Boundless

If there’s one word to define the Legend of Nayuta, it’s “repetition”. You have to repeat levels to get all three stars, repeat the levels AGAIN to find sidequest-related interaction spots that were unavailable back when you first went through it, then repeat the entire game all over again to get the last few bits of story and gameplay that have been arbitrarily locked away behind New Game Plus.

Early on the Lord of the Rings, Bilbo Baggins tells Gandalf that he felt “thin, stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread”, and that’s exactly how the Legend of Nayuta felt to me. As if someone at Falcom suddenly decided the game needed to be twice as long but didn’t have the time or budget to actually fill it out, and it works to the game’s detriment, turning what could’ve been a pretty good 20-hour game into a tiresome 50-hour grind.

It’s not an easy recommendation even on sale but, if you are already a Nihon Falcom fan and want to see what kind of insanity they could get up to when freed from the Ys and Trails mines, by all means, go ahead and I don’t think you’ll regret it.

If you aren’t, well, maybe go buy Ys Origin instead, as it is fairly similar in terms of gameplay, but much cheaper and better in almost every way. Then, once you finally become a fan, maybe circle back and try this one out.

I recorded a video review with some gameplay and deeper thoughts, if you'd like to see them:

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+

A fun action/platformer type game with RPG elements and combat, I really liked that you get to use monster drops in cooking to raise your EXP, also loved the characters and found Nayuta to be a very endearing protagonist I wanted to root for.
My only real issue is that some enemies can be incredibly spammy. Well, certain equipped items can mitigate this issue at least.

Decent game, and its Nihon Falcom so amazing music is a given.
Be warned though it doesnt jus look like a 2001 game, it plays like one too. Horrendous platformiing, cruelly hidden stuff, wonky collisions and hit detection, etc.

The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails (NG+/Steam)
Playitme: 23 H (steam)
Synopsis:
Nayuta spends his days gazing up at the stars above his island home and wondering what lies beyond the horizon. Though people claim the sea they live on is flat and finite, Nayuta knows there must be more out there, just waiting to be discovered.
Occasionally, ruins and stars will fall from the sky over Nayuta's home, offering what seem to be glimpses of other worlds. While exploring one such ruin, he and his friends save a small, fairy-like girl by the name of Noi. She tells Nayuta that something very important has been stolen from her and asks for his help in retrieving it.
It's with this that Nayuta's journey begins—one which will take him far beyond the confines of his island to experience new worlds and extraordinary discoveries!

Plus:
+Great Cast of character of remnants island
+Great Action and Platform mechanic
+Falcom Music Seal of Quality
+Season mechanic increased the replaybility
+Eng dub
+Some key cutscene got beautiful HD CG Artwork
+New Content for NG+(New character,sidequest,and season)

Minus:
-Nayuta speed is slow (need upgrade in NG+)
-Double jump is context sensitive
-Some skill not great/useable
-VO sound mixing for JP dub is little bit on higher side
-Didn't have backlog feature

Mixed:
=The overall story is mediocre as stand alone story
=some boss has a wonky pattern
Replaying this game in NG+ because already beat normal on PSP with eng patch years ago

this game is very definition of what falcom do best at the time they publish the game on PSP, have a mechanic like Ys, story assimilation like trails, and comfy game like gurumin..

but man, palying this game in NG+ really tingle my theory brain after what happen in beyond the horizon..

I now understand why two friends of mine called me based for trying this game out. After 51 hours, 46 achievements, and two whole playthroughs, I can confidently say that this was a worthwhile journey.

The game is like a marriage of Ys and Trails, both are the main series by Nihon Falcom. It's very much a PSP game, so expect some jank. The soundtrack was...fine. I liked a few tracks, but it was a bit on the muted end to be honest.

I encountered a sound bug for the prologue tutorial where that stage's song is louder than any other song in the game. I checked, I had all the sound bars at default in the menu. The other bug was something finnicky in the After Story section. In the section on Altapea, that boss's key is super finnicky. I found myself jumping numerous times until it finally registered after the 15th try.

I'm keeping the details of the review to a minimum. I expected a seafaring adventure with this game. I was surprised that it wasn't that, but an entirely different adventure. I liked it in the end, but I think I would have preferred a seafaring adventure. The game's story feels like two games put together. I think having this story over two games would have allowed all the characters to fully breathe. The story was good, but I found myself wanting more and a bit overwhelmed at times. That's all I'll say. Go in as blind as possible and enjoy yourself. It will be worth it.

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.