Playing Trails from Zero finally just gave me constant déjà vu. I've not played this before but to understand plot threads going into Cold Steel III I watched full playthroughs of Zero and Azure a friend recorded with English patches so I wouldn't miss references or continued plot points. Like I said, I've not played this before and yet actually playing it I felt like I had because I knew everything that was happening. Really bizarre feeling. I found this kind of amusing the whole way through.

(Intermission: For anyone unaware, Trails from Zero and it's sequel Azure are a duology of games that come after the Trails from the Sky series and before the Trails of Cold Steel series. Though interlinked as they are all set in the same world, Zero itself is fairly self contained and you could jump in here but to get the most of them start from Trails in the Sky, that and it's a fantastic game to boot.)

The story focuses on the City state of Crossbell, a small location set in-between two giant empires of Calvard and Erebonia. An economic hub with advanced technology stuck in a political knife edge constantly makes for an interesting setting. The highlight of the game is really the characters though. Trails from Zero's strength over some of the latter titles in the series is actually it's narrow focus on it's tiny party. Just four characters you are introduced to straight away and grow with as you get to know them all. No late join characters that never get any development, no huge rosters you can't build as you'd like or loose track of. Just four. Lloyd Bannings, a rookie detective returning to Crossbell after 3 years abroad, Tio Plato, a member of the technology corporation the Epstein Foundation, Randy Orlando a former Crossbell Guardian Force member and Ellie McDowell who has joined the police despite never completing the police academy exam. Each of them has their own reasons and pasts leading them to where they are which you learn about at the same time as the party learns about how complicated Crossbell is and their place as a generally undesired new unit in the Crossbell Police the Special Support Section.

When not exploring the city and it's many interesting npcs or story threads you will be engaging in combat with monsters, mobsters, robots and various other aggressive locals. Combat is turn based in a more traditional Japanese role playing game style. During their turn each character can use skills, arts, move or attack. Depending on how you build your party will depend greatly on how each battle plays out. Each character can equip gems called Quartz of various colours each worth a set amount of points in those colours which will unlock certain spells. Have 12 in blue and you'll have all healing and some seriously strong water attacks for example. Each Quartz has a specific passive ability on top boosting stats of effects meaning you need to balance everything right to be the most effective you can be.

The elephant in the room with this release kind of needs to be discussed here though. This game is originally a PSP title from back in 2010. If you're super into fancy visuals just walk away now. Personally I think the game looks amazing but I love the whole art style they have for the character models and how colourful the game is. That said the version you get matters as the PS4 version I played is the basic Kai port Falcom originally made. The Switch and PC releases are different with sharper details and better textures. With a game of this age it didn't matter to me at all but it may make a difference to your purchase. Each version has the quality of life upgrades such as fast forward to speed up animations and running though.

Overall I knew I'd like this though no matter what, I haven't played a Falcom game I didn't enjoy even if elements of their Trails formula and trophy collections are fairly standard at this point. Speaking of which, there is a decent amount of game here. It took me just about 100 hours in two playthroughs with a bit of planning and speed running on the second run to get and see everything, enjoyed every moment.

Role on Azure and Reverie next year.

Earnest and empowering, in short. Trails from Zero is an incredibly powerful game that feels like a battle shonen in video game form, mixed with the long term storytelling, ambitious world building, and the mind bogglingly deep lore of Kiseki that results in a video game that combines the best of both and works perfectly, primarily because of how every element from the two spectrums I mentioned are glued together seamlessly through Lloyd bannings. On the surface, Lloyd seems like a perfectly normal main character with a clear cut moral code, but what makes Lloyd so compelling are the small neat bits of characterization that hint at a deeper, darker side to him that he grapples with without even realising it. It kind of fits with Crossbell’s setting too, because in a way, much like Lloyd, Crossbell looks like a perfectly stable peaceful state, but is actually run by the absolute worst, corrupt politicians. In the same way, Lloyd puts on an unbreakable facade and tries to be an invincible hero with an unflinchingly optimistic attitude, but on the inside, he’s the same kid that lost his brother, hasn’t moved on, and is stuck chasing after his shadow even after he died.


This is something that I absolutely adore when it comes to world building, where it feels like the city is a breathing, living character who’s tied to the main characters leading it, and that applies to Crossbell where it’s all about exploring your own truth and finding meaning to it on your own terms, because in Lloyd’s journey of uncovering his truth, he began uncovering Crossbell’s identity as well, and that acted as a genius backdrop for Crossbell’s theme of truth. Going back to Lloyd for a bit, as I mentioned, the parts of him that make him stand out to me are the small bits of characterization that people who call him boring often times miss, the small bits that show how caught up he is in his own brother’s shadow, how they seep into his mundane day to day life events, and how self damaging that can be.


When it comes to trauma, we often times unintentionally bottle it up for our self preservation since they’re unexpected, yet in spite of that, they seep into our mundane day to day life no matter how much we sugarcoat it and spreads its disease into our social interaction, which is my favorite form of portrayal of trauma and is why I adore Lloyd so much. He tries to put on Guy’s persona of an unstoppable hero that everyone can rely on even when it comes at his own expense, yet the person he forgets to save is himself, and it’s never explicitly told that this is what he struggles with until the near end of Zero because up until that point, Lloyd’s struggles are portrayed through his behaviour and it’s up to the player to infer what he goes through in comparison to the cast. In this sense, we’re put into Lloyd’s comrades’ shoes, have our intelligence tested by trying to infer what he himself goes through despite his seemingly normal demeanour, and that’s what makes the eventual exploration of Lloyd’s issues and his admittance to his insecurities hit so hard, because we as the player already could infer what he goes through yet ignores and are simply waiting for him to recognize that part of him. It’s an incredibly effective yet unique way of telling a main character’s arc through perspective, and that goes well with Crossbell’s themes about perception and truth, because even if Lloyd seems normal when we first perceive him, he is the exact opposite of that and that plays well into what Crossbell is trying to tell about the concept of truth.


