Title (JP): Sora no Kiseki the 1st (空の軌跡 the 1st)
Genre: RPG
Platform: PS5, Switch, PC
Developer: Nihon Falcom
Publisher: Nihon Falcom
Release date: 19 September 2025
Official website: https://trailsfirstchapter.com/
Nihon Falcom’s long-running Trails/Kiseki series went up to its thirteenth mainline entry with Kai no Kiseki last year, and the prospect of getting into a series with over a dozen entries spanning over two decades (with the first game originally released in Japan in 2004) can be daunting for new fans, especially when, unlike Falcom’s other flagship series Ys which has little interconnectivity between titles, the Trails series has long-running, cumulative, intertwining plots spanning multiple games. It was thus probably only a matter of time before Falcom got round to remaking the older titles, and thus we have Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, a remake of the first game in the series – and an almost ideal one.
Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a complete remake of Trails in the Sky, introducing elements from newer games in the series to update the gameplay while faithfully recreating the characters, environments, and story. At its core, it retains the narrative, characters, and to a degree even the environments of the original 2004 release, but overhauls the game with technological advancements from subsequent series entries. The plot, following Estelle and Joshua as they go on a journey around the kingdom of Liberl and get drawn into a plot involving political machinations, remains completely unchanged, with the original pacing, character dynamics, and world-building preserved.
Where the game most clearly distinguishes itself from the original is in the gameplay. The combat fuses the realtime field action combat introduced in Trails through Daybreak with turn-based mechanics reminiscent of the later Cold Steel games, resulting in combat that is speedier and arguably more fun to play than the original release’s. And while these updates do reduce the difficulty of the game significantly and turn most encounters with regular enemies into jokes that pose no resistance, some bosses can still pose quite a challenge. How the game feels so much better cannot be overstated: The realtime combat having a focus on timed dodges and also allowing the player to cancel any action into a dodge is just exhilarating, and the choice to go with simpler Cold Steel mechanics for turn-based combat (no complex Shard stuff from Kai in here) makes more sense for the in-game setting while still remaining great fun to play.
Furthermore, the remake, like other recent Trails games, has refined the user experience to a degree that ought to set a benchmark for video games in general (but never will because of how far it goes). Instant animation skips, an emulator-style high-speed mode that can be activated at will in any context, clear markers for quest progression and events, NPC icons that change colour depending on whether they have unread dialogue, and near-universal fast travel (which is close to instantaneous on the PS5) minimize friction to an unbelievable degree: These refinements create a highly streamlined experience that can make subsequent RPGs feel comparatively laborious, and this is not hyperbole – this reviewer has already started playing another RPG to review, and the lack of a functional fast travel and need to run around on foot feels like plain torment coming off of Trails in the Sky the 1st.
When it comes to the Orbment system, the system is reverted all the way back to how it worked up to Trails to Azure (2011), where each quartz is assigned a numerical element value and the cumulative values of the different elements determine what arts (magic) the character can use; this was simplified in 2013’s Trails of Cold Steel where simply equipping a quartz allows the character to use a number of arts assigned to it, but this nostalgic system of having to figure out the right combination to optimize effects and magic still retains its fun, puzzle-like gameplay qualities.
The game otherwise does not add much in the way of new content: The story remains the same, down to the original dialogue being kept, which results in some possibly feeling odd (the references to some places in Erebonia, for example, make them sound like they’re very far north and thus have exceptionally cold weather which does not really align with what players see in later games). The cooking system is mostly negligible, but can be fun for completionists, and it is also easily abused for players who want to make the game easier (a cheap recipe that does not require enemy drops, unlocked by an early sidequest, restores CP).
Visually, the game looks just as great as Kai no Kiseki, and the reimagining of Liberl’s cities, countryside and dungeons are vibrant and consistent, with cutscenes and character animations imbued with clarity and personality. One minor issue, however, is that the game is a bit too faithful to its source material: Rolent is supposedly a city yet with the increased fidelity it is clearly barely a town, and the Grancel cathedral seems barely larger than the average church seen in Erebonia or Calvard. The original game did not let the player look around freely and used chibi sprites for characters, so scale did not matter that much, but the realistic scale can make some things feel odd at times. Another notable difference between this and other recent releases is how the interiors of buildings are separate environments (whereas most if not all the building interiors are part of the area maps in Kuro to Kai, with no transitions), but the instantaneous loading time (on PS5, at least) ensures that this is never an issue.
The music in the original game was fantastic to begin with, and the remake expands on this by not just including an entirely redone version but also the options to change the entire soundtrack back to the original, or to an arranged version – giving the game three completely different versions of the soundtrack, all of which are great.
One possible issue is with the voice acting – the game is not fully voiced, a perplexing omission given that the Evolution releases on the Vita did have full voice acting for the main story, and this is the single most significant drawback in the game’s presentation. And another issue that is completely irrelevant to new players (or people who use dubs) and only applies to older fans who are familiar with the Japanese voice acting is how almost every single character was recast, including iconic roles such as Midorikawa Hikaru as Lorence and Tanaka Hideyuki as Alba. This is clearly not some sort of budget issue: Industry legends Koyasu Takehito and Inada Tetsu do return as Olivier and Zinn, and Alba’s new voice actor Tobita Nobuo is also a legendary veteran with a decades-long career (best known for playing Kamille Bidan from Zeta Gundam), and besides, would it not have been cheaper to just have reused the recordings for the Evolution releases rather than completely re-record the entire script? The decisions regarding the voice acting are nothing short of perplexing and messy for both new players and old – new players lose out on full voice acting and if they continue on to later games in the series will see characters have their voices change, and old fans are bothered by missing out on having a full remake with the familiar voices.
Another possible issue, which had actually been raised by series fans ever since the game was announced, is that the remake is perhaps a bit too faithful to the original in some ways. While this ensures newcomers get a similar experience to the original, the game’s runtime is far shorter than modern Trails entries, at roughly 50 hours for a completionist playthrough, compared to 90-120 for recent entries. This could have been a deliberate choice to emphasize the impact of the cliffhanger ending, but the impact of the cliffhanger is questionable at best for a remake, and given how the sequel largely reuses the same maps and cast, it is fully reasonable to question if it would have been better to combine the two games into a single entry, as many fans have been saying ever since the game’s reveal.
That being said, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is, for better or for worse, a close to ideal remake of the original, and in many ways exemplifies what a modern JRPG remake can achieve: it preserves the narrative of the original, dramatically enhances combat and playability, and presents the world in a visually compelling, fully reimagined form. While the voice acting issues present minor but notable drawbacks, and the game’s length may feel short relative to contemporary series entries, these issues do little to undermine its overall accomplishment. For new players, it is the definitive starting point for the Trails series, and for returning fans, it offers the perfect way to revisit the first game in the series.
The Good: A faithful recreation of the original game with outstanding improvements to gameplay and quality of life.
The Bad: Partial voice acting can feel odd, and voice actor recasts may alienate old fans; faithfulness limits runtime (half the size of a more recent Trails game) and novelty (no surprises for old fans). New players might find it jarring to jump from this to older titles.
Conclusion: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is an outstanding remake of what was – and still is – a fantastic JRPG, and is great for both new players and old fans.
Score: 90/100
This review was written based on the Japanese release of the game, and may not reflect changes made to versions released in other regions.
Also see (but not if you’re new to the series):
Review: Kai no Kiseki – A turning point for the Trails series
