Current Events > I just started Legend of Heroes: Trails From Zero. *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

I've played and beat all of Sky 1+2 (not The 3rd), and the Erebonian Arc. This will complete the picture, more or less (once Azure comes out). Time to get randy with Randy, Tio, Elle, and Lloyd. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to get the save transfer bonuses from Zero into Reverie, because I'm playing the Switch version, and I have everything else is on PS4.

The English release of Zero was the first trails game I played and I was really surprised at how much I loved it.

harley2280 posted...

The English release of Zero was the first trails game I played and I was really surprised at how much I loved it.

They're great games, and probably the best modern jRPG series going. Really don't like seeing Falcom buckle under their own success (CS3+4 suffered from massive roster bloat that hurt engagement some), but they're very solid games.

I played it last month. It was really good and you'll definitely like it if you enjoyed the rest of the Trails games.

Alucard188 posted...

They're great games, and probably the best modern jRPG series going. Really don't like seeing Falcom buckle under their own success (CS3+4 suffered from massive roster bloat that hurt engagement some), but they're very solid games.

Yeah, typically I beat like one game a year, but I tore through Zero and CS 1 in a month. The world building is just impressive as hell.

harley2280 posted...

The world building is just impressive as hell.

Especially how interconnected the 3 arcs all are.

Also, I love how far behind we are in the West with releases. We're waiting on Azure, Reverie is out next year, and both Kuro games are out in Japan already. 4 games behind.

https://youtu.be/6c_e0QWyKBQ?t=202

_This_ is why I opted to not get Zero and Azure on PS4. The Kai version is unacceptable. I will happily take not being able to transfer Azure's game state to Reverie if it means I can play it in a much more refined state.

FYI both the PS4 and PC/Switch versions have places that look like shit between versions. PS4 version's biggest crime is no chat log.

Alucard188 posted...

Also, I love how far behind we are in the West with releases. We're waiting on Azure, Reverie is out next year, and both Kuro games are out in Japan already. 4 games behind.

It's crazy to think that when CS4 came to the west, we were only 1 game behind

(I say 1 game even though we still didn't get the crossbell games, but at that point many people didn't think that the crossbell games were gonna set back Reverie as much as it did)

In true Kiseki fashion, you get upstaged almost immediately by someone much better than you are. I recognised the name 'Arios', but forgot who he was until they called him the 'Divine Blade of Wind'. Now I remember how he shows up in Cold Steel.

Everyone loves the Bracer Guild, but doesn't want to be seen working with them, huh? Class VII in Cold Steel was born because of a certain bard's love for the Bracers, and the SSS appears to be the same way - serve the people outside of an official police or military basis.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/0/3/AAAAD4AAD7kD.jpg

Same as it ever was.

I love how the game just doesn't really explain it all to you. It just drops information down as if you should know it already, including acronyms and terms. 'Orbal Network', ZCF, etc. Really gives you the impression that the games are all interconnected, and that you should play all of them to get the full scope of the scale.

Huh. The Bracer Guild is already renowned in the city, and they have all their requests that they do. The SSS is just starting, but they already have requests and shit lined up, with the caveat that "If we don't do them, then the Bracer Guild will snap them up." So, the requests are compiled into a pool on the Orbal Network, and the SSS can tap into it the same as Bracers do, huh? Bit different from the bulletin boards of Liberl.

If I remember the prologue correctly. The cops in town are all super corrupt and bought out by mafia bosses and politicians. The SSS is basically a PR Firm meant to recover some of their public image by LARPing as Bracers.

I played Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch not too long ago and it was painfully mediocre

The Vice Commissioner is a bit of a barb. He's so deep in the pockets of the Mafia that he's finding lint.

Arios does not show up in Cold Steel. He's mentioned but never seen, except for in that one brief scene where Lloyd "fistbumps" Rean in CS3.

Also, the Switch version is the Kai version as well. I think it was some legal BS that prevented the PS4 version from getting the remaster treatment the other two versions got.

Super_Slash posted...

Arios does not show up in Cold Steel. He's mentioned but never seen, except for in that one brief scene where Lloyd "fistbumps" Rean in CS3.

