this finale was so peak
azure but less awesome
Still good for the series, though it does fall somewhat into the 'worldbuilding' situation that plagues FC which means that the first 25 hours of my 42 hour playthrough was basically spent introducing the key players and the city-state of Crossbell. I don't dislike the worldbuilding that Trails is renowned for but I much prefer the followups to the first entries in each Trails Saga where the plot is generally driving the game from the 1st or 2nd chapter. I don't think that the twist at the end of the game is super well pulled off, even if I can't necessarily think of anything wrong with the revelations it spills out, I just think that the reveal at the end of FC was far more surprising and well done. Like I'm gonna play the next game but Zero's story just sort of ends and goes 'hmm what about this and this plot thread?' and you're like 'yeah i guess', while FC ended and enthralled me enough to immediately buy and start playing SC.
Combat is basically an improved version of 3rd, which up to this point had the best combat in the system. They re-did the entire quartz system to try and stop every character from spamming Black Gehanna, by heavily nerfing your "higher element quartz" which was good. EP Cut has had it's effect halved meaning so your 40-50% EP reduction has turned into a 15-20% by games end - sounds worse on paper but it also theoretically increases the number of quartz you have by 1, because you don't need to dedicate a slot to EP Cut. The "gem" quartz that you start acquiring in end-game aren't just better versions of the normal quartz anymore either. They're weird, game-changing effects that fundamentally change how you might approach some fights. It's great! By the end of the game I had a pretty eclectic mix of builds as a result. Good stuff.
Combat is basically an improved version of 3rd, which up to this point had the best combat in the system. They re-did the entire quartz system to try and stop every character from spamming Black Gehanna, by heavily nerfing your "higher element quartz" which was good. EP Cut has had it's effect halved meaning so your 40-50% EP reduction has turned into a 15-20% by games end - sounds worse on paper but it also theoretically increases the number of quartz you have by 1, because you don't need to dedicate a slot to EP Cut. The "gem" quartz that you start acquiring in end-game aren't just better versions of the normal quartz anymore either. They're weird, game-changing effects that fundamentally change how you might approach some fights. It's great! By the end of the game I had a pretty eclectic mix of builds as a result. Good stuff.
incrível, maravilhoso. absolutamente amo. o único jogo de trails até agora que não tem defeitos, na minha opinião. gostei bastante de fazer as sidequests. o jogo inteiro é cheio de momentos mind-blowing, obliterou minha cabeça. do início ao final é um must-play absurdo. tem momentos tranquilos, momentos excitantes, momentos traumáticos. os temas de civilização moderna vs anciã, a tecnologia e revolução industrial, e a pedofilia são muito bem tratados aqui.
[European Portuguese - PlayStation 5 - Dated 04/10/2022]
"Feitas as contas, The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero é um JRPG suficientemente bom para ser desfrutado sozinho, mas cuja narrativa e enredo ganham outro peso quando existe o contexto da saga Sky e Cold Steel por trás. Ainda assim, o foco da narrativa numa escala pequena permite vender um mundo muito pessoal e intrigante, com a banda sonora, jogabilidade e grafismo mais ‘retro’ a ajudar à eufonia. Não deixa de ser genuinamente triste existirem duas versões visualmente diferentes entre PS4, Switch e PC, porém esta é uma aventura que merece ser vivida para os fãs do género independentemente da plataforma de escolha."
See more @ https://squared-potato.pt/the-legend-of-heroes-trails-from-zero-ps4-analise/
"Feitas as contas, The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero é um JRPG suficientemente bom para ser desfrutado sozinho, mas cuja narrativa e enredo ganham outro peso quando existe o contexto da saga Sky e Cold Steel por trás. Ainda assim, o foco da narrativa numa escala pequena permite vender um mundo muito pessoal e intrigante, com a banda sonora, jogabilidade e grafismo mais ‘retro’ a ajudar à eufonia. Não deixa de ser genuinamente triste existirem duas versões visualmente diferentes entre PS4, Switch e PC, porém esta é uma aventura que merece ser vivida para os fãs do género independentemente da plataforma de escolha."
