The Legend Of Heroes: Trails From Zero Review

The Trails saga, a spin-off of what was formerly a Japanese-only RPG series called The Legend of Heroes, is known for its relatable character-driven narratives, turn-based tactical combat, and treasure chest monologues. Trails in the Sky, the first of a three-game arc, introduced international JRPG fans to the series when it was localised on the PSP. This was then followed up with a PSP duology in Japan known as the Crossbell Arc. Long thought forgotten as subsequent Trails arcs made their way westward, Crossbell’s first title Trails from Zero has finally traversed the oceans some 12 years later. 

Requiring no previous series experience to jump into the proceedings, Trails from Zero has you play as Llyod Bannings, a freshly graduated police detective. Lloyd is returning to his home city of Crossbell to join the local police department, but upon arriving he is informed he will instead be fronting a new department called the Special Support Section with three other deputised misfits who have no relation to the police force. Their duty is to effectively action residential requests around the city. This is simply shit kicker work, and we are constantly reminded of it. The work aims to act as a public relations move to improve favour towards the reviled and redundant police force that is snubbed in favour of the lauded Bracer Guild – basically the friendly neighbourhood mercenaries. 

As members of the Crossbell Police Department, citizens who are too cheap to bother paying the Bracer Guild will lodge their requests at the Special Support Section. At the beginning of each chapter, a series of new quests will appear that can be conveniently carried out in tandem alongside the main questline (which often resembles little more than another seemingly low-stakes task). Do enough quests, rank up Lloyd’s detective level, and get a reward. There is an unavoidable cycle that begins and ends at the SSS’ home base, meaning that the atypical grand JRPG adventure is absent for most of the game. 

Yet another reminder to get checked

Without resting on the laurels of the celebrated series that this game belongs to, embroiling oneself in the escapades of these charitable cops is unlikely to draw much of a crowd. Granted, in typical Trails fashion, the entirety of the narrative plays out via the interactions of these endearing and memorable characters who make every effort to be believable and engrossing. Yet, the plot doesn’t find any forward momentum or driving complication in the first 15–20 hours, hoping that players will be patient and enjoy a languid journey. 

This adventure will see players often bogged down with traditional JRPG design. Though much of the game is set in the central city of Crossbell and its many metropolitan districts, players will be given opportunities to carry out investigations and quests in the nearby orbiting towns. After walking the long roads filled with roaming monsters that can be fought or easily evaded (which is soon all but mitigated by a generous fast-travel system), players will arrive in a town with little fanfare. The quests in these locations often don’t proceed until you have spoken to every single resident and explored each building, an archaic hurdle as old as the original Final Fantasy. If you miss a resident, expect to do laps of the town talking to the mostly indistinguishable townsfolk until a cutscene triggers. 

Chests offer treasures and then some

Despite taking place in the same world as Trails in the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel, Zero’s plot and characters stand alone and make every effort to ensure a lack of familiarity with this world is accommodated. Returning Trails fans can expect cameos from the previous arc’s protagonists and vague mentions of the geopolitical events that bookended those games. Returning too are the talkative treasure chests, that provide hilariously comedic quips, easter eggs and meta-commentary when interacting with them after a liberal looting. The city of Crossbell sits in the centre of this world as an independent city-state, tastefully set apart from the machinations of the bordering nations that feature in the other games. As Zero’s characters go on to appear in later Trails arcs, the Crossbell arc may be the most easily digestible in this burgeoning series, with the first game in this duology only clocking in at 40 hours – a relatively small investment in the Trails saga. 

As this is a PSP port, there is no mistaking that this is a dated-looking game with some rusty gears. The sprites have had the edges sanded off for a cleaner, anti-aliased look, but don’t expect any special lighting or effects that would transcend the limitations of the old Sony hardware. Instead, this 2022 release of a 2010 game comes with the sparing but necessary addition of a speed toggle to make the reliance on backtracking and grinding palatable.

This title also does a subpar job of introducing new players to the series’ orbment system that drives combat. This is a fantasy world of monsters and magical industry, with manufactured orbs granting the characters access to elemental magics and special combat abilities. These are separate from equipment such as weapons and armour, of which only two sets appear to buy per character, per chapter (with one always markedly better than the other). Orbments can be found in the world, manufactured in the city, or awarded from handing in quests. Depending on how many of each elemental orbment type are stacked on a character will determine which magics are available to them. There is no information to tell players what the optimal arrangements of orbments are for each character, nor what the resulting abilities will be. Further complicating this system is the fact that orbments can be equipped in particular orders to improve or negate their effectiveness. Again, series newcomers are left to fumble and experiment, with no auto-equip options – all issues that are rectified in the subsequent arc of Trails games.

Where’s the lamb sauce?!

Final Thoughts

Like a good book, Trails from Zero is all about welcoming and engrossing attentive players that enjoy solid writing to break up hundreds of turn-based fights against monsters and criminals. While its narrative about redeeming a redundant police corps is unlikely to arouse the curiosity of anybody unfamiliar with The Legend of Heroes, these characters and the city of Crossbell they inhabit are bursting with personality. If you can handle the lacklustre gear progression, nebulous orbment system and some old-school holdovers that contemporary JRPGs have rightly left behind, the likeable saga of Lloyd and his fellow oddball detectives is a must-play for series fans and a delectable entry point for newcomers. 

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch // Review code supplied by publisher

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