The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Beyond The Horizon Review – Building The Lore

It has been almost a year since The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II was released globally. I was disappointed in how the narrative took a back seat in the previous game. Finally, the next game in the Calvard Republic arc is here: The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon.

Game Name: The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond The Horizon
Platform(s): PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC
Developer(s): Nihon Falcom
Publisher(s): NIS America
Release Date: January 15th, 2026
Price: $59.99

DISCLAIMER: READ THE INTRODUCTION GUIDE BEFORE YOU CONTINUE WITH THIS REVIEW. THERE IS A LOT OF BUILD UP FROM PRIOR GAMES TO THIS ENTRY IN THE SERIES.

The events of the Crimson Grendel are past, and the Calvard Republic’s President, President Gramheart, has announced a new project to the world: Project Startaker. Project Startaker is set to launch a rocket to space, and its end goal is to eventually launch a person into outer space for the first time in Zemurian history. Amidst this commotion, Van Arkride and three of his part-time assistants get called over to Marduk to help them test some new shard technology.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon isn’t just about Arkride solutions this time around. Rean Schwarzer, Altina Orion, and Kevin Graham from previous games in the series are also invited to try out this new shard technology. The narrative and story of Trails Beyond the Horizon are told from the perspectives of Van Arkride, Rean Schwarzer, and Kevin Graham, as they each have objectives they need to fulfill as Project Startaker comes ever closer to fruition.

Three Days Till Launch

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon mainly takes place in the final three days before Project Startaker is able to proceed. You can select to follow the path of Van Arkride as he learns about a new cult that has appeared in Edith, searching for a new dawn. You can also select to follow the path of Rean Schwarzer as he convenes with some of his Class VII classmates while they help prep the military with their last touch-ups before the final rocket launch. The last path you can follow is Kevin Graham, as he hires Rufus and his company to help him track down a new enemy of the church.

In terms of the plot, everything in Trails Beyond the Horizon feels slow. I imagine the reason for this lies in how much lore and characters are contained in this title. Usually, in Trails games, the first game in an arc is a build-up, and the second game is the execution. This game is the execution title. However, it serves as the execution of Trails Through Daybreak II, Trails In The Sky 3rd, and Trails Into Reverie. When it comes to entry point games, this game is absolutely not an entry point game.

The strength of the narrative and the plot significantly improves upon Trails Through Daybreak II’s. One thing that was solid in Trails Through Daybreak II was the connection events. These are events where one of the main protagonists (Rean, Van, or Kevin) interacts with a member of their party and earns points to bond with the character.  Trails Beyond the Horizon builds upon that structure, and it leads to connection events that are incredibly solid.

New Shard Technology With Xiphas

Combat in The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon is where a lot of energy has gone into improving the core of the Daybreak games. Trails Through Daybreak first introduced action combat on the field, where you can also change to turn-based combat for more difficult enemies. Trails Through Daybreak II enhanced on this core and made it a little faster paced by including cross attacks and quick arts while in field combat. Trails Beyond The Horizon adds a lot to the field combat. Primarily ZOC. ZOC is a mode you can activate when the gauge fills up that will slow all enemies to a crawl, and you can dish out as much damage as you want in a small period of time. It also heavily increases the damage of attacks and arts. You can also activate an awakening with certain characters if they have a form they can change into. Van can change into the Grendel, Rean can use his spirit unification form, and dominions can activate their stigmas as a form change.

Field combat isn’t the only thing that has changed in Trails Beyond The Horizon. Turn-based combat has also changed. The best change is the boost gauge. Before, you had to use two bars of the boost gauge to activate S Crafts, but that has now changed. Only 1 bar is required to use S Crafts. You can still use two bars of boost, but it activates ZOC now. ZOC in turn-based combat is a game-changer. You can use it to significantly boost your damage, and it also adds a second turn immediately after you do an action. It can only be activated on your turn, however. You can’t do quick S-craft and spam ZOC to give you an extra turn. I sometimes would use ZOC to get an immediate art in use for healing or shielding. Other times I would use it so I could do a strong action and then one for impeding the enemy so their art won’t launch on their next turn. ZOC adds another layer of strategy to a combat style already layered with a lot of strategic complexity.

A welcome return from previous Trails installments is Brave Orders. Even characters that aren’t combat-savvy can give you support with Brave Orders. These Brave Orders are also a resource that will use up bars of your boost gauge. Better Brave Orders will use up more bars. You start with some basic orders that will take up one single bar for a few turns and increase either your attack, defence or arts damage. Later on, you will get better Brave Orders that will take up more bars of your boost gauge, but they will increase your attack by a greater margin, give you damage reduction, and even restore some of your CP gauge.

Overall, combat feels a lot smoother and fluid than previous entries in the Calvard arc. I loved going into the Grim Garten and testing out the movesets of different characters in total combat settings.

Grim Garten

Trails Through Daybreak II introduced the Märchen Garten, an evolution of the Reverie Corridor. Trails Beyond the Horizon evolves that concept further with the Grim Garten. Someone has taken over the Garten from Marduk, and now it is up to the three main protagonists to help figure out who it is and give control back to Marduk. Grim Garten has been modified to dilute the time spent by those who enter the virtual space. Basically, even if you spend hours in the Grim Garten, only a few minutes go by in the real world.

In the first half of the game, you can only play as the parties with their respective party members. Once you get past the first half, you can then proceed to play as any character in the three parties. You start on a gameboard, and you go through tiles. These tiles can have gates that lead to fields where you need to accomplish objectives to open the gate. Tiles can also include treasure chests, stat buff spaces, mystery spaces, or even pom spaces. Pom spaces let you initiate combat with a group of poms that can increase your sepith reserves as well as a large chunk of experience points.

This is where some of the performance discussion comes in. In most of the game, Trails Beyond the Horizon keeps a steady 60 fps. However, in the Grim Garten and in some larger areas, the frames can dip. It doesn’t generally happen, but when it does, you can notice it as combat isn’t as fluid-feeling.

What Lies Beyond The Horizon

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon combines the best elements of the two Calvard games. The combat is a huge improvement upon the first two games, and the narrative is a major leap above the second game. If you are someone who felt disappointment with Trails Through Daybreak II, this one will be a welcome return to form.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon launches on January 15, 2026, and will be available on Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG.

Review Disclosure Statement: The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon was provided to us by NIS America for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.

Affiliate Link Disclosure: One or more of the links above contain affiliate links, which means at no additional cost to you, we may receive a commission should you click through and purchase the item.