The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails

Overview

The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails (Nayuta no Kiseki in Japan) is an action RPG published by Nihon Falcom for the PlayStation Portable that was released in Japan on July 26, 2012. The game is a spin-off to Falcom's popular Kiseki (Trails) series but the exact connections Nayuta has with the rest of the franchise is unknown. Nayuta supposedly takes place many years before Trails in the Sky and uses a lot of the franchise's terminology, such as the currency being called mira.

A remastered version of Nayuta was released almost a decade later in 2021 for the PlayStation 4 called Nayuta no Kiseki Kai, which featured higher resolution graphics and additional character art. The same year, NIS America confirmed that Nayuta would be released in English in 2023 for the PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC. The Switch port was especially notable because it was later revealed that it would be developed by Falcom themselves, making it the first title the company developed for the platform.

Development

During the mid-2000s, the PlayStation Portable was Nihon Falcom's primary development platform. After releasing more than a dozen titles over the course of six years, Nayuta was planned to be Falcom's swan song to the PSP. A culmination of everything the company had learned throughout their tenure with the device.

The title was conceived as a spin-off to the company's Trails franchise with the hope of addressing a common criticism with the series. While fans enjoyed the storytelling of Trails, its turn-based combat was often criticized for being slow and tedious. So Nayuta's goal was to create an entry in the franchise that retained the storytelling style of past Trails games while having fast-paced action combat. This combination of styles was classified as a "Story Action RPG" by Falcom. While technically a spin-off, Nayuta was basically a completely new game that the team created from scratch so the "Legend of Heroes" moniker was removed from its title since Nayuta was so different from previous Trails games [1].

Trivia

• There is actually another Falcom character that shares the same last name as Nayuta's protagonist, Nayuta Herschel, that being Towa Herschel from the Trails of Cold Steel series. Since both games technically take place in the same universe, Towa could be some kind of decedent of Nayuta but most likely it is simply a fun reference made by the developers.
• Since the visual style and gameplay are so similar, it is believed by some fans that Nayuta was created by the same team within Falcom that developed the Zwei series. While never officially confirmed, Falcom's president did state that Nayuta was influenced by Zwei II specifically and fans in Japan and the West sometimes think of Nayuta as an unofficial third installment in the Zwei franchise [2][3].
• Each boss fight in Nayuta was designed with the idea that it could be the final boss in a normal game, meaning they are not only large but feature multiple transformations [1][2].

References

1. Nayuta no Kiseki Interview in Weekly Famitsu (Endless History, 2012).
2. Phantom Game Screens Unveiled. The Last Masterpiece of Nihon Falcom's PC, "Zwei 2" was initially "Ys"! (AppBank, 2017).
3. The Unfortunate Action RPG "The Legend of Nayuta" that Failed to become a Masterpiece with its Title (New Retro Game, 2017).