Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter Preview

We've been saying this for a good few months now, but Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter really is shaping up to be one of this year's best RPGs.

For those totally out of the loop, this is a complete remake of the first game in Falcom's long-running Trails franchise. What was once a sprite-based adventure is now a fully 3D revival sporting a level of visual fidelity that easily transcends the developer's most recent efforts, like Trails through Daybreak.

Granted, 1st Chapter isn't some kind of graphical powerhouse in the grand scheme of things, but in comparison to Falcom's storied library, it's a significant step forward. It's a lovely looking RPG, and the clear leap in presentational quality also extends to cutscenes, character animations, and various elements of the user interface.

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Put simply, this is the most aesthetically pleasing Trails title to date, and we sincerely hope that the team plans to carry through with this updated engine for its future games.

Honestly, it's a borderline surreal experience to be playing Trails in the Sky again, but in this entirely new form. To be clear, this is going to be an incredibly faithful retread of the original release — it certainly isn't a Final Fantasy 7 Remake situation — but seeing the country of Liberl rebuilt using all-new 3D assets is crazy in the best possible way.

For the purposes of this preview, we were given early access to the game's PS5 demo, which lets you play right from the start, up until an early point in the main story. That's a generous five or six hours of playtime, by the way, but obvious restrictions do mean that we can't go into too much detail.

Still, based on what we've seen so far, this is exactly the game that Falcom and western publisher GungHo have been marketing up until this point. Fully animated cutscenes are abundant in the early hours, text-based dialogue scenes are given new life through dynamic camera angles, and the English voice acting is great.

We're already in love with the combat system, too, which combines key parts of modern Trails titles. As is the case in the aforementioned Daybreak and Daybreak 2, there are two modes of battle: the first sees you attack your foes in real time, and the second revolves around a more traditional turn-based system.

But 1st Chapter also takes a step back from the complexity of the Daybreak games; there just aren't as many mechanics to wrap your head around, and as such, combat appears to strike a really nice balance between new and old.

Again, we can't delve too deeply into things — and let's face it, your options will multiply as more party members join beyond the demo's cutoff — but right now, we're over the moon with how snappy and polished the combat feels.

We're impressed, then. We've had high expectations for 1st Chapter ever since it was rather unceremoniously revealed during that weird Nintendo Direct, and now, we're pretty confident in saying that those expectations will be met. This is set to be the glorious return of a classic RPG.

Are you looking forward to Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter? Will you be giving the demo a spin? Watch where you're swinging that big stick in the comments section below.