The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero Review (Nintendo Switch)
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero is the fourth game in the Trails series and is the first half of the Crossbell story arc, with its sequel Trails to Azure being the second half. The series’ history may seem convoluted and daunting, especially with just how many games preceded it, but Trails from Zero is one of the best points to jump into the series if you want to get into the Trails series. That said, I would recommend checking out the three Trails in the Sky games first if possible.
Originally developed by Falcom for the PlayStation Portable, Trials from Zero was released back in 2010 in Japan and an updated port titled Zero no Kiseki: Evolution was released for the PS Vita & PC in 2012. This later release contained remixed music, full voice acting and various other quality-of-life improvements.
Sadly, this game was never translated into English officially and as work began on localizing Trails of Cold Steel series, Fans took it upon themselves to translate the game. In 2020 fan translation team Geofront released a fully translated patch for the PC version of Zero no Kiseki, which subsequently became the base for the official translation we have here.
Story
The Story of Trails from Zero revolves around our main protagonist Lloyd Bannings, a young, newly qualified detective who, following in the footsteps of his older brother, decides to join the Crossbell Police Department. Lloyd is quickly put in charge of a newly devised division called the Special Support Section (SSS), It’s not quite the type of detective work that Lloyd was expecting but he quickly accepts his role as team leader along with his three other team members.
It’s clear from the get-go, that this unit is very experimental and is supposed to restore some of the public’s lost confidence in the Police force. Crossbell Police Department has become somewhat of a laughing stock with both the public and even the gangs on the street ridiculing them at any opportunity.
The Bracer Guild, an independent guild from the government, has been the main group that has been keeping the law and order and the Police Department, sadly have been coming in second place for some time.
The Special Support Section is designed to be Crossbell PD’s very own answer to the Bracer Guild and Lloyd and the other members of the SSS need to fulfil the citizen’s requests to earn their trust.
The story mainly takes place in Crossbell apart from a few expeditions and it feels quite nice to become familiar with the area. The Trails in the Sky prequels were quite vast and had you travelling to numerous different areas so it’s a nice change to feel a little more ‘settled’ as Crossbell does feel like its own kind of character.
Gameplay
Crossbell acts as a massive hub where you will spend a lot of time between your assignments. The city itself is huge and does feel well lived in, bringing a sense of grandeur to the game. Within Crossbell, there are many different districts for you to explore which may seem a little daunting at times, however, you’ll quickly become familiar with them over your time and soon getting from point A to B becomes second nature.
Battles are initiated in the field by running into an enemy or by striking an enemy which will cause your party to have the upper hand similar to a Shin Megami Tensei or Persona game. Each battle is fought across an isometric grid style map not too dissimilar from SRPGs such as Final Fantasy Tactics, Disgaea etc.
On the world map and in dungeons, if you are too high a level, enemies will flee from you which I always find quite satisfying and is something I wish more titles implemented.
The battles themselves are turned-based and have all the usual hallmarks of an RPG such as elemental-based strengths and weaknesses, status effects, team attacks and all that good stuff and it’s executed here pretty well. You never feel truly overwhelmed by systems or tutorials, Trails from Zero teaches you its systems in a nice, straightforward way. The Orbal system from the previous games returns with a reworked method of unlocking arts which may stump some Trails veterans but it’s easy enough to get to grips with.
As expected from a Falcom game, the music is really good and fits the game well. The voice acting is also great with almost all of the main story fully voiced, although only in Japanese which may be a turn-off for some people, however, I do find it easier to get a sense of a character’s personality through the voice acting instead of just relying on plain old boring text scrolling.
Visually, Trails from Zero is quite impressive, especially considering it was originally a PlayStation Portable title. The character models are cute and easily recognizable, unlike some other RPGs where a lot of the characters look similar and are not easily distinguishable. The character portraits are also really good at conveying a character’s emotions and after spending 45+ hours with them, you feel you know the characters and can almost anticipate how they are going to react, it’s cool and goes to show once again what a great job has been done with the localization.
Although most areas in the game looked great, there were a few instances of the game looking incredibly low rez, I’m not sure if this is present in the other versions, but on the switch, we ended up with blurry images like this: –
Also, there’s some signage in the main square that originally read ‘Menu’ and now for some reason, seems to have some placeholder text which looks like someone has just slid their finger down the keyboard. As this happens so early in the game and it’s super obvious, it makes you wonder why it wasn’t picked up during the QA period. That said, I found it quite funny and it’s nice to have a little insight into the behind-the-scenes of game development. This is also my only real issue with the game as a whole, everything else in Trails from Zero is fantastic.
Menu here is replaced with ‘asdf kill cdkfjicni kico nm asdfi’
Conclusion
The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero is a great game for any RPG fan. It’s a good point to dip into the Trails games if you haven’t and the self-contained nature of Crossbell means you really get familiar with the setting. The translation work here is top-notch, and the voice acting is really good. All this, combined with the great music and addictive battle system meant Trails from Zero far exceeded my expectations.
The cast of characters are great and even supporting characters feel very well fleshed out. There were, however, a few parts where the game felt a little repetitive and I found myself having little patience for some of the side quests but that was only because I was invested in the main story and was keen to make progress there.
Next year we should be getting the second half of Crossbell duology Trails to Azure, and I am already looking to see what the sequel has in store.
8.5
Nintendo Switch review code kindly provided by NIS America
If you are interested, you can pick up a copy of The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero here.