If you’re not familiar with the Legend of Heroes franchise, you’ve been missing out for a long time. About thirty years, in fact. That’s right, thirty years. The Legend of Heroes games started way back in 1989 and the first game was released domestically as Dragon Slayer for the Turbo CD system (it’s awesome by the way). Fast forward to the next domestic releases exclusively for the PSP, Legend of Heroes 1 through 3, renumbered out of sequence from their original release in Japan and loosely connected. Suffice it to say the franchise has a long, convoluted history with inconsistent releases in North America. But the one thing they have in common is that they’re all incredibly well-made traditional RPGs from one of the greatest RPG publishers of all time, Nihon Falcom, purveyors of the peerless Ys franchise and many other fantastic titles.
You get the idea. Epic games from a legendary company and all that. And The Legend of Heroes: Trails spin-off franchise has only gotten better, first with Trails in the Sky parts 1-3 and now with Trails of Cold Steel. All of these are loosely tied together in some way, via either the backstories, characters, or continents mentioned. It’s a complex web of games spanning decades and the history is easy enough to look up, so we won’t belabor the point here. Trails of Cold Steel is the latest in the franchise, but even it was released way back in 2013 originally, for the PS3 and Vita. Falcom kindly decided to port the release to the PS4 with a bevy of upgrades including full HD remastering and a dual English/Japanese dub for the game. If you haven’t played it yet, the Decisive Edition of Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is the definitive version of the game to date and sets up for the shortly forthcoming releases of Trails of Cold Steel II (also published by XSeed) and Trails of Cold Steel III (which is being published by NIS America).
Anyway, enough backstory. Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is an utterly traditional JRPG for the most part. Falcom is pretty much the king of these. What’s interesting about it though is not only the direction and content of the game itself, but also the sheer quality of the writing. Cold Steel follows the exploits of Rean Schwarzer, a new student at the prestigious Thor’s Military Academy, an elite school in the Erebonian Empire. It’s all background flavor that ties into the Legend of Heroes franchise, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Rean is put into a special group of academy students who are being trained in a unique manner, separate from the standard military academy classes. The entire beginning of the game focuses on the school, the classes, and the interactions between students, both interpersonal and as part of their larger roles in the class system of the Erebonian Empire. There are quite a few thinly veiled references to societal class systems which evoke noticeable parallels to today’s societies across the planet and the relevance those references bring to the game is evident in how easily the characters resonate. They seem human in a way that is rarely seen in most modern games, both with their manners of speech and the seeming insignificance of their everyday worries and concerns.
In other words, the story is good, the characters are well-written, and the dialogue is fantastic. Characters even talk in active chats while in dungeons, showing that their personalities actually matter. This all ties in to how strongly you feel as events unfold and envelop our young heroes. And events unfold smoothly. In the beginning of the game, you wander about town, learning about Thor’s Military Academy, running errands, socializing, and developing relationships with individual characters of your choice. You soon find out that those relationships mirror the gameplay itself. Trails of Cold Steel introduces a new Link method in combat where you link your characters to each other during combat to create more powerful attacks. Link levels are strengthened through social interaction with your classmates, creating a complex dynamic where your characters’ storyline development directly affects your gameplay abilities in combat situations, something that’s never really been done as smoothly as this before. Add the new Orbment system on top of this, which allows you to gather crystals and create a customizable variety of attacks, magics, and abilities for every playable character and you end up with a deep, gratifying system that compels you to play the game’s various sections to their fullest without making any section seem tedious.
Graphically, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel suffers a bit from its port to the PS4. While everything is in HD and does look fantastic, when looking closely at the backgrounds and settings, one notices that a lot of the set pieces look flat and uninteresting, even though they are crisp. It’s noticeable for example when a bookcase is filled with suspiciously identical books that look incredibly square and rather unlike regular books, or a vase sits on a surprisingly low-texture bookcase. Crisp and clean and HD, certainly, but the effort wasn’t made to really differentiate this port from the original release aside from the HD transfer. An understandable oversight, given that all major scenes now have English (or Japanese) voiceovers and the game runs smooth as silk with limited load times on the PS4 Pro. Additionally, a turbo mode has been added, because Trails of Cold Steel is fairly long, running about 60 to 80 hours depending on how many sidequests you take on and how long you spend simply exploring the environments.
In terms of combat, Cold Steel is straightforward. Navigate three dimensional dungeon areas (which are sadly a bit Spartan on the graphics side), approach enemies in real time a la Chrono Trigger, attack and fight in a standard JRPG turn-based system with the Link modifications and your custom Orbment loadouts. It’s basic but fun and some enemies can be surprisingly challenging, even the normal ones. Bosses require more strategy of course, and combat is overall fairly enjoyable. Plus you can speed it up with Turbo mode at the touch of a button, just like everything else in the game.
Eventually, you’ll manage to work your way through this epic fantasy/sci-fi mix and reach the end of the game…which is directly continued in the shortly forthcoming Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II. The sequel was already released for PS3 and Vita in 2014 but it’s likely that we’ll see the same upgrades in it as we see in Trails of Cold Steel (and you can carry over your game from those consoles too). The saga of Rean Schwarzer and his classmates is far from over at the end of the game, and it’s honestly utterly compelling. For older players, it’s initially difficult to really identify with the cast of Trails of Cold Steel , but the dialogue and storyline is so mature and engrossing that by the time the game reaches its climax, you’re truly hooked.
It’s hard not to recommend The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel – Decisive Edition. It makes what was already a spectacular RPG even better, adds some convenient touches, and cleans up the whole thing in a crisp HD package. This is pretty much the level that all JPRGs should be aspiring to, and it makes all the tedious fetch questing and banter of the JRPG genre actually rewarding and interesting for a change. That stuff is all in here, it’s just that it’s not only more fun but also adds depth to the experience without feeling tacked on. And that even goes for the fishing and cooking mini-games. Yup, even that stuff is good! Simple, but it adds just the right amount of spice to an excellent recipe.
If you like JRPGs and you haven’t looked at The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel – Decisive Edition yet, go check it out. At $40 for the digital release and $50 for the physical, you honestly can’t go wrong. Worse games cost more and you’ll rarely find a game that exudes quality at this level . It really is a game that gives a unique insight into the everyday human condition in addition to the epic fantasy story with sci-fi elements. What more can you ask for?
This review was written based on a digital copy of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel – Decisive Edition provided by the publisher. It was played on a PS4 Pro on a Sony LED TV at 1080p. Also, it’s just awesome.