The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails Review – A Different Sort Of Legend

It feels like every few months now, we get another long-requested game previously left in Japan released in the West. Originally released on the PSP in 2012, The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails was Nihon Falcom’s final release on the handheld system. Fans of their various series like The Legend of Heroes and Ys will recognize many familiar aspects as it sort of feels like they took those series and threw them in a blender. While not everything in The Legend of Nayuta feels like it comes directly from those other series, it definitely owes them a debt.

Finding Lost Heaven

In The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails, we follow Nayuta Herschel, a young man who has just returned to his hometown for the summer along with his best friend, Cygna. His home on Remnant Isle is known for strange ruins crashing from the sky, along with crystals that show up with images seemingly burned into them, depicting a strange world. The villagers on the island have taken to calling the place in those images Lost Heaven, though none of them know what it is.

That changes one day when a huge ruin crashes into the ocean nearby. Nayuta and Cygna offer to clear out any monsters inside, but when they get to the top, they find a small fairy being attacked by a strange man before having an item stolen away. After nursing her back to health, they follow the frightened fairy Noi through a portal that leads to Lost Heaven, her home. There, they find that her home world is under attack by a man who seems determined to tear it down by destabilizing the climate. Before long, they get swept up in the events of this other world they seem to have a strange amount of connections to.

Fans of The Legend of Heroes should know going in that this isn’t directly connected to the rest of that sprawling series. There are a few references that could suggest a minor connection between the games, but we’re talking minor. If you go in expecting that level of world-building and a deep story, you’ll likely come away disappointed. While the story and characters here are entertaining enough, they don’t have the depth those epics provide.

Handheld Design

Legend of Heroes fans also will find that The Legend of Nayuta is a very different game. This is an action RPG, in some ways borrowing more from Nihon Falcom’s other series, such as Ys. While the character designs and world design here certainly have more than a passing resemblance to The Legend of Heroes, that’s mostly where the connections end. Once things get going, you’ll control Nayuta as he slashes away with swords and various other melee weapons. Soon enough, Noi joins you in combat, able to use a wide variety of magic arts which allow you to use projectile and other ranged attacks. You can eventually equip several of these attacks at once, swapping between them with a quick button press. Since some enemies are immune to melee attacks, you’ll need to mix up your attacking style using both sets of abilities.

Instead of the giant overworld of many other Nihon Falcom games, The Legend of Nayuta is mostly a level-based affair. You can explore freely around Remnant Isle, which is a fairly big area with a dungeon directly attached to it, but once you reach Lost Heaven, you’ll use the main hub there to choose individual stages. These stages offer short bursts, with most of them able to be completed within a few short minutes. It’s easy to see that this was originally created as a handheld game, designed to be played in short bursts. In an era where so many games are able to be played portably but so few are designed for it, this is a refreshing change of pace.

Combat is mostly satisfying if a bit simple. Unlocking new moves and abilities increases your arsenal over time, and each stage gives you the chance to accomplish multiple missions that help you progress your skills. Some of the skills you unlock, though feel like they should have been part of your original set of abilities, and even after you unlock most of Nayuta’s possible skills, combat still feels fairly one-note, even if it is fun. Enemy designs vary a great deal, though I actually think the game uses a lot of its most interesting ones early on. Revisiting earlier stages later in the game left me wondering why I hadn’t seen any enemies similar to some of the early ones in a long time. Boss fights are a highlight, however with some featuring multiple stages which force you to use many of your unlockable abilities to defeat them. The only issue I had with these encounters was that many sets of these fights require you to repeatedly use a very specific move, so if you don’t figure out what move the game wants you to use, you can’t even touch the enemy.

Master Each Stage

Level design is one of The Legend of Nayuta’s greatest strengths, as many of these stages feature incredibly clever designs. As the game progresses, you’ll unlock new abilities which can be used in the overworld, such as the ability to break barriers, create a shield that can be used to move across water, or climb up walls. That means you’ll have to return to levels to access areas you couldn’t reach on your first visit. It reminds me in some ways of a Metroidvania-style game. A lot of The Legend of Nayuta’s story revolves around changing climate as well, and over time, you’ll unlock multiple seasons for each area. This is a cool change of pace because returning to a stage that was originally designed for summer in the winter will find various areas blocked off while other areas will now be available. These branching stages offer something familiar but twist it in interesting new ways.

If anything though, The Legend of Nayuta perhaps overstays its welcome a bit. While it isn’t as long as some of Falcom’s other games, by the time I was 20 hours in, I had mostly had my fill as the combat just doesn’t evolve enough to stay interesting for that long, and its characters and world-building are too slight to pick up the slack. A number of new quality-of-life features, such as a fast-forward option, are similar to what other recent Falcom releases by NIS America have offered, but it’s a welcome inclusion. Beyond that, there are some updated graphics and audio compared to the PSP original, but it won’t make you forget where the game started its life.

Conclusion

The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails is a fun action RPG whose portable origins shine through for better and worse. While definitely fun, its story and gameplay can feel a tad slight at times, especially as the game goes on. Still, fans of Falcom’s other titles will find a lot of what they love about the developer’s work here and should absolutely give The Legend of Nayuta a shot.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

Available on: PC (Reviewed), PS4, Switch; Publisher: NIS America; Developer: Nihon Falcom, PH3 GmbH; Players: 1; Released: September 19th, 2023; ESRB: E10+ for Everyone 10+; MSRP: $39.99

Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails provided by the publisher.