The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero Review

Recovering the lost chapter in JRPG history’s longest ongoing story

It’s a tale as old as time, or at least as long as JRPGs have been around. A series will find international success with one or two breakout hits, yet still leave even some of its most significant titles exclusive to Japan. While this is always disappointing to fans, it doesn’t usually impact their experience with the other games. It’s not so simple for Nihon Falcom’s The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and its sequel Trails to Azure, originally released for the PSP in 2010 and 2011 respectively, which bridged the gap between the major story arcs of the Trails in the Sky trilogy and the Trails of Cold Steel tetralogy.

Between the plot threads from Sky that found their resolution in these games, and the characters and events from them that were referenced in Cold Steel, it has felt for some time now that pieces of the puzzle had been missing—obscuring the full picture. However, thanks to the efforts of a dedicated team of fan translators at The Geofront and publishers NIS America, fans worldwide are able to experience the first of these two games officially on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Overview

(Image: NIS America)

The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero takes place in the city-state of Crossbell, a Hong Kong inspired territory whose control is heavily disputed between two major powers: The Calvardian Republic and the Erebonian Empire. As one of the continent’s leading economic centers, it is a place of technological innovation—leading the way in the widespread use of cars and network systems. However, due to its uneasy political situation, corruption has continued to fester as the wealthy and powerful serve the interests of rival nations. This has led to a distrust between the people and government officials as the vibrant city’s dark criminal underbelly is quietly tolerated.

Plot

Players take control of young detective and police academy graduate Lloyd Bannings, who finds himself assigned by the Crossbell Police Department to a new unorthodox division called the Special Support Section. He is joined by Elie MacDowell, an honors student who returned from studying abroad and decided to join the police to gain some real world experience, Tio Plato, a child prodigy with technology employed by the Epstein Foundation to run field tests for experimental equipment, and Randy Orlando, an ex-soldier from the Crossbell Guardian Force with a penchant for gambling and flirting.

This ragtag team of rookies was assembled as a means of serving the public more directly in an attempt to regain some of the people’s trust, taking a few notes from a popular international group known as the Bracer’s Guild. Though many in the Crossbell Police Department are skeptical, Lloyd Bannings and his team accept their task of assisting the public with various requests and conducting investigations—uncovering many terrible secrets along the way. Through their work, the Special Support Section discovers a unique role that sets them apart from both the investigative divisions of the police and the Bracer’s Guild, determining themselves to overcome any barrier in their pursuit of justice.

Can You Start With The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero?

Due to how story-driven of a series The Legend of Heroes is, it is natural for any first-timer or curious onlooker to either ask where you should start or if a certain game in it that interests them the most is a good entry point. In the case of Trails from Zero, the short answer is: yes, this game introduces its setting, characters, and gameplay elements sufficiently enough to be understood without prior knowledge of the series. The long answer, however, is a little more complicated.

As I mentioned previously, this series is made up of sagas that lead into one another. Given that this one is set between the Sky and Cold Steel games, it is generally recommended to have played the Sky trilogy first. Though it takes place in a different setting, characters from those games make their appearance in Trails from Zero and ultimately resolve a major plot point that was previously left open-ended. While you could understand their roles in the story just fine without knowing who they are, the impact of their storyline will undeniably lose a lot of its impact and also spoil you if you ever do plan on playing the previous games afterwards. However, if this doesn’t bother you, then feel free to jump in right here.

Gameplay

(Images: NIS America)

The combat in Trails from Zero follows a standard approach to battles in role-playing games, featuring enemy encounters where players decide on actions to take during their turn. This particular system, known as AT Battle, displays the turn order on the left side of the screen and the amount of delay on your highlighted action before selecting it. Appearing next to the character icons will sometimes be bonuses, which can grant various effects such as restoring health or landing a critical hit. By taking into account the delay on certain actions or using specific moves to effect turn order, you can manipulate the turns to give yourself these bonuses or prevent enemies from getting them.

