I love JRPGs. They have always been my comfort games, but I have always played mainly the mainstream games. The Final Fantasies, The Chrono Triggers, The Dragon Quests. One series that I heard people talk about for years is the Trails series. You know the words, “best worldbuilding in JRPGs”, “insane payoff, “everything is connected”, and the one I hate, “you have to play them all to get it.” That last one is the reason I never got into the series. It sounds intimidating, its akin to the One Piece anime. You either commit fully or you never touch it.
So when Falcom announced Trails Beyond the Horizon would be released in January 2026, I figured this must be a great jumping-on point for new players. It looks polished and surely the onboarding experience must be welcoming. Right?
Well. Sort of.
Trails Beyond the Horizon is one of the strangest “first entries” I’ve ever played. It absolutely didn’t ease me in. It feels like you are entering into a group chat that has been going for years now, where everyone knows everyone else’s secrets. But it is also so JRPG-coded that if you have played JRPGs before, you will get a lot of the game’s themes, stories, mechanics, and ideas. The game doesn’t hold your hand at all; it just assumes you are ready. It makes for a weird, mixed experience.
This is my experience with Trails Beyond the Horizon – as someone who started here (the third game of a trilogy within a 13 game series), cold, blind, and curious.
First off, Trails Beyond the Horizon isn’t bad. It’s just…a lot. The game makes it abundantly clear that this world has history. A LOT of it. Political factions, organizations, legendary figures, past wars, secret technologies – a lot of it just casually mentioned. The game assumes you are familiar with all of this. I was not. Even if I was I would not remember 13 games’ worth of lore like this.
The counterpoint to this is that the story itself is interesting. The themes about humanity, progress, power, and consequences are really cool. The setting feels detailed and thought out. You can tell there is weight behind this world. It was crafted meticulously, and concepts are built upon ideas that came before. It’s almost overwhelming how much world-building has gone into this game, but I still constantly felt like I walked into a house party where I didn’t know anyone and had arrived late.
Now, that said, once I stopped trying to understand everything, the story became more enjoyable. Weird as that is. On its own, it’s a good, well-built JPRG narrative that has emotional stakes and strong themes.
However, even that has its own problems as well. Everyone in this game loves to talk. And it’s not short sections. Full-on conversations about politics, morality, technology, and history. These conversations can happen back-to-back. The saving grace is the fact is that the writing is actually good. Characters are grounded, and they sound thoughtful and intelligent. But the sheer volume of lines is staggering. There were moments where I just wanted to explore, fight, or progress… and instead I’d get hit with another 15-minute dialogue stretch. Sometimes it worked. Other times, it felt like the game was testing my patience.
For a newcomer, this is the biggest hurdle. If you don’t have an emotional investment in this world or its characters, these conversations can feel dragged out and heavy because you have no context.
If there was a reason I stuck with Trails Beyond the Horizon, it’s the combat system. This is easily the most enjoyable part of the game. You can engage enemies quickly in real time, but when things get serious, the tactical depth kicks in hard with the turn-based combat. Stuff like – Awakening states, Zone-based control mechanics and Shard abilities and positioning. We wrote a whole guide explaining this battle system. It sounds complex (and it kinda is), but it’s introduced well enough that I never felt lost. I actually enjoyed learning how everything worked — which is impressive considering how intimidating it looks on paper. The mix of real-time field combat and turn-based command battles feels smart and flexible.
Boss fights are great too. You actually have to think about a lot of different things. It really is one of the deeper combat systems in JRPGs. If this were weak, I probably wouldn’t have completed the game.
A lot of the characters in the game have established histories and lore and their importance flew past my head at light speed. I had so many moments of “Cool story bro….who are you?” that it became a borderline running joke in my head. Although some characters did grow on me purely on their personalities. Van Akride is a great lead, not a whiny typical anime protagonist.
It’s not bad character writing at all. It’s just that this particular game didn’t have the necessary emotional investment from me, seeing as how it’s the end of the trilogy and all the character development was missing for me.
I had heard Trails games were long, but I didn’t fully feel it until about 30 hours in. This is not a game you casually breeze through. Progress is slow. Story arcs take time. Payoffs are delayed. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it really doesn’t. There were stretches where it felt like the game was spinning its wheels — building toward something I couldn’t fully appreciate because I lacked series context.
As my first Trails game, I can confidently say this: Trails Beyond the Horizon is not newcomer-friendly.
You can play it. You can understand the main plot. But you’ll constantly feel like you’re missing layers — emotional callbacks, character histories, world-shaking moments that don’t fully hit without prior knowledge. I don’t regret playing it first, but I do understand why fans recommend earlier entries. It’s a good game, sometimes a really good game, but not a great starting game. I’m glad I played it — and weirdly, it made me curious about going back and starting from earlier entries. And that’s a good thing.
Developer: Nihon Falcom
Country of Origin: Japan
Publisher: NIS America
Release Date: 15th January 2026 (Microsoft Windows, Playstation 5, Switch 1 and 2)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
The review is based on a copy of the game provided by the developers. The PS5 version of the game was played for the review.
Videogames.
Gym.
Sneakers.
Manga.
My dog.
In that order.
