izigame.me

Old school platforming action

This is a good game from Falcom and a good option if you want something different than the mainline Trails games or Ys to play in between. It's a nice change of pace while still keeping the usual Falcom vibes. Even if you're not into Falcom games, Nayuta is a good spin off game totally unrelated to the Trails series.
The story is short and can be beaten in about 16 to 18 hours without rushing anything and the concepts are relatively simple without much complexity. This game doesn't try even one bit to connect to mainline Trails games and doesn't even tease the player about it being related in some way, despite the main protagonist surname being Herschel (same as Towa), but that has happened in Tokyo Xanadu too. All relations and connections are completely up to the player and the community to build theories about the game's world and I will discuss some elements later on this review in spoiler tagged lines.
The concepts about climate change and changing the seasons to change the stages in the same location was very interesting and definitely added some replayability to the game.
I liked how the game was designed around a 2D and 3D camera hybrid platforming with hack n' slash gameplay that reminds a lot of these old platforming games from the PS2 and PSP era, which are kinda rare these days. It feels almost like a simpler version of Ys Seven combat mixed with a little bit of Trails aesthetics. Combat and progression are all very simple, but fun. I recommend playing this slowly as a side game.
The PC Port is also excellent, made by the legendary Durante. Since it's an old PSP game running on modern hardware, no one should have performance issues. I played this perfectly on my hardware without any issues, and I must say I was impressed by the remastered assets. Text looks very clear, the new 2D assets and artwork are high resolution and the 3D textures in HQ actually look really good, definitely way better than running from an emulator.
There aren't really any negatives I can think of but there are two things that bothered me during the playthrough. The first is the protagonist Nayuta himself which is very childish and doesn't have a strong and concrete reason behind him to do whatever he is doing and defying the enemies and the People of Mythos. It's basically surfing over protagonists power and the power of friendship thing lol
The second is how the story progresses. It has some development as you go, but it's basically do the same thing 4 times in different regions and then do the same thing 4 times again in another different region.
It would've been better if the story had more complexity and the progression had more varied things, but it's completely fine as a side game and limited by the old hardware it was originally made.
It's a good game and recommended as a side game, especially if you are a Falcom fan. The price is right for what it delivers.
Now, the real reason why one would play Nayuta is to try to find if there are any connections to the mainline Trails games, and there are definitely some stuff that we can make theories and here's some stuff I've been thinking (spoilers up to Kuro no Kiseki II):
The first thing a lot of people may notice is how similar Creha is to Grandmaster, even some details in the clothes and eye color. Considering that in Nayuta no Kiseki she is some kind of god who controls the world and has the power to reset or restore the world, it may have some connections to Grandmaster being Aidios or something, or with the Ouroboros Eternal Regression Plan, where they have given a few years until the world's end. Definitely similar concepts here about fixing or resetting the world humanity is destroying.
The other thing is about Noi and the other fairies. This topic about fairies have been touched very briefly in Trails of Cold Steel IV, when Campanella is involved. Some lines along he not aging at all and being related to fairies.
Third thing is that Nayuta is the only game where we actually get to see the world from the outside. Some concepts about the world being spherical even though half of it is destroyed. This concept about the world being flat and reaching the border would mean the end also appears in the mainline Trails. It's also the first time we see Terra, another world, another possibility of existence and livable world by humans. Gramheart definitely talks about some stuff related to this with Grandmaster, about searching other possibilities, other worlds and by the end of Kuro II, he announces some Calvard Space Agency to explore the outside, so they may be trying to find other worlds outside of their own planet, like Terra is in Nayuta no Kiseki.
Some names about both Creha and Shizuha having "rem" in the middle might indicate something. Not much is known about Shizuna as of Kuro II, but we know she is some kind of princess, and she is probably from the fallen Holy Empire of Iska, and if her hair color also shares some similarities to both Creha and Grandmaster, there should be some connections about her past and the nation of Iska which has been wiped out, probably due to humans abusing the powers and technology given by the gods. Maybe the Holy Iska Empire was just the first victim of the world'd ending by human greed and war. Definitely some similar concepts shared between Nayuta no Kiseki and mainline Trails, especially Kuro.
Maybe Nayuta no Kiseki is a story in the past, before the events of mainline Trails. Maybe it has connections, maybe it's completely unrelated. Only Kondo knows, but it would be a huge 4D Chess Big Brain explosion moment if all of these games are related in some way. There are a lot of similarities and theory crafting is one of the aspects that makes Falcom so great. But I'll leave it here for now!