See more @ https://squared-potato.pt/the-legend-of-heroes-trails-from-zero-ps4-analise/
At this point, the guy who writes these chest messages is my current favorite person in the world
kitty
Zero is a very good experience. I love the SSS as a group (when overly repetitive jokes aren't ruining the conversation) and this game flows at a decent pace. It's slow from time to time, but what isn't. My faults come with the story and character development. Story isn't a good starter and if your name isn't Tio Plato you aren't getting shit bud. Lloyd tries to gaslight you into thinking he gets real character development, but it's false. All of the character development in Zero more resides in how the SSS gets a lot closer to each other and how they solve each case they need to.
Beat: 5/30/23
Beat: 5/30/23
Forever my favorite arc. Gosh, I cry every time when the scenes with Renne or Tio start to hit. I remember how I first didn’t like Randy that much back then (I never disliked him, though), but chapter by chapter, I started to love this bro so much. This game even manages to make me like a dude like Dudley.
This game manages so well to present you the overarching story without letting you realize it from the start. Just near the ending, you realize how much of the overarching story happened right at the start. What seemed like subplots at first turns out to be one of the best happenings of a complex and mind fckn conspiracy.
First time on Nightmare this time. First Nightmare experience in Trails ever. That was an experience. Loved and enjoyed it so much!
If I could pick one game that I had to play forever, it would be Trails from Zero.
This game manages so well to present you the overarching story without letting you realize it from the start. Just near the ending, you realize how much of the overarching story happened right at the start. What seemed like subplots at first turns out to be one of the best happenings of a complex and mind fckn conspiracy.
First time on Nightmare this time. First Nightmare experience in Trails ever. That was an experience. Loved and enjoyed it so much!
If I could pick one game that I had to play forever, it would be Trails from Zero.
lloyd jobbings
The wait to get over the language barrier was worth it.
Sky the 3rd is my favorite Trails game from a narrative point and it's only matched by the Crossbell duology, with a tight cast, unexpected moments and an incredible soundtrack.
Sky the 3rd is my favorite Trails game from a narrative point and it's only matched by the Crossbell duology, with a tight cast, unexpected moments and an incredible soundtrack.
Paradise has made me cry more than paradise should.
Renne
i love the SSS so much and the payoff from sky is impeccable
Elie
lloyd bannings is the best protagonist of all time and crossbell the best fictional setting of all time. this game is special
the game hard crashed for me at the final dungeon and wouldn't boot up for about an hour but after restarting my pc two times it came back, and in that moment i truly understood lloyd bannings... i overcame my own barriers, much like him...
This review contains spoilers
Trails From Zero is one of the excellent jrpgs I've played this year. It starts off very slow with its first 2 chapters but I guarantee you will be hooked by chapter 3.
The combat is an improvement from the Sky games and you can see it was the catalyst of the Cold Steel combat (although it is harder than cold steel). The main issue is that Arts is becoming more and more useless but still characters like Elie and Tio will make good party members regardless. You also get some guest characters join each chapter:
• In the Prologue it's Wazy
• In Chapter 2 it's Noel
• In Chapter 3 it's Wazy again
• In Chapter 4 it's Noel and Dudley
• And in the Finale it's the mysterious Yin and our protagonists from the previous trilogy, Estelle and Joshua.
The charcters are my next point and I think they are all good. This game mainly focuses on Elie and Tio though and I can say one of them at least is a fantastic character and is very cute.
Also KeA almost made this game an automatic 5 star.
Anyways play this game nerd
The combat is an improvement from the Sky games and you can see it was the catalyst of the Cold Steel combat (although it is harder than cold steel). The main issue is that Arts is becoming more and more useless but still characters like Elie and Tio will make good party members regardless. You also get some guest characters join each chapter:
• In the Prologue it's Wazy
• In Chapter 2 it's Noel
• In Chapter 3 it's Wazy again
• In Chapter 4 it's Noel and Dudley
• And in the Finale it's the mysterious Yin and our protagonists from the previous trilogy, Estelle and Joshua.
The charcters are my next point and I think they are all good. This game mainly focuses on Elie and Tio though and I can say one of them at least is a fantastic character and is very cute.
Also KeA almost made this game an automatic 5 star.
Anyways play this game nerd
those trails were very zero
Great story and characters, combat/gameplay isn't as refined as the newer games of course but still engaging.
Ta bien 👍
randy orlando in this one...
