Welcome to Crossbell

One of the downfalls of being a fan of niche JRPG series is that the games that are localized don’t always follow how the series was officially released, leaving gaps in entries that otherwise would not exist overseas.

This was a more common occurrence early on in the game industry with popular titles like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest missing localized entries stateside until much later on. Despite the popularity of video games as an entertainment form skyrocketing since those days, the trend unfortunately continues for many other series like Tales and of course, the Legend of Heroes.

However, while it was a shame that some games were never localized or done so much later, for the Legend of Heroes, the situation was much worse as all of the “Trails” series of games can be considered direct sequels following where the previous titles had left off.

The Crossbell duology that fit snuggly between the Skies and Cold Steel games was one such example and given how highly they are regarded, I felt the need to play them at all costs and was able to do so thanks to the efforts of the fan translation group, “Geofront”.

Having played and completed both games, I felt even more strongly that these titles should be brought over officially and luckily NISA finally answered the call, working with the Geofront team to use their translation as a basis for their localization efforts.

Welcome to Crossbell, a land of opportunity and home to many dark secrets.

MSRP: $39.99
Platform: PC, PS4, NSW
Voice Acting Selection: JPN Only
Length: 40~ hours

Lloyd Bannings, a fresh graduate from the detective academy makes his way back home after several years in an effort to take after his larger than life brother. However, instead of becoming a detective, he is pulled into an experimental subdivision of the police called the “Special Support Section”. Despite some initial hesitation, after working with the ragtag group of interesting characters, he decides to move forward as the leader of the “SSS” in hopes that one day that he can break the barriers that oppress his beloved home.

The story presented in Trails from Zero does an excellent job of giving a sense of place to Crossbell, as well as introducing all the key players for the events to come. In that way, it feels very much like a setup game as the big payoffs are to come in the sequel but even so, I feel it works very well as an independent story as the entire cast is likable and learning of their pasts and future aspiration as they grew together as a group was a joy to watch unfold.

One of the reasons why the cast works so well together is that the four members of the SSS are together from the very beginning to the end, allowing for ample time for various fun interactions and character moments which got me all the more invested in the world and characters very quickly.

Little brother type privilege is real!

Also, as Lloyd is a detective, there are many moments throughout the course of the story that allows him to flex his deductive muscles and by choosing the right answers, I could earn additional rewards. It was a good incentive for me to pay attention to the unfolding events whether it was during a main or side quest and felt rewarding when I was able to piece together the full picture from various clues in certain cases.

As for the localization effort itself, I felt it was done well except for a handful of oddities like typos and one specific line that wasn’t even translated for whatever reason. It’s just a shame that english voice acting is not included as even though I think the Japanese VA is excellent, we’ve gotten used to the option in the latter Trails game and not having it felt off.

In regards to the rest of the porting work, I think Durante and his team did an amazing job improving the visuals and adding in various other features like Ultrawide support, dynamic shadows, unlocked frame rates and more on the PC version.

While there’s a lot of controversy on how NISA has dropped the ball on handling the Ys and Trails series in the west, one undoubtedly good thing is them handling over the reins for PC porting for the games to Durante’s team as every single release they’ve put out has been feature rich and optimized well.

The combat and customization is the element that feels the most dated.

If there is one element of the game that felt the most dated, I would say it was the combat. While certainly fine and serviceable for the most part, having experienced the evolution of the combat engine over more than a decade of innovations, having to go back to such a basic form without things like Master Quartz and links made battles feel less enjoyable. It’s honestly no fault of the game itself as when it was released back in 2010, it was fairly forward thinking in some areas but I can only review the game as how it feels to me in the present, not a hypothetical past.

One gameplay element that was changed for the better was being able to toggle off and on the ability to only make my lead member interactable in the open map so enemies couldn’t get the jump on me by making contact with one of the other characters all chasing behind me in a line. It made getting the jump on enemies on the field more hassle than it was worth and I was more than happy to make the change and never look back.

Master Quartz make their debut in the sequel.

Trails from Zero is a wonderful introduction to Crosbell and the charming members of the SSS, expertly ported to PC with all the bells and whistles one would expect from a modern release. It’s a great sign of things to come for the sequel and an easy recommendation to all RPG fans.

Fun Tidbit: I really wish the vita exclusive side quests and Super Arrange tracks were included in this release as that would’ve made it the undisputed definitive way to play the game. Also, as this is a Trails game, I would be remiss if I didn’t showcase the excellent OST.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.