Time and time again, from start to finish, Lloyd’s insecurities are shown through his actions even from the get go, where he was prepared to throw his life away to save the SSS from the geofront monster before Arios came in to save the day, and that’s not just because of the goodness of his heart but because that’s what his image of Guy would do in a situation like this. In this sense, you can say that when Guy died, Lloyd’s sense of self split into two, the part of him that admires Guy and the part of him that feels worthless in comparison to him and chases a far fetched shadow of his, forever stuck in an endless whirlpool of insecurities and living on auto-pilot mode. To illustrate further, whenever Lloyd accomplishes something, or is praised for having a good trait, he always denies that praise and credits it to Guy, which might seem like its Lloyd being humble, but in reality, it’s much more complicated and sadder. The reason for this is that Lloyd doesn’t take credit for those accomplishments or traits of his because he views them as Guy’s, or rather, the traits/accomplishments of his image of Guy that he only inhabits because of his desire to be like Guy. As such, when he does a good deed, or embodies a good trait, it’s to chase after that image of Guy first and foremost, and since those traits and actions are motivated by his desire to catch up to Guy, not just his own good will, it feels wrong to take credit for that because it doesn’t truly feel like his. He disassociates from those good deeds because they were coloured by his unhealthy admiration towards Guy and while motivated by his good will, that good will is only a secondary reason. It’s why in chapter 2 after Lloyd gives Ellie a corny friendship speech and Ellie asks him how he can be so optimistic, Lloyd doesn’t take credit for that and instead thanks Guy for it. While that’s definitely because Lloyd loves Guy, it’s also because he doesn’t believe in himself to be great enough to be that capable and strong on his own. Lloyd’s arc is all about finding balance between his image of Guy and who Guy really was, it’s about repairing his sense of self after it was shattered by how much he revered Guy and attached his individuality to him, and that’s makes Lloyd such a sympathetic main character to me, because in his attempt to find meaning in Guy’s death, he forgot to find meaning in his self, and that’s what enabled him to connect with the SSS members on such a spiritual level. At their core, Randy, Lloyd, Tio, and Ellie, are all incredibly lonely individuals with no place to call home, and that’s what enabled Lloyd to guide them and be their leader.


All of what I said about Lloyd up until now has been purely analytical, but on a personal note, there are small bits and pieces of dialogue that Lloyd said that truly connected with me, the biggest of them being when he told Randy that as strange as it is, he can finally accept that he can be his own man, reach his ultimate potential, and be satisfied, as opposed to a few months ago. This sentiment rung true to me personally, because I have an older brother that I admire and feel the need to chase after as well, yet despite being told countless times that I just need to keep being me, it all felt like hollow garbage to me that meant nothing, until lately after years of practising self love and self care, where I’ve come to identify and appreciate my own worth beyond my brother’s. It made me feel seen, because with Lloyd, the truth of his being and his surroundings and their meaning started and ended with him. This sentiment is reflected in the concept I mentioned above with Crossbell being like a living, breathing character on its own, where by overcoming his own barriers and finding his truth, Lloyd was able to understand the ins and outs of what Crossbell’s conflicts pertain, break the status quo, and change Crossbell for the better, like the hero he had hoped to become after initially running away from the city he treasured. In the end, it was all about perspective.


Truth be told, I didn’t really plan on writing such a long form piece on Crossbell mainly cause I wanted to do that once I was done with Azure, but I couldn’t really stop myself once I started expressing my passion for this game and what it made me feel. I guess that’s what happens when you let your own words flow and come together to form a pattern of thoughts instead of limiting yourself, and maybe that’s what Trails has become to me. Something that allows me to be ‘’free’’, and that’s why I’ve come to adore it and adore talking about it so much. In a word, though, Lloyd’s earnest nature is what made Crossbell’s cast (and me) love him, and through that love, he was able to find meaning to himself and have several white women wanting to fuck him.

Edit: NEVERMIND I HAD A GOOD NIGHT'S SLEEP THIS IS THE BEST SETUP GAME BESIDES UTAWARERUMONO 2, HOLY SHIT SOME OF THE MOMENTS IN THIS WERE EMOTIONAL AND HIT HARD, AND WE EVEN HAVE BETTER DOROTHY

I had no complaints with Zero until the last chapter, which was a bit of an underwhelming payoff, but until that point it was basically a perfect "setup game" with no dull moments. None of my issues from Sky FC are in this.

Aside from the mildly underwhelming finale, the "BRO WE'RE A CINEMATIC UNIVERSE BROOOOO" issue that I've been fearing with this series rears its head. In some aspects, it's really cool, what with the payoff for a character's arc in SC and 3rd (I started crying from it, it was so emotional). In others, you have the corny MCU thing of "heh, looks like I got here just in time!" and "wow [Crossbell character], you remind me of [Sky character]!" happening multiple times. I expect it to get both better with the payoffs, and worse with the corniness. But you take the good with the bad, I guess.

Otherwise, this is definitely one of the best JRPGs and videogames I've played. The combat system, characters, music, improved visuals from Sky, the Crossbell atmosphere, all of these contributed to a very fun experience. Can't wait for what Azure has in store.

