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.