Daybreak's playable characters

[Book]

(Minor Spoilers for Daybreak)

I was pretty disappointed by the cast of Daybreak. One thing I liked about FC and SC was how your companions would come and go as the story progressed and their goals diverged from yours. This made the characters feel more like humans. They weren't mindless robots, they were independent people who helped you when your goals aligned with theirs and left your party when they didn't.

In Daybreak, however, you meet the characters and they immediately join your party, and with a few brief exceptions they never leave for the rest of the game. Furthermore there isn't much justification for most of them joining your party in the first place. Risette and Barkhorn make sense since they and Van have a history and reasonable motivations for joining, but Aaron barely knows you before he joins your party and never leaves. Judith is probably the best companion in this regard because she is a) an adult, and b) someone who meets your party several times before she decides to join.

Also, Agnes, Feri, and Quatre are all children and yet the adults are perfectly fine letting them tag along on their adventures, even after people start getting their throats slit?
Granted, the previous Trails games had young protagonists too like Tita in FC and SC, but the older games were more light-hearted and rarely featured actual death. Daybreak wants to tell a more mature story but has a cast full of characters who are either too young to be realistically put in these situations or barely know the protagonists before they join your party and act like they're your best friend.

TLDR; Daybreak's playable characters are characters who have little reason to be assisting Van, and are often too young to be in such a supposedly-mature setting.

[Koby]

Agnes is there because of the Genesis, which makes sense. Though her sudden combat ability doesn't make a lot of sense.

Feri is a jeager so combat is her way of life. Of course people are going to treat her different than your usual kid.

Quatre makes a bit of sense too based on his ideals, goals, and capabilities.

Aaron, idk what else you thought he'd do. Most of his friends died off, the people he thought he could trust used him, and he almost got taken over. He was saved by Van, so it's like the one place he has any ties to at that point.

As for companions coming and going... We do still get that with various other characters: Zin, Elaine, Yin, Shizuna, etc.

[Book]

Originally posted by Koby:

Agnes is there because of the Genesis, which makes sense. Though her sudden combat ability doesn't make a lot of sense.

Feri is a jeager so combat is her way of life. Of course people are going to treat her different than your usual kid.

Quatre makes a bit of sense too based on his ideals, goals, and capabilities.

Aaron, idk what else you thought he'd do. Most of his friends died off, the people he thought he could trust used him, and he almost got taken over. He was saved by Van, so it's like the one place he has any ties to at that point.

As for companions coming and going... We do still get that with various other characters: Zin, Elaine, Yin, Shizuna, etc.

It makes sense that Agnes wants the Geneses, but why is she getting directly involved in the search? She's like 16, why not just hire Van and call it a day? And why is Van okay with a 16-year-old following him into life or death situations, especially after they see a guy get his throat slit.

[Endora]

Joshua was 11 when the Professor brainwashed him to become an assassin, same age as Rennee was known as "The Angel of Slaughter", and she pass trhough some way worst things to get to that point. The War of The Lions, the Hammel atrocity, the attack to Celdic, etc... Death and crime was allways in the series, just wasn't cleary portrait to the players. The only difference is that Daybreak did put the bodies to be seen to the players, because the characters were allways aware of it.

[Book]

Originally posted by Endora:

Joshua was 11 when the Professor brainwashed him to become an assassin, same age as Rennee was known as "The Angel of Slaughter", and she pass trhough some way worst things to get to that point. The War of The Lions, the Hammel atrocity, the attack to Celdic, etc... Death and crime was allways in the series, just wasn't cleary portrait to the players. The only difference is that Daybreak did put the bodies to be seen to the players, because the characters were allways aware of it.

Joshua and Renne were abducted by terrorists to be used as child soldiers. Feri, Agnes, and Quatre are children but the heroic characters have no problem putting them in serious danger, which seems irresponsible. I can't imagine Tita or Estelle from FC fighting Almata either.

[Endora]

Oh, I agree, Van is too soft to say no to the children, and that's why Elaine and others disaprove. But my point is that it's a very harsh world and everyone is aware of it, so it's not that abnormal. But I agree with you, just because it's normal doesn't means that it's right.

[Reitschuster]

I don't, I can't understand how you have a problem with Daybreak when in skytrails people's motivations are completely flimsy and flip-floppy, people come and go without any good reason. Tita tags along just because she wants to even though she has no combat prowess whatsoever unlike Feri, and actually holds you back and it results in things going awry, like when they failed to capture black ops operative because of her at the tower. In Daybreak people have actual reasons for joining and they stick around until the deal is done, and then it's over, Van sends them all off. If they're too young here, they were too young earlier, and there shouldn't be a problem with that. And sure some children want to tag along even if things get violent even in real life, you're really just basing things on arbitrary sensitivities to say something's wrong with the writing but really it's gone ways up from skytrails which has the worst writing in trails.

