Trails into Reverie’s music is as outstanding as its predecessors. Some music was reused from past games, but there are plenty of new tracks as well. But my favorite tracks always are the battle music, and I think a really nice touch was having three different battle tracks for the three routes. Lloyd’s route battle theme is hot blooded with a fast tempo; Rean’s battle theme sounds more sophisticated and has more control; “C’s” battle theme sounds very playful and I feel represents his teammates well, specifically Lapis. I personally liked Lloyd’s battle theme the most, but all three sound fantastic. But, my favorite track has to be the instrumental version of the game’s opening theme “No End No World.” It wasn’t overused like “Beyond the Journey” in Trails of Cold Steel III and IV, and was played very rarely in the game. But, when it did, it was in very appropriate moments and made things that much more epic. When it comes to town themes, I have to give a shoutout to Mainz Village again, as it has a brand new arranged theme for Reverie, which sounds as good as the original. There is nothing bad to say about the music. You are bound to find a track that will stick with you even after the game is completed.
Trails into Reverie‘s PC port runs pretty well. I was able to run it at >60 FPS with the resolution set at 4K for a majority of the game with most of the settings at the max option. There are plenty of options to mess around with, so you should be able to get it running smoothly, even on an older rig. I also appreciate how you can choose what the button prompts are, an option that should be in every PC game. You can choose DualShock, Xbox, Switch and Stadia controller prompts in addition to the Mouse and Keyboard ones. Such a simple thing, but greatly appreciated. However, I did run into a major issue in the game during my playthrough. During one of the phases of the final boss fight, you have a command option to defend. For me, that would be the O button with DualShock prompts. When I pressed the defend command, my game crashed. I thought this was a one off thing, so I redid the final boss fight, and got to the same phase. And, when I pressed the defend command again, my game once again crashed. Crashing twice using the same command prompt cannot be a coincidence, so I refrained from using that command for the rest of the fight. I was luckily able to finish the fight without defending on Normal difficulty, but it did add more of a challenge than I thought. Thankfully, NISA fixed this bug with a patch they released on July 6. I tested this again after installing the update, and I was able to use the defend command without issue.
The localization is pretty decent. I did not have a hard time understanding the story at all, and it did not seem like any of the character’s personalities were tampered with at all from previous games. The English voice acting was well done, but I did feel some voices did not match their character. For example, I felt KeA did not sound as energetic as she should, she sounded very mature. Most of the main cast were voiced very well, so this should not deter you from using the English voices. However, if you love Japanese voices, there is an option for that too, which is great. Playing through the game I did notice a couple grammar errors (misspelled words, double word use, missing punctuation, wrong word use, etc.) I noticed most of these errors popped up in the Finale act of the game, not necessarily in the main story, but when talking to NPCs. A pretty noticeable error I saw was when talking to a citizen of Mainz in the Finale. A lot of the text was not even in the speech box, so that was crazy to see. Another issue I saw took place at Mishelam in Act IV of Rean’s route. The lifeguard talks about the beachgoers being scared of something appearing, but when you look at that location, nothing is there. I feel the wrong text was used in this situation as the lifeguard was speaking about events that have not occurred yet and may spoil future events of the game. Trails into Reverie is a very text heavy game, so I expect some errors to be missed, but for a lot of them to pop up in the Finale is a bit disappointing. The localization was decent, but I hope some of these errors are addressed in an update.
It took me about 75 hours to complete Trails into Reverie‘s main story on Normal difficulty while completing Reverie Corridor stratums as they unlocked and filling out the Fishing section of the notebook. After completing the main story, you can load your Clear Data and complete the rest of the Reverie Corridor (the game prevents you from completing the Reverie Corridor in the main story) and unlock the remaining Daydreams. I did not complete the Reverie Corridor or unlock all the Daydreams, so that is something I’m looking forward to after finishing up this review. In addition, there is also a New Game+ option, so you can re-experience the game’s story after you finish up the Reverie Corridor, or you can just go straight to New Game+, it’s your choice.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie is an outstanding RPG with a rich story and memorable characters. The turn-based combat is well polished and the music is amazing. It easily places in the top three of my favorite Trails games along with Trails in the Sky the 3rd and Trails to Azure. I highly recommend fans of the series to play this, they will definitely enjoy the journey. Unfortunately, some issues hold this game back from reaching that coveted perfect score, but this should not deter you from picking the game up. Trails into Reverie was worth the wait and a satisfying conclusion to the Erebonia and Crossbell arcs. It is a bittersweet feeling, however, as I know future games will be moving away from these regions and characters I’ve come to know and love so well.
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Game copy provided by the publisher. A copy of the game retails for $59.99.
