I recently got my hands on "The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak" with the full English translation available on Steam. Thanks to NIS America for providing early access to test this out on the Steam Deck. The game runs beautifully on the device, performing fantastically well during fights and in the city. The dialogue is well done, though not all of it is fully voiced. The fully voiced sections are particularly impressive.
Initially, I noticed that the game could go up to 120 frames per second in some instances, but it struggled to maintain over 70 fps consistently. To stabilize the performance, I recommend setting the frame rate to 60 fps and turning off VSync, although it still performed fine with VSync on.
Using the medium preset with a few tweaks, like turning off motion blur and depth of field, setting shadow resolution to medium, and keeping anti-aliasing on high, significantly improved the gameplay experience. I also turned off port rate super sampling, shadow caching, and local shadowing, while keeping four times MSAA on the minimap and turning off high-resolution cube maps.
These settings allowed the game to run at a solid 60 fps for the most part. Outside of combat, the power consumption was around 12 watts, but it increased to about 19-20 watts during battles. Even with all the effects during combat, the game maintained around 60 fps, though there were minor dips into the 40s and 50s during some of the more intense skill animations. These dips were brief and didn't significantly impact the overall smoothness of the game.
"Trails through Daybreak" is one of the most involved JRPGs I've played in a while, featuring a mix of real-time and timed battles, along with various skills and team-up abilities. The game's depth is evident, with a lot of elements to manage, making it both challenging and engaging. From the gameplay I've experienced, it looks like there's well over 100 hours of content, ensuring you'll get your money's worth.