It's Trails but with a new cast of characters and now you're playing as police officers instead of bracers.

The police in this game have a sort of friendly rivalry with the bracers. This is a fun way of incorporating characters from previous games without their presence overshadowing the main cast, but it does help point out that classic Trails characters overshadowing the main cast is a potential issue. In the story, the main cast of Trails From Zero don't want to be outdone by Estelle and Joshua. And even though they address that problem narratively, I do think there was a part of the game where Estelle and Joshua being present could potentially overshadow the main cast. I'd prefer that classic characters have a smaller role in a game that's establishing a new cast of characters. Otherwise the new characters never get their moment to shine. Luckily there were many moments in this game that let the new characters shine, but I do think they could have dialed back Estelle and Joshua's involvement for this particular game.

Trails from Zero is only half of a story, so I don't have the full picture on the main cast yet. But I enjoyed the seeing characters' stories so far. I do think that the main cast gets along together too well though. It may have been more interesting to have their friendships develop over the course of the game than have them become friends immediately.

The plot of this game is a bit on the insane side, but I enjoyed it the whole way through. It's neat that this is a JRPG that is initially about policemen taking on the mafia within a crime-infested city. That's not something you see often, so it's enjoyable even just for the novelty. And while the story takes a wild left turn toward the end, I enjoyed the direction the story ultimately took. But there's a part of me that wishes that the story continued to be about the mafia instead of changing course when all the setup for the mafia story had been done.

My biggest issue with Trails From Zero is that the main villain of the game is kind of lame. This is a game with a bunch of interesting and well developed characters, so when the villain was revealed my reaction was "THAT'S who it is??" There's not even anything necessarily wrong with how the character was written. It was just a weird-ass choice to make the character a villain. I think the villain being a character who fits the role better would have made for a more compelling finale.

The combat is Trails combat. I pretty much know the drill by now, but I enjoyed it a lot more this time because there was a built-in speed up function. Granted, the game shouldn't have needed a speed up button to be fun. The biggest flaw with Trails combat is how slow it is and that remains true, because it's actually pretty enjoyable when sped up beyond what was originally intended. I played through most of the game on speed up mode. I feel like this game is easier than the previous ones, but that's probably because I know what I'm doing with the combat system now, as well as the fact that attack animations don't take 2 years to complete when sped up.

The music is good, although Trails in the Sky the 3rd is still the highpoint of Trails music from what I've played. This game takes second place for music. There are some nice non-combat tracks here but some of the combat tracks sound a bit generic or low energy. They delivered on the boss themes though, as they tend to do.

The last thing I'll bring up is that the support requests are a pretty sizable step down from the side stories in Trails in the Sky the 3rd. The support requests can occasionally lead to some amusing scenarios, but I'd much much rather learn more about the extended cast of characters than do a bunch of fetch-quests. But narratively it makes sense for the main characters to do fetch quests, so I ended up completing a good amount anyway.

I like this game. It's my second favorite behind Trails in the Sky the 3rd so far. The story isn't over after beating Trails from Zero so I can't make my full judgement on the Crossbell arc yet. But what I really appreciate about Trails from Zero is that even though it's a new story it still follows up on unresolved plot points from the previous games. And I think for that reason alone it's worth sticking with this series even if not every game ends up being a winner.

Minha jornada por essa incrível franquia chega em Crossbell. Iniciei imediatamente após concluir a primeira trilogia da franquia, e já tive gratas surpresas na experiência visual, por se manter na mesma estética, porém, mas com uma qualidade de detalhes ainda mais bela. Outro charme, pelo design de personagens ser obra do Katsumi Enami, um ilustrador pelo qual tenho profunda admiração desde que o conheci em Baccano.

Outras melhorias notáveis na qualidade de vida, especialmente na versão para Switch e PC (que foi a que joguei), o que me deixou bastante satisfeito. Destaco, em particular, o modo de velocidade. Além disso, um aprimoramento adicional na qualidade de vida foi a introdução do teleporte (sim, já existia no 3rd, mas este é diferente). Inicialmente, não esperava sentir falta desse recurso, mas, na prática, foi uma adição muito positiva.

Para minha agradável surpresa, a trama deste jogo mergulha nas narrativas de detetive, dada a condição do protagonista como um policial. Isso é particularmente cativante para mim, pois tenho uma afinidade especial por histórias desse gênero, sendo um grande admirador de Sherlock Holmes e Detective Conan. Isso ajudou muito para conquistar rapidamente.