One of the best parties I've seen in a JRPG
Trails from zero is... alright. I find it very lacking in some crucial areas such as characterization, character designs and dialogue. The game is full of distasteful misogynistic jokes that had me scowling every few minutes. I don't know if it's because the game is over 10 years old at this point or because it's anime-adjacent and therefore has to indulge in these annoying tropes, either way it really made my experience with the game much less enjoyable.
The only characters in the entire game that I found compelling were Tio and KeA. Everyone else gave me a migraine with their irritating commentary. Also, whether you like the characters or not there's no denying falcom's female character designs have taken a certain turn in the past decade -- one that I'm personally not a big fan of.
I had such high expectations for this game because of how much everyone has praised it, but I was pretty disappointed. I'm truly hoping that trails to azure is a better experience.
The only characters in the entire game that I found compelling were Tio and KeA. Everyone else gave me a migraine with their irritating commentary. Also, whether you like the characters or not there's no denying falcom's female character designs have taken a certain turn in the past decade -- one that I'm personally not a big fan of.
I had such high expectations for this game because of how much everyone has praised it, but I was pretty disappointed. I'm truly hoping that trails to azure is a better experience.
amazing
This review contains spoilers
three and a half corny speeches out of five
it's trails. a weird series whose style and philosophy of character and plot writing fundamentally disagrees with me, a series so frequently unbearably dorky that i find myself rolling my eyes playing it so often that some day i think i'll sprain an eye muscle and go blind. are eye muscles a thing? can you sprain them? that's no doubt one of the unsolved mysteries of the universe. no, no, stop googling it; i'm on a personal quest to find out!
because i also can't stop playing these frigging games. despite my seething but ice cold hatred for the cold steel sub-series, i've played 1-3 from beginning to end, and i've restarted 4 multiple times--that's like, a 400-hour-old baby's worth of gaming hours! a big, fat, ugly baby, who just can't decide what it wants. i've also played the first two sky games multiple times, despite finding the main duo pretty annoying (i have nothing bad to say about sky the 3rd--that boy good). they are such a unique beast in the world of japanese rpgs that i very well can't just ignore them, can't not play them, and if that means i'll have to occasionally rant about them and my issues with them online, to a no doubt thoroughly captivated audience...
whhops, doing it again. moving on!
i was excited to finally jump into the officially localized crossbell games, as i've played them before with the (very rough) fan translations and found myself having a genuinely really good time--they are, as far as i'm concerned, easily peak trails, both in the good ways and in the... no, actually, peak trails in just the good ways.
the central cast is nice, tight and balanced. lloyd is a bit of a dweeb, but he gets teased for it adequately, so i can't hate on him too much. the other three are great, with randy probably being the highlight for me--despite his thorougly tired and unfunny womanizing shtick, he gets the best moments in the game in my opinion. the supporting cast is varied and colorful too--there's a lot to love there. but everyone gets plenty of screentime and good scenes and lines and moments.
the plot is.. well, it's good. it's a really slow burn, and in all honesty, i did end up dropping the game for a while after the first couple chapters cause i was just so bored with it. but, in all fairness, i did come in with the wrong expectations--i was just thinking about azure and how exciting that game gets, that i forgot that the first half of the duology is there to lay a TON of groundwork. and it definitely gets more exciting later on! i was actually surprised how self-contained zero really was, i totally remembered there being at least one very end game plot twist to hook you, but it seems i was wrong.
ultimately more or less the only bits i did not care for were any when the sky characters popped up--i frankly do not give a single shit about estelle or joshua or renne. mercifully those were fairly minor in the end. neither was i a huge fan of tio's backstory and how it was handled in the present narrative, but relegating the actually dark (and in this case, very dark) bits of the human existence to the background and then either basically just sweeping that stuff under the rug or even resolving it in the most unsincere, saccharine (relatively) feeling way in the narrative is nothing new to trails and is, in fact, one of my biggest frustrations with the series. heavy flashes of this with randy too, actually. the dude murdering hundreds or thousands of people in the battlefield over the course of 15 years, starting when he was literally four years old (according to him), is handled like it was just a neat bit of added flavor to this character, he's just a cool guy with some secret depths, a bit of darkness to him, but hey, who amongst us isn't like this? you just talk it through and it's all good. very relatable.
