Legend of Heroes - Trails of Cold Steel - Medieval Persona

During a time when good JRPGs are few and far between, Legend of Heroes - Trails of Cold Steel brings with it all the right thing that once made the genre great and none of the poor elements that made recent releases so dull and cliched.

Legend of Heroes - Trails of Cold Steel is a JRPG developed by Nihon Falcom and brought to the west courtesy of XSEED. It is the sixth game in the Kiseki saga which started with Trails in the Sky back in 2004.

The best parts of Trails of Cold Steel lies with the combat and the story. In Trails of Cold Steel you play as Rein Schwarzer, a member onfa special class within the Thors Military academy housing both nobles and commoners called Class VII. This mixing of commoners and nobles within the same class creates excellent setting makes for a very interesting and engaging story while avoiding many of the cliches and stereotypes that plagues the genre.

The members of Class VII. Left to right: Emma, Gaius, Fie, Laura, Rean, Alisa, Elliot, Jusis, and Machias

If the story is the filling, the solid crust that encase it is the combat mechanics. The combat mechanics is reminiscent of of Hyperdimension Neptunia and Mugen Souls. It is a turn based combat where characters are free to move around in the battle-field. Also, the number of abilities that allows players to manipulate turn orders makes this game surprisingly strategic. Thanks to the well-tuned difficulty, boss battles are extremely tense. Every single move can be the difference between victory and defeat. One downside to the combat is the inability to re-position your character and attack on the same turn making positioning during combat unnecessarily difficult. Overall, the well-balanced nature of the combat and the deep strategic aspect makes it one of the best combat system I've every had the pleasure of experiencing.

Combat Screen showing the turn order and turn bonuses on the left side of the screen

Outside combat however, it plays like most JRPGs. There is a large amount of scripting that happens to move the plot along. Once every few in-game weeks, you will have a free day to engage in activities with other casts and improve your social relationship with them ala Persona, albeit not as deep or extensive. The benefit of the scripted nature of the activities means that the game fully controls the pacing of the story progression and the story is, as we have established, excellent. Although the game did not take full advantage of the high-school setting, what is being offered is good and augments the story perfectly. 

Running through Trista, the small town where the military school is located.

Trails of Cold Steel hits so many of the right notes that makes it a good JRPG, something that is a luxury these days; especially so on the PSVita. It is definitely one of the highlights of the year and by coming so late in the year it did not get as much coverage as it deserved which is a shame.