Played the game for the first time 2 years ago with a fan patch, but since it is now officially out in the west (After 12 long years nonetheless!) I figured I'd post a review here again.

What a ride Trails from Zero was. It started off probably slower than any other Trails game, but when it picks up, it REALLY picks up.

The main story of this game is great and mostly grounded in reality and pretty unique for a J-RPG. You play as Lloyd Bannings, a young detective who's goal is to help improve the image of the Crossbell Police Department in the eyes of the public due to them losing faith in the police and becoming more reliant on a peace keeping, civilian protection agency known as the Bracer Guild, so Lloyd and his team do odd-jobs while also taking on the corruption of Crossbell's shady criminal underground world, which revolves around an Italian mafia like organization, an organization similar to the Chinese triad and the war for power going on between the two organizations plus a grand conspiracy that lurks in the shadows, there's also 2 minor delinquent gangs that you interact with as well. Crossbell basically has a lot of parallels to real world New York or Hong Kong, which is pretty cool. Plus there's some returning characters from the Sky trilogy and getting to see them again and how their story tied into this game has some major payoff if you played the Trails in the Sky trilogy beforehand.

I didn't mind the slower almost 'slice-of-life' parts at all though because it served to flesh out and immerse me into the setting of Crossbell since even the most seemingly pointless side quest or NPC interaction helps give more depth to Crossbell, its citizens and all their interpersonal relationships and this also gave me time to get to know the Special Support Section squad very well. I really came to love the SSS by the end of the game because the 4 main characters and their diverse personalities have such great synergy with one another from the flirty jokester playboy Randy to the sarcastic super genius Tio to the sweet, but serious Elie and Lloyd the hot-blooded and confident leader with a strong sense of justice and the glue that holds the whole team together. Trails from Zero is set in a span of 4 months and the SSS really become like a family by the end of those 4 months, it is really heartwarming

Gameplay is basically the unique turn-based tactical hybrid system of Trails which we have all come to know and love with a couple extra gimmicks (Like Team Rush attacks and Combo Crafts) and QoL improvements thrown in, while the soundtrack was nothing short of a masterwork that you would expect from Falcom JDK Band with plenty guitar driven battle tracks to hype you up alongside beautiful and peaceful themes to help set the atmosphere of all the various locations both in and surrounding Crossbell and the dungeon design was always enjoyable to explore as well.

In short Trails from Zero deserves every bit of praise it gets. From the detailed and immersive setting to the masterful character development and sprawling interconnected narrative that becomes crucial to the story of later entries in the series. This is a game that no J-RPG fan is going to want to miss.

Trails from Zero : A Successful Return to Form

If you've seen my review of the previous 3 entry in the series

My journey with the infamous Trails franchise has been kind of a rocky one, on one hand I absolutely adore what the Trails series does when it comes to presenting its setting world and character but I also have some mixed feeling regarding not only the actual game-part of this game or the structure of it all (especially SC where it pretty much ruined what would otherwise be a pretty satisfying conclusion to the first 2 games which thankfully 3rd was there to cover back and make me actually care about the series)

My favorite (and spoiler alert : Still my n°1 game in the series so far) improved on a lot of things while sacrificing on some of the core aspect of the franchise to be the odd one out and do it's own thing and succeeding so well that I honestly didn't know if I was even going to enjoy the rest of the games since it was gonna return to the old try and true "Trails Pacing"

And at first while playing this new arc, I was suddenly feeling this sensation creeping in on me during the first few hours of the game and I was ready to file many complaint about how boring and uneventful the first 15 to 20h of the game is (which no matter what you think about my patience running low, is still a long ass time for an RPG to kick in).

The game was worse on that front because for that small period of time, there is no hook, you just join the Crossbell Police Department and you're just doing random stuff.

At least in Sky FC, the motivation for going on your journey and accomplishing your bracer task was to graduate from Junior Bracers to Professional one and the game was structured and punctuated in a way that new things are thrown at you every time either be new characters or events but for Zero, there is no underlying plot for a grand majority of the game, stuff just kinda happens

You solve some wolf problem there, you solve an assassination case there, you track down a hacker, you solve gang wars and mafia shit and while you eventually get into the flow of it rather quickly, the plot much like FC really starts to truly kick-off during the mid-section of the game with the Introduction of KeA (who's a pure ball of unsaturated sugar who's too good for this world).

But I will say that despite this, I did get into the flow of it much earlier than even FC because the scrimblo chapters all had bigger stakes and machination behind everything, now that's not to say that the Mafia shit is the most fascinating thing in the world (and trust me they're not that threatening, not much than Team Rocket in the early days of Pokemon) but it does its job well at hooking the player.

It also help how compact the region of Crossbell is, it's a small country much smaller than the likes of Liberl which divided its different chapters by territories

The main city is ofc the main attraction here, it's bustling with life and memorable locations and aesthetically speaking is better than any city from Liberl, the outskirts of the city in comparison are a bit weak, there's 2 villages that are of relatively low importance plot wise and a bunch of side-areas, you go through all of it in a matter of 2 chapters out of 5 which means that the game locks off a bunch of the late game areas to keep at least some new areas by the second half of the game.

There's also fast travel although only inside the city which definitely does help when doing side-quest, I Wish there was a fast travel option for the entire country but it's only available for 1 (one) chapter, otherwise you have to travel in the city then take the bus and while it's definitely less egregious on making you go back and forth in places, the game still does that a lot albeit to a lower amount than the game.

In fact aesthetically speaking, the game ditches free camera control in favor of fixed camera angle that changes perspective from time to time like the 5TH Generation Pokemon games and there's a lot of areas when it does that to great effect.

