Play Trails through Daybreak

Play Trails through Daybreak

where is her underwear

she forgot...

daybreak 3 comes right after sky remake

what is falcom doing...

There's a reason they're known as

failcom

When are these games getting a good sale? I refuse to pay more than 85% off

Actual tranny game.

have mixed feelings about this game.

Story:
Daybreak makes some improvements over the Cold Steel games, but it still falls short of the original Trails in the Sky trilogy. I appreciate that it raises the stakes by killing off major characters—something the Crossbell and Cold Steel arcs avoided—but it lacks a compelling narrative structure. The "search for eight magic artifacts" premise doesn't provide strong motivation, and the party feels randomly assembled. While Judith, Risette, and Aaron are solid additions, Feri and Quatre feel out of place in the game’s noir-inspired setting. There's little narrative justification for this group coming together, unlike previous entries where protagonists were cops or classmates. Additionally, the artifacts that drive the plot feel like lazy writing—they can do whatever the plot demands, from raising zombies to hacking machines to revealing past lives.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is where Daybreak disappoints the most. It's by far the easiest entry in the series, and lacks the strategic depth that defined earlier titles. Bosses are often pushovers—I’ve only lost a single battle, even by the final act, and I’m no RPG expert. Features that added complexity in previous games, like interrupting enemy criticals, a wide variety of quartz, and Brave Orders, are missing. Minigames from Cold Steel and Reverie are gone. The new equivalent of Master Quartz is underwhelming, and overall, the gameplay feels stripped-down compared to even Trails SC from 2006.

Overall:
I didn’t hate Daybreak, but it’s the first Trails game that left me genuinely disappointed. It’s a clear step back in both story and gameplay. I’m not sure the series will ever return to the heights of the Sky trilogy, but I hope Daybreak 2 brings more challenge and narrative depth to the table.

Kuro no Kiseki*

I refuse to pay more than 85% off

NISA are greedy fucks(jews), Reverie still only goes on 25% discount after almost 2 years. Don't expect it to go down even to 50% discount any time soon.

those are some nice tiddies

to be fair falcom are just consistent in their shit storytelling, they already established shit ton of deus ex machinas before and brought back characters from the dead, Daybreak just follows what was already established, but it does try to be more edgy than the previous games sadly the sequels dropped the ball

as for gameplay i agree, it's really undercooked, the game was rushed and falcom even had to release a huge update to add motion capture animations and art CGs in certain scenes, they also updated van's s-craft cause the original looked like shit. kai/horizon gameplay is really fun tho

love my cute brown hebe wife

tfw I'm still stuck on cold steel 4

I'll take another year to finish hajimari lmao, I'm so fucking tired of cold steel senpai, they really didn't need 5 fucking games to tell this story.

they really didn't need 5 fucking games to tell this story.

they didn't... but we are still getting the 4th Calvard game haha...

Next game's even worse. Why are you forcing yourself through these shit games? Falcom issue.

No, I will only play up to Crossbell arc.

I already deleted all the later games and all the nude mods I had for them.

I still can't romance Judith

WTF is falcom doing...

dunno, I loved the sky trilogy and the crossbell duology, I think especially crossbell was very well written and a lot of fun to go through.

Cold Steel I find it hard to justify, I disliked 1 and 2, 3 was okay and 4 so far is okay too, but it seems like 90% of the time nothing of interest is happening.

Hajimari is nowhere as bad as 4

nta, but i agree. it still doesn't really redeem cs4, but i enjoyed C route and some parts of Rean's route. Lloyd's route was pretty bad

I did!
For me, it's Towa.

kek isn't this the game that makes all the bad guys "white supremacists" while using that term in the actual dialogue and forces you to help a gay dude find love?

hey wokenigger i know it's you why do you act like a newfag?

is Musse on hajimari? she's the only reason why I'm still playing this series, I love her so much.

can't stop drawing lewds of her too.

not refuting

idk who this "wokenigger" boogeyman is, im just curious because this series interests me but ok

Sadly yes

well yeah, hajimari is really just cs5 with routes
you'll get a beach minigame where you can stare at girl's tits, falcom even promoted it for playstation vr lmao

Shame she's probably a barbie doll and they didn't give her nipples.

nice

japs are allergic to nipples, there're bunch of mods on loverslab tho

japs are allergic to nipples

Blame America and CERO.

le white supremacy

Nah

We are taking over your countryside and cities

Even your sept terrions are now ours

Don't you fucking dare come to your own mountains in your own country

Your own criminals bow to our criminals

Don't complain about it or you are a racist

honestly considering the current state of some jrpgs when it comes to censoring, i'd say falcoom are giga based

Genuinely, where do you even start with this series? I guarantee I'm not the only one put off by the spiderweb of subseries.

