Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

A great way for new players to get into the Trails series. Stays true to the original but updated to play like a modern game. Runs great on my Steamdeck and Bazzite PC running an old gtx 1060 graphics card.

Overall, a great experience with minor gripes here or there. Some of the issues are more genre-related and will matter more or less depending on each person. If slow-burn JRPGs are your thing, you will probably enjoy it because the game stays very true to the classic JRPG formula. If you do not like the genre, the game probably will not change your mind. Enjoyment-wise though, it is a strong 9/10 for me. The plot is good although a bit predictable and tropey at times. The best parts of the story are the characters and worldbuilding. NPC dialogue changes depending on the events happening in the story and the game makes an active effort to involve different characters you meet during the journey in the overall plot. There is also a lot of nice little attention-to-detail stuff that caught me by surprise a couple of times. The characters are all lovable, with their own unique personalities and quirks. Some small reservations: the story can be a bit slow to kick into gear, though that is hardly uncommon for the genre lol. Combat is easy but still quite fun and flashy. However, it is let down by basic and repetitive enemy variety and dungeon designs. Most side quests are honestly just fetch quests (which makes sense in the context of the story, but still kinda meh). The animations are well done, but they are pretty slow and kind of disrupt the flow of reading. Spoiler: [spoiler]A modern JRPG with a canon romance and a protag with an actual personality. I've been praying for times like these xD[/spoiler]

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, even though it’s not a game from this year, it has become one of my favorites of 2026 and has earned a spot in my all time top 10 games. I haven’t played the original, but I enjoyed this remake so much that I’ll definitely play the original in the near future. It features beautiful graphics, a great story, and overall feels like an almost perfect game. I can’t wait for Chapter 2. <3