Gameplay wise, it's pretty much the same as Sky, the 4 main characters are pretty well rounded and balanced for one another (even though I did replace Ellie whenever I had the occasion cause she's kinda ass for a long period of time) and it's relatively easy to make them stupidly broken by the mid-game trivializing most fights, it's probably the only real complaint compared to Trails the 3rd which seemed to have an higher focus on making the game way more challenging so that even normal mode doesn't feel like a walk in the park.

In comparison, this game is more on the easy side of things outside of the final boss or some random surprise bullshit encounters, but the game in general is pretty braindead and most of the "difficulty" comes from how tanky the bosses are and most of them are kinda forgettable and straightforward compared to the head-scratchers of the 3rd bosses, also somehow the game has less spell than 3rd too, in general I do miss the crazy team building and progressive dive into bullshit territory that 3rd had with its bigger gameplay focus.

There's also tons of QoL stuff such as stunning the ennemies to finish them faster with a team rush or a bunch of crits, proper Dual Arts that are visually really cool and unique compared to how SC and 3rd did them, stackable

A big improvement are definitely the different dungeons you visits, taking cues from 3rd dungeon design and the few good new areas of SC, the dungeons are long, sprawling, have some killer atmosphere to them (shoutout to the Star Gazer tower and the Haunted Ruins), a bunch of diverging path an even some light puzzle solving which is definitely more than I was expecting from this franchise and it was a pleasure to go through all of those.

Because that pleasure is a bit short-lived, you do very little rpg-ing in this RPG, in fact the joke about Crossbell somewhat being a VN is true because there is a lot more talking even by Trails standard up to that point, there's a lot of long stretch of moments when all you're going to do is walk and talk to people with nothing else.

It does lead into some pretty annoying moment where you're in an area and you have to check and talk to everything to progress, the mission to stop the assassination of the mayor in the 2nd chapter was pretty eggregious on that part because the triggers to progress are not clear so you're just kinda stuck there going back and forth in the same tiny area, definitely the low points of the game killing any momentum great scenes could have.

Zero does the classic Trails formula the best, and I'm still impressed by the sheer amount of work that was done in order to make this world feel alive and lived in with NPC dialogues changing at every story moment but it's crazy how the game expects you to really go check-in on everyone but this game updates the dialogue for all people in the whole region an like... Ain't nobody got time for that lol ? I did talk and re-talk to NPC whenever I was passing by them but at some points and espcially with how slow the pacing of these games can be, you just kinda wanna move on to the next story bit and finish the game. But I still commend the effort for having such an high amount of text most people will likely completely ignore on their first playthrough and tons of things you have to reach for.

Storywise, I mean it sure is an intro chapter but they made it so it can definitely stand on its own, the game is a good mix between tying some loose plot thread of the previous trilogy and be a solid new entry in the Trails mega-series with a new cast of characters and new conflicts to be interested about.

The main cast of the SSS are... Ok, they definitely don't reach the same level of endearing and lovable as the cast from the previous arc (yet) but they do work and I ended them liking them a lot by the end especially Tio who's probably my favorite out of the main 4 with Randy as a close second.

I can't say much on Lloyd and Ellie tho, as the game stand-in for Estelle and Joshua, I feel like they're both relatively flat characters that don't break any grounds, Lloyd is an optimistic and dense shonen MC like you've seen a lot in those type of story, most of my likeness for him coming from his voice actor (who did Simon in TTGL and the fact they gave his brother Kamina's seiyuu was just here to bait me and it even managed to make me tear up a little albeit for a reason that are not related to this game proper) and Ellie has an inner conflict about getting to the nitty gritty of it while being a member of the nobility but it's not really that well explored.

In fact, only Tio has a lot of development around her which is normal considering that she's linked to the main antagonist goal much like Renne.

Speaking of Renne, it's really funny how the best part of this game story-wise was things that bounced out of the previous arc, in that sense Zero feels like a very nice epilogue to her story-arc and those of Estelle and Joshua and if it wasn't for them stealing the show during the final act, I would've written off the ending of this game has the weakest in the series.

Cause yeah...

I'm gonna be honest, the antagonist this time manages to be even worse than Ouroboros somehow, like I can't believe they did the whole "aloof scientist who's secretly the leader of an evil cult" thing a second time and got away with it scott-free while winking at the audience at how similar this is to Weissman, the guy is quite literally a dollar store Weissman and half of the reasons you wanna see his downfall are linked to the stuff that happened to Renne back in Star Door 15, but he even fails at being genuinely threatening or entertaining unlike Weissman and I can't believe they made a dollar store Weissman all so I can praise Weissman who is an antagonist I also didn't think too much about lmaoooo

It's kind of a shame too because his goofy ass kinda desamorced all the fucked up shit that he caused indirectly, because my dude is just a random fanatic, he really has no motivation beyond his religious fanatism and gives a vibe of "I did it for the lolz" which definitely is hard to stomach since that shit involve fucking Child Abuse (in all sense of the word) and human sacrifices, the cult is bad that's a fact, but their leader is just lame, yes Joachim is a lame vilain and I wish that Falcom tried to be a bit more original there instead of trying to be "in on the joke" and I hope that the pool of good antagonist expand because outside of Richard and Loewe, shit aren't looking great.

