After 20 years, JRPG vets behind this 710-hour story say ending the saga would’ve been impossible in their 20s because they “didn’t have the necessary life experience”

The company president behind Trails’ developer says writing the current arc in the 710-hour series would’ve been impossible while the developers were in their 20s, because they “didn’t have the necessary life experience.”

The Trails series is a damn long one. Last year, when The Legend of Heroes: Trails Into Reverie was released, we calculated that for newcomers to become familiar enough with the series to play the new entry, they’d effectively have to play through 658 hours worth of games in order to get there. That was spread over 11 games and three distinct story arcs.

The RPG series from Nihon Falcom has now been running for a grand 20 years, but company president Toshihiro Kondo said earlier this year that it’s now roughly “80-90% complete.” If you’re wondering what’s changed over the past 20-odd years for the series, Kondo tells Sports Illustrated that Falcom’s developers couldn’t write the current in-game storyline arc in their 20s, because they wouldn’t have had enough life experience.

“We wanted to incorporate in Calvard’s identity the changes we’ve seen in society around us in the last 20 years and create a setting that mirrored reality more closely instead of fantasy,” Kondo tells the outlet. Calvard is the current ongoing story arc in the Trails series, which began with Trails Through Daybreak earlier this year and will continue with Trails Through Daybreak 2 next year in 2025. 

“I’m almost 50 now and have seen good things and bad things in life, unjust situations and unfair outcomes, and we wanted to create a game that speaks to those changes and challenges we experience,” Kondo continued. “We wouldn’t have been able to write a story like this in our 20s, simply because we didn’t have the necessary life experience,” Kondo added of the current arc.

Sports Illustrated adds that Kondo says no matter which sort of characters the player meets in the Calvard arc, be they students, immigrants, gay, or straight, are just trying to get by. “Everyone has their own way of living and their own lives, and we should just try to make our way through the world as best we can, given what circumstances we have to deal with,” Kondo says. 

Take a look at our best JRPGs guide to find out if any of the Legend of Heroes or Trails games made it onto our rankings.