Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, slated to release on Sept. 19, is a visual and mechanical update of a game that was released 21 years ago. Since Nihon Falcom is bringing it to most modern platforms, this is without question a great moment to start the Trail series. However, while access is not an issue anymore, exploring the long path that Trails in the Sky is part of requires a big commitment, the reward for which is an incomparable JRPG experience.
The Legend of Heroes games (a.k.a. the Trails series) is currently one of the most daunting series of JRPGs still being released nowadays. There are already 12 mainline games for you to play, with the 13th, Trails Beyond the Horizon, scheduled to have its English release in January 2026. Throughout all these titles, Nihon Falcom has been weaving a massive narrative that connects characters, places, and events.
While you can have fun by only playing Trails in the Sky, and you must not feel forced to go through the whole series, if you get hooked after playing it, you need to accept that you’re about to set off on a long journey. Based on data from How Long to Beat, completing the 12 Trails games would take around… 570 hours. And that’s only if focus on finishing the main story! I know from personal experience this number can easily get higher, reaching the mark of 800 to almost 1,000 hours if you want to complete side quests, making this a Herculean task for the regular player who usually spends around one hour per day with games.
It took me six years to play through all Trails games that are available in the west. I did so at my own pace, usually avoiding starting the next title right after finishing one of the games to prevent getting burned out by the series. The time it took to catch up with the series is no joke — I literally finished my Ph.D. and moved twice during this period — but playing each of the games was fundamental to making Trails one of the most important RPG series in my life.
The threads that connect the arcs feel natural, instead of being forcably imposed. Places and characters are subject to the passage of time, a concept worked by Nihon Falcom in other games. From Trails of Cold Steel 1 to 4, we see Rean Schwarzer go from a teenager starting his high-school life to turning into a central figure during the military conflict started by Erebonia. We see the characters stopping being students to become teachers, maturing old relationships while establishing new ones. Political negotiations between nations are mentioned in the newspapers you can buy and read in the game.
The world of Trails becomes more complex as one event leads to another. When designing these stories, Falcom has worked on them from this perspective, wishing we would follow each of these stories one by one. They focus on the complexity of the world and, to portray it, Trails decided to take a slower but detailed and substantial route. Only by engaging with all the games can one enjoy all this series has to offer.
The many hours that it takes to complete the series is the price we need to pay to have this experience. As people living in this day and age, where speeding up YouTube videos is common, it’s inevitable to feel compelled to look for the fastest route to be current with the series. Recently, I saw that the YouTuber DavidVinc RPGs shared on his X account a list of Trails games (now deleted) that, in his opinion, players could skip if they wanted to quickly catch up with the series. He wasn’t the first, since other initiatives have already been taken by other players who think there are skippable titles in the series. I disagree with how aggressively the community responds to these lists. However, instead of asking which titles in the series a new player could skip, I think we should ask why we want to rush with an experience that is meant to be taken one step at a time.
There are many ways to engage with the Trails games. You can watch a Let’s Play series of older games. There are probably well-written summaries filled with details and explanations on each title. Or you can play the games, which I would recommend. Regardless, you can have a delightful experience after Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. Just take your time and keep moving forward.