Sky FC is the only good place to start, assuming you actually want to get into the series. No one is stopping you to start with the first game in any of the arcs if you only want to play a certain set of games and arcs. CS1 is probably the 2nd best place to start. You can start with Daybreak too, but some references and characters will be lost on you since Daybreak assumes you already know about them, the main cast and setting are fresh tho.

It’s called release order and it’s a straight line, not a spider web. This works for 99% of all series that people think are confusing for no reason.

The exact way you get into every single series known to mankind. Release order

haha

so do these games have typical anime harem stereotype where all the girls go completely goo goo ga ga over the main character but the main character is like "no way fag"?
or does he actually bang these big tiddy girls?

this isn't an eroge

so do these games have typical anime harem stereotype where all the girls go completely goo goo ga ga over the main character but the main character is like "no way fag"?

yes

or does he actually bang these big tiddy girls?

yes and no at least in cold steel
in cold steel you can actually romance 'persona style' your waifu and in cs4 there's an implied sex scene with certain wafius. the thing is... it's not canon, so when rean appears in the latest game when he's not the main protagonist anymore his relationship gets reset.
Van has a canonical love triangle in the main story with side bitches wanting his cock too, but he's a literal demon lord so he can't really romance them yet...

I already played it, I'm waiting on Kai English release so I can play on nightmare. I love the whole calvard arc. as excited as I am for Sky 1st remake, the timing is fucking awful since the cliffhanger of Kai was so brutal

im in the minority here but it's mostly uphill after cs4. reverie was way better and daybreak despite being controversial was an extremely refreshing change of pace from cs as well. daybreak 2 has its share of serious problems but it wasn't even close to being a slog like cs. daybreak 1 and Kai are great.

I love the whole calvard arc

As someone who liked Kuro 1, i can't say the same about kuro 2. Calvard got fucked by being stretched into 4 games, so i can understand why some people hate it, since the majority of players actually caught up to the games compared to when they first started playing the series.

the timing is fucking awful since the cliffhanger of Kai was so brutal

It is, but if an extra year will help them make a better finale i'll wait, i don't want another kuro 2. Kai has problems, but the 2 year dev time definitely helped it.

It's literally Cold Steel 5. 1:1 copy-paste of CS4, but with one new combat mechanic. Writing is a garbage as ever. There's one unhinged cultist in this community that likes the game solely because it has le hecking Na-chan in it and for no other reason. That's the level of intellect Falcomfags operate on.

Falcom should just take the based pill

Maybe

I dont care how many big tits you post, I wont play your anti-white anti-loli game

It may be anti-white, but it is not anti-loli
It's not even the woke kind of anti-white, kuro is PRO CHINK , ALL IT EVER DOES IS JERK OFF THE CHINESES AND SOMETIMES THE JAP

kek the funny part is that Takahashi used to work at falcom, but i doubt the current falcom is based enough to pull something like this, they're scared of pissing of the fans than actually doing whatever they want with their stories and games

I should've said the calvard arc as a whole, overall I love the arc even with kuro 2 dragging it down. as mediocre as it was I still had fun playing it, compared to wishing for my own death playing 100+ hours of cs4
good point though on having extra time in the oven. I have faith that it'll be good since I liked Kai so much
kill yourself, retard. you don't even play the series you goddamn subhuman

wokefag nigger your gimmick is getting tiresome...

Take your meds, schizo. Reverie is Cold Steel 5, aka ED8-5. CS4 is ED8-4. It's an asset flip within the same arc and is just as bad as the games that preceded it.

you didn't play it.

I did, and it's shit. CS5 is a total piece of shit, just like CS3 and 4. Don't get me started on Gaybreak. They're even worse.

