The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie

After taking a break from new Trails games for several years after Cold Steel IV burned me out in 2020, I decided to pick up Reverie to try and get back into the series. In between this, I had played through Trails to Azure using the Geofront translation. Azure was the last game I hadn’t played prior to Reverie, and I’m glad I played it because it had a lot of relevance to the story. My tl;dr is that Reverie is a massive mixed bag. I enjoyed my time with it in general, but there were several points that had me groaning and wishing the game would be over sooner. I'd give Reverie more of a mixed review than a positive one. [h2]Story Stuff[/h2] Let’s start with the biggest barrier of entry to this game: [b]You need to have played all 4 Cold Steel Games, and the two Crossbell games to properly understand the plot and characters in Reverie.[/b] The Sky games have a bit of relevance in Reverie, but I wouldn’t call them essential just to play the game. Reverie serves as an epilogue to Cold Steel and Crossbell, while also leading into the following arc, Daybreak. There are summaries included to recap you on previous games, but they’re not a total replacement for a proper playthrough. Also included is the in-game book Three & Nine, which goes into the backstories of new characters, Swin and Nadia. Admittedly, I skipped out on reading Three & Nine, and frankly, Swin and Nadia did nothing to interest me in reading it. Reverie’s story as a whole was fine, and I took no major issues with it. I’m relieved about this, because Cold Steel IV had burned me so bad with its Curse plot device and [spoiler]reviving two characters that probably should’ve stayed dead (thus, removing the emotional impact). Despite my grievances with Falcom keeping said characters alive, I will admit it was nice to see them again, and I’ll bitterly accept their alive status.[/spoiler] [h2]Gameplay / Structure[/h2] Reverie has a different structure from other Trails games, which was kind of a breath of fresh air. The game has three different routes for Rean, Lloyd and “C.” You can choose whichever route you want to play first, though at some points it will force you to switch routes, and eventually they all come together at the end. Reverie doesn’t have the same kind of side quests that Trails games typically do. As a result, there’s not a whole lot you can miss. Reverie is still pretty bloated, though not as bloated as Cold Steel IV. One of the things this game loves to do is waste your time throwing countless grunt fights at you, acting like they’re a big deal. Reverie also has the biggest playable cast of any Trails game to my knowledge, and managing all their equipment can and will get tiresome. The game is constantly showering you with items, which makes it so you rarely have to buy anything, but makes rarer items you obtain feel like an insignificant drop in the bucket. Because of the large character roster, certain units didn’t get the attention they deserved; most notoriously, Estelle and Joshua, who are still lacking most of their crafts from their original games. I also wish that Zeit and Schera could’ve been proper party members, but alas, they are not. The True Reverie Corridor is a core feature of Reverie, and is where all the playable characters will meet up. You can go through the randomized dungeon itself, view side stories (daydreams), or play minigames. The dungeon is okay, but gets repetitive. Just when you think it’s about to be over, it will end up extending itself, even when the game teases you into thinking you’re finally at the final stratum. You can form whatever party you wish, which is something I really appreciated. By the end, I had an Arts-focused team with Altina, Tio, Toval and Fie (who served as support/buffer) that could wreck practically anything. Unlike Sky the 3rd, all stratums (except the real last one) use the same music. Thankfully, it’s good music, but I’ll talk about the game’s music later. [h2]Daydreams[/h2] Daydreams are similar to the Doors found throughout Phantasma in Sky the 3rd, but I don’t think any of them hit as hard as Sky the 3rd. A good amount explore how certain events in Reverie were taking place in the background, which is okay, but mostly unnecessary. The best Daydreams are the ones that divulge details we had never seen before, or expand on characters’ backstories/futures. One of my favorites was one that explored [spoiler]Osborne’s perspective, giving us a look at how he felt throughout the games.[/spoiler] The worst Daydreams are the ones that involve combat in any capacity. Why? They force you to use preset parties with extremely bad setups that will make you question how any character got through the events of Cold Steel IV. If you do these, play them on Very Easy unless you want to waste 10+ minutes for every battle. You don’t keep the experience gained in these Daydreams anyway. (I played the rest of the game on Normal btw.) As for the minigames… Well, let’s just say they weren’t for me. I am glad that Reverie doesn’t pressure you to try doing Vantage Masters or Pom Pom Party, so I didn’t feel like I had to force myself to play them to collect something missable. I had enough of those minigames in the previous Trails games. [h2]Audio[/h2] Time to talk about the music. Oh boy, where do I begin… I want to preface this by saying I had to mod some music out of the game because it was getting tiresome and annoying way too quick. Reverie went for a quantity-over-quality approach to its music, and the tracks that are bad are just really bad. I’m mainly talking about most of Singa’s music here, which for some reason got assigned to a lot of the boss battles. Opinions on music are always subjective, but Singa’s style is very hit or miss for me; usually miss. I ended up using [i]Burning Throb[/i] for the chest boss/tough enemy music, [i]Unfathomed Force, Erosion of Madness, Belief[/i] (both the original and Super Arrange), and [i]The Azure Arbitrator[/i] for the other boss music I didn’t like. Each of those tracks were still in the game’s files, so replacing the music was a cinch and improved my overall experience with the game! I don’t think I could’ve gotten through Reverie otherwise lol. A major issue is that some of these battle themes persist between cutscenes and might end up running for 30+ minutes depending on what’s going on. I couldn’t handle the default music in this case, and I’ve tried to purge those songs from my mind. All that said, there IS good music in Reverie! All three of the normal battle themes are great, along with the battle theme of the Reverie Corridor and Trial Door boss theme. Another great track is [i]The Destination of Fate[/i], which plays during the beginning section of the game. The English dub is good and makes me wish Zero and Azure were dubbed (an issue that kept me from buying the official English releases of Zero and Azure, since I had already legally purchased Zero and Azure for use with the Geofront translations). The English dub does have an issue with audio balance, where the voices are too loud compared to everything else. This issue isn’t present with the Japanese voices, but battles don’t have subtitles, so unless you understand the language, you won’t know what they’re saying for their victory quotes and what not. [h2]Final Thoughts[/h2] Although Reverie frustrated me in some aspects, I did enjoy my time with it. For me, in a way, it was like revisiting an old friend you liked spending time with, but never fully agreed with. It was good to see some of the characters I liked again, and I hope to see them in later entries. I’ll be taking a break before I move onto Daybreak, but I’m curious to see what it has to offer. I’m especially interested in what Trails Beyond the Horizon is like, so I hope it lives up to my expectations. Until then, Rean needs to reforge his tachi, [b][i]and[/i][/b] himself…