|OT| The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero | Younger Brother Bourgeoisie is On The Case

Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
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Downunder.






Welcome to the Metacouncil official thread for Trails from Zero.

In this thread, we can discuss all aspects of the 4th game in the Trails series (or the 9th game in the Legend of Heroes series). Please mark spoilers accordingly. Post your experiences, screenshots, tracks, fan arts or clips from your favourite vtubers.


You may recall the OT that I made for the Geofront release. This thread is going to be mostly a low-key affair compared to that one, but if anyone has any questions about the game, ask them here, and hopefully, I can answer them to the best of my ability.



For this OT, I'm going to talk about what makes Crossbell unique. Trails in the Sky SC and 3rd are very special games to me, but Zero is my favourite Trails game out of all the currently released games in English. For starters, there is a certain team dynamic within SSS that really stood out to me right from the start. Crossbell being the melting pot of Zemuria is an interesting place to be in and observing the SSS' activities within it was such a great pleasure. Combined with the diversity of its inhabitants, the metropolis vibe has an entirely different feel, even when compared with Liberl's largest city, Grancel.


It's pretty clear where the inspiration for the city was drawn from. Crossbell is heavily populated by immigrants from all over Zemuria, but despite that, they identify themselves as Crossbellans first and foremost, no matter where they are from originally. The SSS interacted with people from all walks of life in Crossbell. Street gangs, students, statesmen, gamblers, farmers, miner, doctors, hoteliers, crime lords and last but not least: a real estate agent. These diverse demographics represent a microcosm of Zemuria. This diversity makes Crossbell such a unique place with its own identity. There is still a distinction in class strata, as we can observe from the various locations in the City. Being a metropolis, Crossbell shares the issues we found in the real world as well. Housing, healthcare, public trust and organised crime are represented here, even though the examination may not be as deep as it should be.



Just like the city it represents, The Special Support Section is a unique team with diverse background. Lloyd is a novice detective, but he is a fast learner and immediately takes charge of his team, as he rightly demonstrated from the very first mission in the game. Randy, the oldest of the bunch, has combat experiences to support his wisecracks and also the most free-spirited, but even at the surface, we can tell that that's not all who he was. Elie represents the ruling class, with certain political aspirations. My criticism from my first play through remains true, since I feel her character feel underdeveloped during the course of the game. And last but not least is Tio, the youngest in the team with talents that borders on the supernatural. I feel Zero as a whole tell us Tio's story as much as Lloyd's.


Another aspect of what makes Zero interesting is that it doesn't concern itself too much with the secret organisation we all come to love (or hate, depending on the person you asked). Instead, it focuses on the interpersonal relationships between the characters and how it affects Crossbell as a whole. Amongst these actors, Crossbell's geopolitics is examined here as we encountered characters from both sides of the borders; even as a major economic power, Crossbell has no significant military power. The Crossbell political machine ultimately has been designed to serve the two superpowers in the region, both with their own agenda. A detail which will often be revisited during the course of the game, the second half of the duology, and later in Cold Steel series.



Like any other Trails game, the NPCs are quite well written, oftentimes to a fault. I sometimes think why some of these secondary characters has better development than Elie, even though she is supposed to be one of the central characters. There's one storyline about a college kid in low-income housing trying to make it through medical school. An Erebonian immigrant living apart from his family. A rural farmer fighting with his dad over how best to run the family farm. A government worker trying to make it through his day. There's plenty to read and observe if you're keen on backtracking, even though I understand that it may not be for everyone.

Last but not least, the music. My personal favourite track from the game is probably the final dungeon theme, A Light Illuminating The Depths. It's probably one of the best final dungeon themes Falcom JDK has ever come up with. There's a bit of that sound motif from the Sky series we're all familiar with. And speaking of Sky motifs, Arrest the Criminal is probably one of Momiyama's best work in this game. The acoustic guitar in Tomorrow is Another Day is sublime, and Limit Break has that trance breakdown we're eventually going to get acquainted with in the later Cold Steel entries. On The Green Road is a great travel tune perfect for over world exploration. And of course, Ancient Pulsation is a great antithesis to it.

Anyway, I better stop here, since I can go on and on about the music. This official release of Zero will be my second time playing the game, and I have no doubt that I will have a great time once again. I hope people will enjoy the game as much as I did and develop an interest in playing (or replaying) both the former and the latter games in the series.


Thanks to Kiseki Wiki for the image assets.
 

Mivey

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Love your detailed OP, Kvik.

Don't have much too add that you didn't already nicely summarise. For anyone who has finished the Sky games, Zero is a perfect follow-up. I think it even works as the first game to the series, though you will not quite fully experience a minor plot beat in the ending that concern itself with a character from the Sky games. Other than that, Zero is a fresh start, though.