It may be anti-white, but it is not anti-loli

NTA, but they made multiple small girls bigger when they didn't have to, Including Altina, who was supposed to be a perma-loli until they pulled a reason out of their ass to age her up for no reason. That's not the kind of thing you do unless you have a specific agenda.

ah you're just a gay faggot with dogshit taste then, carry on

And you're a low IQ, coping retard. Reverie is CS5. It's a copy-paste of CS4 and has the same awful writing and garbage combat system. It's a total piece of shit. You like it solely because you like stroking your little dick to le picnic squad. What a fag.

Oh yeah, Altina aging up is really gross

these retards who buy every single game and play them for over 100 hours just so they can bitch about them on Anon Babble are hilarious
truly just lost souls yet they think they're some grand crusders of taste

Altina grew like 10cm jesus christ. And they literally set that up in Reverie and told you that it would happen you just didn't read the dialogue because you were too busy massaging your micropenis.

10cm

That much...What were they thinking

you just know...

She's even still flat so you're just an idiot whining abuot nothing.

god i love this nigga

It's hilarious how you think you'll always remain a cultist retard even though a game is total fucking garbage.

-y-y-y-y-you didn't play it

yes i did

LOL YOU PLAYED IT

kek holy shit

It's just *

Stop winning about things that should have never been changed ugh

thanks anon, good to know.

Yeah you're a real genius for buying games you hate and playing them for 100 hours each lmfao. At least the people you call "cultists" do it because they enjoy it not because they think it makes them look smart on Anon Babble lmfao.

This is literally my Steam review wtf?

How would you know something is bad without playing it? You're retarded, lmao.

you didn't play it

LOL YOU PLAYED IT YOU ACTUALLY PLAYED I

This is what we call cope.

the cultisttard shits up every trails thread just ignoring him and his spergouts

Because you already decided you hate the series so why are you continuing to buy games in it you don't like? You do it becuase you're a tsudere retard who actually does like them but you're too poisoned by epic Anon Babble contrarianism to just admit that you do. Sane people don't continue to buy games in series they think aren't good anymore.

haha...

while i appreciate the much needed tonal changes in daybreak, the plot rarely clicked for me and almata were never very interesting as antagonists. i also think the overall structure was still too reminiscent of cs 1 and 3 being both sparse and repetitive. people shit on daybreak 2's plot and while it's not flawless at all i found it much more interesting and comparatively dynamic right from the start. i still think it's a good game though.

The games having turned to total shit is what makes people hate the series. You shrugging off people who dislike it as not having played it is pure cope on your part.

Daybreak 1 has a similar structure to ys 9 if anything with every chapter concentrating on a new party member (aside from Bergard) and i honestly liked it. Kiseki structure didn't really change since sky fc so if you hate daybreak structure then you hate FC structure as well. CS3 has a lot of repetitive and downright clown fiesta scenes with "that won't be necessary" shit. Daybreak mostly got rid of that, with the exception of tharbad chapter which rehashed these retarded mind control masks and dance off battles from reverie.

the plot rarely clicked for me and almata were never very interesting as antagonists

Viola and Alexandre are garbage yeah, but i liked Melchior and Gerard. I missed pure evil antagonists who actually stay true to themselves through the end. CS talk-no-jutsu shit was getting tiresome.

Van rejected this... 2 times

Van likes them at 15

killing off major characters

Does he know?

he rejected this too

Elaine's just kind of naggy and frigid. When the choice came at the end of Daybreak 2 who to walk around the festival with, it was the easiest choice in the series.
But honestly if Daybreak had Cold Steel style romance then I'd have Van end up with Judith or Pauline.

then I'd have Van end up with Judith or Pauline.

based

make a game with actual 10/10 female cast

no pick your waifu this time

This series is cursed

I hadn't played Daybreak 2 yet.

Don't trust him, CS4 is worse than CS3, and Hajimari is literally a glorified CS5. Watch a summary on YouTube and go straight to Daybreak. The problem is that after that there's Daybreak 2 and Kai with even more cold steel bullshit.

Is there scope in the later Daybreak games for Van to maybe romance specific characters?

