Trails Beyond the Horizon is the 13th game in the Trails series of JRPGs, a series of interconnected games on the fantasy continent of Zemuria (it's also the third in the "Calvard Arc" of this series). As my few readers may know, I'm a huge fan of this series, whose first game just got remade last fall (see my review HERE), but whereas that remake was very approachable for new players, Trails Beyond the Horizon is obviously not - just like the 13th book in a long running fantasy series is not going to be approachable for newcomers, the same is true here. Instead, the series truly embraces its long-standing epic nature here by combining the continuing main Calvard arc plot of protagonist Van Arkride (Spriggan/Mercenary for hire) with two new subplots led by former Trails protagonists Rean Schwarzer (from Trails of Cold Steel) and Kevin Graham (from Trails in the Sky the 3rd).
The result is....both uneven and often exhilarating. The gameplay of Trails Beyond the Horizon takes the gameplay from the Daybreak games and enhances it further with new mechanics that are real general pluses (only one of which is super broken, which is a plus for Falcom), so the game is pretty much always a blast to play. I really enjoyed the character-work done with the old returning characters (even Rean, who I pretty much hated in the Cold Steel games) and the game's side quests and minor characters' character arcs remain excellent. And of course the way the story winds up, ending in a cliffhanger ending of epic proportions, is tremendous and has me desperate to see how the story continues/concludes. On the other hand, the game's new three route structure, where you switch between Van, Rean, and Kevin's plotlines on occasion, as well as other issues with how the plot proceeds, result in the game's pacing being immensely frustrating, and the story not always really feeling like it clicks together. I'll try to be more specific after the jump, but the result is an excellent game that just feels like it could have been streamlined far more effectively and wasn't in favor of trying to expand far more than Falcom probably should.
Note: I play JRPGs in many ways as a power gamer, trying to tune my characters' abilities and setups to be maximally powerful even though that may take me longer, although I don't try to grind deliberately to overlevel or anything. That said, I also love the flavor and story of these games, which further impacts my play (For example, I refuse to part Renne from Pater-Mater, despite it not being her best holo core). The result is that I played these games on Nightmare with certain self-imposed restrictions on myself, which affects some of how I perceived parts of the gameplay.