WARNING: Spoilers for previous games in the Trails Series will be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak^note (英雄伝説 黎の軌跡, Eiyuu Densetsu: Kuro no Kiseki, lit. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Black) is the eleventh game in Nihon Falcom's Trails Series. It marks the fourth arc, as well as the start of the overall series' second half, following the Sky, Zero/Azure, and Cold Steel arcs, taking place a year and a half after the end of Reverie.

The arc begins in the later half of the year S.1208. The Republic of Calvard is experiencing an economic boom from both war reparations paid by the Erebonian Empire after a failed attempt at inciting a world war, and the radical political upheaval led by the country's newest president Roy Gramheart. But under all this prosperity is a seedy underbelly, with mafias, triads, jaeger corps, secret societies, and even factions of the Church all constantly up to something, on top of all the petty crime endemic to any large country.

And in the shadows are rumors of a so-called "spriggan", a fixer who will take cases that just can't be brought to fine, upstanding institutions such as the police or the Bracer Guild—jobs so close to illegal, the cops hate him—and will take on clients regardless of how checkered their past or shady their background may be. In reality, the spriggan is 24-year-old Van Arkride, who owns and operates Arkride Solutions in the Old Town district of Calvard's capital, Edith. One fateful day, on August 27, S.1208, he is visited by Agnès Claudel, a 16-year-old girl attending Aramis Academy, who decided to ask for his help in finding her late great-grandfather's stolen orbment rather than approach the police or the Bracer Guild. And from there, what started out as a peculiar job to find a stolen item would take Van, Agnès, and a few other people along the way on a country-wide adventure that may decide the fate of the Republic and Zemuria as a whole...

The game released in Japan on September 30, 2021 for the PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 5 version would later release on July 28, 2022, and a PC version ported by Clouded Leopard Entertainment in Traditional Chinese and Korean would release the day before. In March 2023, NISA published their own PC port for the Japanese market with the intention of patching the official English localization in, all but confirming said localization. The game was later confirmed for an English release for July 5, 2024 during the NISA livestream on September 21st, 2023, along with the addition of a Nintendo Switch version. The Switch version was also released in Japan on February 15, 2024 by Falcom themselves.

Daybreak, much like Cold Steel, is a massive game-changer for the franchise, due to these factors:

• It boasts the privilege of being the first Falcom game to run on their own newly-created engine, the Falcom Developer Kit. With FDK came great improvements to the series' visuals, presentation, and most importantly, general theme and gameplay.
• Daybreak has a darker tone than preceding arcs, with Van being more of an anti-hero compared to previous protagonists, the game featuring a greater number of character deaths, and discussion of mature themes such as racism and xenophobia.
• The character artwork is drawn by Katsumi Enami for the first time since Zero/Azure.
• Bonding Events (which become more romance inclined as time went on) from the Zero/Azure and Cold Steel games are replaced with Connect Events, which lean more on the platonic side and tend to be longer and more cinematic.
• The command-based combat system has been overhauled with a new UX, full freedom of movement, significant alterations to how long-time gameplay mechanics such as S-Crafts and status effects behave, and shorter, faster attack animations to make combat snappier.
• The field attacks from previous games have been fleshed out into a full-blown action combat system that can be freely switched back and forth with the command-based combat system (except during boss fights).
• Along with these changes is the revamped orbment system that takes inspiration from its Sky and Zero/Azure counterparts, with a customizable arts list taken from Cold Steel.
• A multitude of new combat mechanics centering around a new concept called "Shards", such as SCLM^note an acronym for "Shard Circular Linked Metafield" (replacing Cold Steel's Combat Link system), S-Boosts, and Shard Skills, to name a few.
• A significant effort has been put into eliminating loading transitions, with building interiors now located on the same maps as the exteriors, combat taking place on the open field rather than a separate screen, even in the command-based system, and the replacement of post-battle victory screens with an overlay.

It was followed up with a sequel titled The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II.

The official website for Daybreak can be found here, and the English-language version can be found here.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak provides examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Lindsey from the Blacklight District is convinced that she and Van are meant for one another. Van wants nothing to do with her since she's a little Ax-Crazy.
• A-Cup Angst: Both games show Feri feeling a bit "lacking" compared to her female co-workers in Arkride Solutions, all of whom are well-endowed to various degrees.
• Accidental Pervert:
  • Invoked when Van deliberately misinterprets Nate's innocuous comments as sexual or even pedophiliac just to get under his skin.
  • Played straight during the Intermission chapter when Van is holding an exhausted Judith by the shoulders only for her robe to unravel right in front of him and the rest of the party.
• Achievement System: Daybreak returns to having in-game achievements, but unlike Zero and Azure, the player can reap the rewards during gameplay instead of in New Game Plus.
• Actionized Sequel: While at its core still a turn-based RPG like its predecessors, this game also introduces live combat in Field Battles, giving players the option to fight enemies on the field before engaging them in turn-based bouts.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The Enemy Scan mechanic has been removed from the game. Instead of needing to have a prolonged fight to gather information about enemies, or take a turn off to use a specific craft (which makes the party member with said craft basically required in perpetuity) or item to scan each new monster, all information is gathered automatically the first time any enemy is fought.
  • Arts and crafts with a charge mechanic will now cancel without expending EP/CP if nobody is in the target area when the charge period ends.
  • In Chapter 5 where you are forced to pick between four routes with exclusive enemies in each path, the exclusive enemies until the end of the chapter will be marked under EX and wouldn't count towards the monster entry trophy. As such, the player wouldn't need to replay the game three more times just for this segment to get the enemy entry achievement, just the chapter itself for the route achievements.
  • The finale will bring back the Almata executives that you chose to kill back in Chapter 5. While annoying from a narrative standpoint since your big decision(s) just got rendered moot, them coming back will allow you to log their entries in the rematch.
  • If players are collecting items in bulk from the Achievement System, the game warns players first if an item reached the 99 limit (or 250 in the case of U-Materials) before collecting the reward.
• Arc Words: "Bear the nightmare" gets brought up at least once a chapter.
• Artifact Name: The track "Crossbell Cathedral" from Zero is reused. As it's now playing in a cathedral located in Calvard instead of Crossbell, its name no longer fits.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: In the opening, Van lands a palm strike against Kasim who barely is fazed by it. Van ends up having a minor Oh, Crap! face before he disengages, blocks Kasim's strike, and fires a Coin Bullet at him.