Kondo: [Laughs] So the thing about Cold Steel is that... the goal for that series was to depict this young man's — Rean's — school experiences. And with school experiences there are all of these things you can do as a young person, and part of that is obviously romance!

We really wanted to depict this aspect and give players a lot of choice in experiencing school as this character.

But then with the Daybreak games, it's the climax of the overall series. So when we weighed up whether to give players a little more freedom, like interactions with other characters, against portraying the climax and focusing on the story, in this case, the story won.

It was important for us, for Daybreak in particular, to push those things along, rather than focusing on content that allowed for a romance system. So in the Daybreak games, that's why you have more focus on telling a story.

I wanna continue this series but got real burnt out in the last half of CS4. I much prefered the games before CS to be honest.

The Calvard games are even worse.

So I've heard. I wanna play the newest one for Altina but eh..

So when we weighed up whether to give players a little more freedom, like interactions with other characters, against portraying the climax and focusing on the story, in this case, the story won.

The Kai completely retcons everything that happened in Daybreak 1 and 2, though.

?

woke pro immigration white man is le bad slop

never

both are shit, but cold shit is worse desu
kuso at least has a decent cast with a few gems, cold shit is bad through and through

I love sexy autistic women

Already have. I want to a Judith.

Nah, Coldsteel is weeby escapism, Daybreak sucks because it takes itself seriously.

you mean that connect event with Shizuna?
there were bunch of girls who showed signs of romantic attraction to Van before too, but you still can't romance anyone, if kai 2 brings back pick your waifu or other romance mechanic then we can say that Kondo was talking out of his ass again

I mean the time travel alternate dimension stuff

i doubt they'll retcon the entire arc, we don't even know where the limited reset will take us in kai 2 and i doubt it's gonna be at the start of kuro 1, that'd be really retarded even for falcom

If the changes aren't substantial then why even bother making them in the first place?

wtf are you even on about? we knew the time sept-terrion is gonna be involved, how are you gonna reveal it without doing some time travel shenanigans? you can make your criticism when kai 2 comes out instead of getting mad at your own headcanon

Trails is a series with terrible pacing. Time travel shenanigans is the last thing this series needed.

so you're saying we're gonna 4 more calvard games?

We got five Erebonia games so I expect at least two more Calvard games.

Currently on chapter 2 of Daybreak 1 and at first I didn’t know how I was gonna feel with the game cause’ the last time I played Trails was back in 2022. I was surprised just how quickly I got invested in this one, as much as I dislike CS3 and CS4 as a whole playing them at the moment was never bad and Daybreak is bringing me back to just how comfy these games are to play. So far I like the main cast enough and a couple NPCs are fun to follow, specifically the one idol training an aspiring idol is cute.

I'd say this will kill the series, but kiseki cultists are extremely loyal. They can seethe and get mad, but they'll still buy a new game. But it will hurt falcom on the long run and it kinda already did with cold steel.

Daybreak feels like a proper journey/adventure with the new cast. I always liked the first games in the series a lot more because falcom are good at setting up the world and the cast, but they keep shitting themselves when it comes to playoffs. Sky SC is probably the only time we got a great payoff to the arc.

Daybreak 1 is motivating me to replay SC, Zero, and Azure. I remember the chapter in Azure where there was a trade conference with each country attending had me at the edge of my seat, but the end of the game with KeA shenanigans was a massive letdown. The political tension in Crossbell is the most compelling narrative the series ever had but I hate not only how they handled it, but especially how LONG they made that shit last.

I feel you, falcom aren't making things any better by teasing all these girls, even fucking Renne.

Sky remake is coming out in 4 months so you should probably wait for it if you want to replay, but I doubt we'll get SC remake till 2027

I'll play Trails until my dying day.

haha, can't wait for the 30th anniversary and one more arc...

These character models are atrocious. Revolution 60 tier

I want to play trails but I don't have time to play this series from the beginning. Daybreak looks kinda interesting, maybe I should start with it

I played FC, SC, and 3rd on both PSP and Steam.
After that, I went through all of Zero and Ao on the PSP using those old machine translations
I haven’t touched the series since then and I’m afraid to.

