Trails Through Daybreak 2 is a JRPG, which means its full of fairly complex battle mechanics, systems, and side activities that can feel a little overwhelming if you’re not familiar with the series. Is it really a JRPG if there aren’t a million numbers flying everywhere during battles?
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Trails Through Daybreak 2 Review – A Trail Not Really Worth Following
Trails Through Daybreak 2 has several vast improvements, but a lackluster story with poorly implemented time travel makes it difficult to recommend.
Thankfully, we’re here to help you with some beginner tips to help you get your bearings and make sure you’re fully equipped with the knowledge you need to make your time with the game a little less confusing.
Buy Everything
Trails Through Daybreak 2 has a staggering number of stores for you to visit, each one selling different weapons, armor, accessories, food, and items that are all helpful in one way or another. My advice here is to just buy everything you can, even if you think it won’t be particularly useful.
You’ll be able to trade in groups of accessories for stronger versions later in the game, so even the most useless piece of junk could potentially be important down the line.
The same goes for food too, which can be eaten to increase your Gourmet Rank, which gives you increased stats. Every item in every store is useful in some way or another, and since cash is much easier to obtain in Daybreak 2, it’s in your best interest to hoover up as much stuff as you can.
Don’t Ignore Marchen Garten
One of Trails Through Daybreak 2’s biggest new additions is Marchen Garten, a virtual world in which you can tackle floors of enemies for rewards. These rewards come in the form of items to upgrade crafts, money, quartz, sepith, and tones of other useful bits and pieces. This is your one-stop shop if you need to grind for anything.
It’s an entirely optional bit of the game, but it will make your experience with Trails Through Daybreak 2 a lot smoother. It’s a source of endless cash and upgrade materials, and all you need to do is clear out small dungeons to grab them.
You can also find items called Skill Stones throughout Marchen Garten, which are consumable upgrade items for each character. These stones improve a character’s Crafts in almost every way, from damage output to CP usage, so grabbing these and using them should be a priority.
Use Shard Search Often
Another aspect of Marchen Garten you should become well acquainted with are Shard Tokens. This currency can be used by Mare to analyze cubes full of cash, sepith, and the aforementioned Skill Stone. You need a total of 500 Shard Tokens to analyze each cube.
While you can obtain Shard Tokens in Marchen Garten, you can also find them in almost every place you explore in Calvard, floating around each city and village. All you need to do is use your Shard Search function to make them appear, and then you can run around collecting them.
Note: You’ll actually see large clumps of Shard Tokens in the world without using Shard Search, as the air in the surrounding area will be slightly wavy.
Shard Search is also very helpful for uncovering fishing spots with unique fish in them, and digging up useful items during one of the game’s chapters. It’s just a useful feature that you should use very often.
Give Lots Of Characters Guardian 2
In regard to battles, there are a few things you can do to increase your chances of victory. Shard Abilities can be very powerful when used properly, and one of the best abilities is Guardian 2.
This ability gives characters a 20 percent chance to reduce any damage coming another character’s way, and that percentage rises when you boost said character. If you have multiple characters in the party with Guardian 2, you can ensure it activates for almost every attack, significantly reducing the damage you receive overall.
It’s relatively easy to put on characters too, requiring just 8 Mirage quartz and 8 Earth quartz in the Shield line of their Xipha. Failing that, you can even go for the standard version of Guardian, which just requires 2 of each, but reduces less damage.
Treasure Hunter And Hawkeye Are Must-Haves
On a similar note, there are two other Shard Abilities that are must-haves for at least one character in your party. Treasure Hunter ensures that every chest in the game will appear on your map, which makes grabbing rare items and consumables a lot easier in the long run.
Hawkeye is also pretty helpful, letting you see the location of enemies on your map too, which lets you know how tough of a fight you’re in for. If there’s a single enemy around the corner, chances are it’s an absolute beast waiting to kick your teeth in.
All you have to do is give a single character in your party these abilities for them to remain active, and you don’t even have to use them. They can be in your support team, and you’ll still get the full effect. You’ll most likely get these abilities naturally as you equip characters with more Quartz, but the sooner you get them, the better.
Keep Shields Up At All Times
You’ll quickly find out in Daybreak 2 that enemies are capable of hitting you real hard, especially the bosses that can have an S-Craft or two up their sleeve. Guardian 2 is an excellent way to mitigate the damage, but having shields up at all times is another great way to keep yourself alive, and even take no damage at all during fights.
Tip: There are a few characters with abilities that give you shields, such as Agnes with her Jibril Guard, Quatre with his Laplace Code, and Risette with her Cobalt Curtain.
There are also a number of arts that can give you shields too, such as Earth Guard, so it’s worth having two or three of these abilities in play at any given time, which will let you keep shields up even when your enemies eventually punch through them. In fact, it may be worth having someone with a shield art too, just in case you run out of CP for Crafts.
Spread Out In Battle
You’ll want to make sure your characters aren’t clumped together in fights. Almost every enemy you face in Trails Through Daybreak 2 has an area of effect attack that will strike all of your party at once if they’re bunched up.
It’s best to spread out, but remain in pairs if possible, so you can still make use of SLCM links and EX chain attacks. You can pair up your ranged party members and your physical ones, or get a character like Van to attract enemies with his Coin Bullets ability and run off to the side, while the rest of your party groups up.
There are some wide-reaching, unavoidable area of effect attacks in which everyone will get hit, but you should be able to avoid getting deleted by a group of enemies if you make a concerted effort to spread out a little.
Don’t Throw The Kitchen Sink At Bosses
Trails Through Daybreak 2 can be a little sneaky when it comes to misleading boss fights. You’ll often be faced with a tough foe, only to take them down and find out that an even tougher enemy is waiting in the wings, ready to pounce now that you’re in a fragile state.
This happens surprisingly frequently, so while it may be tempting to spend all of your CP or MP on the boss in front of you, it could be worth conserving some resources just in case you get thrown into another tough fight immediately afterward.
It’s also worth keeping some meals that restore CP on you just in case too – which you can cook at Montmart Bistro in Old Town – as you’ll also be thrown into back-to-back fights with a small amount of prep time inbetween. Going into a fight with a full CP bar boosts your chances enormously.
JRPG
Action RPG
RPG
Action
- Released
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February 14, 2025
- ESRB
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T for Teen – Blood, Drug Reference, Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence
- Developer(s)
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Nihon Falcom, PH3 GmbH