During this week’s Nintendo Direct double-header, Nihon Falcom revealed The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 1st, a remake of a 2004 RPG. Compared to other announcements made during the event, like the Castlevania Dominus Collection‘s release and the upcoming Yakuza: Kiwami , the Trails in the Sky the 1st reveal made few waves unless you knew where to look. But for JRPG fans, it was a big deal. The original The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky is the first entry in what has come to be known as the Trails series, a subset of Nihon Falcom’s larger The Legend of Heroes franchise, and for fans in the know, the remake’s announcement was a welcome surprise.
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That Western viewers only got a brief glimpse at Trails in the Sky the 1st while the Japanese stream featured a teaser trailer clocking in at nearly a full minute (seen below) speaks to the cult status of the Trails series in North America. It’s worth paying attention though as the Trails series has become something like the JRPG equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Trails in the Sky the 1st will be a Gateway to the Trails Series
As of 2024, the Trails series is 20 years old and, by year’s end, will have 13 mainline games, divided into several sub-series set in different regions of the same world. North American players may be most familiar with the four-part Trails of Cold Steel series, which helped the series gain its current following. However, while each subseries has a beginning, middle, and end, much like the MCU, each subseries also contributes to a larger whole, progressing the overarching story that has now spanned two decades, with characters from past games often showing up and playing meaningful roles (more than just cameos) in more recent entries. Trails has been called the most ambitious story in gaming and with good reason, growing from a fairly straightforward JRPG premise to something much bigger through its interconnected narrative.
Until recently, the biggest hurdle to getting into the Trails series — beyond the time commitment that comes with playing 13 JRPG-length games — was finding a way to play the two games in the “Crossbell arc,” Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. Originally released in 2010 and 2011, the games were initially skipped over for translation and release in English-speaking countries. However, 10 years later, after receiving an English fan translation, the games finally got officially distributed in English-speaking territories in 2022, making the entire Trails series playable in English for the first time.
The biggest stumbling block with starting the Trails series now is its first entry, Trails in the Sky. Trails in the Sky is the first installment of the initial three-part subseries of the larger Trails saga. Trails in the Sky and its sequel, Trails in the Sky SC, are two parts of one long story. The third game, Trails in the Sky the Third, is more of a standalone entry that closes out the trilogy. However, all three show their age. The lack of voice acting, the isometric view, and the lack of many presentation and quality-of-life features that modern players take for granted, combined with a deceptively simple storyline in the first game that only reveals the scale the series is setting up towards the end, severely dates the initial trilogy, turning many players off, and can be a shock to those coming from a more modern entry like Trails of Cold Steel.
Luckily, Trails in the Sky the 1st (and its presumptive sequel remakes) can fix that. While Trails in the Sky has received ports and enhanced remasters in the past, Trails in the Sky the 1st looks like a complete, top-down remake that’ll bring the game more in line with the series’ modern standards, including adding voice acting and fully 3-D graphics. For anyone who has balked at the idea of jumping into the Trails series before, Trails in the Sky the 1st in 2025 looks like the perfect time to jump on the bandwagon.
