The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie (Japan 2020, Worldwide 2023; PS4, PS5, Switch, PC)

[Koby]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie is a 2020 role-playing video game developed by Nihon Falcom. The game is a part of the Trails series, itself a part of the larger The Legend of Heroes series.

 

It was released in Japan for the PlayStation 4 in August 2020, with ports for the Nintendo Switch and Windows released in August 2021.

 

An English release is scheduled for July 7, 2023. Additionally being ported to PlayStation 5. Trails into Reverie is considered the end of the Crossbell and Erebonia arcs and serves as the precursor to The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki.

 

 

[Koby]

Since the in-game book "Three and Nine", which was available to collect and read in Cold Steel 4, plays a role in Trails into Reverie story... I figured it was worth sharing these videos.

 

Audio was apparently AI generated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Koby]

Version 1.0.3 Release Notes

Link attacks, some crash fixes, wider CPU compatibility, VR optimization, and more

We've been quite busy over the past few days in order to be able to resolve some of the more important issues encountered in Trails into Reverie.

Here is a summary of the changes and fixes in version 1.0.3:

• Fix some characters missing their link attacks.
• Fix two separate instances of potential crashes on some systems in the Magical Girl Alisa minigame.
• Disable AVX in order to support very old or lower-end CPUs.
• Improve GPU-bound performance in VR by 20% or more by leveraging the hidden area mesh.
• Fix the button prompt shown in the battle change tutorial (yes, we missed one).
• Fix the alignment of the "Trails to Walk" HuD in ultrawide aspect ratios.
• Fix the letterboxing of a specific subset of image-based story scenes in <16:9 resolutions.

You can now get back to the game, or read on for more details regarding some of these points.
 

Regarding AVX Support

AVX has been available in the vast majority of CPUs since at least 2011, and these days there are quite a lot of games and applications which depend on it. It's also not completely trivial to build a version without an AVX requirement, since not only the game itself but also any of the used third party libraries and frameworks need to be reconfigured.

That said, even if the CPUs without AVX don't meet our minimum specs, we still wanted to attempt to make it possible for people on such systems to at least try and run the game, but only if that can be done without

impacting performance for everyone else. According to our internal benchmarks on this new build, there are no performance regressions even in highly CPU-bound scenarios, so we decided to go ahead with this version.

 

Note that we of course still do not officially support running the game on systems which do not meet the listed minimum specifications.

 

VR Optimization

 

One thing which was on our agenda but didn't quite make it for release is using the hidden area mesh functionality of OpenVR to optimize VR rendering. The idea here is that in the pre-warping images rendered for each eye, quite a lot of pixels end up not actually being visible in the final image. Since this differs with each HMD, the driver can provide a mesh which covers those areas in order to reduce the rendering load.

Sadly, the engine used in Trails into Reverie did not support this out of the box, so we had to implement it manually. The exact performance improvement varies with each headset and the relative CPU and GPU load which depends on your hardware and game settings, but on my Valve Index I measured a 21% overall performance improvement, which is of course very significant.
 

Magical Girl Alisa Minigame Crash Fixes

A subset of players experienced crashes in specific places in this particular minigame, which were related to a use-after-free resource management problem. The big issue with crashes like these is that whether they actually manifest is highly dependent on the overall system configuration, aspects like framerate, or even what other software is running. This both makes it easier for them to slip through QA and potentially much harder to solve them. Fixing the reasons behind these potential crashes in time for the first patch (one work day, really, in order to enable some QA period) took the combined power of PH3, so big thanks to everyone involved!

 

 

Note that you can always revert to earlier versions of the game by selecting them in the Steam "Beta" menu.

 

[Koby]

Version 1.0.4 Release Notes

This is a quick patch as a follow-up to 1.0.3. It addresses the following issues:

• Fix a regression related to some aspects of ultra-wide aspect ratio handling in cutscenes.
• Fix an error which would occur after a specific interaction in the VR mini game.

 

[cookie2]

when will the patch come, im on ps4 and only have 1.01

[Koby]

57 minutes ago, cookie2 said:

when will the patch come, im on ps4 and only have 1.01

On PC they're already out, but on console they're pending cause I believe Sony has to verify/approve the patches before they hit PSN.

[Koby]

Version 1.0.5 Release Notes

Resolved a few more issues in this update:

• Fixed a short sequence during the ending scene playing with EN voices despite JP voice language being selected
• The game now correctly uses the button rebindings selected for battle attack and battle move actions in all relevant circumstances
• Fixed a legacy script issue in the "Intimate Moments" minigame that prevented interaction during one particular question
• Fixed some stretching issues with ultrawide aspect ratio support in the "Horror Coaster" minigame
• Fixed the background of the battle target info screen being stretched in non-16:9 aspect ratios
• Fixed a possible brief flicker when entering the gamepad rebinding menu from the pause menu

 

[Koby]

Version 1.0.6 Release Notes

This is another small update which primarily fixes a very specific crash which could sporadically occur on some systems:

• Fix a potential crash which could happen at some frame rates during a specific cutscene in "A Maiden's Melancholy"
• Fix some button prompts in a few help notes not correctly reflecting control re-bindings

Note that you can always revert to earlier versions of the game by selecting them in the Steam "Beta" menu.

 

[Koby]

Version 1.0.7 Release Notes

This update fixes a rare condition which could lead to black screens on scene changes, as well as several other smaller issues.

Here are the full patch notes:

• Fix a deadlock which could occur on some systems in rare circumstances, leading to the game becoming stuck on a black screen during loading / scene transitions.
• Fix a softlock issue in a small subset of battles, where very high frametime spikes (i.e. when performing an elaborate craft or art on a slower system) could lead to characters falling through the floor.
• Improve vertical culling of objects on an interior map.
• Fix the alignment of the battle turn counter in ultrawide aspect ratios.
• Fix a specific late-game button prompt.
• Fix the "Millennial Trove" shop name in its header.
• Replace some mentions of "trophies" with "achievements"

Since one of the first questions in the comments in patch notes for Reverie is frequently concerning fixes to various text issues which are not PC-specific, note these are being worked on for all versions of the game. Those fixes will be integrated as soon as they are available.

And of course, in the unexpected case that this patch breaks anything on your particular PC, note that you can always revert to earlier versions of the game by selecting them in the Steam "Beta" menu.

 

[Koby]

Version 1.0.8 Release Notes

This small update includes fixes for two different issues which can cause crashes in specific, rare circumstances:

• Fix a potential crash during the main scenario's final boss sequence.
• Fix a potential crash in one specific event after a character cut-in is displayed.

Since one of the first questions in the comments in patch notes for Reverie is frequently concerning fixes to various text issues which are not PC-specific, note these are still being worked on for all versions of the game. Those fixes will be integrated as soon as they are available.

And of course, in the unexpected case that this patch breaks anything on your particular PC, note that you can always revert to earlier versions of the game by selecting them in the Steam "Beta" menu.