Zero is solid, a lot of it is way more entertaining than even FC

If you have to ask me which one I prefer between this and FC, I'd say Zero is the strongest game of the two but the vibe of FC's are immaculate and I can't detach my feelings from it enough, they're about equal and they both shine differently in different places

Now I hope Azure can live up to the hype much more than SC did for FC, I'm already scared of the amount of re-used content or the structure of the game, because while Crossbell is solid for one game, I don't know if they can throw more meaningful gameplay or story content past this

But oh well I can be wrong on that front, we'll see o/

It's not as good as Sky 3rd but I like the SSS a lot. By far my favorite cast of main characters. There's some filler and slow moments but it wasn't enough to make me loathe it like FC.

Trails burnout kicking in and it's definitely because of the fact these games are so fucking long. The writing's good and all but after Sky trilogy, I don't think this series has anything left that's going to really impress me.

Yeah, Zero's great. Sky 3rd is phenomenal, but I feel like I'm playing the series not because I really want to but because it's a ride that I've hopped on and it'd be weird to jump off it right in the middle.

As one story ends another begins. This is what brings us to Crossbell. A city state sandwiched between two political superpowers seemingly hanging on by a thread to stay afloat of outside influences. However not everything is what it seems on the surface. Crossbell is corrupt and is very limited on what it can do to fix its own issues. And only the SSS can change Crossbell's wrongdoings from within.

I love the SSS man. Every member is so fun to see and their interactions are priceless. The squad is so diverse in personality and yet they mesh so well. Even their battle styles are different. Seeing the SSS slowly get the recognition they deserve is such a payoff. They aren't just a copy of the bracer guild and made their own identity.

I find the setting of Crossbell to be very engaging especially since the state is small enough to where you are able to get to know every character including the npcs and really connect with the characters when shit hits the fan. It also isn't small to the point where you get tired of the same locations. This can also be implied due to how well this game uses its map. Like it just makes sense that you have to go all over Crossbell to retrieve an overdue book or partake in a fishing contest at the sandbar.

As always Trails and of course Falcom delivers on its soundtrack. Like every time this track played I was on the edge of my seat because I knew I had to lock in. Another great soundtrack that the music is all it takes to change your mood in an instant.

Can't talk about Zero without a certain character's journey that has spanned over 3 games now. Definetly one of the best character journeys I have seen in a video game. Every time they are on screen I always get emotional. There is just something about how its handled that it's truly special.

From what this game concludes off of, I really wonder how Azure will start off because Zero had a pretty conclusive ending but definetly has questions that needs to be answered. Just like us as the player, the SSS still doesn't know all of the answers on the why of how Crossbell functions but if we just get over the barrier only then we can seek the truth and justice be served.

"But what we need right now is the experience of overcoming these kinds of obstacles. Think about it, clear the small barriers one by one… If we do that, then someday, we’ll have the power to get over the taller barriers, too. "

me coloque numa sala com 20 pessoas que dão “dicas de escrita” e só eu sairei vivo, causando explosões e derretimentos só com a força negativa que mentalizarei cada vez que alguém falar que “mostre, não conte!” é uma regra indiscutível. com meu martelo de Depende em mãos eu destruirei todos os guias sem asteriscos.

trails from zero não deixa de contar para mostrar, mas acredito que pela limitação estética que os spritezinhos charmosos tem, ele acaba se sentindo na obrigação de mostrar que está sendo contado. as aspirações literárias da série não são segredo pra ninguém — levante uma pedra e quatro fãs de trails vão te falar que o SC tem não sei quantas mil palavras a mais que senhor dos anéis, descasque uma cebola e nove vão enxugar os olhos antes de te dizer alguma frase com a palavra “worldbuilding”, e chacoalhe uma árvore se encontrar alguma — mas por estarmos em uma tela (e não em uma folha), a sentença “’Você está preso!’ Lloyd disse, exalando coragem” não cabe numa caixa de diálogo, que, portanto, é substituída por “Você está preso!”, seguida pela observação “como o Lloyd parece corajoso enquanto diz isso!” de outro personagem. pelo menos um quarto dos diálogos do jogo envolve um outro personagem apontando que o personagem que acabou de dizer X está no estado Y, ou te explicando como aquilo se relaciona com outro evento que rolou dez horas atrás. não dá pra só se referir pelo nome (afinal, não dá pra voltar as páginas!), então toda informação nova precisa ser cheia de apêndices diegéticos pra não deixar ninguém pra trás. de certa forma, dá pra ver isso como consideração (e eu não pretendo nunca prezar pelo que "respeita minha inteligência", também), mas é também uma reação de vítima.

não é a pior coisa do mundo, mas a mitologia de que a Falcom sempre pensa nos jogos dessa série como um só e acaba dividindo em dois no meio da produção (Sky FC e SC, Zero e Azure, CS1 e 2, CS3 e 4) porque ficou maior do que o que foi projetado deve ser em partes por causa disso. eu não me importo muito com esse problema isolado (e acho que isso é uma das coisas que os fãs mais gostam), mas sinto que os desenvolvedores queriam se ver livres dessas amarras – até porque nos cold steel essa parte do texto já melhora consideravelmente (sendo que eu pessoalmente acho que os modelos 3D de CS1 e 2 são bem menos expressivos que os bonequinhos desses jogos que vieram antes) e a história toda continua funcionando de um jeito ótimo.

fico pensando se as coisas que desgostei não foram exacerbadas porque a base do lançamento oficial foi a tradução prévia feita por fãs e não por pessoas que tem alguma intimidade profissional com escrita artística, e por isso os personagens todos tem uma voz tão parecida e as descrições são daquele jeito.

