izigame.me

(Actual final playtime is 93 hours. I savescummed fishing a lot to save on items.)
Before I say anything, I think it needs to be said. This is NOT a filler game. This is more a setup game than anything else. At the time of writing this, all I know about Horizon is either my speculations and theories or what has been in official trailers as of April 9th.
Anyway, Daybreak 2, probably the game with the biggest out of nowhere hatred since Cold Steel IV, and even then, the argument of Cold Steel IV's Act 2 being bloated is fairly accurate. This game, however, received almost instant hatred the moment it was announced from the people who played the Japanese version, and honestly...this game is not as bad as those people make it out as. They talk about Daybreak 2 like someone in the Sonic fandom would talk about Sonic Labyrinth or '06, like the worst thing ever, an affront to the series that should've never been made. Am I exaggerating a bit? Maybe, but that's at least how it felt to me.
Now, in the defense of those people, are there some plot points that are a bit...lacking? Yes. The Heiyue plot was honestly not very interesting and the Gardenmaster is somehow even more cartoony a villain than the Lord of Phantasma. It also doesn't help that the previous antagonist before him, Harwood, stole the show so well. It was a hard act to follow, and the Gardenmaster honestly fumbled the ball harder than a certain top racer did with Paulette.
There are two elephants in the room when talk of this game comes up. Act 3 and the time rewinds. Is Act 3 a little too long for it's content? Yes, especially since the Gardenmaster himself is just being a shadow figure most of the time and not being very proactive like the last game's antagonist was. I don't think it's as much of a dumpster fire as people love to prociaim, though. I'll be circling back to this as I go to the next elephant, the time rewinds.
A few of them were honestly pretty comical (the ones in 3-B and one of the 3-D ones were pretty funny, in my opinion, and I predicted a couple, so that got a good laugh out of me). I do like, though, how we witness scenarios where our main cast doesn't get bailed out of a surprise last minute rescue or a "that won't be necessary" moment. However, in the same vein, I do wish more of the Dead Ends were like in the Fragments chapter, where you can find a way to avoid them. I get it, though. It'd be difficult to do such a thing in a linear story, so I can sort of give them a pass.
Apparently, however, one big thing I hear is this game was rushed. Ys X was apparently supposed to release first, but that didn't happen, so I guess they had to shove this game out the door first. It may explain the number of little things. There are fewer connect events in general, only 9 movies, it feels like you don't spend much time in Messeldam or Langport since a majority of the story takes place in Edith, likely to save on making new assets. That may be wrong since new districts of Edith are added in this game that we didn't visit in Daybreak 1, but I'm not a game developer.
After the 1 game drought, fishing is back, and it brought friends. A hacking minigame to unlock certain chests, which wasn't too awful. The other three friends fishing brought along, however, aren't very great. First is the sections where you need to tail someone. It's...not very good. At all. While I'd love to breathe a sigh of relief that it's only mandatory as part of the story a couple of times and basically nearly drops off the face of Zemuria in lategame, if you're going for all sidequests, have fun seeing this several more times.
Next is probably the single worst card game yet, Seventh Hearts. Somehow even more RNG Hell than Blade from Cold Steel 1 and 2 and without the deckbuilding fun of Vantage Masters. Mercifully, however, it is never required to be played for any extra SP. A new feature that is also not great but IS required for SP is the Märchen Garten, the True Reverie Corridor's abysmal cousin removed from the family and somehow adopted by Marduk...then hacked and taken over by the Gardenmaster, which may explain why it sucks so much. It's a place you can go to essentially farm sepith and get Shard Tokens to open cubes to get items, cosmetics (the only good part of the Garten), quartz, and even Holo Cores. The problem is floor objective rewards quickly stop being decent, and at most you can only get up to the second level of your standard quartz (and the distribution is still tied to the respective act so you can't get Cast 2 in Act 1, but you'll never get Cast 3, ever.)
Oh right, basketball...it exists. It's very basic, but not as offensive as Seventh Hearts. Also not required for any SP.
Anyway, on the combat front, a lot is still the same. Field Combat got the new Quick Arts and Cross Charge, which is pretty nice and spices up Field Combat a bit, but Command Battle is still the bread and butter, especially with the addition of Dual Arts. Nowhere near as broken (mostly) as the older game's Lost Arts, but one in particular is very fair and balanced because of one thing. Bosses in this game love self buffs, usually ones that also heal them. For a while, your tools to counter this are limited as they nerfed Judith's Twilight Kiss by removing it's extra effect to remove buffs and Shizuna's not always around for her Duality. The art Cetus Phantasma is so unbelievably broken strong with the right setup that it melts enemies. Bosses, too. I blew up the penultimate boss of Act 3 with whale spam before either of them could use an S-Craft.
On that subject, I will give credit to the Garten for being a place to farm sepith, allowing you to open slots and take full advantage of the shard skill system. Getting some of the more useful skills are faster and easier in this game than last outing.
To circle back to my opinion on Act 3, a thought had come to me as I watched the last cutscenes of the game. This is a game more about the characters than advancing the main narrative. Characters who felt pretty sidelined in Daybreak 1 got more time to shine and advance their arcs in this game. I even came to like Aaron a bit more. Just a bit. From the moments between the characters. the connect events like Feri's on Nemeth Island or Risette having a chance to experience a normal school experience or Agnès talking about her family at Trion Tower, and even Kincaid having a jam session with Van in the concert hall. I even liked how some of the NPCs arcs advanced, like Rebecca starting to go out more or Curtis finally getting into Aramis or the girl who runs around Riverside finally asking that guy out. I even like how Kisara, a character from a sidequest introduced in this game, got her own arc started and in turn led to developing Rebecca's arc.
Say what you will about Act 3. This is a series full to the brim with tropes. If the events of Act 3 are enough to push you away, then that's a real shame, because the light beyond it is very nice. Sure, the end does add more questions, but that would dive into speculation territory, which this review isn't the space for.
Rushed or not, I liked this game. Sure, it won't reach my top 3, but I still enjoyed it for what it is. I don't think every single game has to be advancing the main narrative all the time. Sky the 3rd sure didn't, that game was more abut Kevin and being a Sky epilogue with the main story advancement being hidden behind a Star Door that required seeing all the other doors. Reverie was also more of a epilogue game with it's story advancement being at the very end of the game.
When fall comes, I'm looking forward to returning to Liberl for the first time since I began my Trails journey in 2020 and seeing what lies Beyond the Horizon.