Trails Beyond the Horizon review: "This JRPG's thrilling real-time and turn-based hybrid combat is better balanced than Metaphor ReFantazio's, making up for a poorly paced adventure"

If you ever needed an excuse to get into Trails, Falcom's epic JRPG series that has now spanned more than 20 years, then the excellent Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, also the best remake of 2025, is easily the best place to start. By that logic, The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon is arguably a worse game to begin with, and if you decide to jump into this having just played Estelle and Joshua's bracer adventure, it would be like watching the first episode of Game of Thrones before skipping straight to season 8.

Yet, there are reasons why the latest arc in the series may be more appealing for newcomers. Set in the Calvard Republic, the fourth major setting so far in the fictional continent of Zemuria, there's a far more complex narrative that covers a lot of mature topics. That's best exemplified by your protagonist Van, a kind of detective and bounty hunter whose job involves working in the shadows, which feels more sophisticated and refreshing than the wide-eyed do-gooder adolescents of previous entries.

The set-up of Trails Beyond the Horizon also eschews the usual geopolitical intrigue or save-the-world shenanigans, focusing instead on a story that revolves around Calvard's newly announced space program and the days leading up to the world's first manned space flight. The science-fantasy series' take on technological advancements has already covered a lot of ground, from transportation to communication devices to weapons of mass destruction. Its twist on the space race feels quite unique, as the whole country gets caught up in the excitement, from news reports to merchandise, with astronaut-themed media also in the works to cash in on this historical moment. But is this space mission really for the benefit of all mankind or is there more going on behind the scenes?

Compared to past games that cover a period of weeks or months, this RPG is structured around a more condensed timeline, as you're always reminded of the impending rocket launch. That however doesn't make for a shorter game, and when a playthrough can range from 50 to over 100 hours, it means Trails Beyond the Horizon suffers from slow pacing issues while simultaneously feeling like it barely covers new ground in the broader saga.

Taking the long Trails around

Out of all the best JRPGs, Trails is arguably the one of the most text-heavy series, which is often why it takes much longer to localize (that Horizon is out just over a year after its original Japanese release is already something of a feat). That much is apparent in a prologue lasting over two hours that, besides the opening tutorial dungeon, is primarily sitting through an awful lot of exposition, even though it does involve an aptly indulgent buffet where our hard-boiled detective merc goes soft at the knees for dessert. There's nonetheless a dense Dickensian pace so that what could just be a few lines becomes reams and reams of text where every on-screen character gets their two cents and then some, with only a fraction of the dialog voiced.

That's something that I'm primed for as a seasoned Trails player. After all, part of the pleasure of these RPGs is just spending time with characters you've gotten to know through multiple installments, including those from past arcs who have become a little older and wiser. The problem is that Horizon is already the third entry of the Calvard arc, so if you've played through the previous two already, there's an overwhelming sense of deja vu as you spend much of your time running around the same locations, with just one new town to explore, which also only appears in the latter half of the game.

You could however justify that the Republic is also being experienced from new perspectives, as you're not only just playing as Van but also two returning protagonists. It's not in the name of fanservice either, each has their own agendas coming to Calvard. While one of these is Rean, the protagonist from the previous arc (Trails of Cold Steel), Kevin is a particularly deep cut, as a priest on a secret mission who's not had a playable role since the Trails in the Sky the 3rd. This nonetheless comes with a lot of screentime that's often just reminiscing old adventures, and even those who appreciate the series' slow-burn style will be desperate for the current plot to get a move on.

How long each chapter lasts is up to how much of a completionist you are. Trails fans will no doubt love to speak to every NPC and tick off every side quest, which in turn is how you gain SP that steadily improves your overall rank, yielding rewards, with the proviso that choosing to advance the story means time passes and optional missions become unavailable. While previous entries in this arc involved dealing with investigations (referred to by the codeword '4SPG') as part of the story, Horizon makes most of these completely optional. It somewhat dilutes their purpose, along with the Mass Effect-style morality alignment system where missions taken or choices made affect your ranking in law, gray, or chaos, but with zero bearing on the story.