Battles take place on a grid, with a character’s attack radius determined by their Movement and Range. Movement is how many spaces that character can move before acting, and Range is how many spaces away they can perform their normal attack. A character like Elie, for instance, may start with low Movement but still be able to hit most enemies due to her Range. Arts, however, can be used at any distance. These are useful moves that cost EP and have to be charged, but grant various offensive, restorative, supportive, or debilitative effects. Crafts, however, do not need to be charged but instead cost CP which is gained through dealing or receiving damage. These are character specific moves that each perform a different function, such as Randy having an attack that delays enemy turns or Tio being able to analyze enemy information while lowering their defense. A more powerful type of Craft, called an S-Craft can also be used once a character’s CP reaches 100, depleting all of it. What’s most useful about these is that they can be used on ANY turn, which makes them perfect for landing bonuses. The last form of action is the use of items, which are found outside of battle and provide various effects. It is a good idea to stock up on them as using items is one of the quickest actions in battle and a good way of getting out of a pinch.

The last major aspect of battle to talk about is how encounters are triggered. While exploring dungeons or areas outside of the city, enemies will roam around and approach when they spot you. If you can catch them from behind, you will start the battle with an advantage, however you will start the battle at a disadvantage if they catch you from behind. New to this series are field attacks, which allow you to stun enemies if you manage to attack them before they become aware of your presence. Triggering a battle with a stunned enemy will give you the maximum advantage when the battle starts. You can also trigger chain encounters if two or more enemies are nearby when an encounter starts, meaning that you will immediately fight another encounter after you finish the first one. Making use of all of these options will be key to having the smoothest experience possible with this game’s combat system.

Where Trails from Zero Succeeds

As a story-driven JRPG, the most important aspects to nail are its narrative and gameplay loop. I’ll use the following section as a way of highlighting the ways in which this game builds a strong foundation for these two key elements.

Setting and Characters

Possibly the biggest star of this game is its setting, the city-state of Crossbell itself. Serving as the main hub for the SSS, Crossbell City goes far beyond being another JRPG town that you visit during your adventure. As you progress through the main plot, fulfill requests for citizens, and even just talk to NPCs on a regular basis, you begin to understand the daily life there and the way its ordinary residents respond to the major events going on. On top of that, many of them have little stories of their own completely separate from the plot, and talking with them can sometimes trigger unique interactions between the main cast that give you more insight into their background or provide foreshadowing that you won’t see in the main story. There’s even hidden items and quests that some of them give, so you may even be rewarded for going out of your way to interact with them. It really helps to reinforce the feeling of getting to know the community that your team seeks to protect and serve.

And, of course, there’s the SSS themselves. Unlike most JRPGs where a small handful of characters set out on a journey and pick up more party members along the way, you’re introduced to your four permanent party members before you reach a single combat encounter. This helps to smooth out some of the roughness of early JRPG combat by giving you a well balanced party from the very beginning. It also ensures that they each get ample time to contribute to the plot and develop alongside one another, as more information about each of them gets revealed throughout the story. There’s a heartwarming feeling from seeing each of these rookies of different backgrounds grow into their roles and form something of an odd family unit together.

Helpful Features

Truthfully, there’s only so much more I can say about the combat at this point given how much opinions differ on the quality of turn-based combat. However, if you read what I wrote earlier about it and thought you might enjoy that kind of battle system—you’re probably right! What you might also appreciate are some of the other ways this game seeks to make that experience even more enjoyable and less tedious. The most commonly praised feature is the High-Speed Mode, which you can use to make combat animations or backtracking significantly faster. There’s also an autosave feature, which you can adjust to create a new file at different intervals during your session, but even without it you wouldn’t have to worry too much about losing progress from a difficult fight as you can retry nearly all of them including boss fights. It makes all the right compromises to retain a more classic JRPG experience without the frustration that many of them can induce.

