The time has come, Awakener - Trails of Cold Steel

When I heard The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel was coming out shortly after the long-awaited Trails in the Sky: Second Chapter, I was eager to jump on it right away. Unlike Second Chapter, Trails of Cold Steel came out relatively recently in Japan and as such is much more modern in terms of graphics and presentation. This is not to say that I'm averse to a more classic style of presentation--far from it--but the prospect of seeing the Trails gameplay I'd come to love translated into a new style was exciting, all the same.

Now in 3D!

The Trails in the Sky trilogy (the third of which has no confirmed release date here so far...) takes place in the country of Liberl. Although characters from other locales make appearances, at no point in these games do you set foot on another country's soil. For this reason, it was exciting to me that Trails of Cold Steel takes place entirely in the northern country of Erebonia, from which the Trails in the Sky character Olivier hails. Of course, the premise for Cold Steel is a little different because the do-good mercenary group known as the Bracer Guild is nowhere to be seen in Erebonia--or at least, not anymore. Instead, young protagonist Rean is a newly enrolled member of a military academy called Thors, and part of the recently established Class VII--which, as it turns out, regularly embarks on "field studies" that strongly resemble the work Liberlian bracers might perform... Of course, that is not to say that the premise is the same. In addition to these field studies, Rean and his classmates go about performing tasks associated with their day-to-day life in the military academy.

The initial roster

Thors is a renowned military academy in Erebonia, although its faculty is far from the dour, taciturn lot you'd expect from the description. In fact, the colorful cast of characters inhabiting Thors are more akin to what you'd expect from a Persona game--and the influence from that series is pretty obvious here. There's even a system in place in which you spend time with your fellow classmates and grow closer to them, strengthening your bonds both in terms of the plot and in combat as well. As you grow closer, you'll unlock new abilities that allow your characters to participate more effectively in battle, much like a similar mechanic from Persona 4. The similarities don't end there, though, because the game is structured in days and months and as such begins to fall into a predictable rhythm. There are field studies in which the students embark on trips to various cities every month, but before they do, they'll typically end up with a few free days in Thors and the surrounding town of Trista where Rean has the opportunity to spend time with classmates and perform duties for the student council. These quests flesh out the game's characters and reveal more information about the game's world and about Thors itself.

The principal character development in the game actually takes place on the field studies. Every month of game time has a field study in which the entire Class VII roster is dispatched to two different cities. The city to which Rean is dispatched is what the game follows. For this reason, the party members at the player's control are constantly changing, which gives you the opportunity to familiarize yourself with characters you might otherwise overlook. These field studies also serve as an opportunity to see different characters interact with each other. The Class VII instructor Sara appears to relish pairing students who are currently at odds with each other.

Trails of Cold Steel boasts an impressive 11-character roster of playable characters as well as a couple of temporary guest characters. Each of the game's characters has a set of unique skills (called Crafts just like in previous Trails titles) and different stat distributions. Elliot and Emma are excellent support characters for instance, while Rean and Laura pack much more of an offensive physical punch. S-Crafts return from previous games in the series and serve as super-powerful moves that can interrupt the turn order to unleash massive damage, provided they've built up at least 100 CP. These attacks feature flashy animations that are seldom boring to watch even over the course of such a long game duration--although Falcom wisely chose to include an option to skip them if you've lost patience.

In combat

What I really enjoy about Cold Steel's battle system is that each character carves out their own strategic niche. Emma has an ability that allows the party to reflect a magical attack. Rean has abilities that interrupt spellcasts or delay an enemy's action. Alisa can buff the party with increased accuracy and CP regeneration, whereas Machias can debuff the enemy's defense and restore the party's EP (which essentially serves as a resource to cast spells). Of course, these traits are not dissimilar to what Trails in the Sky already had to offer. What Cold Steel introduces is the linking system, which I've discussed a little already. Every enemy has susceptibility to different types of attack, whether they fall under the category of slashing, thrusting, piercing, or blunt damage. This susceptibility determines how likely that enemy is to be Unbalanced, which allows linked party members to perform a follow-up attack at the press of a button. New layers of the linking system are unlocked at various points of the game, including the ability to attack all enemies on screen after a successful Unbalance, much like the All-Out-Attacks from the Persona series.

Many of the game's bosses are actually quite challenging, requiring ample preparation and strategy. For those who have lose patience after repeated defeats, there's an option (just like in Trails in the Sky) to retry at a lower difficulty. Of course, I never resorted to that, but it was because I always felt there was a way to better my strategy to make a fight go more smoothly. The game is balanced in such a way that the difficulty never feels unfair--except for maybe one particular 1-on-1 fight later on in the game, anyway. It's important that such a lengthy, dialogue-heavy game has involving gameplay to counterbalance all the time you'll spend reading text scrolling on screen and Cold Steel certainly delivers on that front.

Laura unleashing her S-Craft

The vast majority of the game's running time is spent on character building, whether it be through field studies, exploring the mysterious Old Schoolhouse on the campus grounds, or performing day-to-day class duties. Unlike Liberl, Erebonia is a country with a firmly entrenched class system. Traditionally, Thors segregates commoners and nobles from each other in different classrooms, but the newly established Class VII eschews this idea completely. Therefore, the noble-hating Machias is forced to cooperate with nobles like Laura and Jusis and of course both sides must confront preconceived notions about their disparate classes in order to relate to each other. However, the first hints of plot begin to appear on field studies and it eventually becomes a foregone conclusion that the Big Bad is going to make an appearance at each field study Class VII undertakes. For this reason one could dismiss Trails of Cold Steel as an unfocused game because the primary conflict only really becomes clear in the game's final moments--and when it does, there's little to no resolution, which left me feeling pretty disgruntled considering the 70-some hours of play time I'd spent on the game. Trails of Cold Steel II comes out in about five months and hopefully should serve to resolve a lot of the loose ends from this game, but I'm still more than willing to condemn the first entry into this new trilogy for lacking resolution. After all, Trails in the Sky (the first chapter) ended on a cliffhanger as well but still had a satisfying enough conclusion to stand on its own. I can't say the same for Trails of Cold Steel.

Oh, Laura

Although the ending left me feeling unfulfilled, I can still firmly recommend Trails of Cold Steel. It doesn't stand up to Trails in the Sky as of yet but I could see my opinion changing once I have a better feel for the whole experience. After all, it feels a little incomplete without Trails of Cold Steel II as a companion piece. This was something that was true of the first chapter of Trails of Sky as well, but to a much lesser extent. Cold Steel II has a lot on which to follow up and I'll be anxiously awaiting it over the next few months.