[Reitschuster]

Originally posted by Endora:

Oh, I agree, Van is too soft to say no to the children, and that's why Elaine and others disaprove. But my point is that it's a very harsh world and everyone is aware of it, so it's not that abnormal. But I agree with you, just because it's normal doesn't means that it's right.

Van is not too soft to say no, he tells them off and he tells them go away. He's forced by the force of circumstances to keep them and also makes use of them (they submit requests and work), Feri's father threatened him to take good care of her, Agnes can't go away because she has vested personal interest, and Aaron gets to know you enough during the Langport events, which was really enough to make a decision to go. I've had real friendships develop in much shorter timespan because people want to trust people, sometimes even without reasons, but Aaron has good reasons to do so, he was literally saved by Van several times and he understands him.

[Reitschuster]

Originally posted by Bookworm:

Originally posted by Koby:

Agnes is there because of the Genesis, which makes sense. Though her sudden combat ability doesn't make a lot of sense.

Feri is a jeager so combat is her way of life. Of course people are going to treat her different than your usual kid.

Quatre makes a bit of sense too based on his ideals, goals, and capabilities.

Aaron, idk what else you thought he'd do. Most of his friends died off, the people he thought he could trust used him, and he almost got taken over. He was saved by Van, so it's like the one place he has any ties to at that point.

As for companions coming and going... We do still get that with various other characters: Zin, Elaine, Yin, Shizuna, etc.

It makes sense that Agnes wants the Geneses, but why is she getting directly involved in the search? She's like 16, why not just hire Van and call it a day? And why is Van okay with a 16-year-old following him into life or death situations, especially after they see a guy get his throat slit.

Because she wants to. It's a girl, and she proved her ability to be able to survive. She's not a liability like Tita, Kloe or Elie. It's all her own choice and it's realistic behavior. It doesn't happen in real life but it's completely possible. She also has a good opinion of Van and wants to follow him (much like Feri in that regard), that's a completely normal girl behavior.

[Reitschuster]

Also one thing that I really don't like with many people people is that the maturity is somehow negated by the existence of teenage characters in the game. First of all, Falcom has always said they wanted to make a more mature game, and they delivered, there's more blood, there's death and mature settings shown in the game explicitly. Nothing more, nothing less. You guys expect Falcom to just make a complete jump to GTA? It's not happening, nor did they promise it, it's not even actually needed. The game delivers on what it promised and nothing negates it, children exist in mature, adult settings, and in real life too, they're used as child soldiers, exploited. It's pretty tame, it could have been a lot more brutal and harsh, but as far as Trails goes, it's never been more brutal and harsher. Just be grateful or give up on the series, you're wasting your time if your ideal of a Trails game is a teenage game with boring and bad quality writing like skytrails. Maturity is also not about how things should be but about how things are, it's a complete mature game in that it's about an adult protagonist and what he's doing, with adult over and undertones, music, circumstances. Completely different from skytrails.

[Book]

Originally posted by Reitschuster:

Also one thing that I really don't like with many people people is that the maturity is somehow negated by the existence of teenage characters in the game. First of all, Falcom has always said they wanted to make a more mature game, and they delivered, there's more blood, there's death and mature settings shown in the game explicitly. Nothing more, nothing less. You guys expect Falcom to just make a complete jump to GTA? It's not happening, nor did they promise it, it's not even actually needed. The game delivers on what it promised and nothing negates it, children exist in mature, adult settings, and in real life too, they're used as child soldiers, exploited. It's pretty tame, it could have been a lot more brutal and harsh, but as far as Trails goes, it's never been more brutal and harsher. Just be grateful or give up on the series, you're wasting your time if your ideal of a Trails game is a teenage game with boring and bad quality writing like skytrails. Maturity is also not about how things should be but about how things are, it's a complete mature game in that it's about an adult protagonist and what he's doing, with adult over and undertones, music, circumstances. Completely different from skytrails.