• Barely Changed Dub Name:
  • Judith Ranster was changed to Judith Lanster.
  • Grimcats was changed to Grimcat.
  • Hollow Cores were respelled as holo cores.
  • Van's Coin Bullet craft was changed to Coin Bullets.
  • The Oct-Genesis were changed to the Oct-Geneses. A more substantial name change was considered, to "Eight Genesi", and that was used in the demo, but the final version of the game opted for the one-letter change instead.
  • The word "Office" was dropped from the Arkride Solutions Office everywhere except signage. In dialogue, the English localization always just calls it Arkride Solutions.
• Barrier Warrior: Agnès, Risette, and Quatre have their own crafts that create party-wide shields for the party, acting like a second HP bar.
• Big Damn Heroes: Quite a lot of them, especially in the Finale to the point of it being a bit too predictable. Van understandably even gets annoyed by then, lampshading that their help coming sooner would be more appreciated.
• Bilingual Bonus: Many of the techniques used by various characters in the game actually have appropriate meanings in their matching real-world languages. For example, the technique Kasim uses in the finale to breach the barrier around Vantail District is called "Shahmat Strike", after the Persian phrase ("the king is in peril") that got turned into the word "checkmate".
• Bland-Name Product:
  • One popular model of SUV seen on and off Calvard's roads is the Land Carrier, which looks virtually identical to the real-life Land Rover Defender 90.
  • The Lionne d'Or awarded by the Tharbad film festival is a mashup of the Palme d'Or awarded by the Cannes Film Festival and the Leone d'Oro awarded by the Venice Film Festival.
  • Vending machines in Tharbad and Oración sell a soda called Dr. Salt, after Dr Pepper.
  • The Al-Jumeirah Hotel in Tharbad is billed as the world's only six-star hotel and has a remarkably similar design to the Jumeirah Burj Al Arab, which is similarly billed as the world's only seven-star hotel.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The game does not shy away from blood in general compared to the previous series. The prologue already shows a named character's death and bloodied corpse to give an idea of what you are in for.
• Bookends: Agnès uses Food as Bribe to get Van to do something for her, which happens in both the opening and final scenes. In the latter, she even uses the same limited edition Andalucia tart that started the whole game.
• Boring, but Practical: Judith's Grimcat transformation isn't as strong as the Grendel or other unique Super Mode abilities, since it only serves to give her physical attacks some additional magic damage. However, it has infinite duration while only costing 50 CP and a small amount of delay.
• Boss Bonanza: The final dungeon has you face off against the members of Almata again, who are either revived from the dead or teleported from their prison cells depending on your choices in Chapter 5.
• Boss-Only Level: The Final Boss, Vagrants Diaspora, which appears after going through a portal on the roof of Arkride Solutions. The party is even given time to heal and fully prepare before going in.
• Bowdlerize: In the prologue of the original Japanese version, Van comments on Agnès' chest during their meeting, much to her embarrassment. The English version changes it to a more general comment about how she looks more mature and composed than people her age.
• Breather Episode: The Intermission chapter, which is appropriately a Vacation Episode. No major crisis (aside from Mare temporarily hijacking Yume's body) and the closest thing to a conflict in the chapter is the heroes' first encounter with the Ikaruga jaeger corps, which is easily resolved anyway. While it marks Arioch's first appearance, he never actually fights, and instead warns the heroes of things to come in the following days. But then the chapter ends with a Wham Episode about the nuking of Creil and Dingo's death.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Chapter 2 marks the return of Jack and Halle, who haven't made any kind of physical appearance since Sky the 3rd.
  • Zin the Immovable and Walter the Direwolf also make a comeback after being off-screen since the end of the Sky games. Though, Zin is actually seen attending the royal wedding during the true ending scenes of Cold Steel IV.
  • Kilika the Flying Swallow, the third member of the Taito trio, would be making her first appearance since Azure, almost exactly a decade prior.
  • Ray, the creator of acerbic tomatoes last seen in Sky the 3rd, shows up involved in new research in Basel during Chapter 4.
• Calling a Rabbit a "Smeerp": During their trip to Tharbad, Arkride Solutions encounter the "Orbal Hookah", which are basically the setting's version of vape pens.
• Car Fu: Walter the Direwolf once destroyed a Panzer Soldat by throwing a truck at it. One handed. Van was not impressed, because it was his truck.
• Church of Happyology: Libra Domina is a religious cult that maintains you can atone for your sins by giving large amounts of money to the cult and recruiting new followers. The phrase "pyramid scheme" is used to describe it. And if you don't give all your money to the cult, or if you're a dissident in any way, they take you away to be eaten by an alien monster. And of course, only the leader of the cult knows this; the rank and file are unaware of what happens to anybody taken away for "divine punishment".
• Company Cross-References:
  • The Eastern nation of Iska shares its name with a tribe from Ys Seven.
  • Fie's S-Craft, Azure Greon, is named after the natial Greon from Vantage Master. Because Greon is a bird, the image of a large bird appears at the end of Azure Greon's animation.
• Continuity Cameo:
  • The game shows images of Joshua, Loewe, Arios Maclaine, Guy Bannings, Cassius Bright and Zin Vathek when Dantés was giving his Infodump near the finale.
  • Olivert, Schera, Ein, Thomas, Kevin, Wazy, Gaius, and Xin show up in Daybreak I's ending shots in the present day while Swin and Nadia show up in a flashback.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Van's Coin Bullets craft has him flicking five 10-mira coins, the same amount as Rean and Crow's infamous 50 mira relationship.
  • Prince Sherid says, "I'll take you to a world of fantasy!" when using his Kamal Resonance craft. This line was previously used by Elliot during his Remedy Fantasia S-Craft.
  • A 4SPG in Basel has Arkride Solutions looking for potent painkillers that would help with orbal prosthetics. The requestor was looking for it as a favor for a friend from Erebonia, referring to George trying to make amends for Viscount Arseid.
  • The High Bloods, rivals to Van's street-racing friends, are actually successors to the hooligans that caused trouble all the way back in Trails to Azure. They took the name when the previous group disbanded after getting arrested and humbled by Crossbell PD's Officer Kate.
