Boundless

Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is a fun ARPG game, that according to Nihon Falcom, has nothing to do with the overarching Trails series.

Although it has Trails in the game, Nayuta is presumably unconnected and the gameplay is totally different as well. With graphics similar to the Crossbell Trails games, Nayuta plays out like a level based ARPG, where you get through a level and collect crystals, chests, and goals while doing it. As you go through the game and levels, you get more abilities, spells, upgrades, and more. Most of the time, the progression is to do 3 levels, 1 larger level, and then 1 boss fight. I thought that was a perfect middle ground for just enough content without it becoming a grind. The bosses are also pretty fun, though in normal mode they are not super challenging with food. I was able to beat pretty much every boss first try, but they were pretty fun regardless.

Story wise, Nayuta doesn't really shine all that much, and it felt like a pretty generic plotline that was somewhat cheesy quite often. Maybe my expectations for a Falcom story are just too high coming from the mainline Trails series... There is a divide between where the gameplay takes place and the base village you are in and the world. In typical Nihon Falcom style, you can talk to NPCs and each villager has changing dialogue as you go through the game as well. Some villagers also give out quests in between stages as well. This honestly made me enjoy the game more by making the world seem more vibrant.

Overall, this isn't a mainline Trails game, but it is a pretty fun ARPG nonetheless. I would definitely give it a play if the game is on sale and you just want some fun.

This was a surprisingly very good game. I have played like 90% of the trails franchise and wanted to dive into this game because there may be some lore connections to the rest of the franchise (and at this point there likely will be just waiting on falcom to pull the trigger on that).
But this game was a very fun action platformer, but it really got me when I got more movement options and abilities over time from playing the game. They kinda drip feed the abilities but I suggest sticking with it till you can start "moving" around a lot more and play around with some physics. Good game, its different from normal trails but I didn't mind that cause im not a "turned based or die" guy. Give it a chance take it in, have some fun.

The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is the weakest Falcom game I've ever played. It's mostly fine, but it lacks almost everything I love about other Falcom titles. Let's explore the ups and downs of the game (+, +/-, -, ?):
+ The world is pretty interesting as it is not the same (timeline or anything?) as Zemuria in Trails titles. The world has a nice vibe to it and it looks mostly fine. Could it have anything to do with Ys...?
+ Falcom shines in character design and character quality, so it's not surprising that these characters are great. It's always a pleasure to spend time with everyone.*
+ The hack and slash gameplay is mostly fun and acquiring new skills, art and everything is super fun.
+ This is one of a rare games where one-handed and two-handed weapons feel great! Hell yes!
+/- The game looks mostly fine, but it's very blocky and shiny. The characters just standing there with their mouth open doesn't make it any better.
+/- The story starts off very good, and is mostly fine, but I found myself logging out very quickly. In the end, I really didn't care about anything here.
+/- The OST is surprisingly not a very good one. Falcom OSTs are always legendary, but I struggle to find anything diamond tier here. That being said, it's not actively bad or anything.
+/- This games a breeze. There's almost no challenge on normal, but I didn't really mind it.
+/- This is the shortest Falcom title I've played, but it felt very, very long.
- The stages feel very meaningless AND their perfect completion requirements are, at times, infuriating. There are many stages you need to play multiple times, or go back to, or repeat because an enemy attacked you off-screen and made you fall down, or... Personally, the forced speedruns are the worst...
-... or then it's the blocking. The blocking seems not to work all the time. Especially after jumping. It's infuriating to see Nayuta just standing there taking damage...
-...but that doesn't matter. Due to the easy difficulty level, and your healing items, you can just brute force your ass into victory.
- The game gets extremely repetitive in no time. I had to take long breaks between my sessions.
- *Nayuta is a terribly boring protagonist. He's up there with Vaan in "the most boring protagonists" tier.
- Could Noi please shut up for a second. Her supposed cheering has the opposite effect on me.
- The story has many almost meaningless elements to it. If anything happens, it's dealt with almost instantly or it's relevant for just a moment. Also, "I am now on the side of evil. Oh, you beat me. Guess I am good now".
? The final weapon looks a lot like Testa-Rossa hmm....
? The depth perception feels very poor at times, but this might just be me.
The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is an almost forgotten Falcom title, but for a good reason. While it provides some good mindless action, there's almost nothing here that makes you want to stick with it, or its main characters. This was likely a failed experiment, but it's wasn't a total bomb. There are promising elements here, and I'd like to see this world/timeline expanded. 6/10.

Yeah falcom keep proving it time and time again, they are masters at crafting excellent Action RPGs. All the stages that I've played were excellent. And yeah I meant all of them. Even the teleporter stage. The story was pretty good, doesn't reach the same highs as the main series but it managed to stay consistently engaging while feeling like the "trails formula" of story-telling was nicely condensed into this game. I'm looking forward to coming back to do afterstory and eventually its NG+

I nice smaller Falcom game, fantastic music, gameplay, story and characters.
Game is just fun and plays great on steam deck, locked 60fps / 4k docked to a TV.
Love the opening song Hoshi no monogatari <3

Fun game. Basically Zwei 3. If you liked the Zwei games, this is a worthwhile sequel. Not quite as good as the second game, but better than the first.
The combat is interesting, the music is fantastic, the visuals are fine for what they are, the story is a bit on the generic side but it's not a major part of the game anyway.
All in all, It's good. It's not as good as the best games from Falcom, but it's solid, and it was an enjoyable 24 hours.

Deserving of a meh rating imo. I love Falcom games but this was showing its age around the edges its not a bad game just not exactly the most up to date and the plot was pretty cliche. didn't hate it but def a game to buy on sale