No reasonable adult would let a 13-year-old fight terrorists armed with nuclear bombs. Daybreak wants to be a mature game but it is still about teenagers saving the world through the power of friendship. Furthermore it takes Ouroboros, who were competent and intimidating in SC, and turns them into harmless cartoon villains (although Cold Steel did this to some extent as well). I would also say FC and Azure's stories had a lot more depth and maturity than Daybreak's. In FC and Azure the main villains weren't really evil, just flawed, in Daybreak however Almata is comically evil and not sympathetic in any way.

[Chuuniflo]

Originally posted by Bookworm:

Originally posted by Reitschuster:

Also one thing that I really don't like with many people people is that the maturity is somehow negated by the existence of teenage characters in the game. First of all, Falcom has always said they wanted to make a more mature game, and they delivered, there's more blood, there's death and mature settings shown in the game explicitly. Nothing more, nothing less. You guys expect Falcom to just make a complete jump to GTA? It's not happening, nor did they promise it, it's not even actually needed. The game delivers on what it promised and nothing negates it, children exist in mature, adult settings, and in real life too, they're used as child soldiers, exploited. It's pretty tame, it could have been a lot more brutal and harsh, but as far as Trails goes, it's never been more brutal and harsher. Just be grateful or give up on the series, you're wasting your time if your ideal of a Trails game is a teenage game with boring and bad quality writing like skytrails. Maturity is also not about how things should be but about how things are, it's a complete mature game in that it's about an adult protagonist and what he's doing, with adult over and undertones, music, circumstances. Completely different from skytrails.

No reasonable adult would let a 13-year-old fight terrorists armed with nuclear bombs. Daybreak wants to be a mature game but it is still about teenagers saving the world through the power of friendship. Furthermore it takes Ouroboros, who were competent and intimidating in SC, and turns them into harmless cartoon villains (although Cold Steel did this to some extent as well). I would also say FC and Azure's stories had a lot more depth and maturity than Daybreak's. In FC and Azure the main villains weren't really evil, just flawed, in Daybreak however Almata is comically evil and not sympathetic in any way.

No idea why you're only applying this logic to Daybreak when underage characters have always been at the forefront of combat in this series. In Sky we had Estelle, Joshua, Kloe (who is also the crown princess and thus shouldn't really engage with this stuff to begin with) and Tita all going up against parts of their own countries army and an organisation as dangerous as Ouroboros, with only Joshua having any real combat experience. In Crossbell we had a 14 year old Tio who worked in active police duty and went up against a demon summoning cult and pretty much the most dangerous jaeger corp in all of Zemuria. And then there was Cold Steel, which had multiple groups of 15 to 17 year olds partake in multiple wars (one of which could've escalated into a world war), engage with ouroboros on the daily and saw multiple people die before their own eyes (until they got revived/it was revealed that they magically survived an airship exploding). Sure the kids in Cold Steel were students at a military academy but to say that most of them had enough combat experience to act in wars, let alone be at the direct center would just be lying. What makes any of those examples different from the Daybreak crew, when the only core difference is the amount of death the player actively sees?

[Reitschuster]

Originally posted by Bookworm:

Originally posted by Reitschuster:

Also one thing that I really don't like with many people people is that the maturity is somehow negated by the existence of teenage characters in the game. First of all, Falcom has always said they wanted to make a more mature game, and they delivered, there's more blood, there's death and mature settings shown in the game explicitly. Nothing more, nothing less. You guys expect Falcom to just make a complete jump to GTA? It's not happening, nor did they promise it, it's not even actually needed. The game delivers on what it promised and nothing negates it, children exist in mature, adult settings, and in real life too, they're used as child soldiers, exploited. It's pretty tame, it could have been a lot more brutal and harsh, but as far as Trails goes, it's never been more brutal and harsher. Just be grateful or give up on the series, you're wasting your time if your ideal of a Trails game is a teenage game with boring and bad quality writing like skytrails. Maturity is also not about how things should be but about how things are, it's a complete mature game in that it's about an adult protagonist and what he's doing, with adult over and undertones, music, circumstances. Completely different from skytrails.

No reasonable adult would let a 13-year-old fight terrorists armed with nuclear bombs. Daybreak wants to be a mature game but it is still about teenagers saving the world through the power of friendship. Furthermore it takes Ouroboros, who were competent and intimidating in SC, and turns them into harmless cartoon villains (although Cold Steel did this to some extent as well). I would also say FC and Azure's stories had a lot more depth and maturity than Daybreak's. In FC and Azure the main villains weren't really evil, just flawed, in Daybreak however Almata is comically evil and not sympathetic in any way.