Will be great to finally resolve the Crossbell Problem that the Western release of Trails games had until now and get over that official localisation barrier.
 
Dec 5, 2018
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Nice OT.
I'll get the game but I doubt I will replay it (maybe if I could import my save I might speed throught it to refresh some details).

Still nice to finally see the game with an official western release.
 

Ascheroth

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I'm getting it day 1 for sure, but I'm probably not gonna jump into it right away, since I'm in the middle of some other games that I wanna clear out before focusing on this one. Very much looking forward to it for sure though :evilblob:
 
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QFNS

Plays too many card games
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Amazing OT Kvik !

Absolutely a day 1 purchase for me. Will probably jump in and tool around a bit to see the new stuff (my god the upscaled art looks amazing) but since I've already played the Geofront version, I'm not likely to go all the way through.
Can't wait for Azure though.
 
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sprinkles

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Great thread! But it is missing one little thing:face-with-tears-of-joy::

I will probably replay this game down the road, too. Great game!
It is my favorite Trails game, great cast and best setting. Won't replay it though, but I am still on the fence about double dipping.
 
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Dragon1893

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Alextended

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Wow, in Sky games I went for unfiltered textures and what not and loved the retro look but I'm conflicted with the ace looking super sharp textures/sprites... Although I'd probably not use the dynamic shadows for consistency's sake (unless the non dynamic ones can be not just a blob even if directionally static).
 
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Mivey

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Really love this port. It was pretty easy to get my save games from the Geofront up and running, just had to change the folder names from "SAV0001" to "data0001" and so on for all the old save files. Actually ended up copying things to my Linux machine where I can easily do such replacements in the standard file browser, and then brought it back to the Windows, and they all work now in Zero and it's even uploaded them to the Steam Cloud.
 
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Aeana

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I'm loving all of the enhancements this version has. I haven't played this game since it came out on PSP, and it feels so nice.

I do seem to be preferring to play with the voices off for nostalgia reasons in general, though I find myself occasionally curious what a voiced line sounds like. It would be cool if even if "other voices" option is off, pressing the confirm button on the message log would still play the voice clip. Other than that, I'm really loving everything. Great work on the port, Durante.
 
OP
Kvik

Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
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Downunder.
Random thought: the way Abbas speak reminds me a bit of how Yagyuu Joansai speak in Muramasa, soft-spoken, yet firm. I thought they shared the same VA, but they don't.
 
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Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
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I played through the Prologue yesterday and I'm loving it (as I expected, lol).
Incredible port. Playing on the Deck everything is super crisp, smooth 60 fps all the time and still provides multiple hours of battery life.
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
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Hit Chapter 2, baby! Only took 15 hours (with turbo). :sweaty-blob:
I think half of that has been spent on talking to NPCs :mishy:

I got extremely giddy as soon as I read
the Crossball branch of the Bracer guild would get support from 2 new faces (which I knew would be Estelle and Joshua) and then they appeared and you get a feel for what they're up to without even meeting them just by talking to the townpeople.
Also surprise Renne appearance
Cannot wait until the 3 of them meet up again :blob_hype:.
So good.
 
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Kvik

Kvik

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I got extremely giddy as soon as I read
The game wasn't subtle about it at all because (Chapter 2) SSS can visit their unlocked apartment ahead of time, and we can see a bunch of stregas and her spare staff hanging on the wall. :flare_lmao:
 

Mivey

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Hit Chapter 2, baby! Only took 15 hours (with turbo). :sweaty-blob:
I think half of that has been spent on talking to NPCs :mishy:

I got extremely giddy as soon as I read
the Crossball branch of the Bracer guild would get support from 2 new faces (which I knew would be Estelle and Joshua) and then they appeared and you get a feel for what they're up to without even meeting them just by talking to the townpeople.
Also surprise Renne appearance
Cannot wait until the 3 of them meet up again :blob_hype:.
So good.
You might want to check out Trails side material. Falcom released a manga at the time, The Ring of Judgement, that explains what Estelle and Joshua had been up to, leading right to Zero.


And it's really nice to hear how other people are experiencing Zero as well. Spending most of the time with long NPC sweeps is pretty much how most of my time with Zero went as well.
 
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Mivey

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So for those playing the Steam version, is the English script ok? I saw one post on the Era Trails OT complain how NISA completely messed up the script or something, and there being untranslated lines even.
 
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Kvik

Kvik

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I think the issue is overblown. While it's true that there were a few untranslated lines, the issue is not widespread. The NPC lines in question aren't even from the major characters or quest givers.

