaster when I was in middle school), and eventually Baldur’s Gate, and Planescape Torment.

When I was young, it was the characters, the world, and the turn-based combat that drew me to the genre. As I grew older, I fell in love with the stats, whether it be skill trees, visible damage numbers, or viability of buffs and debuffs.

Through all of that genre exploration, the traditional JRPG remained my passion. I even recently purchased Bitmap Books’ incredible ‘A Guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games’, which chronicles the last 35 years of JRPGs, game by game, in painstaking detail. If you’re interested in checking the book out, you can buy a copy for yourself on the publisher’s website.

This tome sits on my coffee table as a warning to everyone around me that I’m a massive dork.

Informed by my time with Final Fantasy and other JRPG series, I took it to be the norm that each new entry in the franchise, the player would be introduced to a new world, new characters, and a new conflict (usually involving a malevolent god or a maniacal would-be despot fixated on becoming a malevolent god). Outside of tangential connections and scant references, each title was self-contained. Perhaps it’s the Trails series eschewing these conventions that eventually drew me to it.

The Trails or Kiseki series, developed by Japanese game developer Nihon Falcom, is a series of sequentially released JRPG titles in the Legend of Heroes metaseries, all set on the continent of Zemuria. The name “Trails” comes from the series’ naming conventions for its titles (eg. Trails in the Sky, Trails From Zero, Trails of Cold Steel, etc.). The word “Trails” comes from the translation of the Japanese word Kiseki (軌跡), used in the naming convention for the games in their original Japanese (Sora no Kiseki [空の軌跡], Sen no Kiseki [閃の軌跡], Ao no Kiseki [碧の軌跡], etc.) As a result, Trails and Kiseki are generally used interchangeably by the community to talk about the series on the whole.

The first title in the series, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC, released in 2004, following the development and release of Legend of Heroes I, II, and III (collectively called the Gagharv trilogy). Meant to be a clean break from Falcom’s previous Legend of Heroes titles, over the last 20 years, Trails as a series has grown into a gargantuan experiment in long-form storytelling, with a roster of characters and an overarching plot that rivals any multi-season premiere television show or long-running comic book.

While the entire Trails series tells one ongoing storyline, the series is broken up into arcs that follow different groups of characters in different parts of the continent. The first two Trails titles, Trails in the Sky FC and Trails in the Sky SC, follow Estelle Bright and her adopted brother Joshua on their journey to become Bracers (more on them in a future post), and takes place in the country of Liberl. Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure follow Lloyd Bannings and the rest of the Crossbell Police Dept.’s Special Support Section in the small, embattled city state of Crossbell. Trails of Cold Steel, the longest (and most popular) arc in the series, follows Rean Schwarzer, an enrolled student, and eventually teacher, at Thors Military Academy, and follows him and the rest of Class VII on their exploits to protect the people and country they love, all the while forced to serve a militaristic government they themselves do not trust, and one that grows slowly more fascistic in each new sequel. Class VII’s story takes place in the one of the largest countries in Zemuria: Erobonia. Finally, Trails Through Daybreak and its sequel follow independent fixer and morally grey protagonist Van Arkride and his “employees” as they take on jobs suited uniquely for their skill set in the democratic republic of Calvard.

The Zemurian Continent as we know it. The far eastern portion will likely be revealed in a future game.

These different arcs weave together to form a larger narrative involving military coups, magical catastrophes, secret societies, and the never ending tug-of-war between organizational allegiance vs. idealistic loyalty. Most importantly, Trails isn’t a story about a single prophetic hero rising to dispel evil. Conversely, Trails is a story about a world filled with heroes from every walk of life, each initially answering the call to action for personal reasons, but soon banding together for common purpose. More than a simple parable about good vs. evil, Trails is the ongoing story of humanity: its courage, its ethical fortitude, its indomitable spirit, but also its mistakes, its hubris, and its desire for conquest and the subjugation of the natural world around them.

I discovered the Trails series while I lived in Japan. As a long time fan of Falcom, I had already played some of the Ys series, along with dabbling in multiple other games across its vast discography, including Xanadu Next and parts of the aforementioned Gagharv trilogy.

The first time I’d heard about the Trails series was from friend and localizer, Elliot. He used to fill his Twitter timeline with screenshots and reactions to moments in the latest Trails game he was playing, and when we used to meet up on the showfloor on Tokyo Game Show, he would always be holding a bag emblazoned with the logo of the newest Trails game.

What I knew about the series, however, was rather sparse, outside of what I had gleaned purely via osmosis. I knew it was a JRPG series held in high regard, and that, unlike Final Fantasy, each new title was a new entry in an ongoing story. That was all I knew, and its gargantuan length and ongoing story made it daunting and unapproachable. Each time I would see something related to the series, I would lament that it looked really cool, but much like One Piece, entirely too large to jump on the bandwagon now.

Years past, and I had long resigned the series to the ever-growing pile of awesome video games I would never play for one reason, or another.

Then, Kuro no Kiseki (黎の軌跡) was announced, and the first key art was released. The new main character, Van Arkride, looked really appealing, and it was being branded as a more mature title in the series. On top of that, the fact that it was a brand new Trails title (rather than another entry in Trails of Cold Steel, the longest arc in the Trails series) was perhaps a clue that this might be a good jumping on point. Had I finally found my entry into the long-running series?

This screenshots shows mouse controls for some reason, but I strongly recommend a controller.