Ukrainian Armed Forces has been employing teenagers as young as 14 if they're willing, and they look down on fellow kids for not participating in the war, since as early as 2022. Young girls that look like Trails girls, cripples and the elderly get conscripted as of 2024 to just get sent into a meatgrinder, and this is all endorsed by modern Western governments comprised of reasonable adults, they're not insane at least. And all of this to fight people who are much more dangerous and numerous than Almata.
ISIS trained kids as early as 11 and 12, and Iraqi & Syrian army executed kids for taking part in terrorist activities
It's literally reality for people younger than Agnes and Fie, it's not Trails, it's in the real world and it's worse. They don't have someone caring like Van to take care of them and raise them either.
Also, Ouroboros were never competent or intimidating in skytrails, they were always just cartoony and stupid chess pieces who didn't even want to fight you "oh just fight me if you want to go through there". Is this serious? In Daytrails they actually have actual motivations and want to do serious things that hadn't been done before.
Skytrails didn't have any depth, all villains didn't have any depth to them, the entire story of the coup and FC was literally devalued by the fact that Richard had not done everything he did out of his own volition, he was just manipulated into it by people whose manipulations were basically "I just want to be evil" or "I have to be evil" like Loewe. This is downright childish, nobody is like this in Daytrails.
In Crosstrails, you're literally acting like complete criminals and acting on behalf of one criminal group (Heiyue) against another, also suspect the Erebonian faction to be automatically corrupt and bad, hating on Hartmann and blaming him for everything that happened while simultaneously absolving him for everything he did on account of being blackmailed, but at the same time absolving KeA for all responsibility even though her actions led to everything bad in Crossbell happening including her annexations, who is also a complete aberration that manipulated everyone into loving her and you just accept it because she looks like a little human girl. Instead of removing her out of existence, you decide to worship her because she's a child.
This isn't depth, it's just childish plots (skytrails) and completely terrible moral tales (crosstails), if you take it for what it is, it's literally just that. Nothing of that sort happens in daytrails. One really needs a change in perspective to appreciate Trails through Daybreak instead of just wishing for new skytrails. Objectively, the writing has improved t tenfold and I didn't even list all of the flaws it has.

[Reitschuster]

You also don't have Estelle maniacally obsessing over Renne whom she had only known for 1-2 days, seeking to find her wherever she is just to make her her friend and make-believe younger sister against her own will, or Tita feeling so concerned over Renne whom she also had only known for a day, and also defending her from Ries' chastisement because Tita doesn't like fighting. Neither Feri nor Agnes do it. Aaron joins Van because it is convenient, comfortable and helps him get what he want.
But the former is somehow good writing with depth and the latter is immature and unrealistic.
It's already more realistic and more mature than before,it doesn't feel aggravating either. Trails will be good if it keeps that up at least.

[Reitschuster]

Lots of these things also come from people who come into the game expecting things they read about from reviews or on social media, you need to come into every trails game with an open mind and judge it for what it is. Yes, it's true Falcom wanted a more mature and an adult story, but they didn't say this will be GTA 4 either. It's harsher, it's more realistic and with better writing. That's it. It's also not coldtrails 5 where one of the routes has only one adult character, two 13 years old and one girl that looks like she's 10.

[ToxiCyborg]

Originally posted by Bookworm:

Originally posted by Koby:

Agnes is there because of the Genesis, which makes sense. Though her sudden combat ability doesn't make a lot of sense.

Feri is a jeager so combat is her way of life. Of course people are going to treat her different than your usual kid.

Quatre makes a bit of sense too based on his ideals, goals, and capabilities.

Aaron, idk what else you thought he'd do. Most of his friends died off, the people he thought he could trust used him, and he almost got taken over. He was saved by Van, so it's like the one place he has any ties to at that point.

As for companions coming and going... We do still get that with various other characters: Zin, Elaine, Yin, Shizuna, etc.

It makes sense that Agnes wants the Geneses, but why is she getting directly involved in the search? She's like 16, why not just hire Van and call it a day? And why is Van okay with a 16-year-old following him into life or death situations, especially after they see a guy get his throat slit.

Yet another I wanna hate thread...


Trails of cold steel main characters are 17~15 when the arc starts and yet they are fighting wars, teaming up with inteligence division officer etcs. Stelle, Joshua and Tita were already spoken above...
Crossbell arc also has young characters facing the worlds biggest threats.... That's just how things are in animes and JRPGs in general.

About the game being more mature, with people actually dying,I think the devs finally realised that they can't tell a history about war or terrorism without putting some actuall consequences on it. Much better than the approach from other games on the series...