Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Impressions

At some point in my Falcom journey, I decided it would be very funny to play all the games on the Nintendo Switch. I don’t really know why, but once Falcom upgraded their engine around Trails of Cold Steel III, this became a bit of a hindrance for me. That era of games struggled to run consistently on the system, with low resolutions and unstable frame rates. With the Trails of Daybreak games and Ys X getting a new internal Falcom engine, results were also mixed. I recently reviewed Daybreak II and found it to be an underwhelming but largely playable version of the game. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter will be the first native Nintendo Switch 2 game for the Trails series, which had me very interested since you can upgrade from the base Nintendo Switch version for only $1.

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter Nintendo Switch 2 Edition seemed like a home run, but as of version 1.0.4 available to me a day before launch, I’m not too impressed. We got the game late last night, roughly one day before launch. We are not aware of any upcoming patches, so we’re going to let you know what you can expect from this with the version we have available at this moment. The Nintendo eShop claims this version is capable of 4k 30 frames per second or 1080p 60 frames per second, but oddly enough, that is not currently in the Switch 2 Edition. There aren’t any graphical options that showed up in the System settings, regardless of the various internal system resolutions I would set it to (1080p, 1440p, 4k). I don’t have access to the ability to pixel count, but this seems like it caps out somewhere in the 1080p to 1440p range when docked. Undocked, it seems like it is somewhere in the 900p to 1080p range.

Visually, I think Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a real looker on Switch 2. This is the best Falcom’s internal engine has ever looked, bringing the world of Liberl to life. The picture is crisp, and the grassy fields that populate the countryside you run through are more dense with foliage than on the base Switch version. I booted the demo up on my PC to compare the foliage, and while this is more impressive than the Switch, it still doesn’t match the upper end of what this is capable of. Resolution seems to be consistent and sharp, though, in both modes, but I find it to be much more impressive to look at on the actual Switch 2 screen. The resolution is just fantastic undocked, seeming to stay close to the native 1080p resolution. Textures also see a modest improvement over Switch. For a portable modern Trails game, this is the kind of visual fidelity I strive for, and I find it to be similar to my experience playing the demo on Steam Deck.

Performance is where most of my issues are. I was really happy to see the Switch version had an uncapped framerate and a high resolution ceiling, because it led to a great backwards compatible title. In my time playing the demo on my Switch 2, I found it to look and run great, basically always hitting that 60 frames per second target. The resolution was still sub-1080p, and the picture looked a bit blurry as a result, but performance never dipped too far, and it was easily the best-looking Falcom game on the system.

On Switch 2, when playing in Docked mode, we’re looking at an unstable 60 frames per second target with frequent hitching and stutters. I loaded the same early areas from the prologue in both the native Switch 2 version and on the Switch demo for my testing. I’m not sure if this is an issue with the performance dipping into the 50 frames per second range often or frame pacing issues. Location didn’t really seem to matter for this either, as everywhere from out in the field to inside dungeons saw frame rate dips. It’s hard to understand what is really happening here, but I imagine it’s the resolution increase not being properly optimized for performance. This might also explain why undocked feels a bit more stable. However, this could be an instance of VRR being engaged. Given that the Nintendo eShop description for the update touts a graphical mode for 4k 30 frames per second that isn’t here, I wonder if more customizable graphical settings will make it to Switch 2 sometime after launch.

I don’t find this to be a total net negative over the Switch version being played over backwards compatibility, though. HD Rumble seems to be used on both versions, but feels a bit more present on Switch 2. Knocking enemies into their stun-states for follow-up attacks, or even opening doors out on the field, has a joyous weight to it on Switch 2. Undocked performance also felt more stable for the Switch 2 Edition, hitting closer to the 60 frames per second target in the areas I tested. Backwards compatibility for the demo dipped frames much more often when playing undocked, whereas this is closer to docked performance. I never saw either mode have massive dips, either, but the inconsistency might bother some people. Cutscene resolution is spectacular and seems near native from my testing. Given how story-focused the Trails series is, I consider this a win.

It’s a bit of a shame at the moment that the Switch 2 Edition wasn’t able to live up to the hype, but I don’t know if I’d say all hope is lost. Considering what Falcom was able to achieve with performance on Ys X: Proud Nordics (being one of the few Switch 2 games capable of hitting 120 frames per second on the performance mode), I hope this latest title can get optimized for a smooth 60 frames per second. As someone who can work with games in that 40-60 frames per second range, especially turn-based RPGs, I think I can work with this.

I’d personally recommend playing this undocked if you’re going to play Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter on Nintendo Switch 2. Docked looks nice, but doesn’t entirely match up with the visuals of PS5 or PC. I was planning to mostly play this portably, so this is a win to me, but I would have hoped docked performance would be smoother. You could also choose not to upgrade, take the resolution and foliage hit, and get a more locked 60 frames per second when playing docked with the base Switch version on back-compat. Then you’d be losing out on the undocked resolution and performance improvements, though. We’ll update this further if a Day 1 patch drops to smooth out performance or add the extra 4K graphical mode. You can also expect a full review for Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter here on Nintendo Insider once we finish it.