o bom é que apesar disso esse jogo tem ótimas dungeons e eu adoro como o urbanismo pop de crossbell (todo mundo com carinha de soyjak deslumbrado com internet e energia elétrica, se sentindo foda porque não é república e nem império, etc) influencia e é influenciado igualmente nos aspectos sobrenaturais. a falcom é ótima em alimentar tanto a galera “intrigas políticas!” quanto a galera “aura de dragon ball na hora de lutar e robô gigante” que estão em constante contenda porque não percebem que a graça da série é justamente ter os dois. também achei super legal como o conceito de gnose aqui é mais próximo ao do nosso catolicismo (“certo tipo de conhecimento é perigoso e pode acabar com sua individualidade”), diferente de grande parte dos JRPGs em que ela é indubitavelmente boa e necessária moralmente para as pessoas descobrirem por si mesmas a raiz do bem e do mal. ela não é vista como herege e os apócrifos não são escondidos, mas se desenvolve como resultado de certo cientificismo que se demonstra laico mas não é. uma dinâmica bem original e facilmente refutada dependendo do rumo da história, também, então torna todo o caminho bem colorido.

cada vez que eu começo um jogo desses e lembro que ainda faltam outros seis cinco quatro pra eu chegar onde quero chegar na história me dá certo desânimo, mas aí chega o final e me motivo de novo, vendo as coisas lentamente se formando e ficando mais esotéricas, como todas as grandes obras. o descobrir das partes mais ocultas do mundo se dando tão lentamente acaba refletindo a vida real de um jeito inesperado, e aí vale a pena mesmo ver o sol nascer.

Far and away the strongest Trails title I have played so far. This game is fantastic in so many ways. The cast are brilliant, the combat is much more refined and polished compared to past Trails game, the music is fantastic (as per usual) and it’s the first Trails game I’ve played with a pretty much perfectly paced story.

Past Trails games have struggled with pacing, having slow starts or sluggish sections when the pacing should be better. In Zero, time is taken to introduce you to the new setting and characters, and once that’s done with, ramps up the pacing considerably, and it makes for such a well crafted game.

If Azure is as good as I hear it is, it’s going to be one of my favourite games ever as this was brilliant, I can’t wait.

This is the 4th in a series of reviews and like the games themselves are intended to be experienced in release order, or at least read the preface of the first one here.
Feel free to let me know if you think I missed anything!

Rejoice friends for the series is now good!
With the series leaving the Sky trilogy and entering into the Crossbell arc Falcom took the chance to shake things up quite a bit and for the better in all areas.
Trails from Zero is much more of a joy to play than the Sky games from the gameplay to the story and it really impressed me with how much better it is. I had some high hopes after playing the opening to this game and it didn't disappoint.
I have a few problems and nitpicks with the game however but I can get those out of the way here because honestly it's really not that much. I played the geofront version of the game as I wanted to just move onto Azure right after and because of that, the UI was a little big and unwieldy. I don't think this is a problem with the more recent english release however so nothing to worry about. The smaller cast of party members means some quartz don't have much use to them anymore, you don't have a situation like getting Tita and having a space quartz slot you have to fill. The main 4 party members are way too good, both in their writing quality and their gameplay that I felt there was no reason to and I didn't want to use the guest characters whenever they showed up, and finally, my last big issue is location variety. You get all of Crossbell State unlocked pretty early so that has you going back and forth from the same locations quite often.

But that's enough complaining. As implied, this game takes place in Crossbell State, an autonomous city state which both Erebonia and Calvard claim they own. This place is great, the state and especially the city feel so well realised and really feel like a home after a while. The smaller scope of the world means you really get a sense of all the NPCs living in crossbell and their lives. In Sky it was kind of a chore to talk to NPCs after every event and somebody in say Zeiss wouldn't really have much to say about the events of Rolent on the opposite end of the country. Here however everything is so much more tight knit and the events affect everybody just as much that even the less relevant NPCs can be fun to talk to.

The game looks great too, it may be just a PSP game but damn that system can go hard when it wants to. Sure it's absolutely aged but it's really perfected the art style that Trails in the Sky started and it doesn't look bad in the slightest. Not only are the visuals nicer to look at but the animations are more impressive too. Some of the crafts are incredibly impressive to look at, especially in the next game.

The soundtrack goes so hard. I liked the Sky games's OST too but I think Zero's is way better personally. Get Over the Barrier is an absolute banger of a battle theme. The Geofront slaps too hard for a tutorial dungeon and the cutscene and world themes don't disappoint either. It's certainly much more of a shounen anime OST but if that doesn't bother you then this game's soundtrack is amazing.

For a series widely known for its sweeping continuous story, this game's main storyline is surprisingly laidback. It's much more of a character focused narrative centered around a mafia investigation. The characters are so good however that I don't think sky ever stood a chance in comparison.
Lloyd is such a breath of fresh air. He's a trained detective coming back to crossbell after 3 years spent in Calvard and he starts this game off smarter than Estelle gets at the end of her arc. He's not entirely sure of himself but he steps up and gets the job done and he's a solid main character. Also I'm an absolute sucker for his cheesy speeches.
Randy is the playboy of the group, lover of ladies, alcohol and gambling. But he's by no means one note and is more of the dependable older brother of the group. His relevance shines more in Azure but he still comes up often as he has ties to Garcia Rossi, one of the leaders of the mafia in Crossbell.
Ellie sadly, is probably the least relevant of the group, she doesn't really have much to add to the main events of the game after chapter 2. That said she's still a valuable part of the team and her interactions with the rest of the SSS make her not a wasted character by any means.
And Tio is the smart one, she works the terminal and takes care of any time the group needs something done with computers. She also is the designated animal talker so she comes up whenever the group needs to talk to Zeit, their police dog of sorts. Her backstory also heavily ties her to the main antagonists of the second half of the narrative. Finally she also gets most of the funny lines so Tio's great overall.
There's a lot of other characters who are great like Sergei, Dudley, Rixia and a lot of the smaller NPCs around town even but if I talked about them all we'd be here forever. There's also KeA but I'd rather save talking about KeA for Azure.
Something else of note is, Ouroboros is almost entirelly absent for this whole game. They obviously have their hands in events that are transpiring but their absence really lets Lloyd and the SSS breathe and grow without being held down by the big overwhelming plot in the background right away.