Ultimately, 4SPGs add a lot of characterful dimension to proceedings, where you might be tracking down a missing person only to find a deeper story behind their disappearance, or figuring out a perpetrator of a crime that can range from spreading vicious rumors to vandalism. Similarly enjoyable are Connection events where your protagonists can bond with various party members or NPCs, and even though these are all just lengthy cutscenes with no direct input from you, they do well to flesh out the cast. Ignore these optional missions, and Horizon is a decidedly duller affair where you're doing little more than walking over to a waypoint to trigger a very expositional cutscene before repeating ad nauseum until the main dungeon of that chapter opens up. Even then, these mandatory areas are often designed as overly large labyrinths – you'd be forgiven for speeding through in high-speed mode, which is easily togglable at any time.

Bring me the Horizon

It's a shame that the story is often a needlessly dense slog, because when it comes to combat, this is when Horizon feels fresh and at its most accessible. In a sense, this has also been true of past games, where you can set the difficulty to as easy as you like or retry a tough boss encounter by weakening it on each subsequent attempt. But, since Trails Through Daybreak, the series has also introduced real-time hack-and-slash combat that can also switch back to traditional tactical turn-based battles at any time. You can even set the game to high-speed mode for exploration but have it automatically change back to normal speed when engaging enemies in hack and slash scraps.

It's an excellent hybrid combat system that offers a good balance between both styles, certainly more so than Metaphor: ReFantazio where action is largely for mopping up low-level enemies without much skill. Since Trails Through Daybreak, the action has only gotten more mechanically satisfying. You can cast spells at patrolling enemies, and perform perfect dodges that then enable you to call in assist strikes from party members. Awakening skills, on the other hand, mean characters can transform and power-up temporarily, while the new ZOC mechanics slows down time, allowing you to stack up even more combos and dodges to keep the pain going before you're forced into turn-based combat, the action smoothly transitioning. The flavor of these real-time tricks are present even within classic style of battle, ZOC there instead granting two actions in a turn, allowing you to shift the tide of battle in crucial moments.

Improvements to the action side by no means trivializes turn-based encounters, where you have a suite of are-of-effect abilities for dealing with multiple enemies, while you also get to make the most of your expansive cast with chaining follow-up attacks, which includes guest and support characters when they join you for certain missions. Meanwhile, S-rank ultimates that ignore turn orders remain the game at its flashiest with their over-the-top animations (be warned that certain bosses can also exploit S-ranks right back at you). The only frustration with these battles during the story is that many fall prey to the trope of cutscene incompetence, and even if it does eventually culminate in victory, the sequence has already gone on for too long for any of it to have felt like you had anything to do with it.

You can also enjoy more of the combat via a series of virtual dungeons called Grim Garten (similar to the last game's Märchen Garten), which – while optional for the most part – is the best way to grind levels and unlock more rewards through a gacha-style system, which also includes character cosmetics. A bigger incentive for completionists is that it's where you can obtain items that let you unlock all Connection events, though it does make you wonder why the game even needs to contrive a sense of limited time where you're never able to see every Connection event during a given chapter.

There's no shortage of side content, ensuring that Trails Beyond the Horizon can last just as long as any other past game in the series. Yet, when most of it feels like a distraction from a plot that marks a major turning point in not just the series but the whole of Zemuria, you can't help but wonder if the critical path couldn't have been subjected to some more rigorous editing. As the game slowly counts down to the launch with one question after another, the suspense is compounded by you hopping between its three protagonist paths, and you start wishing that certain returning fill-in villains could have been excised from the reunion.

And yet when that finale does come, with conflicting allegiances meaning there's even clashes among the cast on a Civil War scale, Horizon really does go beyond what the series has done before, shooting for the stars with a revelation that has seismic ramifications for what happens next. That, however, means it has arguably the biggest cliff-hanger in the series since the ending of Trails of Cold Steel 3, and one that might potentially take an agonizing wait to resolve, given the follow-up has yet to even be released in Japan.

There's arguably never been a better time to get into the Trails series, with almost every entry readily available on modern platforms, all while the first trilogy continues to be remade with Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter already having been announced as a 2026 release. There's plenty of Trails to play, and newcomers remain best served going back to the beginning with the decadent Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter remake. The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon, by contrast, feels made for the fans who have been with the series for these past two decades, already with the steely faith to see the saga through, even when not knowing what lies truly beyond.

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