Fond Friends – The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel Review

<p>If Japanese Role Playing Games are your favorite type of game to play&comma; then Nihon Falcom&&num;8217&semi;s<em> Legends of Heroes&colon; Trails of Cold Steel<&sol;em> for the PS3 and PSVita is a great game to pick up for yourself this Christmas&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s part of a well known and well loved JRPG franchise that began with the first game&comma; <em>Dragon Slayer&colon; The Legend of Heroes<&sol;em>&comma; which originally released in Japan in 1989&period; <em>Trails of Cold Steel<&sol;em> takes place at the same time as<em> Trails of Zero<&sol;em> &lpar;2010&rpar; and<em> Trails of Azure<&sol;em> &lpar;2011&rpar;&period; What makes<em> Trails of Cold Steel<&sol;em> special is the exploration and explanation of the Erebonian&&num;8217&semi;s political conflicts&semi; This may sound a bit like history class&comma; and that&&num;8217&semi;s part of where the player will spend time&period; You take on the role of a student&lpar;s&rpar; and go through the motions of a military school career while completing quests and finding out the truth behind the mysterious Class VII&comma; which you have been recruited for at the Thors Military Academy&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;96918" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-96918" style&equals;"width&colon; 800px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-96918 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;12&sol;04095039&sol;LOH&lowbar;ToCS&lowbar;14&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Legends of Heroes&colon; Trails of Cold Steel" width&equals;"800" height&equals;"450" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-96918" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Legends of Heroes&colon; Trails of Cold Steel&comma; XSEED&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>This academy is what I really love about<em> Trails of Cold Steel&colon;<&sol;em> The Thors Military Academy is beautifully crafted and the students have rich personalities along with distinctive uniforms&period; Nihon Falcom has done a fantastic job as usual for character design&period; Each of the students in the combat party not only have the usual set of unique skills and weapons&comma; but their uniforms differ per person while still remaining similar&period; The backgrounds of buildings&comma; dungeons and the town are all rich in color and shading&period; Rather than the backgrounds being over-saturated&comma; the color scheme of the settings tend to be more realistic while the characters&&num;8217&semi; clothing and hair stand out with their own vivid colors&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The turn-based battle system is the same as most JRPGs&period; Eventually the player has a party made up of various characters who posses their own individual abilities that work well together&period; The controls are very simple and feel natural&period; If you are new to JRPGs or are wanting to get into playing them&comma; Trails of Cold Steel can serve as a good starting point&period; Veterans of the Legend of Heroes series will appreciate the Cold Steel&&num;8217&semi;s story line since it explains more of the earlier <em>Trails<&sol;em> stories&period; And for newbies to the franchise&comma; like myself&comma; can still appreciate the game without the feeling of missing the main story since most of it is retold throughout the game&period; I personally found the plot fun due to the problems Rean Schwarzer&comma; the main character&comma; deals with like trying to apologize to a fellow female student after falling on her&period; While the serious nature of a political system changing from the nobility having the control to the nobles sharing the control with commoners is rather fascinating to watch unfold&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;96919" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-96919" style&equals;"width&colon; 800px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-96919 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;12&sol;04095025&sol;LOH&lowbar;ToCS&lowbar;05&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Legends of Heroes&colon; Trails of Cold Steel" width&equals;"800" height&equals;"450" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-96919" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Legends of Heroes&colon; Trails of Cold Steel&comma; XSEED&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Unfortunately the dialogue tends to be a bit tedious at times&period; Instead of every conversation contributing to the overall plot or even sub-stories&comma; some of the dialogues are bits of repeated grumbles or information&period; Even with the repetitive talks&comma; the story progresses nicely and the Link System is extremely useful and promotes spending time with interactive characters&period; The Link System is new to The Legend of Heroes series&comma; the player must bond with friends and allies which in turn adds to your playable characters healing&comma; guarding and other stats&period; For someone who adores talking to every character&comma; like myself&comma; the Link System is makes speaking with and spending time with allies even more of a treat&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;96920" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-96920" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-96920 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;12&sol;04095011&sol;LOH&lowbar;ToCS&lowbar;24&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Legends of Heroes&colon; Trails of Cold Steel" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-96920" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Legends of Heroes&colon; Trails of Cold Steel&comma; XSEED&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The growth mechanic of the series&comma; the Orbment magic system&comma; has gotten an upgrade with the use of ARCUS units&period; By fighting through dungeons and completing quests&comma; the player can collect orbs to add into their ARCUS and create lines which with the right combo can grant great effects&sol; stats for a character&period; There is plenty of customizable options to make the playable characters adept to a personal combat preference&period; Players do need to grind a bit to beat the various enemies but thankfully the developers designed the rewards and level increasing after battles to be more balanced than other JRPGs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>The Legend of Heroes&colon; Trails of Cold Steel<&sol;em> supports cross-play between the PS Vita and PS3 which allows the player to take Cold Steel on the go and enjoy playing it on their home console on a large screen&period; A downside to the game being initially released in Japan in 2013&comma; is that the graphics are slightly stale looking but the scenery is so beautiful the older graphics can be easily overlooked&period; The series&&num;8217&semi; history and politic strife are layered to make Erebonia seem real&period; Another huge plus for choosing to play <em>Cold Steel<&sol;em> is the story is written to be stand-alone&period; JRPGs are often challenging to understand if jumping into a series for the first time without playing the previous games however <em>Trails of Cold Steel<&sol;em> can be played own it&&num;8217&semi;s own without any knowledge of the series&&num;8217&semi;s earlier stories&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s well worth exploring and fighting your way through the Thors Military Academy and the Erebonia Empire especially during these cold months of winter&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong><em>A PS3 copy of Legend Of Heroes&colon; Trails of Cold Steel was provided by XSEED for the purpose of this review<&sol;em><&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;