• Cool Car: Van owns a S.1204 Ingert custom-tuned pick-up truck that can even compete with the likes of a Z1 racer's sports car in terms of speed and handling.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: After killing President Dillon, Melchior leaves the party a message in his blood: "Look forward to the film festival - ♥ Melchior."
• Creative Closing Credits: As with a number of previous installments, the closing credits feature artwork of what the characters of Arkride Solutions as well as certain other major characters like the bracers and the Gralsritter are up to following the game's ending.
• Crusading Widower: A police officer in Oración lost her bracer boyfriend when he tried to look into Almata's activities in the city, and wants revenge. However, what she didn't know was she was stalking a member of the Dolor Syndicate, not Almata. Furthermore, the suspect already knew he was being tailed and was luring her into a trap with his accomplices. Fortunately, Arkride Solutions manages to step in and rescue her.
• Cute and Psycho: Shizuna is a pretty lady who can act and sound cute at times, but turns into a complete Blood Knight when faced with a potentially strong opponent, complete with Contralto of Strength.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • The main menu has been completely rejiggered. In previous games, you would typically go into the menu, select a character, and then do stuff like changing their equipment, configuring their orbment, etc. In Daybreak, specific functions within the main menu are mapped to different buttons.
  • Battles still follow the same basic idea from the previous few installments of each command being mapped to a different button, though your arts are now mapped between "Attack" and "Support," so you have to hit the button twice to find Support stuff. Also, players can now switch instantly between art and craft menus at the push of their respective buttons, when past games had to leave their menus first.
  • For sepith exchange, previous games had the sepith mass at the bottom of the list. Here, absentminded players will scroll down to the bottom of the sepith list again, then suddenly learn that they just accidentally converted all their mirage sepith instead, since that's now what is at the bottom of the list (sepith mass was moved to the top).
• Dance-Off: In a Call-Back to Reverie, the climax of Chapter 3 has two sisters engage in one during the parade festival where one side is brainwashed with a mask and the other isn't.
• Darker and Edgier: Right from the start, this arc had shown more people dying onscreen than in any previous game, complete with blood on some of the corpses even. Van even kills off someone in a cutscene (as a form of Mercy Kill but still). Truly hammered home with Gerard's nuking of Creil Village, indiscriminately killing innocent children and civilians alike, including the reporter Dingo Brad who exchanged his life to expose Gerard's horrendous crime to the orbal net and Van going for the kill after gaining the upper hand against Gerard during the climax of Chapter 5.
• A Day in the Limelight: Chapters 1, 2, and 4 primarily focus on whatever new party member is introduced: Feri, Aaron, and Quatre respectively.
• Dead All Along: A sidequest in Chapter 3 has Van accompany a young girl to fight off a monster in the sewers so that she can retrieve her sister's lost hair ties. Van finds the sister, who turns out to be an adult, and her sister died 20 years ago. Though Van had already figured out by this point that the girl was dead.
• Deadly Game: Chapter 5, "The Restless Carnival," centers around the members of the terrorist group Almata inviting numerous groups to the city of Oración to battle it out in an underground labyrinth with the prize being the chance to confront them directly. These groups include the Bracer Guild (an international group of problem-solvers, the crime syndicate Heiyue, two different factions of the Septian Church, various Jaeger Corps (mercenaries) and your own party, Arkride Solutions. The stakes are that they have a nuclear bomb and will detonate if any of the rules of the game are broken, or if the game is lost, decimating the entire town. They also have a number of a smaller bombs that will go off if certain time limits aren't met. They also don't express require that any of the competing groups actually kill each other (simply beat the other groups into submission, or KO them in game terminology), but express the desire that there will be as much killing as possible.
• Deadpan Door Shut: At the end of Chapter 3, when Risette arrives at the office, Van's response is to immediately close the door and assume he was imagining things until Risette opens the door herself to announce she's joining the team.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Did the first game have a group of Badass Normals stop a demon lord infamous for being one of the strongest devils within Gehenna?
• Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: René's first Connect Event involves turning a triple agent pretending to only be a double agent into a quadruple agent.
• Driving Question: Much like Zero, Daybreak I doesn't end in a cliffhanger, but it does leave players wondering about a lot of unclear things in the story: Where is the final Genesis? What will actually happen if the Oct-Geneses aren't collected by S.120X? What's the deal with Van and his devil origins? And many, many more...
• Dual Wielding: Aaron with his Twin Fencer swords and Risette with her pistol-and-blade combo.
• Dub Name Change:
  • Bergard's Howling Boost craft was changed to Lion's Roar.
  • Van's Grendel crafts Quick Blow and Savage Hands were changed to Rapid Onslaught and Savage Blade.
  • The earth art Stone Crack was changed to Earth Breaker.
  • The shard skills Aqua Resist, Flare Resist, and Galt Resist were changed to Resist Freeze, Resist Burn, and Resist Mute.
• Elemental Punch: Basic attacks and crafts can be buffed with the elements depending on the quartz installed in the Weapon Line, making it very handy for physical characters to make use of the Elemental Rock–Paper–Scissors.
• The End of the World as We Know It: What kicks off the main plot in the first place. As stated in Prof. Claude Epstein's last diary entry: "Recover the Oct-Geneses before the year S.120X. Else all we know will come to an end."
• Enemy Mine: By the time of the penultimate chapter, Almata had become so Hated by All that the bracers, the CID, multiple jaeger corps, the Church, Heiyue, and even Ouroboros are willing to join forces just to take them down. The only reason the party had to decide which faction to join was due to everyone being forced to partake in a battle royale, lest Almata bomb an entire city. Considering they already bombed an entire village, they're clearly willing to go through with their threat.
• Engineered Heroics: During an optional 4SPG in Chapter 3, several cars heading for Tharbad suddenly get a flat tire, only for a bracer to show up to help them out, and once they get to Tharbad the motorists find their valuables missing. Arkride Solutions figure out that the bracer himself (actually a fraud who's part of the Devancy Brothers criminal gang) sabotaged the victims's vehicles in the first place, so that he will "conveniently" appear to help them, then discreetly steal their belongings.
• Establishing Character Moment: Van first appears as a cool and indifferent character with his initial dismissal of Agnès' request, until Agnès presents him with a limited-edition summer tart.
• Establishing Series Moment: The sight of a person's bloodied dead body right in the first few hours of the first game should give a glaringly obvious hint to both established Trails fans and newcomers alike that the Calvard arc is, and will be, very different in terms of theme and tone from its more optimistic predecessors.
