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GAME: The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon Game Review

Speaking as a whatever-the-opposite-of-a-neophyte-is, I think my fellow fans tend to vastly overexaggerate how interdependent the games are. Like, yes, there are a lot of character and plot and setting threads extending through multiple games, but the actual character and plot arcs tend to be confined to just the single games, making them satisfying narrative experiences even in isolation.

I think also that fans of media, in general, tend to lose the perspective that if any given work cannot be enjoyed in isolation, purely on its own merits, then that piece of media -- to put it bluntly -- simply isn't very good. And if it's not very good, it's not worth going out of your way to consume related media for it.

All of which is to say that while, yes, it would be preferable to play all the games in order, it's far from essential. New players can start wherever they like and have an entertaining experience. It's fine, and not worth stressing -- or gatekeeping -- about.

It'll be a long while before I get to this one (still haven't finished the first Daybreak), but it sure does have one hell of a premise. Unfortunately I'm a bit anxious it'll turn out like CS2, and just... completely fail to do anything particularly interesting with that premise. Like, if going into space is just a cutscene and *maybe* a dungeon that could just as easily be located anywhere else, I'll be sad.

Regardless, it'll be very exciting to see Kevin again. And, come to think of it, we'll also be getting to see a lot more of Kevin, again, later this year with the SC remake. And if we're lucky, that'll result in EVEN MORE KEVIN if they decide to keep going and remake The 3rd, too.

but the president mentioned recently that there's debate within Falcom over whether to remake 3rd or Zero first.

It goes well beyond what you're saying; each sequel is written assuming players have played everything before it.

If anything, you downplaying how interdependent the series is making you sound like a neophyte.

Quote:

I think also that fans of media, in general, tend to lose the perspective that if any given work cannot be enjoyed in isolation, purely on its own merits, then that piece of media -- to put it bluntly -- simply isn't very good.

That's an overly absolutist stance.

Quote:

All of which is to say that while, yes, it would be preferable to play all the games in order, it's far from essential. New players can start wherever they like and have an entertaining experience. It's fine, and not worth stressing -- or gatekeeping -- about.

It's not "gatekeeping" to point out this series is the opposite of, say, Final Fantasy. You might as well be saying that it's fine to jump into the latest shounen fad with the latest season or a plot-driven book series with the newest release.

An Unchosen One wrote:

It goes well beyond what you're saying; each sequel is written assuming players have played everything before it.

This simply isn't true. Falcom has state countless times how they've tried to set up different games as "entry points" for new players. They're well aware of the fact that every Trails game they release will be someone's first exposure to the series. Not the least because they, themselves, have released subsequent games in the series on platforms that could not play past games.

Nevermind the fact that Anglophone fans haven't really had much of a choice in the matter, given that the games were not localized into English in production order: the simple fact is that the vast majority of the Anglophone Trails fandom started with the Trails of Cold Steel games. Some people had already played through the Sky trilogy, sure, but they were a minority -- and the number of people who had played the Crossbell games may not have been exactly zero, but close to it.

And the simple fact of the matter is that all of those people who played the games out of order... were perfectly able to follow the stories, enjoy the games, and become fans. They did this because Falcom has always taken care to properly reintroduce recurring character/plot elements when they become relevant in new games -- because Falcom is competent enough to know how to craft a story that stands on its own, and trusts its audience to have a sufficient baseline degree of media literacy.

We are in fact, right now, sitting in a talkback thread for a review of the very latest game in the series -- the 3rd game in the Daybreak subseries, the 13th game in the Trails series, the 18th game in the Legend of Heroes line, and the 23rd game in the Dragon Slayer lineage -- that states pretty unambiguously that it would be enjoyable for new players to play without having gone through all of the prior games first.

And, personally, I see no reason to doubt that.

You know, later in your post, you deny gatekeeping -- but let's remember that when you saw me point out that "some fans overexaggerate," your first reaction was to effectively call me a "fake fan."

I think you'll find it's not so much an absolutist stance as a tautological one: I'm effectively saying that a piece of media that is not good, is not good.

[Nonsense]
I've said a lot of words. But you know what? Just take all of the text above this point -- and throw it out. It doesn't matter. I'm autistic enough to know that trying to clarify one's points by thoroughly explaining them is a profoundly ineffective tactic (people just don't read).

So, please: forget I said anything.

Instead, allow me to conclude by restating my opinions here as simply as I can:

I believe Falcom is a competent enough storyteller to make their games fully comprehensible and enjoyable on their own, without requiring new players to play through any prior games to have a good time.

I believe this is a pretty fundamental level of competence required to create any story worth consuming.

Further, I believe the people playing Falcom's games are intelligent enough to be able to understand a story that does not immediately explain everything to them in exhaustive detail. I believe they can take what a game tells them, along with context clues, to follow along and enjoy the story of one game in isolation of all other games.

And I believe that the members of the Trails fandom who insist that this is wrong, and that the games must be played in sequence, or not at all (the fans I was alluding to in my prior post) are ultimately disrespecting both the basic competence of Falcom, and the basic media literacy of the people playing the games.

And I believe all of this is broadly applicable to all narrative media.

As I stated before, it's ultimately a tautological argument: a story's either good, or it isn't. It either stands on its own, or it doesn't.

The added context one story can provide another story can certainly improve our experience, but additional context is fundamentally incapable of radically transforming a story that doesn't work into one that does.

I don't think its gateeeping, instead it comes across a bit like coping. Like if more people had played the game the right way the series would be bigger and have more sales, etc.

Personally, i feel Falcom (or someone in charge) have definitely mishandled this series because if they were soooo concerned about entry points, then how do you justify the Northern war anime adaptation? Of all ways to promote this series, they picked an offscreen event b/w the 7th & 8th games to adapt? Companies claim "X" game is newcomer friendly all the time, notably it's the ones that are struggling to attract necomers that do this. Like Squeenix claimin NEO TWEWY was beginner friendly; what a bald-faced lie.

However, one major point that makes me leery of recommending Trails Beyond the Horizon is Falcom's recent admission of incorporating Generative AI into its workflow.

I don't know. Say you are a person who is technical but not creative. You need background art for your code, but you can't make anything good yourself. Getting someone from the art department to do it?

Nihon Falcom isn't Electronic Arts or Bethesda. They are a small company with limited resources.