4.5/5 ★ – Niebeer's review of The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero.

Planning to replay the Crossbell and Erebonia arc this year in anticipation of Reverie, and Trails from Zero is an excellent start. The game does such a good job of endearing you to its world and characters. You get the core cast right at the beginning of the game, something I always appreciate since it gives you ample time to watch the group grow. Not only is the main cast very well developed but the supporting characters all shine too. The decision to focus the games setting on 1 city and its surrounding areas does wonders for the world building. It's a delight to talk to all the npcs as their dialogue changes to reflect ongoing events, an aspect that the trails series is really good at. Overall the story here is fantastic. It's satisfying on its own yet does an excellent job of setting a foundation for its sequel. The battles are fun, and go by quickly thanks to a high speed function. The orbment system reminds me of FF7s materia system, as it allows you to customize your characters and figuring out overpowered builds is fun as hell. Visually the game looks very charming with its 2d sprites and 3d backgrounds, evoking the visuals of old school ps1 and ps2 jrpgs, my favorite era for the genre. Character design is fantastic, having a nice balance of grounded yet stylish Fantasy anime flair. When it comes to music, anyone who is familiar with the developer, Falcom, knows that their soundtracks are always amazing and thats definitely the case here. Hype battle tracks, relaxing town & field music, and cool dungeon themes. The OST has it all. I really enjoyed coming back to this game and actually officially owning it now, having playing the excellent fan translation before. And now I am excited to continue to Trails to Azure. Trails fans already know how good these entries are. If youre a newcomer, I would still suggest to start with Trails in the Sky. However, if for some reason you don't want to play Sky as it's only on PC at the moment, Zero is a good place to start as well.