Not enough of a good thing, no matter how many times you come back from the dead.
The last few years have been kind to Trails fans on Switch, at least in terms of how many games are now available. Visual fidelity and performance are other matters entirely. Cracks in the window dressing become harder to ignore when the plot and game mechanics themselves are pretty weak, and I don’t like to admit that Trails through Daybreak II is the first Legend of Heroes game I’ve played where my motivation to finish the story basically dried up after about a dozen hours. The first game was more than enough Daybreak for this long-time RPG fan.
The sequel sees protagonist Van Arkride getting the band back together, and along with familiar faces like Agnes, Elaine, and Feri from the first game, newcomers Swin and Nadia (who played a major role in Trails into Reverie) become main party members here. It’s tough not to find their particular shtick a little extra compared with the cast we already have from the first Daybreak, and I regularly found myself longing to spend more time with Van, especially in the early to mid-game. The narrative structure of Daybreak II employs multiple sections within each chapter that involve different party members; you do get that variety, but Nadia and Swin just aren’t as compelling as Van is. Even one of the principal antagonists is essentially just a red version of Van’s Grendel, which is a letdown.
For a better breakdown of combat and more basic mechanics, check out my review of Trails through Daybreak here. If you already enjoy the flavor of the recent Trails titles, you’re getting a lot of that in the follow up, and then some. That said, it’s gotten to the point where there’s almost too much going on during combat, in terms of positioning, meters filling, and equipment and Orbments to slot in. The franchise may have peaked with the final two Cold Steel entries, but I do still appreciate how you can do a bit of action combat in the dungeons before switching over to turn-based. Daybreak II also adds a bit more depth to that action component as well by giving your characters the ability to cast arts in the field.
There are two primary departures that the sequel introduces, and one reminds us just how hard it is to do time travel well in video games. Specifically, the team possesses a device that they discover can reset things back to a previous point in time, and no matter how much of a tolerance for (or enjoyment of) such a mechanic, I’m fairly certain you’ll have had your fill long before the credits roll. The third chapter in particular makes such egregious use of the reset that I could only laugh as I was brought back to the branching path screen over and over to try again from an earlier moment in the story. The other new feature is reminiscent of the Reverie Corridor from Trails into Reverie; Daybreak II’s version is the Marchen Garten, with multiple dungeon floors that open up periodically as you hop, skip, and jump through the story. The Garten is an effective way to ensure your characters are levelled enough to make it through some of the tough bosses that your different party configurations encounter. You can use the rewards from there to even level up your Craft and S-Craft abilities, which is a neat bonus for spending time here between completing 4SPGs and main story objectives.
It’s disappointing to report that the Daybreak II Switch visuals may be the worst of any Trails game yet released on Nintendo’s flagging handheld, and I say “handheld” purposefully here since that’s where the disparity is at its most damning. An especially glaring example is in the characters’ eyes, where even a description such as “lifeless” feels ineffective. The situation is of course better when the Switch is docked, but the object and character pop-in is laughably bad in both configurations. The frame rate drops regularly while exploring and during cutscenes, too. It might not be the worst performing Trails game on Switch, but it’s near the top of the list, and all in all I have a pretty hard time saying the trade-offs mentioned are worth the Switch’s portability. The Daybreak sequel is a painful reminder that Switch 2 can’t get here soon enough.
I’ve loved or really, really liked every Trails game I’ve played, from Trails in the Sky on a PS Vita, to Trails from Zero on Switch, and Trails of Cold Steel 2 on PS4. Trails through Daybreak 2 is the first time I’ve ever thought to dissuade anyone–be they casual RPG fan or Falcom diehard–from playing a game in the series. The new mini-games like basketball and a hacking maze add almost nothing to the package, with the latter actually being more of a net negative, and there’s a lack of charm and vitality to the character interactions and story as a whole. Gone are the cross-country tours of Cold Steel 1, and in their place are an overuse of familiar surroundings and lackluster bonding events. Van is a memorable protagonist, but he doesn’t have the poignant character moments he did in the first game. It may be that these Trails have simply run out of road, which is sad to say given the RPG heights the series has achieved.