Permaneceu no mesmo padrão de qualidade narrativa dos jogos anteriores, apresentando um worldbuilding intrigante e personagens pelos quais você se afeiçoa rapidamente. O início desta lembra o começo do primeiro jogo da franquia, seguindo um ritmo mais lento, o que foi excelente, pois proporciona espaço para conhecer um novo elenco de personagens. Só senti falta de qualidade nas sidequest, achei bem fraquinha e tinha oportunidade de trazer muita coisa boa já que é uma “história de detetive”.

Não apenas no desenvolvimento da narrativa, mas também há muitas coisas ressoam com os jogos anteriores, como exploração de torres e a participação ativa de personagens mais antigos. Inicialmente, achava que suas aparições fossem apenas participações especiais, mas surpreendentemente, três deles tiveram grande destaque e relevância na trama. Isso me trouxe um acalento no coração, pois, embora seja uma história nova, é reconfortante ver o retorno de personagens queridos do passado.

Um dos elementos que mais me agradou foi ter um grupo desde o início, com Loyd, Ellie, Tio e Randy, que são personagens fantásticos. Gostei especialmente da estabilidade na formação do grupo, mantendo-os ao meu lado do início ao fim. No entanto, devido a essa consistência, não explorei muitas combinações de habilidades, o que tornou o gameplay um tanto repetitivo em certos momentos. Mesmo assim, não vejo isso como um problema significativo, considerando que o jogo não é tão extenso. Em relação ao combate, algumas alterações nas orbs o tornaram ainda mais envolvente, reforçando o meu apreço pelo gameplay desta franquia.

Ademais, é um refresco saber que a franquia mantém a qualidade e deixa ainda mais animado para os próximos.

I have already played the first three games in the trails of series; therefore, I am very invested in its world and gameplay. I am glad that this game didn’t disappoint me, because it delivered a very concise story and even tied some questions left in trails in the sky the 3rd. My only complaint would be that the keyboard controls in this game aren’t as intuitive, compared to the ones done by xseed. Which is a shame because it was the best experience, I have had with a JRPG in PC, and in some things better than the normal use with controllers.

Its weird to change characters after three games, but all of them are memorable and I believe it was a good decision to not rotate as many people, because it was becoming tiresome in the third game. Is weird that the end of this game didn’t leave any plot twists with their characters as in previous installments and I could have seen it as an end to the franchise with just some unsolved plots that could have been left to the player interpretation/imagination.

Even though most of the gameplay was similar, there were some changes to the Arts system that refresh completely the idea of how to play, such as deleting the cure ailments or most of the cure in groups that were exploited before. Though, I feel the game easier than any other of the previous ones. Which is not bad, because it still had challenge which require actual thought into boss battles. Though, most of the normal encounters could be cheesed by attacking to their back and the doing an “All out attack” which in most cases killed all the enemies or left them with little health left.

I can see a trend in this game to make the game easier and more story focused, which does not feel bad. I would have chosen a harder mode if there was a way to skip boss cutscenes. Another aspect was that it became tiresome some of the npc dialogs because each time I made some story progress I would read each person new interaction. Perhaps to not be burned by this I will let half a year pass at least before I play another one in the series.

In general, it was a well-done game, but it didn’t amaze me to the point of becoming the best game in the series. I would not 100% complete it, but that is a given with almost any RPG for me.

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.

My first experience with The Legend of Heroes series and damn, what a game.

If you're looking for a fresh JRPG with some of the best writing, this is what you want. Literally every NPC has thought-out dialogue that changes throughout the game, making the world that much believable. No more ignoring every person because they blabber on about nonsense. I made an effort to talk to everyone to make sure I didn't miss a thing.

I also think this has some of the best character development in JRPGs when it comes to the party. Learning about small details of the crew and seeing them bloom and grow in a playthrough made seeing their individual growths and journeys that much more impactful. I'm also finding it hard to pick a favorite character as I've grown to love them all.

As for the story, obviously can't say much, but starting as a lil rag-tag group of people helping around the small town to evolving into the final moments in the game is batshit crazy.

Anyways, go play this. It's far worth the sixty hours-ish. I promise 😘