Where Trails from Zero Suffers

Despite my high opinion of the game, there are a few aspects of it that should be addressed for anyone interested in trying it. While not necessarily inherent flaws, they’re worth pointing out as they can still affect a person’s experience playing it.

Graphics and Sound

I won’t beat a dead horse here. Though the Nihon Falcom Corporation is a well respected and historically significant developer of JRPGs, graphics have never been their strong suit—especially when compared to their contemporaries in the field such as Square Enix or Atlus. This is much more noticeable in their forays into 3D, such as the recent Ys and Trails of Cold Steel games which all look as though they could have believably released a console generation earlier. So it’s with that in mind that I honestly think that Trails from Zero holds up a little better in comparison to those games, especially when you remember that it was originally released for the PSP. The 2.5D backgrounds, chibi sprite work, and expressive character portraits all retain a unique charm of their own that many indie developers these days strive to replicate.

However, I do think the game’s presentation ultimately does serve a handheld device better due to the placement of character sprites and text boxes. This may just be a personal preference of mine, but even with the option of larger text, I really couldn’t stand trying to play this on a big TV screen on the other side of the room. I own the Nintendo Switch version, where everything feels perfectly at home while playing in handheld mode, but I couldn’t last two minutes trying to play it while docked. It’s one reason I’d recommend playing it on Switch or PC instead of the PS4 version, unless perhaps you’re using a small enough TV. There were also some graphical errors and texture issues that this version of the game suffered from at launch, which recently got patched out of every version except for PS4. So that’s another reason I wouldn’t recommend that version unless it was your only option.

There’s also a disappointing lack of an English dub, which the rest of the series has. This stands out even more now that many of the characters in this game have already been cast with English actors for their appearances in the Cold Steel games and the upcoming Trails into Reverie. Even if it had just been for a few in-battle quotes like the dub for Trails in the Sky, I still would have appreciated hearing Robbie Daymond’s Lloyd and the rest of the SSS again with the voices I associate with them. What some people may appreciate though is that this version adds the Japanese audio from the Evo release of the game, giving voice to much of the main story dialogue. Since I found myself reading their lines in my head with the voices from the dub, I found this distracting and turned it off. However, people who read visual novels and play games with Japanese audio on a regular basis may get a lot more out of their performances.

Consequences of Being the Opening Act

Though this point may be somewhat obvious when looking at its place in the series, it should be reiterated that this game is not only one piece of a larger ongoing narrative but also the first half of a duology. As such, this does have an effect on the game’s story when looking at it on its own merits. Firstly, the pace can come across as a bit slow due to the relatively low stakes early on. The game is content to take its time building its setting and developing its cast by sending the player on a lot of errands that lead to small developments in the plot or provide fun exchanges between the characters. This is perfect if you’re looking for something a little more laid-back and down to earth, but it also means that you can’t expect the story to be firing on all cylinders right from the start.

What this also entails is that the story won’t be complete when the credits roll. Sure, there a plot lines resolved by the end and major climaxes that this game has of its own, but it leaves many questions left for its sequel to answer. Basically, you can’t expect a complete and compact experience with this game or really any game from this series, as they each set out to fulfill their purpose in a greater picture. I will say though that unlike the first games in the other arcs of this series, this one doesn’t end on NEARLY as cruel of a cliffhanger as the first Sky or Cold Steel game. That will certainly make the wait for Trails to Azure’s release date in March much less agonizing.

Verdict

Overall, The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero is a game I can recommend very highly to fans of JRPGs and people who enjoy story-driven games in general—and an absolute must play for fans of the series who missed out on it previously. It crafts a story with a lot of detail put into building its world and the characters who inhabit it, featuring a cast that forms a close bond as they develop alongside one another from start to finish. The combat is strategic and engaging, with many of its potentially frustrating aspects smoothed out thanks to the features this game implements to accommodate players. As long as you go into the game with an understanding of what it is and what it isn’t, there’s really very little to be disappointed by here. For a new release with that classic JRPG flavor, The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero is one of the best you’ll find the market to offer.