• Price: $39.99 USD (digital); $49.99 (physical)
• Developer: Falcom
• Publisher: NIS America
• Release Date: March 14, 2023 (NA); March 17 (EU), March 24 (Australia/NZ)

A review code was kindly provided by NIS America on behalf of Falcom. We thank them for being able to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

⚠️Warning: Spoilers for Trails from Zero ahead, minimal for Trails to Azure. Playing other Trails series isn’t required, but *highly* recommended to have a full appreciation of character appearances. Trails from Zero comes before this game in the Crossbell duology. ⚠️

Trails from Zero: A Brief Recap

It’s been a few months since the release of Trails from Zero, so here is a brief summary of events to jog your memory. Feel free to skip ahead to the next section if you don’t think you need a recap.

• Lloyd Bannings returns to a much-changed Crossbell after 3 years to join the newly formed Special Support Section of the Crossbell Police Department. Members include Chief Sergei, Lloyd, Randy, Elie, & Tio.
• Major missions in TfZ included:
  • Preventing Revache from breaking up local gangs to get more members to fight Heiyue, a new organized crime group in Crossbell
  • Revache attacking different civilian targets to test their war hounds’ capabilities for battle against Heiyue
  • A threat letter was sent to performer Ilya – the actual target was the mayor.
  • Schwarze Auction infiltration: rescued a young girl named KeA
  • Discovery that the cult that experimented on Tio, Renne, and many others is still around somehow. Their drugs, which greatly strengthen the user to an inhuman degree, are being distributed again. Known users went missing.
  • Dr. Guenter was a high priest of the cult all along, hiding and biding his time to perfect the Gnosis drug. He uses it to control people, but the SSS foils his plans with the help of the Bracer Guild (including Joshua & Estelle) and others.

Trails to Azure: Crossbell’s Current Affairs

While the SSS defeated Dr. Joachim Guenter, questions remain about the D∴G cult’s origins and purpose. The SSS, Bracer’s Guild, and Crossbell Guardian Force continue to investigate and recover from the events at the end of Trails from Zero. Organized crime group Revache was finally brought to justice for their participation in the cult’s plans, and the politicians in their pocket also found themselves in hot water. With their removal, the newly elected mayor and other politicians are slowly attempting to pass reforms and bills that would not have seen the light of day before due to the deeply rooted corruption in the government.

However, Revache did act as a stabilizing force in the organized crime world; with them gone, there’s now a power vacuum, and remaining groups are vying for that top spot. The SSS members temporarily split up in order to train and improve relations with important members of society. Familiar faces Wazy and Noel have joined the SSS to help pick up the slack. Once they all begin to come together again, we meet a dangerous group with connections to an SSS member’s past – and these people have moved into Revache’s former compound…

There are now many players – both foreign and domestic – interfering with affairs in Crossbell. Some of these individuals or groups are more apparent, but others are hiding in plain sight. The Republic of Calvard and the Erebonian Empire have historically meddled in Crossbell, and the various organized crime groups and political factions within the city-state itself wish to remain in power as well. With way too many cooks in the kitchen, the political pressure cooker that is Crossbell is primed and ready to explode.

Features

The main menu for Trails to Azure offers a Backstory section that contains a summary of the previous game, key terms, and character profiles to help you remember anything you may have forgotten. You can load your clear data from Trails from Zero “to reflect player actions” from that game in Trails to Azure. Like TfZ, Trails to Azure also has achievements for you to earn; use the points you obtain from achievements for perks like carrying over your stats or items to subsequent playthroughs. You can choose to play in Easy, Normal, Hard, or Nightmare mode, and they included high speed mode again to make things go a lot faster in battle and in the field.

Gameplay

As usual, our heroes will receive minor support requests from Crossbell’s populace, with tasks ranging from monster extermination to finding lost cats to helping the newspaper write an article on Crossbell’s best dishes. Speaking to every single resident of Crossbell may not be required, but it will definitely give you additional context to current events and potentially provide you with hidden quests or items. At some point in each chapter, you’ll trigger an event that starts a major case. And that’s where the real travel and combat comes in.

In TfZ, transportation options were limited to some good old-fashioned walking or taking the bus to decrease the travel time to more distant destinations. Now, a benefactor has generously provided the SSS with…a brand new car!!! No longer do our heroes have to trudge their way to the bus stops across Crossbell – now they can travel in style! Not only that, but this vehicle can be customized with different paint jobs and functions.