the combat is really good, it's fun, it's snappy, it feels good to mess around with the timeline mechanic (i forgot how strong the speed buff and debuff were in this), it offers just the right amount of variety in combat and outside of it to feel like you have plenty of options at your disposal, but without feeling like any mechanic is superfluous or encumbering or just worthless. it's like the sky games but with interesting accessory and quartz itemization, or like the cold steel games without the ridiculous systems and cast bloat.
i have found the official localization to be a bit of a mixed bag, however, to my disappointment. it's fairly breezy and casual most of the time, but on the occasion it pulls out the absolutely clunkiest possible lines that sound like they were just straight up machine-translated, like nothing a real person would ever say, not even tio, the lil' robot girl herself. those really stick out. i hope azure is better on this front. though, in fairness to nisa, this has also seemed like a staple of the series to me, even under xseed, so maybe it's mostly due to the source text.
all in all, i had a really good time thoroughly steeping myself in the slow and meticulous worldbuilding and politics of crossbell, the big and the small side quests, the npcs and their daily lives, the interesting character progression and the engagingly simple but varied combat. i'm more than ready for the shit to hit the fan in azure.
it's trails. a weird series whose style and philosophy of character and plot writing fundamentally disagrees with me, a series so frequently unbearably dorky that i find myself rolling my eyes playing it so often that some day i think i'll sprain an eye muscle and go blind. are eye muscles a thing? can you sprain them? that's no doubt one of the unsolved mysteries of the universe. no, no, stop googling it; i'm on a personal quest to find out!
because i also can't stop playing these frigging games. despite my seething but ice cold hatred for the cold steel sub-series, i've played 1-3 from beginning to end, and i've restarted 4 multiple times--that's like, a 400-hour-old baby's worth of gaming hours! a big, fat, ugly baby, who just can't decide what it wants. i've also played the first two sky games multiple times, despite finding the main duo pretty annoying (i have nothing bad to say about sky the 3rd--that boy good). they are such a unique beast in the world of japanese rpgs that i very well can't just ignore them, can't not play them, and if that means i'll have to occasionally rant about them and my issues with them online, to a no doubt thoroughly captivated audience...
whhops, doing it again. moving on!
i was excited to finally jump into the officially localized crossbell games, as i've played them before with the (very rough) fan translations and found myself having a genuinely really good time--they are, as far as i'm concerned, easily peak trails, both in the good ways and in the... no, actually, peak trails in just the good ways.
the central cast is nice, tight and balanced. lloyd is a bit of a dweeb, but he gets teased for it adequately, so i can't hate on him too much. the other three are great, with randy probably being the highlight for me--despite his thorougly tired and unfunny womanizing shtick, he gets the best moments in the game in my opinion. the supporting cast is varied and colorful too--there's a lot to love there. but everyone gets plenty of screentime and good scenes and lines and moments.
the plot is.. well, it's good. it's a really slow burn, and in all honesty, i did end up dropping the game for a while after the first couple chapters cause i was just so bored with it. but, in all fairness, i did come in with the wrong expectations--i was just thinking about azure and how exciting that game gets, that i forgot that the first half of the duology is there to lay a TON of groundwork. and it definitely gets more exciting later on! i was actually surprised how self-contained zero really was, i totally remembered there being at least one very end game plot twist to hook you, but it seems i was wrong.
ultimately more or less the only bits i did not care for were any when the sky characters popped up--i frankly do not give a single shit about estelle or joshua or renne. mercifully those were fairly minor in the end. neither was i a huge fan of tio's backstory and how it was handled in the present narrative, but relegating the actually dark (and in this case, very dark) bits of the human existence to the background and then either basically just sweeping that stuff under the rug or even resolving it in the most unsincere, saccharine (relatively) feeling way in the narrative is nothing new to trails and is, in fact, one of my biggest frustrations with the series. heavy flashes of this with randy too, actually. the dude murdering hundreds or thousands of people in the battlefield over the course of 15 years, starting when he was literally four years old (according to him), is handled like it was just a neat bit of added flavor to this character, he's just a cool guy with some secret depths, a bit of darkness to him, but hey, who amongst us isn't like this? you just talk it through and it's all good. very relatable.