I know he doesn't show up, but he gets name dropped alongside Cassius as a Divine Blade. I thought I remembered him being part of Rean's own ascension as well. Might have just been Cassius.

I forgot just how stacked Rixia Mao was.

Oh yeah. I decided to start on hard mode, because eh. There's no trophy on Switch for the game, so I didn't want to worry about playing on Nightmare mode. Just beat Wald relatively easily.

im playing through atm too. im in chapter 3. very good game

Alucard188 posted...

Oh yeah. I decided to start on hard mode, because eh. There's no trophy on Switch for the game, so I didn't want to worry about playing on Nightmare mode. Just beat Wald relatively easily.

How in the world did you do it? I played on Hard as well and he seems damn near impossible on a fresh new game.

Super_Slash posted...

How in the world did you do it? I played on Hard as well and he seems damn near impossible on a fresh new game.

Buy the best armour, boots, and weapon for Lloyd, open up 2-3 of his orbments, set an attack, speed, and HP quartz, go in with 200% CP, and open up on his ass. Use your S-Break as soon as the battle opens, and use it every time you get to 100CP. Keep yourself healed when you get below 300 HP.

Trails from Zero is great and Trails to Azure is the best game in the series, but you should really play Sky 3rd

Oh my, Wazy. You doing a little simpin' for Lloyd? Lloyd just hit on the differing reason for the SSS' existence. The Bracers are a neutral body that don't get involved with politics and police jurisdiction. The SSS aren't beholden to that, and have more access than the Bracers would have. So, there's a natural symbiosis there. It's more of the same thing Olivert touched on in Cold Steel. Bracers are admirable, but they have their limitations.

Oooh, Estelle and Joshua. Nice.

And that small jurisdiction difference is actually huge in reality. In the first Sky game the bracers were looking for any technicality they could latch onto to intervene in the situation at the end of the game, the SSS have far more authority in that regard and the scope of their work can be far different from bracers. But they are also beholden to the government so their biggest strength is also their biggest limitation

Alucard188 posted...

Oooh, Estelle and Joshua. Nice.

That moment made me a bit sad, realizing that their adventure is no longer shared with me. Not in full, anyways.

Uta posted...

That moment made me a bit sad, realizing that their adventure is no longer shared with me. Not in full, anyways.

They have fully entered the realm of powerful support characters. I wish them nothing but happiness with Kloe and Oliver.

Oh shit, it's Jingo. Wasn't expecting her chibi form here. She's a bit more rough in CS.

I just explained this series to my coworker, who doesn't play RPGs. It blew his mind that a series could be 12 games deep and still have an interconnected story.

"It's like a book series. But with video games"

It's legitimately surprising how seldom that's been attempted. I suppose Games are still a young medium, but the closest we get to a shared story is stuff like Elder Scrolls where each game is set hundreds of years apart. Maybe it has something to do with people jumping ship on long-form narratives, to which Trails smartly adapts by just shifting focus every few games to create a new jumping on point.

You've got such a wide world, so why not have interconnecting pieces? I guess the idea is you have a wide world, so do it all in one game instead of just one region. Kiseki games have an overarching narrative, but they are still largely character-driven. That's harder to do if you don't treat NPCs as more than just NPCs. Falcom actually writes backstory and lore for their NPCs. No other company comes close to doing that.

Alucard188 posted...

Falcom actually writes backstory and lore for their NPCs. No other company comes close to doing that.

I don't quite remember his name, Rinnon or something, but the shopkeeper from the very first town has a whole arc about his mother propositioning all the girls in town trying to find him a marriage candidate. Far more intricate storytelling went into "some guy" than most other games put into entire cities.

I'd say one of my only complaints with the series is just how rapidly sci-fi they're getting. The series starts off kind of steam-punk. we've got airships, magic pocket-watches, and some guy has just built a proto-type of the first internet / computer machine.

And then you get to Crossbell like 3 years later and the Orbal Network is everywhere.

And then you get to Cold Steel; exactly the same year as the first Crossbell game, and everyone has a personal laptop computer and like smartphones and shit. I think I'm about halfway through Trails 3, looking forward to getting to the crossbell games soon. I really liked Lloyd and the rest of the SSS from what I played of the prologue.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/7/9/AAAAD4AAD8Hn.jpg

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