Of course, at least initially you’ll want to make the long treks to each location on foot, or you’ll miss out on the opportunity to level up and open treasure chests containing items and amazing puns on each path. (This time there are even rocks and boxes to destroy in the field that get you free ingredients.) But after the first couple of times across each route, you may want to go ahead and break in your convenient new car.

As usual, battles are turn-based but with enemy proximity on a grid to consider. You’ll still get to have some fun changing the quartz setups using the Enigma’s orbment technology, but there’s another new twist that’s different from TfZ. Your team is given new Enigma models (they’re sure spoiling the SSS!), which add Master Quartz to the mix.

Master Quartz provide different benefits depending on which one you equip; one increases a character’s defenses for the first few turns in battle, while another gives you a chance of inflicting status ailments on enemies. Getting a Master Quartz to level 5 allows that character to use an extremely useful and special art. In addition, a function called the Burst Gauge is included in Trails to Azure, which reduces the wait time for casting arts to zero when activated.

From Downtime to Feeling Down & Back Again

I always enjoy battles in the Trails games, but sometimes our worn out heroes need a break. (Otherwise they may go…YIN-sane. 😉) There are so many optional activities here that really reward you for your participation. Take out the monsters in your way to access the best fishing spots in Crossbell – perhaps you’d like to become the “Fishing Emperor Slayer” in between taking down cults and organized crime?

Or maybe you’d prefer to become Crossbell’s next master chef. (Thankfully, while there may be time limits on finding recipes again, they at least made them much more obvious in the form of brightly colored books on the screen somewhere.) You can spend a little time reading past issues of the newspaper from TfZ at the Crossbell News Service, or reread books at the library. If you’d rather do something more active, try to win useful prizes at the casino, play the new Pom Party game with friends and acquaintances, and/or track down decorations for SSS members’ rooms. If you don’t at least find all of KeA’s items, you’ll really miss out on an adorably hilarious scene.

And once you arrive at the Intermission chapter, the fun really begins. In TfZ we got a brief glimpse of Mishelam Wonderland, a theme park with Mishy as its mascot, but we were unable to appreciate it as we were there for an investigation. I was admittedly a bit disappointed about this, and had hoped to check it out during the TfZ Intermission. This time the SSS actually gets a chance to have fun on vacation during the intermission! (With some surprising yet welcome guests!) It wouldn’t be a beach scene without just a little fan service, but they balanced it out with some heartwarming scenes with Miss KeA as well. 🥰 I also had a wonderful time with the SSS members and special guests that I chose to spend time with at the theme park.

Unfortunately, the good times can’t last forever, and the SSS has to get back to work. The political atmosphere becomes more and more tense after the West Zemuria Trade Conference, and Lloyd and his coworkers/found family must remain on high alert. Players who have also experienced the Trails in the Sky series will naturally be very excited to see characters like Estelle and Joshua appear again due to their involvement in recent events in Crossbell. That happiness won’t last though, and it will be difficult to find “the whereabouts of light” in Crossbell for the foreseeable future.

Due to my experiences with prior Trails series, I’m used to facing conspiracies and betrayal. This means that when I play a new series, I’ll be looking for it everywhere and often end up somewhat surprised by the mastermind. I’m just so used to being suspicious of everyone in these games that even when I was initially correct here I dismissed it. Friendly face(s) may turn on you when you least expect it, and the coming storm is so strong that unlikely allies find themselves temporarily banding together with the SSS to face it.

From about the middle of the game to the end, in my opinion the bosses in this game are no joke compared to the ones in TfZ. A few of them do not have to be defeated to advance the plot, but if you want to try it’ll be an uphill battle – especially the timed one. But with the aid of some temporary party members – who I wish we had more time with for battles – you could emerge victorious there. Eventually, the SSS does manage to bring some form of closure to everything, including KeA’s origins.

I wouldn’t consider myself a real completionist, but I do my best to experience as close to 100% of a game as I can and acquire most of the items. TfZ took me about 50 hours to beat, while Trails to Azure occupied me for over 70. This did start to drag on a little towards the end for me, and I had slightly mixed feelings about the overall ending, but I still had a great time and enjoyed my time in turbulent Crossbell.

One of the great things about the Trails series is the way that they manage to elicit emotional responses in players like myself with such strong relationships between the main cast as well as soundtracks that complement the tone of each and every scene. I don’t know about anyone else, but I definitely got chills watching some of the events unfold. The SSS really evolved from so-called “bargain-bin bracers” – from Zero to hero – over the course of the Crossbell duology. I’m so excited to see more from Lloyd when Trails into Reverie comes out in July.

9/10