• Everyone Can See It: Anyone who sees Van and Elaine interact, even those that have never met the two before, can feel the tension between them. It gets to the point that Daybreak II's prologue has almost every NPC the player talks to either comment on how close they are or flat out assume that they're in the middle of a date.
• Evolving Title Screen: Daybreak I features different 2D art on the title screen depending on the player's progress in the main story.
• Fictional Counterpart: The Tharbad Film Festival's top award for directors is the Lionne d'Or, a thinly-veiled version of the Palme d'Or from the Cannes Film Festival.
• Fighting Your Friend: At one point in the opening, Van faces off against his childhood friend Elaine. In-game, players get to fight the faction of characters who weren't chosen. No hard feelings on their part however as they all know that Almata needs to be taken down, but they also have no choice but to play along with their rules, otherwise Almata will destroy Oración City.
• Food as Bribe:
  • Van takes Agnès' request in part because she brought him an expensive, limited production fig and honey tart as a down payment. This aspect of Van would end up becoming a Running Gag throughout the first game.
  • Cao does the same to Van in chapter 2. Van only accepts Cao's request to help Heiyue in Langport because Cao promised him a care package of dried fruit.
  • Part of the reason Van accepts the request to help protect the film festival in Tharbad is because Nina promised him a rare chocolate cake made with camel milk. On the car ride there, the other party members discuss the implications of his bribability:
    Aaron: You guys hauled your asses over to Langport 'cause Cao bribed him with sweets, too, right? We are so screwed if Almata learns his weak point.
    Feri: I...guess we'll have to learn how to make even nicer confections to keep him loyal to us?
  • In the first Connect Event with Renne, she pays Van to do a side job with imported gelato.
  • The game ends with Agnès bribing Van into having a chat with her father, President Roy Gramheart, by telling him that she has an Andalucia winter tart he can share with him over coffee.
• Food Porn: The way Van goes on about his sweets, one gets the impression that he missed his true calling as food critic for the Tyrell Times when he became a spriggan.
• Frank's 2000 Inch TV: Calvard's Station Street has a large jumbotron placed on a nearby building, occasionally depicting news reports.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • On the second day in Longlai during the Intermission, Mare is unavailable as a holo core because she's gallivanting around the Kunlun Mountains in Yumé's body.
  • During the Van vs. Elaine fight from Chapter 5, the latter only has a fraction of her total HP, showcasing how exhausted she was before the fight even started.
  • Van often flicks coins to draw the attention of enemies (humans and monsters alike). This applies to gameplay with his Coin Bullets craft that has a Draw Aggro effect.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Despite the SCLM being billed as the next generation of links due to the ARCUS link system being restricted to only two people at a time while SCLM can service bigger groups, SCLM chains only work between two people in-game and therefore cannot stack buffs with multiple characters. In fact, bunching more than two people together can make the SCLM circles disappear and deny you the boost, particularly when casting arts.
  • For gameplay ease of access, Van's Coin Bullets do not actually cost 50 mira to use despite him clearly flicking them to the enemy.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The first game's main party consists of 8 members, 4 male (Van, Aaron, Quatre, and Bergard) and 4 female (Agnès, Feri, Risette, and Judith).
• The Glasses Gotta Go: One of the sidequests in Chapter 3 involves recruiting additional women to dance in director Salvatore Gotti's Carnal Cavalcade. One of them, Cervi, wears glasses. When you return to complete the sidequest and they are all assembled, you get to see them all in the dresses they were provideda and learn that she was told to take off her glasses in the dressing room and is a put-out that she can't see well how she looks in the dress.
• Go-Karting with Bowser:
  • Chapter 5 has a scene where Renne meets up with Walter, Lucrezia, and Harwood to talk about old times and catch up and everyone gets along fine despite Renne having defected from the society back in the Sky arc.
  • A near-literal example in the final chapter, as Walter the Direwolf of all people shows up uninvited to a street race. To the surprise of Van and other characters familiar with the Direwolf's antics, a good time is had by all involved.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Everyone, from jaegers to bracers to Ouroboros and various other groups (even President Gramheart), appear to help Arkride Solutions get to the Genesis Tower where the final showdown against Almata awaits.
• Gratuitous English:
  • In the Japanese version of the game, the Arkride Solutions Office logo says "Only for Customers in Complicated Matters" in English. The official English localization changes it to the more grammatical "Complicated Matters Only".
  • On the sleeve of Giacomo's coat, there's text reading "what do you want meaning for ? Life is desire, not meaning." Yes, with the lowercase w and a space before the ?.^note This is a quotation of the real-life Charlie Chaplin.
  • Feri's dress has "Deeds are fruits" emblazoned on it.
• The Great Offscreen War: The Revolution is the historical one for this arc of the Trails series. Some key villains of the first game are descended from important figures of the losing side, and the Big Bad of the second game is tied to the leaders of the winning side.
• Guest-Star Party Member: While the maximum amount of people a player can have in active party is four people, there are moments where characters join up with the party on the field, but they cannot be controlled.
• Hell on Earth: Almata's plan for the endgame, using the seventh Genesis and Dantès's (or rather, Van's) diabolic core to unleash Pandemonium, where demons roam free and everyone and everything on Edith is frozen in time. Dantès later threatens to spread Pandemonium across all of Zemuria unless the heroes stop him.
• Henshin Hero: Two of the main characters, Van and Judith, can change into Grendel and Grimcat respectively, with the latter getting an explicit Transformation Sequence.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs:
  • After your group defeats the wanted monster at Dirke Memorial Park, Aaron Wei "Now let's make like a pom and—" which is presumably a reference to "make like a tree and leave," though it's not clear how he was going to finish the sentence, possibly "bounce."
  • When Van is asked to stay in Tharbad and help with the film festival, he quips that he was hoping to do some sightseeing, "but at this point, in for a ^curimpenny, in for a ^torimpound.
• Hotter and Sexier: While fanservice is not new to the franchise, they are typically relegated to optional events, bath scenes, and DLC outfits. In Daybreak, its presence is much more pronounced; notable examples include the characters visiting strip clubs in Tharbad and watch a couple of dancers perform their routine, Judith's Wardrobe Malfunction moment in Longlai and various 4SPGs containing surprisingly overt references to sexual activity and pornography. The hot springs scene even makes fairly explicit references to penises, with Aaron taunting Van about making him hard with his looks.
