This game is great, and it feels like a natural next step after the Sky trilogy. It does a great job expanding on existing lore and events from the Sky trilogy, without overly relying on what the trilogy did before it.
The story was very well paced, giving plenty of time for world building and revealing more and more about the city of Crossbell. Because of that, I could sympathize with the protagonists and better understand their plights.
Zero definitely pays homage to the previous games throughout its story by using previously seen characters and reusing some plot elements; however, it never feels predictable or samey, and each reference feels like it adds something meaningful to the overall plot.
The second half of the game centers around corrupt political systems and goes absolutely nuts with it, yet the conflict feels like it naturally progresses with higher and higher stakes, especially given what the player will know about Crossbell at that point in the story.
Because I’ve played the Sky trilogy, the protagonists all feel familiar. There are certain tropes and archetypes that remind me of the previous games, but the protags here don’t feel like anything like copies. They definitely feel like their own characters, through and through.
Each character brings something new to the table, both with how they interact with others and with how they develop as characters. Perhaps they don’t have the most engaging personalities on their own, but collectively, they're the most interesting team I've seen in the series.
I’m hard pressed to pick a favorite character. All four of the protagonists are awesome, and many of the support cast are great too.
The gameplay is a natural improvement from previous games, keeping everything familiar, but giving me so much more to play with. It’s very easy, which is my only gripe, but I did play on Normal, so perhaps Hard would’ve been a better challenge for me.
OST-wise, it's kinda hit-or-miss for me. The town themes are generally calm and nice, but there are some earworms that get grating after a while.
The battle themes are amazing and high energy, which holds true for all Trails games, and are my favorite tracks.
Because Zero is so different from other Trails games, I’m not sure where I would rank it compared to the rest of the series. At this point, I think I would consider it better than Third, but just below SC.
After playing through the game, off-and-on, for almost 9 months, entirely in Japanese, I had a great time. I've put a couple hours into the sequel already, and it looks like that will be a fun one too!
The story was very well paced, giving plenty of time for world building and revealing more and more about the city of Crossbell. Because of that, I could sympathize with the protagonists and better understand their plights.
Zero definitely pays homage to the previous games throughout its story by using previously seen characters and reusing some plot elements; however, it never feels predictable or samey, and each reference feels like it adds something meaningful to the overall plot.
The second half of the game centers around corrupt political systems and goes absolutely nuts with it, yet the conflict feels like it naturally progresses with higher and higher stakes, especially given what the player will know about Crossbell at that point in the story.
Because I’ve played the Sky trilogy, the protagonists all feel familiar. There are certain tropes and archetypes that remind me of the previous games, but the protags here don’t feel like anything like copies. They definitely feel like their own characters, through and through.
Each character brings something new to the table, both with how they interact with others and with how they develop as characters. Perhaps they don’t have the most engaging personalities on their own, but collectively, they're the most interesting team I've seen in the series.
I’m hard pressed to pick a favorite character. All four of the protagonists are awesome, and many of the support cast are great too.
The gameplay is a natural improvement from previous games, keeping everything familiar, but giving me so much more to play with. It’s very easy, which is my only gripe, but I did play on Normal, so perhaps Hard would’ve been a better challenge for me.
OST-wise, it's kinda hit-or-miss for me. The town themes are generally calm and nice, but there are some earworms that get grating after a while.
The battle themes are amazing and high energy, which holds true for all Trails games, and are my favorite tracks.
Because Zero is so different from other Trails games, I’m not sure where I would rank it compared to the rest of the series. At this point, I think I would consider it better than Third, but just below SC.
After playing through the game, off-and-on, for almost 9 months, entirely in Japanese, I had a great time. I've put a couple hours into the sequel already, and it looks like that will be a fun one too!