the combat is really good, it's fun, it's snappy, it feels good to mess around with the timeline mechanic (i forgot how strong the speed buff and debuff were in this), it offers just the right amount of variety in combat and outside of it to feel like you have plenty of options at your disposal, but without feeling like any mechanic is superfluous or encumbering or just worthless. it's like the sky games but with interesting accessory and quartz itemization, or like the cold steel games without the ridiculous systems and cast bloat.
i have found the official localization to be a bit of a mixed bag, however, to my disappointment. it's fairly breezy and casual most of the time, but on the occasion it pulls out the absolutely clunkiest possible lines that sound like they were just straight up machine-translated, like nothing a real person would ever say, not even tio, the lil' robot girl herself. those really stick out. i hope azure is better on this front. though, in fairness to nisa, this has also seemed like a staple of the series to me, even under xseed, so maybe it's mostly due to the source text.
all in all, i had a really good time thoroughly steeping myself in the slow and meticulous worldbuilding and politics of crossbell, the big and the small side quests, the npcs and their daily lives, the interesting character progression and the engagingly simple but varied combat. i'm more than ready for the shit to hit the fan in azure.
This review contains spoilers
CINE las escenas del cap final, simplemente cine.
Amazing RPG, like the other trails games. Highly recommended.
Its very good.
While I've been generally positive about the previous Trails games, they were typically a mix between good and bad aspects that averaged out on the positive side. Zero manages to break from the crowd with its consistent level of quality across all the entire experience. I think this is the first Trails game I can recommend without any hesitation (though I would still advise playing the Sky games first thanks to the context they offer).
Combat and gameplay, while still largely the same as previous games, has enough improvements that it feels noticeably better. Balance to enemy health and damage numbers make the fights much more engaging and limited the number of encounters that felt tedious or boring to get through. Meanwhile changes to how orbments and arts are composed gave a much greater variety and complexity to the builds which was further emphasized by the smaller cast of main characters encouraging depth and complexity unlike the huge ensembles of prior titles.
As for the story, I'm largely positive. Crossbell feels much more cohesive, more believable, and more interesting than anything Liberl offered. And while its hard to judge much of the content here since a lot of it seems to be setup for the sequel, I think Zero did a pretty good job of giving us the backdrop for its events while still showing meaningful progress in the world rather than leaving the resolution of events entirely to the next game to wrap up.
Considering how much of this game is supposed to be setting the stage for Azure, I'm very excited to play it. And while Azure's quality doesn't directly influence whether Zero is a good game or not it does mean I'm willing to overlook some of its weaker points since many of them seem to be planting the seeds for future plot points to take advantage of.
So overall, I really liked Zero. Even after spending nearly 200 hours playing the previous three Trails games this still managed to feel fresh and engaging. Definitely worth giving it a shot.
While I've been generally positive about the previous Trails games, they were typically a mix between good and bad aspects that averaged out on the positive side. Zero manages to break from the crowd with its consistent level of quality across all the entire experience. I think this is the first Trails game I can recommend without any hesitation (though I would still advise playing the Sky games first thanks to the context they offer).
Combat and gameplay, while still largely the same as previous games, has enough improvements that it feels noticeably better. Balance to enemy health and damage numbers make the fights much more engaging and limited the number of encounters that felt tedious or boring to get through. Meanwhile changes to how orbments and arts are composed gave a much greater variety and complexity to the builds which was further emphasized by the smaller cast of main characters encouraging depth and complexity unlike the huge ensembles of prior titles.
As for the story, I'm largely positive. Crossbell feels much more cohesive, more believable, and more interesting than anything Liberl offered. And while its hard to judge much of the content here since a lot of it seems to be setup for the sequel, I think Zero did a pretty good job of giving us the backdrop for its events while still showing meaningful progress in the world rather than leaving the resolution of events entirely to the next game to wrap up.
Considering how much of this game is supposed to be setting the stage for Azure, I'm very excited to play it. And while Azure's quality doesn't directly influence whether Zero is a good game or not it does mean I'm willing to overlook some of its weaker points since many of them seem to be planting the seeds for future plot points to take advantage of.
So overall, I really liked Zero. Even after spending nearly 200 hours playing the previous three Trails games this still managed to feel fresh and engaging. Definitely worth giving it a shot.
Peak fiction. Its trails.