The gameplay is almost unimaginably better than Sky's on every level you can think of. First of all, the balancing is great. At the very least on nightmare I encountered not a single time I felt the game was unfair outside of one bonus DP objective early on. I'm pretty sure these are considered the easiest Trails games and, yeah, I can see it. But I would absolutely recommend anybody to play these ones on Nightmare. The difficulty felt absolutely perfect to me.
There's no longer any one single best strategy to spam. Crafts feel amazing and arts haven't lost their usefulness either. Crafts may be a little bit too strong in this game but they're by no means overwhelmingly more powerful.
The new combo crafts are beautiful. It's a fitting new addition for this game where the narrative is much more focused on these 4 and their growth as a newfound family with each other. They feel good to use and have their own use case next to the traditional S-crafts and they're one of my favourite new additions.
The new orbment, the Enigma is pretty much the same as the one from Sky SC, having 7 slots and each slot can be upgraded. However quartz has had a complete rebalance. A few of the new placements of old quartz are a little strange but as a whole this is absolutely a welcome change as previously you had some elements being far better than others and the distribution of some were heavily skewed. For example Mind quartz is now no longer water but is instead a sorely needed mirage quartz, Impede is no longer wind but time, you get the idea. In addition most arts have been completely replaced, or just moved around or changed. The La Tear series of artss are gone and replaced with the Breath series, now being a wind art instead. Clock Up is replaced with Chrono Drive and is AoE, and pretty much every single offensive art has been changed. All arts have now been seperated into categories now too making it much easier to get to and find what you want.
The overworld now has a field attack option. you no longer have the regular 3 advantage states. You can now also hit an enemy to briefly hold them in place or you can hit them from behind to stun them and provide a larger amount of advantage, giving your team several turns of crits and/or a team rush, essentially a free round of basic attacks for your entire party in one turn. This system makes overworld encounters much less of a chore than it was in Sky and I found myself enjoying the combat as a whole because of it. On top of the other improvements too of course.

The biggest barrier (haha) to this game is honestly the requirement to play Sky beforehand to get the full experience out of it. Otherwise I would absolutely recommend this game to any JRPG fan out there it was a blast to play and I loved it.

Before getting into Trails from Zero properly, I think it’s necessary to dive into its history in the West a little. The game was originally released in Japan in 2010 on PSP and due to how long localisation was taking with the Sky games, it was skipped over in favour of bringing over the Cold Steel games first. However due to Reverie acting as a finale to both the Crossbell and Cold Steel games, Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure were both quickly localised before the Western release of Reverie to allow fans to catch up. The localisation uses the extremely well done fan translation from Geofront as a base for its work and unfortunately skipped out being dubbed into English which is a shame having played the Sky games which had the battle dialogue dubbed. Knowing the reasoning behind this though does make it a lot easier to swallow so it’s not something I’m too hung up about and the Japanese cast are fantastic, it’s just a shame we miss out on the battle dialogue.

So, after the Sky trilogy Trails from Zero takes place in a new setting with a new cast of characters, acting as a brand new arc for the longer running narrative that the series has. There’s familiar faces and mentions of past events but otherwise the story here is very much focused on new protagonist Lloyd and the Special Support Squad he has become a part of in Crossbell City. The SSS act as a rookie branch of police who have come under fire from the public after not doing their jobs while the Bracer Guild have been gaining all the plaudits because they have actually been helping people. The SSS are basically the police version of the Guild, taking up requests to help people in need while also trying to solve crimes that the wider police force have been letting slip. While the core gameplay loop of solving requests and main story plot points is very similar to how the first two Sky games played, it’s also pretty cool seeing a rivalry form between the SSS and the Guild as well as the little differences in what both sides are allowed to do under their rules.

The SSS squad consists of four members: Lloyd, Elie, Randy, and Tio. Unlike Sky that had a constantly rotating cast outside of Estelle and Joshua for the most part, Zero starts you off with these four immediately and has a few rotating guest party members. It’s a nice approach as the main focus is on the four SSS members and their growth together as they try to take on bigger and bigger jobs to help unravel the corruption that Crossbell is drowning in. Zero has a more focused approach to its narrative dealing with a small party in a much smaller State and it works well with this. In true Trails fashion, the slow burn is real here. The game takes its time to slowly unravel more and more about each of its characters to ensure everyone gets their own moments to shine. Lloyd is the glue that keeps everyone together, often giving cheesy speeches to help lift the others up in their times of need. He’s optimistic and there’s a lovable charm about him as he overcomes the barriers he faces. Elie works hard and is serious about her job but also faces many doubts about the path she chose. Randy is our flirt of the group and is very fun loving, especially with gambling but as you start to uncover his past you grow to understand how hard his life has been. Tio is extremely reserved with her emotions but also incredibly smart with technology. She’s a character who has suffered much in her past so it hits hard when you see her growing more and more comfortable with the group. Together the SSS squad make a fantastic little family of characters and there’s a lot to love as you watch them grow closer throughout the game. However there is a minor nitpick with a new mechanic introduced in this game - bonding. Throughout the game there’s several events and ways for Lloyd to build up his bond with each member of the SSS, including three story events where you can choose a character to accompany him. Once you reach max bond with a character you’ll be able to view a special scene between them and Lloyd towards the end of the game, however you can only do this with one character per playthrough. These events include some important stuff for each character, including Lloyd, so it sucks that you have to be very particular with how you raise bond levels and maintain multiple saves if you want to see everything without replaying the game multiple times. Apart from that the character development is really good and it’s really easy to love each member of the SSS team, especially with how much time you’ll spend with them.

