The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II Preview

Thanks to the lovely people at NIS America, we recently had the privilege of watching a preview demo of the upcoming The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II. No, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you even though Trails through Daybreak only recently released this July: the sequel releases February 14th, 2025, a perfect Valentine’s present for all Trails fans. It also brings the West one step closer to being caught up with Japanese releases of the game, which felt like an impossible task for several years. But once Trails through Daybreak II releases, we will only be one game behind. So, a lot of kudos to NIS America for getting these games into the hands of Western players at such a great pace. As a huge Trails fan, I appreciate their efforts to catch up with our Japanese counterparts. So let’s see what Trails through Daybreak II has in store for us, shall we?

Trails through Daybreak II Story Synopsis and Trails Continuity 

To avoid major spoilers for our readers, I will very broadly set up a general introduction to the game so we can discuss a few things. Daybreak II is set three months after the events of Trails through Daybreak and continues the story of our main protagonist, Van, and his Arkride Solutions companions. It all starts with a knock at the door, but this time, it is Elaine who comes to Van for help, not Agnès. A “Crimson Grendel” is currently terrorizing the city of Edith, and Elaine is worried it ties back to Van. All the while, our favorite two members of the Imperial Picnicking Front, Swin and Nadia, are in Edith searching for someone.

So right off the bat, it should be very apparent that Daybreak II is not the best starting point for newcomers to the series. Like many other Trails games, this game assumes you played the games before it, and in this case, it assumes you have played at least the first Daybreak. Since Swin and Nadia from Trails through Reverie also make appearances, knowledge about it and a few others will probably be needed to fully enjoy Daybreak II as well. I will say, however, that the recent Trails through Daybreak is an excellent jumping-on point for newcomers to get their feet wet in the world of Trails and comes highly recommended by myself and others on staff.

With our general synopsis out of the way, let’s focus on what’s new in Trails through Daybreak II. The first major system change is that the storytelling in Daybreak II takes a page out of Reverie‘s book and offers changing viewpoints throughout the story. You will not be able to switch vantage points as freely as you could in Reverie, but at the very least you will experience multiple groups of characters. This is due to the Dead End system: as you progress through the story, you will reach sections that result in literal dead ends. Using the power of the Genesis, you can rewind time to attempt a story segment again, but with the possibility of extra help from other characters who may help you get a different outcome. This storytelling approach reminds me of Zero Time Dilemma, which is one of my favorite parts of that series, so it’s cool to see something similar in a Trails game.

Combat Changes

Combat has also taken a big step forward in Daybreak II. First, the combat UI has been cleaned up significantly with a big adjustment to the turn order list. One of my — and many players’ — biggest pet peeves with Trails through Daybreak was the turn order UI. It was hard to understand, too small, and changed many of the established parts of combat the series has put forth. Thankfully, it is much better in Trails through Daybreak II.

Field combat has also been expanded, which now includes the ability to cast arts and perform a Cross Charge attack. Casting arts on the field is as simple as pressing Triangle, which will cast the art tied to the current driver that character has equipped. The first art in each driver will be the quick art for field combat. I should note that casting quick arts uses a lot of EP, so they can’t be spammed. The Cross Charge attacks can be activated between two characters when you pull off a perfect dodge and react quickly enough with a counterattack of your own. It pulls the old switcheroo on the enemy with another character doing the counterattack instead of the currently controlled character. These additions keep Daybreak‘s straightforward approach to field combat fresh and exciting.

Other additions include a rebalancing of shard skills that will hopefully prevent some of the broken ones, such as Ark Feather, from being too powerful this time around. Previous Trails games featured Lost Arts, while Daybreak II introduces the similar Dual Arts. These are powerful one-time-use art spells that use two elements and a lot of EP to do high damage. You can no longer spam S-Crafts on the same character even if you have the required CP, so no more spamming Grendel Kick over and over to win fights. Finally, there are more Arts Drivers and Holo Cores to diversify your options and for the additional characters that will be playable. All of these changes from the first Daybreak will hopefully lead to more balanced combat while still maintaining the enjoyable turn-based system of the previous games.

Will There Be A Demo? What About Additional Voice Acting?

I got to ask a few questions that I thought were important to ask before the game comes out. First off, at this point, there is no confirmation of a demo release for Trails through Daybreak II. That doesn’t mean there won’t be one; it’s just that NIS America hasn’t confirmed anything yet. Hopefully NISA will release a demo, because Daybreak’s demo was robust and lengthy, which I think helped people get into the series.

I also asked if any additional English voice acting will be added to the game as they did with Trails through Reverie, and unfortunately, there will not be. There will only be English voice acting where Japanese voice acting occurred in the game. If there was one thing that bugged me in Daybreak, it was the sporadic voice acting that took away from some of the game’s important scenes. Whether it be Falcom or NIS America, I do hope that going forward, we will see more voice acting added to the series.

And finally, I was curious about save data carrying over to Daybreak II from Daybreak I. Save data will get you some minor stuff as it usually does, like sepith, quartz, and accessories. Your alignment choices from Daybreak won’t carry over, so don’t feel pressured to go back and change your choices from the first game in case you didn’t like them.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II is shaping up to be an amazing addition to the series, and I can’t wait to hop back into the world of Zemuria this February even after the 100 hours I spent there in July. These RPGs are just that much fun. The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II releases February 14th, 2025, on Switch, PS4/5, and PC. Learn more and pre-order the regular, Deluxe, or Limited Edition through the official website and NISA’s online store, and keep an eye on RPGFan for more Trails updates in the meantime!