I will

tfw falcom is gonna suck ~$170 from me this year
I can't even imagine the damage they're gonna do to consolegroids and people too dumb to pirate dlc

if you don't want to sink like 900 hours then sure there's nothing wrong to try out the latest game

people too dumb to pirate dlc

bless durante for making it so easy to pirate dlc in daybreak 1/2

Just creamapi them nig

you don't need it for daybreak nig nig

Kiseki would honestly benefit so much from being an h-game

Is this what Trails turned into?
Fap material?

Since cold steel, yeah and falcom keeps making more and more lewd outfits, so they know what they're doing, i just don't understand why they removed the romance mechanic since harem teasings didn't dissappear

What the fuck is daybreak you mean kuro

The day will break...

based and judithpilled

Play Trails

haha i do...

i kneel

Why can't Western devs make beautiful women with large firm breasts anymore?
Are they staffed by eunuchs?

They call themselves trans now

Been struggling to play Daybreak II since February. On one hand I do like Reverie's separate party stories returning and the antagonist is an interesting idea so I'm curious how the story will play out. On the other the virtual world grinding gameplay is monotonous and soulless, Reverie had a better mix of real world action and corridor action plus the corridor maps were just better. And I'm a coward so the edge elements are nerve racking for me and ruins the comfy vibes the series usually has. The prologue was well done but the next instance of rewinding just made Elaine and even Zin look incompetent. Walter's solution was creative but just destroy the computer guys.

i have to play through the 50 games that came before first

nah db2 sucks and they blew it super hard with that game

it's only 10 games

Sorry marketer, I will not support the great replacement propaganda game. Maybe ask the real clients (Blackrock, Vanguard) to invest a bit more on Falcom?

Oh well, it's too late to turn back now. Hopefully I play some today, seeing threads like these helps motivate me. Also to be fair I replayed Daybreak on NG+ highest difficulty to get all the achievements before Daybreak II released.

Zero and Ao are very focused thematically, it’s always about breaking past the barriers of internal corruption and radical political intrigue. The only problem IMO is how finale of Ao drops the ball, Mariabelle being the final villain and Dieter/Noel’s motivations getting retconned. While the final boss is still incredibly focused and reveals core mysteries, Mariabelle sours the taste so much.

I’d say SC has a considerably worse story due to terrible pacing and generic villains, but it followed through with character dynamics especially Estelle/Joshua and gave the main villain a sweet (technically salty) and satisfying death.

Cold Steel seems to double down on these issues and more with villains getting away left and right, the ‘curse’ being responsible for tragedies rather than desire for political gain and harem killing off potential romances.

nta but db2 isn't as bad as i thought it'd be, it has a lot of retarded moments and filler content, but overall it's fine, i think falcom should stop trying to experiment anymore and just stick to the formula

well at least the game after daybreak 2 kinda got things back on track but daybreak 2 is legit one of the worst jrpgs i have ever played in my life

oh good, then it only takes me 3 years instead of 15

It's only 5 games, than it all goes down from there.

Well it took me 4 months to beat FC-CS4, but I'm a neet...

Okay, I'm typically pretty forgiving with the Trails series. The only one thus far that really annoyed me was CS3. Hopefully I'll enjoy it by the end. I agree they should stick to the niche they carved out instead of trying to expand. I don't dislike improving the overworld combat to move things away from turn based 100% of the time but it's hard to find the right balance. Daybreak is a bit too easy whereas Daybreak II cheats a bit in the boss battles to force in some difficulty. The over reliance on characters that have a team shield craft isn't ideal.
That's good news. Kai being slated for English release in 2025 is exciting. As well as Estelle's wonderful game getting a beautiful remake. I'll have to play and see which side of the fence I'll come down on for Daybreak II; I want to like it but the concept doesn't really appeal to me.

Playing Daybreak 2 and finishing it just made me want the girls to rape Van and fix him.

Agnes needs to rape him.
Risette needs to rape him.
Shizuna needs to rape him too.
The guy has brain problems on a level similar to Rean. Get your fucking shit together Van, you're such a fucking baby trying to take on everything by yourself.

I didn't like Daybreak 2 mich but 1 was great. Hope horizon will be as good as 1.

Is Van the strongest protagonist lore wise?