Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (Trails Series Inclusive)(Now onto Trails Through Daybreak)

[Skinypupy]

Finished Chapter 3 last night at around 35 hours. I'm really enjoying how they're peeling back the layers of the onion here, building on what started as a very simple story and turning it into something really compelling. The combat is nothing special, but the writing and world-building continues to be superb.

That said, they could certainly do to speed it up a bit. To say this is a "slow burn" would be a vast understatement...it's a molasses-speed crawl. With several other games dropping in the next month or so, I'm not sure I'll have the attention span to fully get through this one, especially since I haven't even reached the "long" chapters yet (5 and 7, from what I've read).

[Scraper]

Finished Chapter 3 last night at around 35 hours. I'm really enjoying how they're peeling back the layers of the onion here, building on what started as a very simple story and turning it into something really compelling. The combat is nothing special, but the writing and world-building continues to be superb.

That said, they could certainly do to speed it up a bit. To say this is a "slow burn" would be a vast understatement...it's a molasses-speed crawl. With several other games dropping in the next month or so, I'm not sure I'll have the attention span to fully get through this one, especially since I haven't even reached the "long" chapters yet (5 and 7, from what I've read).

The Cold Steal series took 4 games to fully peel back the onion, so don't expect that to change with Daybreak. I'm about in the same spot as you and my best guess is that this game will wrap up the Genesis part of the story, but will leave several of the main threads open for parts 2 and 3. Including who the actual main antagonist is and what their true goals are.

Spoiler thoughts for the end of Chapter 3:

Spoiler:

At this point they really haven't explained who the bearded man and the woman in the black veil are. They're obviously not with Almata or the guild and I don't think they're with Oroboros, so any guess is as good as mine.

Also, what happened to the Oroboros enforcer from the first chapter. He was super powerful and chasing Melchior, but we haven't seen him since then.

[Scraper]

I just finished chapter 4 and all i can say is that the chapter was a slog. It kind of reminds me of the Wheel of Time book 10. It's necessary reading and it sets up things, but man was it long and tedious. I hope chapter 5 is better.

[Skinypupy]

I just finished chapter 4 and all i can say is that the chapter was a slog. It kind of reminds me of the Wheel of Time book 10. It's necessary reading and it sets up things, but man was it long and tedious. I hope chapter 5 is better.

That’s not encouraging.

I was already starting to really struggle with the glacial pace, and just started Chapter 4.

[Scraper]

I looked up the completion time on howlongtobeat.com and it definitely tells me that I'm playing the game at a slower pace than most. I do all of the extra missions that I find, so I think that adds to my play time (And Chapter 4 had a ton of optional content). The average time to beat the main story is 52 hours and 51 minutes. The average time for the main story plus the side content is 87 hours and 47 minutes. I'm currently at 45 hours in at the end of Chapter 4 and there are 7 chapters. So I'm definitely playing it at the slower pace.

So my word of advice if you like the game but don't like the pace, then just skip the side content, maybe turn on the turbo features and finish the main story in about 50 hours. Which is a reasonable time for most JRPGs.

[Scraper]

After I beat chapter Chapter 4 I took a weeklong break from this to play a FPS. I've stepped back into Daybreak now and I am happy to report that Chapter 5 is much better than 4 and if you skip all the side content it would actually be a fairly quick chapter. I won't spoil it but there was actually a laugh out load moment I had last night involving a scene with Grimcat and Aaron, Daybreak definitely has a more mature tone than prior games in the series.

Also a possible spoiler for the Quatre character and his storyline (Sorry if this get's too political)

Spoiler:

As of Chapter 5 it's pretty evident that Quatre is Trans but afraid to reveal that. The way the game handles his story and the other characters interactions with him really does create empathy for the character in a way that I have never really seen in a game before. This side story alone is worth the price of admission for me. It really hits home for me too since one of my daughter's best friends is trans and I've always tried my best not to say anything to offend him but sometimes I slip (just like the characters in the game). Generation X has a lot to learn on this subject whereas current teenagers treat the issue as if it's not even an issue. Which is a positive change.

[Scraper]

I should also mention that the whole Quatre spoiler above is one of the exact reasons why I love this series so much. It may drag in parts but the character development is second to none.

[Scraper]

I take it back when I said that chapter 5 is short. What I thought was the end of the chapter was actually just the intermission for the chapter. But its all good because the 2nd half of chapter 5 is really good and the story and characters really start to come together in this chapter.

[Scraper]

I finished Daybreak up yesterday. My final playtime was 82 hours. I finished all of the side quests and bonding events with that play time. There are only 6 chapters, with Chapter 6 being called "The Finale". The ending is very satisfying and in true legends fashion it brings all of the characters together and gives them a part to play.

I will say that the final dungeon was a bit long. At one point I out leveled it and so the fights weren't giving me a lot of experience, so I just started running past the mobs (That sped it up a lot). Also, this is probably the easiest Legends game as I managed to beat it on the normal setting without losing a single fight in the game. The final boss was easily the toughest, but I still managed to beat him without wiping.

I'm not a huge fan of the new free moving combat system. It really wasn't deep at all, they should have stuck with the regular turn based battles. About the only thing the free moving combat was good for was speeding trash mob fights up. I hope they make it a bit deeper for Daybreak 2.

All in all I enjoyed Daybreak and I'm looking forward to part 2 (Which gets setup rather nicely at the end of part 1).

[Skinypupy]

I need to get back to this. Stalled out in Chapter 4.