Crossbell State is an interesting setting. Instead of going round in a loop like you did in Liberl, your main hub area is smack bang in the centre known as Crossbell City with routes to the four compass directions leading to towns and other important locations. Because of this you spend a lot of time in Crossbell City and it’s easy to become attached to the place as you explore its various districts and meet its wonderful citizens. Whether it’s the nosy reporter Grace, or the eccentric gangs that grow to respect you, or the wonderful performers of the Arc de Ciel, Crossbell is a very homely place and one you’ll grow into wanting to protect. However Crossbell is also full of corruption and seedy dealings. It’s home to a unique political situation having been born from both the Empire of Erebonia and the Republic of Calvard. Due to this it’s political set up is balanced between those in support of the Empire or the Republic and they prevent any reforms from the Mayor coming through due to their need to not cede ground to the other. This is further emphasised by both sides having a mafia associated with them, Revache for the Empire and Heiyue for the Republic. Due to this, the government members are able to get corrupt dealings done while also having the power to put pressure on the justice system to look the other way. It leads to a wonderful dichotomy where there’s a lot of people who love Crossbell but there’s a house of cards ready to be blown over at any moment that could see the place crumble. It’s a state that is independent in name only as two forces struggle to gain control over it.
Crossbell is also a financially well off place, with Zemuria’s central bank being located here and technology being advanced enough for Orbal vehicles like cars available for the richest members of public and mobile communication being available through Orbments. It might be a small state but there’s a lot going on and it’s a fantastic setting for the game.

If you’ve played the Sky games then you will be aware of a few characters that had mentioned their intentions to go to Crossbell. Well a few familiar faces show up in this game and play a role in a secondary plot that runs alongside the main narrative. Without going too much into spoiler territory, Zero does an incredible job managing these two plot threads and superbly gets them to lead towards the same conclusion in a thrilling finale with a huge payoff for those who have been playing through all the games. I have seen people say you can start with Zero as it’s a new arc and features one of the more standalone stories in the series, which it does, it manages to wrap up with no huge cliffhanger and a few plot threads that the sequel can explore but at the same time, if you haven’t played the Sky games, you’re missing out on a lot of context for the secondary plot and losing out on a lot of impactful moments from seeing characters that you would’ve grown attached to or recognise from those games. I can understand the huge barrier a long running narrative can bring and wanting to find a starting point that doesn’t require a huge time sink but ideally you should probably play these games in release order for the best impact possible.

So Zero features another wonderful cast with a plot that slowly builds up into an epic finale and a supporting cast that are memorable in their own ways, leading to another fantastic experience. On the gameplay side of things this is a minor evolution on what came before it. You now have the ability to attack and stun enemies on the overworld allowing you to gain a better advantage in battle. New turn bonuses have been added, like the team attack where you get a Persona style all out attack sequence where everybody beats the crap out of the enemies on field. Some stuff from Sky the 3rd pops up in certain locations but otherwise it’s the same old Trails you know and love at its core with minor tweaks and adjustments. On the music side of things you’ve got another great soundtrack. I adore the hospital theme as it reminds me a little of the National Park theme in Pokemon Gen 2 and there’s an incredible track during the final day of Crossbell’s anniversary celebrations, so yeah the music side of things is excellent.

Zero is a wonderful start to a new arc, freshening up the cast and setting just as it was feeling a little needed. It manages to balance plot threads old and new and delivers another incredible experience carefully built up that explodes in a stunning finale. The focused approach on a smaller main cast and setting delivers a very cosy and heartwarming adventure where the found family and being accepted despite your past are the order of the day and it works so well. It doesn’t quite manage to hit the highs I had during Sky SC but it does deliver yet another brilliant RPG game to add to the library of Trails bangers.

Trails from Zero has possibly the best pacing of any introductory arc in the Kiseki series.
Even though I'm more fond of the parties from the Liberl arc and the Erebonia arc, I still had a good time with the SSS. However, the city of Crossbell and its geopolitical entanglements are a lot more interesting to me than Liberl as a setting. I didn't think that she, Estelle and Joshua would have such a big story relevance. So Trails from Zero also acts as an epilogue to the Lieberl arc and Renne's character arc. Which was handled pretty sweet.

Another great Trails game, it had a lot to live up to following the Liberl trilogy and it didn't disappoint. The world building is better than ever, with Crossbell already being my favorite location in the series, the cast is fleshed out really well for a first game and there's a lot of engaging mysteries and stellar moments that both set up the future of the series and tie up loose ends perfectly.
Some things could've been better, while the many improvements in combat are welcomed, the new system to run away from battles is baffling and made field traversal so much worse than sky, especially in more complicated dungeons with a good amount of backtracking. The final dungeon suffered especially from this, as it didn't have many things that made it stood out, was very long and the enemies respawning constantly got on my nerves. Some of the characters, especially the antagonists, didn't get the time they needed or actually just didn't have much to them, which is a shame but the lore we got kind of made up for it.
I'm falling in love with this series more and more as it does so many things right, and hope it keeps surpassing my expectations and delivering great experiences like this one.