• How Do I Shot Web?: It's clear that despite inheriting her grandfather's notes, Agnès has no idea what the Oct-Geneses do or how to use them. Which then begs the question as to why it is that Almata does.
• Humongous Mecha: As shown in the opening movie, Calvard now has their own equivalent to Erebonia's Panzer Soldat, the Assault Frame.
• Hypocritical Humor: While in a church, Aaron talks about ditching Van's ass. Van chides him for swearing in church... while using the word "damn". The priest calls him on it.
  Aaron: I'll probably join up with them later. Once I'm bored with this guy, I'll ditch his ass.
  Van: Swearin' in a church, huh? Damn. You got no class.
  Priest Sei-Lan: But you just... *sigh* Never mind.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: The Final Boss is the protagonist Van himself: or rather, the demon he's hosting, Vagrants Diaspora. The rest of the party fights to separate him from said demon. Eventually, the heroes succeed halfway through the battle, and he rejoins them to finish what they started.
• In the Name of the Moon: Van has one when he transforms into either of the Grendel's alternate forms: "These fragile chains guide me to this realm, where I am now made manifest. I am both the nightmare, and the beast that devours it!"
• Inconsistent Spelling: NISA originally planned to change the Oct-Genesis to the "Eight Genesi", and it was this way in the demo. By the time the final version of the game was released, they changed their mind and went with "Oct-Geneses" instead.
• Involuntary Group Split: In the final chapter, the employees of the Office were patrolling the Revolution Festival, having split up in several districts. When Melchior unleashes the seventh Genesis, Van has to get them back together (along with a few allies) while dealing with the crisis across various parts of Edith.
• Irony: In the finale, the lawless Blacklight District becomes the biggest safe zone in Edith when Pandemonium is unleashed, since Van has a lot of acquaintances there (begrudgingly or not), especially ones that can kick ass. It's the only district that has no monsters roaming around, and all of its facilities are still running by the time the heroes arrive.
• Jump Scare: If you watch the film Midnight Memories with Judith in the party, this is discussed by her and Van, her saying that there tend to be two types of horror movies, ones that deal in jump scares and ones that prefer to have an encroaching sense of dread. She continues that her problem with jump scares is that you never know if you're reacting because you're genuinely scared, or you're just caught by surprise. Van agrees that while they are a cornerstone of the genre, there are some movies that use them too much as a crutch.
• Jurisdiction Friction: As is usual in Trails, the Bracer Guild often comes into conflict with the police and the resident government-affiliated organization (in Calvard's case, the Central Intelligence Division) on who should handle any given incident. And this is before the resident spriggan is thrown into the mix. As part of this, many 4SPG sidequests have decision trees about which authority (if any) to refer a case to.
• Kansas City Shuffle: Team Arkride pulls off a flawless one during the Chapter 5 Battle Royale. To get the keys held by Team MTSC, who they know they can't beat without significant losses, they set up a fake distraction-and-pickpocket scheme with Grimcat...which distracts Kasim from the actual pickpocket, his little sister Feri.
• Katana Superiority: Shizuna, a practitioner of a sword style highly reminiscent of the Eight Leaves One Blade school, is one of the strongest characters in the arc so far, and her power is clearly shown in gameplay as one of the best playable characters, especially in action mode.
• A Lady on Each Arm: A group of two-bit gangsters mistake Feri and Agnès for Van's "arm candy". Big mistake, as both are members of your party and very capable fighters, as they find out when they get thoroughly beaten in the battle that follows.
• Last-Second Word Swap: In the RC Car Challenge sidequest in Chapter 4, Van starts to swear when commenting on the importance of the competition, then seems to remember that there are children around.
  Van: It's two bitter rivals goin' at it—and for these young'uns, that can make or break their brand allegiances. It's serious sh...stuff!
• Line in the Sand: In Chapter 5, Van tells the other members of the team that they may inevitably have to kill Almata's members if taking them in for arrest doesn't work out, and asks if they're capable of handling that burden if needed.
• The Little Detecto: The Genesis that Van and Agnès find in the prologue lights up whenever anything Genesis-related comes up. And this isn't just when another Genesis is nearby—the little thing starts glowing when they learn about a job that will take them to a place halfway across the country where a Genesis can be found. Over the phone.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: At launch, Daybreak unfortunately has lots of loading and frame rate issues that can hamper a player's enjoyment where a NPC will not spawn until a few seconds in and loading a screen take as long as nearly a minute. If a player is in the same area in a city, chances are it'll probably faster to run to the destination rather than fast travel instead.
• Loan Shark: In the second half of Chapter 1, a man assumes that Van is one and steals a bicycle to flee town before Van finds him. After catching him, Van notes that while spriggans do loan shark collections on occasion, the only reason he was chasing after the guy was he had taken a side-job to recover the stolen bicycle.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • When Almata sets up their Mêlée à Trois in Chapter 5, they make a number of strict rules, one of which is no external reinforcements. Van quickly figures out that they never said anything about internal reinforcements (i.e., two groups making an alliance). Almata concedes that they didn't technically break the rules, but has Arioch periodically ambush them as punishment for bending them.
  • The rules of Almata's tournament forbid leaking the existence of the game to the press or Oración's citizens, which makes it impossible to evacuate everyone. Agnès, Renne, and Marielle get around this rule and the external reinforcements ban by having Prince Sherid host a sightseeing tour on his airship for the children of Oración, with the airship conveniently flying outside of the blast zone of Almata's nuke. The children aren't informed of Almata's plans and Sherid technically isn't interfering with the game, so the game's system doesn't consider the tour a violation. Melchior is annoyed by this loophole, but Gerard is instead amused by the prospect of the children surviving and witnessing their loved ones and home getting nuked.
• Love Triangle: In contrast to Lloyd and Rean,^note Both of whom had one favored girl among an assortment of potential suitors Van has one of these brewing in the background between two primary love interests, Agnès and Elaine. The gameplay section of Daybreak II's Finale even starts with the player choosing which of the two Van will walk around the school festival with first.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": The party experiences this at the climax of the Intermission chapter when Shizuna reveals that she knows Spirit Unification which is acknowledged in-universe as Rean's Signature Move.
