From Zero to Hero
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero was released as far back as 2010 in Japan on the PlayStation portable. If you are a fan of the series, you can probably tell by the name the game itself is a part of the Trails series and part of the Legend of Heroes series overall. The game would eventually get an improved release on PS4 and Vita with better graphics and voice acting and finally after several years
a release to the Western audience thanks to the basis of a fan translation. For more fun games you can now play hyper gold at wizard slots casino.
Trails of Zero begins in the city of Crossbell and takes place simultaneously with The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series. The game’s protagonist Lloyd Bannings is a rookie police detective who arrives home to his home City of Crossbell which is at the centre of political tensions between the Erebonian Empire and the Calvard Republic. After arriving he is assigned to the (SSS) Special Support Section of the police force that takes on odd jobs. Trails from Zero certainly sets the tone for a grand adventure. The beginning of the game has a lengthy opening with some very detailed dialogue. The narrative is an integral part of the game and much like every game before and after it, there is a lot of it. I have felt that sometimes there are pacing issues in the Legend of Heroes and Trails games especially, I did find that after playing Trails of Zero, it does have better pacing overall and I certainly never felt conversations between characters got stale, even though they were still on the lengthy side they were well paced and are full of charm despite there being no English voice acting.
The game has a top-down semi-fixed camera angle which switches depending on where you travel. The camera cannot be changed outside of battle but during battles, this can be changed and rotated. While it is not the most eye-pleasing game, its simplistic graphics really work in its favour, it is a remaster of a PSP game which is now on the big screen, after all. There are many secrets to be found, mostly treasure chests and finding out the secret path to them is a rewarding experience in itself. Once you have searched the treasure chests they can be searched again for some very hilarious dialogue. The gameplay is a loop of conversation and storytelling between characters, doing tasks which include fighting monsters for enhancing your SSS rank before progressing to the main story. This is a typical loop within the Trails series and here is no different. You also have various logbooks and these all correspond with the in-game features such as fishing and cooking. These are pretty standardised and fishing is a simple task of hitting the confirm button at the correct time.
Fighting will give you rewards such as XP, Items and Sepith. Sepith which is earned has an element to each one and is used to create a corresponding Quartz which are magical orbs that can be used by your characters. Each Quartz increases stats but will also give the equipped character a range of spells that corresponds to the element of Quartz equipped. Sepith will also unlock new slots for each character which allows more Quartz to be equipped. Sepith also can be exchanged for Mira which is the currency of the world and is required to buy new Items, Weapons and Armour. As Sepith is a highly used resource it takes a lot to keep characters at their best, fortunately, Trails from Zero gives a reasonable amount and has a good exchange rate in-game meaning Mira is not at all difficult to come by. Items can be a little expensive but nothing a small grind cannot fix. Like the Trails series though XP is scaled to your level, and you will find yourself earning less XP if you are too high a level for an area. Trails from Zero does have a high-speed mode and much like the Cold Steel series, it is a great feature that speeds up the pace of the game in and out of battle so it really helps alleviate the grind of such a long game. The game does run quite smooth and fast in comparison to the Cold Steel games anyway but at this point, I’d honestly be lost without this feature.
Combat is simple and does get progressively more advanced throughout the game. Enemies are easy enough to take out quickly early on but as the game progresses you will find yourself adhering to tactics by using your Arts and Crafts. Arts are magical abilities which are gained by equipped Quarts and Crafts are unique abilities specific to each character. Combat takes place on a map where you can move to any of the blue squares shown during your turn which is determined by your MOV stat. Upon moving you can attack or defend or use abilities, all of which have a range to use and area of effect on using them. Battles are tactical and the tide can be turned in your favour thanks to the S-break specials that can be used provided you have enough CP. CP is what your characters use for their Crafts but using normal attacks and getting hit will have you gain CP, save enough of these points and using the S-breaks instead is a great way of dealing massive damage. There are many other advantage-inducing tactics that can be used to gain an advantage in battle such as the chance to do all-out character attacks and approaching enemies from behind and getting the hit on them first.
Trails from Zero overall is a very simple game and certainly, most of its features are something that feels very familiar. Trails from Zero has a great cast of characters and some of which may be well known to some players. Lloyd is very well versed and makes the best decision out of a bad situation while Randy is a hardy type who is into women, drinking and gambling. All characters have varying personalities but work so well together. As always with Nihon Falcom, there are no shortfalls in the music department, every track is excellent, never overplayed and I feel myself humming to most of them when I am not playing.
A PlayStation 4 Review Code was provided by NIS America