I wouldn’t actually know the answer to this question until a couple years later. When July of this year rolled around, and both the Western release of Kuro no Kiseki (translated as Trails Through Daybreak), and the 20th anniversary of the Trails series loomed on the horizon, YouTube began recommending small-time channels with newly published video reviews for Daybreak.

Not only was Trails Through Daybreak getting stellar reviews, but the battle system relied heavily on positioning your characters properly during combat (a hallmark of the Trails series as a whole, I would soon find out, but also a system I really enjoy in turn-based games). What began first as mild curiosity soon grew into a minor obsession. I began watching and reading every review of the game I could get my hands on. Over and over again, reviewers noted that Daybreak was a perfect jumping in point for the series.

When one review mentioned that a playable Daybreak demo was available on PSN, I immediately booted up my PS5, and began downloading. I spent no less than 15 hours with the demo, doing every side quest, fighting every battle, and exhausting the areas open to me of their quests.

While I knew long before starting the demo that I would enjoy it, purely based on Falcom’s pedigree, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked every aspect of it. The game wasn’t graphically cutting edge, nor did I expect it to be, but its art direction did plenty of heavy lifting. Controls were snappy and responsive, just as I had come to expect from the House that Ys built. I was certain, now, that I would love this game.

I knew what I had to do.

I went on Amazon and added a copy of Trails Through Daybreak to my cart. Then something happened. My curiosity took control again, and I looked into the availability of other Trails titles. A Trails of Cold Steel III&IV box set for PlayStation 5 was on sale. I couldn’t help myself.

The die was cast. I was now the proud owner of three Trails games.

Don’t worry. I eventually bought Cold Steel I&II.

While I waited for the package to arrive, I began digging into wikis and fan websites to learn more about the series as a whole. What was I getting into? What did fans have to say about the series? Was I making a monumental mistake by starting with Daybreak?

When the games did arrive, my head was already filled with conflicting information and unhelpful advice on how best to enjoy the series. I decided instead to just start up Daybreak, and enjoy the game on my own terms.

The Trails series is filled with both major and minor characters, each one named, and each one introduced with their own nameplate the first time they appear. Trails Through Daybreak is no different in this regard. If characters know each other, conversation will usually recap their relationship in some way, or insinuate to what they’ve been up to prior to their appearance in the game.

As more and more characters were introduced, I started suspect that not all of them were new characters. I was pretty sure that characters that appeared in previous Trails games were starting to show up in the story. Characters were even name dropping locations elsewhere in the world that I’d read about in one of the series’ wikis.

If I were anyone else, it’s likely I would have continued to play the game, none the wiser about the larger tangled web of relationships stretching the entire continent of Zemuria (the landmass where all the Trails games take place). I couldn’t do it.

This isn’t even the full cast of characters in the Trails series.

In 2007, while living in Japan as an English teacher, I became more interested in getting back into American comics. While I’d grown up on X-Men, Spider-Man, and Batman, I dropped the hobby in late 90’s, partly because I was too young and poor to keep up with the hobby, and partly because the 1990’s were a horrendous time for quality superhero storytelling.

After being recommended a number of great runs, I picked up the appropriate trade paperbacks and began reading. What I soon found, however, was that while I was able to understand and enjoy the stories in each book, there were multiple times when either an event would be referenced, or a character would appear, and I wouldn’t know the context or significance of the inclusion.

On top of that, a character I did know would appear, but they looked nothing like I remembered, or were dealing with some situation I knew nothing about. Instead of dive through 20 years of comic books to figure out the answer to my lingering questions, I opened up a wiki, and read issues while looking up context on the wiki when needed. Not only did this method save me hundreds of hours of reading just to figure out why Archangel’s skin wasn’t blue anymore, but it gave me a more robust understanding of the state of the world. Additionally, it actually got me interested in checking out previous stories based on what I’d read in the wiki.

Eventually, as I read more and more runs, and started to understand what was going on in most corners of the universe, I stopped using the wiki. The wiki was just the training wheels until I understood more of the world.

Now, I understand that this is a controversial way to go about getting into large scale, episodic storytelling. Some might gatekeep this method as an inauthentic way to enjoy a vast fictional world’s tales. I care little about this argument. You should be free to enjoy a story in whichever way you choose.

The more understandable stance is that this method can potentially spoil major events, lessening their impact. I can appreciate that complaint.

I will fully admit that the “wiki method” doesn’t work if you wish to read fiction blind. It worked for me, purely because I generally don’t care about spoilers when I’m first getting acquainted with a world. In fact, there have been multiple instances where being spoiled on a plot point or pivotal event late in a series was what drew me to it in the first place.

Full disclosure: This was the GIF that got me to watch Avatar: TLA

While it might not be the best fit for everyone hoping to get into something as large as Marvel Comics or Trails, it has worked for me before, and it served me well this time as well.

So, after 200 hours and multiple wiki deep dives later, I was finished Trails Through Daybreak, and I had a better idea of one small part of the world that Falcom has been crafting over the last 20 years. I was happy to finally be finished with the game, but I was far from done with Trails. Daybreak had planted something in my mind. I had only scratched the surface of the world, the characters, the unique battle system, and the series’ unique Quartz system.

It was at that point that I made a pivotal decision: I was going to buy every game in the series leading up to Daybreak, and play as much of it as I could before Daybreak II’s English language release in 2025.

This is just the beginning of my long journey. Next post, I’m going to be dive into the gameplay of Trails, and my thoughts on what makes the series unique in the JRPG landscape.

I hope you’ll join me.

You can now read Part 2 of this blog series by clicking here.