• Meditating Under a Waterfall: In the Intermission, the party finds Judith at Longlai during their trip, she's trying to meditate under one to get over the recent rumors made about her. It doesn't help that a monster attacks in the midst of it.
• Mêlée à Trois: The crux of Chapter 5 has every major faction (Arkride Solutions, the Bracer Guild, Heiyue, Ikaruga and Ouroboros, among many others) seeking to defeat Almata being forced to participate in a battle royale, where they fight each other to obtain key cards in order to battle against one of Almata's members before gaining the privilege to fight Dantès. Depending on where the alignment guide is at, Van will make an alliance with one faction.
• Mistaken for Racist: In the "Threatening Letter" 4SPG, it initially looks like Amalie is one who wrote the anti-immigrant threat letter sent to Nelly, since the former lost to the latter in getting the lead role for a performance. When the party questions Amalie, she states that she finds Nelly irritating, which makes her look even more suspicious. Then she clarifies that she actually respects Nelly's skill and that what she finds irritating is the latter's lack of confidence. The real culprit, Jacobin, was actually counting on this trope to happen in order to cover his tracks and drive a wedge between Nelly and Amalie.
• Monster of the Week: The general structure of Daybreak goes like this: Van and his party get a request from someone, goes to the location mentioned by said requester, get wrapped up in whatever problem the place has at the time, and almost all the chapters end with Van transforming into the Grendel and beating the shit out of the chapter's final boss with the party assisting him. By the end of every chapter except the Finale, the team recruits another member into Arkride Solutions, much to Van's dismay.
• Nerf:
  • If a character evades an attack, there is only a small chance the one who evaded will counterattack instead of a guaranteed counterattack unless. Luckily, this also affects enemies.
  • Cooking can only be done at the inn, Van's office, or at special orbment charging stations (depicted as yellow instead of blue) and you can only eat full-party meals outside of combat.
  • While inns are now free, they no longer restore CP.
  • Players need to spend two S-Boosts if players want to use an S-Craft to prevent spamming S-Crafts in general.
  • Players can no longer steal turn bonuses by manipulating Delay or using S-Breaks, due to the turn order timeline being split into two.
  • The list of combat bonuses has changed (among other things, losing overkill, double kill, triple kill, triple counter and triple cancel), and it is no longer possible to stack bonuses.
  • The list of arts that can be used is determined exclusively by the Arts Driver and plugins attached to an orbment, at least until the Intermission three-quarters of the way through the first game.
  • Most status condition blocking accessories grant 75-90% resistance to the relevant effect(s) as opposed to outright immunity.
  • Enemy charge time for arts and crafts has been reduced considerably, reducing the window of opportunity in which Impede abilities can be used to their full potential.
  • The Finishing Blow technique that was one of the first Link bonuses to be acquired in all the games in the Erebonia arc is now only unlocked as a Shard Skill through specific quartz configurations in the Weapon Line. Crafts (unless it is Grendel's) no longer trigger link attacks.
  • U-Material costs are heavily inflated while dropping very little amounts, preventing players from simply trading away their lower tier quartz whenever they want.
  • Monster exclusive ingredient drops have been simplified but the late-game dishes require said ingredients to be traded in massive amounts for the upgraded version.
• Never Trust a Trailer: One of Daybreak's promotional videos showing off some S-Crafts features Walter as a playable character. However, there is never a point in said game that allows the player to control him.
• No Cutscene Inventory Inertia: Inverted. If you equip a character with a costume and then go into a flashback scene, the character in question will be wearing that costume, even though theoretically they wouldn't have been wearing back whenever the flashback scene took place.
• NOT!: During the battle with Kasim, Judith as Grimcat cuts in, but Kasim blocks her, telling her he is wise to such tricks and already knew that she's a part of your party. "Darn," says Judith, saying that he saw through their elaborate ruse and the plan is a dud.
  Grimcat: ...Psych! (backflips away, Feri appears and steals his keycards, revealing that Grimcat was a distraction)
• Optional Boss: In both games, if you've maxed out any of the 3 alignments, the final dungeon will feature a corresponding hidden boss, which drop Onyx Steel, used to make the party's ultimate weapons. As such, having max rank in all alignments will allow the player to give 3 characters their best weapons. That said, maxing out more than one alignment in a single playthrough is easier said than done.
• Photoshop Filter of Evil: When Paulette meets Maxim Lugan for the first time in years, the screen coloring goes inverted when she pretends not to know him.
• Post-Climax Confrontation: Both games have their Big Bads act as Climax Bosses, with the actual Final Bosses being confronted after their respective main conflicts have been wrapped up.
• Prank Punishment: As punishment for harassing the patrons of the hotel, Naje pulls out a sword and cuts the pants off some unruly tourists, leaving them in their underwear.
• The Precious, Precious Car: Van is very attached to his truck. His one-sided rivalry with the Direwolf stems from how Walter totaled its predecessor by using it as an improvised projectile against a Panzer Soldat—and the fact that while he paid to replace the vehicle, he didn't pay to replace the extensive after-market mods.
• Precision F-Strike: Daybreak generally follows the same rules on swearing as previous Trails games, where milder curse words such as "shit" and "damn" are allowed but you'll never hear an F-bomb. This rule is broken for the first time in the franchise's history at the beginning of Chapter 3, during a heated conversation between film executives, when one of them drops "F***ing 'n' Violence, baby!" (complete with the text being enlarged, though there's a censor bleep).
• Punch Parry: In the first game's opening, both Zin and Walter duel with the two punching each other's fists, creating a shockwave.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Agnès uses these on a merchant in Langport hoing to get information out of him about a Genesis. Van even comments that he wasn't expecting her to bust out the puppy dog eyes, but whatever works.
• Rare Candy: There's the returning (DLC-only) Shining Pom Bait that grants an instant level-up to the whole party, and Stat Droplets. Also, eating a dish for the first time grants Gourmet Points that are needed to increase the player's rank, with each rank (for a total of 10) granting the entire party a bonus to their stats. Fortunately, players don't actually need to collect all dishes to reach rank 10.
• Recycled Soundtrack: As is common in Trails, some tracks from previous arcs are reused:
  • "Crossbell Cathedral" from Zero plays whenever the player enters a church in either of the Daybreak games.
  • "Decision To Leave" from Sky FC can be heard during the in-game film Wolves' Requiem.