It's definitely a QA issue, and given the size of a game such as Trails, it is understandable. I mean, we've been doing NPC sweeps for so long and pick up these sorts of issues because it's in our nature. However, we certainly can't say the same for QA people who were paid for their time. NISA's QA aren't their strong suit either, based from past records, and there's still plenty of room for improvement.
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
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I'm loving all of the enhancements this version has. I haven't played this game since it came out on PSP, and it feels so nice.

I do seem to be preferring to play with the voices off for nostalgia reasons in general, though I find myself occasionally curious what a voiced line sounds like. It would be cool if even if "other voices" option is off, pressing the confirm button on the message log would still play the voice clip. Other than that, I'm really loving everything. Great work on the port, Durante.

Play voice lines in the message log when selected even if the "Other Voices" option is set to OFF
Enjoy!
 
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Kvik

Kvik

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Downunder.
I found some mislabelled pages in the Detective Notebook. It should be labelled Mirage 2, Space 2 and Wind 2 respectively.



 
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Mivey

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I found some mislabelled pages in the Detective Notebook. It should be labelled Mirage 2, Space 2 and Wind 2 respectively.



Maybe post it in the Steam forums. I think NISA is still patching the game for localisation bugs, so hopefully they have someone checking the forums
 
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Durante

I <3 Pixels
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You can do that of course, but I can say that this is known and documented internally (together with everything else anyone can find at this point, probably ;)).
 
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I'm midway chapter 3, playing in NG+ with all the endgame gear makes moving through the game really fast, I guess the final chapter will catch up to me but so far is going fine.
 

Ascheroth

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Finished Chapter 3 (at 40 hours). Feels like every chapter is getting longer than the last 😅
Very much enjoyed the Arc en Ciel chapter and Lloyd's unlikely connections via Cecile. Rixia's great.
While there was lots of interesting stuff with the various festival tasks that culminated in the Schwarze Auction, which was pretty exciting, the highlight of this chapter is by far the part with Renne and the Haysworths. Very much enjoyed following around Estelle and Joshua throughout the fesetival where they were clearly hinting towards things, and boy was it satisfying seeing the end result. I'm very much looking forward to the continuation to this subplot.
I'm also very curious how this part hits without Sky knowledge, particularly 3rd.
Still, curious about what's up with KeA. I'm kinda guessing she's indeed the Rosenberg Doll and not a human, but we'll see.
 
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Nearly done with it (only the final dungeon left) and slighlty over 30hours. I don't really know what the point of the extra NG+ boss (and I've never been a fan of gating extra bosses on NG+ in long games).

Anyway, re-watching some events/characters knowing how the story will move in later games hits a bit different.

Also, since I was loading a my clear save for some reason, despite having all the recipies there doesn't seem to be a way for the game to force that achivement, not that I care, but I found it peculiar that that one was the only problem.
 
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And done.

For some reason the final boss froze and I couldn't do anything so I had to restart the fight, when the side platforms fall

I don't know If I'll replay Azure, since that game is way longer, and it's way fresher in my mind, but we'll see.
 
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Kvik

Kvik

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Downunder.
I'm very much looking forward to the continuation to this subplot.
I'm also very curious how this part hits without Sky knowledge, particularly 3rd.
I think (Chapter 3) one of the greatest misdirection in the Hayworths' substory is that the audience was led to believe that Renne was sold to Paradise in order to get their business up and running again. Of course, we eventually learned that it can't be farther from the truth. Personally, I like that she didn't reunite with her former family. In a way, it shows how she doesn't want to add another burden of guilt for her lost years in Paradise, and let them enjoy life as they should.

Also, since I was loading a my clear save for some reason, despite having all the recipies there doesn't seem to be a way for the game to force that achivement, not that I care, but I found it peculiar that that one was the only problem.
It seems that the recipe achievement will only trigger if Lloyd receive the recipe items. Since the recipe book carryover will prevent these items from appearing in the game, the only way to receive the achievement is to start a new game without the carryover.

Perhaps reading the list of achievement flags from the savegame when loading an NG+ save to sync it with Steam achievements is a better way to do it, but I'm not sure how feasible that is.
 
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Kvik

Kvik

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We should do that. Is any other achievement affected?
I think (achievement) Hail to the Chef is the only one. However, since my initial play through went over level 40 in the final dungeon/boss, I didn't earn the Rise and Don't Grind achievement. I wasn't sure if it should trigger normally when the NG+ save is loaded.

Thank you for your hard work! :flare_utawaku:
 
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Mivey

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Full release.



Pretty impressive that it seems to also choose appropriate reaction portraits. Must have been a huge task to add this manually into Zero for every line of each of those dozen or so characters.

It does raise the question, though, why Falcom didn't bother with this when releasing the "Kai" versions. I get that Falcom has to work on a budget, but it sad to see them cut so many corners on a franchise that is so important to their fame and success.
 
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