  • "Master's Recommendation" is the theme played during the director's cut of "Golden Blood," which actually isn't even from the Trails games, but rather Tokyo Xanadu, which was made using the graphical engine of Cold Steel.
  • "The Golden World (Terra)," which is from The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails, a spinoff game set in a different world, plays during the film "Climber's Story."
  • During the Connection event with Prince Sherid in Chapter 4, "Inevitable Struggle" from Zero is played in the Blue Score Concert Hall as an example of "rock and roll music."
  • "Strange Feel" from Azure plays in the film "Mishy in Boots" after the kid demands more wishes from Mishy.
  • During the Revolution Festival, radios all around Edith play "classic hits"... aka boss music from previous Trails games.
• Red Baron: As is tradition for the franchise.
  • Van's often just referred to as "spriggan".
  • Aaron Wei, the Little Conqueror of Luozhou. He's also dubbed "the Crimson Khan" and "the Prodigy of Langport", but both nicknames don't get used much after Chapter 2.
  • Elaine Auclair, Beauty's Blade^note Sword Maiden in the Japanese script.
  • Shizuna Rem Misurugi, the Divine Blade of Silver, or "Silverblade" for short.
  • Aida, the Flameeater.
  • Kasim Al-Fayed, the Khamsin.
  • Ellroy Harwood, the Thousand Oathbreaker and the Savant Lawbreaker.
  • Lucrezia Isselee, the Golden Butterfly.
  • Melchior of the Thorns.
  • Olympia of Aurum.
  • Arioch, the Eradicator and the Invisible Tempest.
  • Maxim Lugan, the Red Comet.
  • Latoya Hamilton, the Mother of the Orbal Revolution.
  • Walter "Huck" Huckberry, the Finance Guru.
• Redemption Demotion: A variation. Whenever a character joins you as a non-playable guest ally, they do not use their more potent crafts in combat, especially their S-Crafts.
• Regional Speciality: One of the first things that Van does after starting a job somewhere outside of Edith is sample the local dessert cuisine.
• Revisiting the Roots: Screenshots and gameplay for Daybreak showed how some elements that were present earlier in the series, but not in later arcs, were brought back.
  • The protagonist, Van, wields a stun caliber, which is normally a blunt weapon like Estelle's staff and Lloyd's tonfas, in contrast to Rean's tachi. Key word being "normally," as it's shown to be very sharp in cutscenes where he "activates" it. In the first game, he does this to give Aida a Mercy Kill, he can potentially do it Viola and Alexandre (complete with blood spilling) if players didn't side with the bracers in Chapter 5, and he does it again in the same chapter to Gerard.
  • After every game starting with Cold Steel decided to only show the character you directly controlled on the field, Daybreak went back to showing your other party members following you.
  • The first game's default battle themes for both the action-based and turn-based modes are very reminiscent of the more light-hearted tunes present in the Sky games, compared to Zero/Azure and Cold Steel's action-packed beats.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: Coordination within the Verne Company has gotten so bad that the company is suing itself over the fact that a wholly owned subsidiary is using a patent filed by another wholly owned subsidiary without permission.
• Running Gag: At the end of almost every chapter, the latest one introduced among the eight party members ends up joining Arkride Solutions to Van's dismay.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: President Dillon tries to bribe the party with 15 million mira. Van replies that he might have given it some thought, if not for who he was with. Fie pulls out her Bracer Guild identification on her Xipha, telling him that he really ought to be sure who he's talking with before he starts offering bribes.
• See You in Hell: Dantès tells Van Arkride that he knows for a fact that Gehenna does not exist, but he'll still be watching him from its depths.
• Sequel Hook: While the first game ends on a happy note, there are a lot of questions left unsolved. Some examples include: who is the C that warned them about the seventh Genesis, where is the 8th Genesis, what is the arc's Sept-Terrion and Holy Beast, why won't Verne join the West Zemuria Tech Union, what's the entire deal with Ikaruga, what's with Ouroboros' plan's third phase, what exactly is Van's connection to the Beyond, and what are Gramheart's own plans?
• Shoddy Knockoff Product:
  • In Langport, your party encounters a stall with a guy, Jiafei, selling "Moshy" merchandise, a clear knockoff of Mishy, the mascot of Mishelam Wonderland and overall mascot of the company that makes the games, Falcom. He claims it's all the rage with the ladies and says that the naysayers who call it a ripoff are just trying to drag Moshy's good name. Van comments to the others that he might have gotten a sale if he had just kept his mouth shut and that you can buy his stuff if you want, but you should know that he only sells knockoff goods.
  • Your party encounters another merchant selling similar merchandise in Tharbad. This one is upfront about his goods being knockoffs: he markets specifically to customers who only want something that looks like a name-brand product and are willing to trade authenticity for price. He also claims that because he is explicitly selling imitations rather than trying to pass them off as the genuine article, he is not technically selling forged goods, and so his business is arguably legal. Shopping from both of them is necessary in order to complete one of the accessory trades.
• Shout-Out: Shares one with the rest of the series here.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Harwood the Oathbreaker has fairly little actual screentime in Daybreak, but in one of his scenes he admits to being responsible for the survival of remnants of the D∴G Cult (including Gerard Dantès, the Big Bad of the game) and the foundation of the Gardens, which means that most of the events of the game are indirectly his fault. Not that he particularly cares.
• So Much for Stealth: At one point Van tries to get Marielle off his back by saying he saw Dingo go into a restaurant with another woman. Marielle then ropes Van into joining her in eavesdropping on them. But when the woman leaves they receive a call from Dingo himself, politely asking why Van and Marielle are following him.
• Spoiler Opening: So many details (like your party members, the higher-ups of the enemy group, and several returning characters) that the player would only find out as they progress through the game are easily revealed in the opening cinematic.
• Staged Pedestrian Accident: The very first 4SPG involves exposing a guy who staged one of these, pretending an expensive camera was broken in it, and trying to con the mark into paying the money to replace it, when what actually got broken was just a cheap mockup. This isn't the first time recently that someone has tried this either, which is how Van is familiar with the scam.
• Story Branching: The L.G.C. Alignment system makes it so that certain choices you make throughout the game affect Van's "alignment," which can have an effect on the guest characters that the party can team up with. Specifically for the first game, your alignment determines which group you can form an alliance with during Almata's battle royale in Chapter 5 of Daybreak:
  • If you have 3 ranks in Law (or you don't have enough ranks to partner with anybody else), you can team up with the Bracer Guild. The first section of the main dungeon will give Elaine as a playable character, with Fie and Zin as non-controllable allies. However, Elaine will leave by the time of the second session, with Fie taking her place as the designated playable guest.
  • If you have 3 ranks in Gray, you can team up with Heiyue, with Yin as a playable character and Cao as a non-controllable ally.
  • If you have 3 ranks in Chaos, you can team up with Ouroboros, with Walter and Lucrezia as non-controllable allies.
  • If you have a total of 5 ranks split between Law and Chaos, you can team up with Ikaruga, with Shizuna as a playable character and Kurogane as a non-controllable ally.
  • For each alignment that you have at least four ranks with in the final chapter, a team from the faction representing that alignment will appear to help clear the way to the final dungeon, removing a boss fight. An optional boss fight giving the materials for an Infinity +1 Sword will appear in said dungeon if it is at max rank.
  • Gaining to rank 3 in any alignment also grants a variant Mare holo core for that alignment.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: The situation with Almata got really out of hand by Chapter 5 that Fie thought about bringing in her own "personal backup", then she also mentions that they may already be making their move anyway. However, Fie's comrades never do show up during the later chapters.
• Super Prototype: The Oct-Geneses are early model orbments made by Professor Epstein at the start of the Orbal Revolution. They can do incredible things that modern era orbments cannot, though their lack of programmability means that they also can only do those things.
• Tagline:
  • "From here, a new trail begins."
  • "Between law and chaos lies the dawn of adventure."
• Three-Strike Combo: In field combat, player characters can string three attacks before experiencing endlag, with each button press resulting in a different animation. Elaine and Shizuna can perform a fourth attack by holding down the attack button during the third attack in their combo.
• Time Stands Still: The final chapter has Melchior using the seventh Genesis to summon a huge clock tower that stops time, with only those who have talked to Van at least once being allowed to move in said time compression. He also ends up bringing back all of the dead Almata in the process.
• Too Long; Didn't Dub: While not a new instance in the series, the emphasis on the Easterners (aka Chinese) left many definitions and terms simply transliterated into pinyin, making this trope stand out. Heiyue (Black Moon) is a standout example, with Cao Lee's entire moveset being left untranslated. One of Aaron Wei's crafts, Bawanggong (meaning Hegemon King's Aura) was left as it is. Xiongshou (which means assassin/killer) is also left as it is.
• Tournament Arc: Chapter 5. Almata pits the various factions that came for them against one another in a free-for-all battle royale called the "Carnival of Carnage", with the winner having the honor of facing Gerard Dantès at the end, all out of Almata's amusement. Worse, to ensure that everyone plays by the tournament's twisted rules, Gerard holds the entire city of Oración (and its population of 280,000) hostage with the same weapon that was used to destroy Creil.
• Umpteenth Customer: When you arrive in the Weston Department Store for the Dear Spriggan quest in the final chapter, Administrator Wesley tells Van he's precisely the 333rd customer to visit the store that day and gives him an all-expenses paid invitation to a bathing a facility in Trion Tower. He almost certainly is not the 333rd customer, but this is the excuse used as part of the show that's being put on for the quest, which is basically a thank you for everything the player has done in the game as the spriggan Van Arkride.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Dingo played an unspecified major role in Gerard Dantès becoming head of Almata when he was younger. At the time, it was considered the Lesser of Two Evils compared to leaving the then-head in charge. By the game's present day, Almata had undergone a Full-Circle Revolution and is now far eviler than it originally was.
• Villains Out Shopping:
  • After the Grandmaster gave their word to not interfere with whatever President Gramheart is planning, Ouroboros isn't up to any evil scheme in particular, especially in the first Daybreak. Walter's mission during Chapter 1 was more of a personal request from Harwood, one of the Anguis, but that's all. A later chapter sees Harwood personally coming to Tharbad, but he's only observing the proceedings (and Van runs into him in a nightclub of all places). Another Enforcer, Lucrezia, is literally on vacation in Longlai during the Intermission.
  • When Judith tells Arioch that he should watch a movie, he does just that and watches Golden Blood at Oración's theater. After his fight in Vashtar Palace, he recognizes Judith's pose from Golden Blood as she and Van strike him down.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: After Meditating Under a Waterfall followed by an unexpected boss fight, the belt of Judith's robe comes undone, causing her to flash the party.
• Welcome to Corneria: Maron, a waitress at Beckson's Gambling Bar in Edith's Blacklight District, is notable for being the only named NPC in the entire franchise to play this trope completely straight, as she repeats the same two lines of dialogue every time the player talks to her, which goes completely uncommented on by the party.
• Wham Episode: The end of the Intermission. After a whole chapter of the party going on a relaxing hot springs trip to Longlai, they are greeted with the radio delivering the horrendous news of Creil Village suddenly getting nuked by Almata and a revelation from Mariel that Dingo was at ground zero when it happened. Then the chapter just... ends.
• Wham Shot: While blood on bodies isn't anything new even with a guy dying in the first hour, Van pulling a Mercy Kill to Aida at the end of Chapter 1 definitely is this for fans as it's clear that Van averts the Thou Shalt Not Kill policy of prior arc protagonists. Another one is at the beginning of Chapter 5 where the audience is shown how Creil got wiped off the face of the earth through Dingo's point of view.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Leon distrusts Van for being Barkhorn/Bergard's unofficial apprentice despite not being part of the Septian Church. In the final chapter of Daybreak, Salvatore Gotti calls out Leon for letting his personal biases cloud his judgement regarding Van when the two of them should be on the same side in fighting Almata.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The game ends with the heroes temporarily parting ways, and the credits show what they and a few other characters are up to.
• Working the Same Case: In Chapter 1, Arkride Solutions and Walter run into each other in Creil Village, while searching for Feri's friend Aida and a mint-haired man (Melchior), respectively. They both eventually find out that Melchior was the one responsible for Aida going missing, and Walter ends up helping deal with the crisis.
• You Shall Not Pass!: In Chapter 5, the party decides that stealing the keycards from Team Marduk is preferable to directly fighting them. After Feri steals the keycards, the party flees while the guest team (Bracers, Heiyue, Ouroboros, or Ikaruga) stays behind to prevent Marduk from pursuing them.