The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (JP: Eiyuu Densetsu: Sen no Kiseki) is the first installment in the Trails of Cold Steel series, part of the Trails series, which is in turn part of the Legend of Heroes franchise. It was developed by Nihon Falcom and XSEED Games and published by Marvelous! Entertainment on the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in 2012. Ports for the PlayStation 4 and Microsoft Windows (through Steam) were released in 2018, and a port to the Nintendo Switch is scheduled for 2021, along with the other games in the series. The game is a sequel to the Trails in the Sky series (taking place roughly at the same time as Zero no Kiseki), and it focuses on the Erebonian Empire, one of the main nations of the continent of Zemuria, the main setting for the Trails series.

Plot
Rean Schwarzer, a 17-years old student, arrives in the town of Trista, in the Erebonian Empire, to attend the prestigious Thors'Military Academy. There, he discovers that he's been chosen with seven other students to attend Class VII, an experimental class where students from the nobility and the common people are mixed together, defying Erebonia's archaic class system. On their first day of school, the teacher, Sara Valenstein, challenges them to escape from a mysterious ancient building on school grounds, which they quickly discover changes its layout every month for mysterious reasons. The students decide to venture deep into the schoolhouse to discover its secret, while going on field trips, learning more about Erebonian politics and their consequences.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) The game has two types of magic: "Arts", which can be used by equipping Orbments to the characters, and "Crafts", which are more traditional spells that are learned as the character levels up. The main difference between them is that Arts take two or more turns to cast and give the caster a lower delay, while Crafts are executed instantly and can be used at any time. This adds strategy to the combat, encouraging you to choose which type of spell to use to gain an advantage.
 * 2) * There are two different values that allow you to cast magic: EP allow you to cast Arts, and are akin to MP in a standard RPG, and CP are obtained by taking or dealing damage and allow you to cast Crafts.
 * 3) The game improves on the Orbment system used by Trails in the Sky, by limiting the number of Orbments you can equip in your ARCUS (though you can unlock more slots for new Orbments). Orbments can also come in a "Rare" variant, which gives stat bonuses, special abilities for the characters that equips them, or more skills at once.
 * 4) The battle system is based on enemy movements and positions, just like Chrono Trigger and Live A Live. However, in this game, you can move the characters at your will, and each attack has a range of effectiveness. To attack an enemy beyond your range, you must first employ a turn to get close.
 * 5) * Area-of-Effect Arts and Crafts also have different types of areas (some hit enemies in a circle, others in a straight line, etc.).
 * 6) * While damage-dealing Arts have no range, Crafts do, adding to the strategy.
 * 7) The greatest innovation to the battle system is, without a doubt, the Link system. You can perform several tasks to bond with your party members (like in the Persona series), which will raise your Link level up to 5. As your Link level rises, you unlock new Link abilities you can use in battle when you strike a critical hit, or unbalance an enemy by hitting him with the correct weapon.
 * 8) * You can change the Links between your party members at every time, even in battle, which is a great help.
 * 9) * Later in the game, Bravery Points are introduced. Using the basic Link attack will grant you one Bravery Point, up to a maximum of 5 available. As Bravery Points build up, you can use them to launch stronger Link Attacks, and when you have a full 5 of them, you can unleash a Burst attack that deals tremendous damage to all enemies.
 * 10) The game is divided between School segments, where the player interacts with the other characters, Field segments, where you explore the game's world, and Dungeon segments, where you explore dungeons with your party. During School and Field segments, you will receive quests you can embark on. While some are mandatory to progress with the game, others are fully optional.
 * 11) Every character in the world is named and can be spoken to. Doing so will give you books that reveal more about the world and the game's events, recipes and full-fledged quests for you to complete, which makes you feel part of the world. Some of the quests you can complete will also reveal more about them.
 * 12) Very good and intriguing story.
 * 13) You can save at any time by pressing the main menu button twice (a feature that would be also carried over to the later entries in the Ys series.
 * 14) There are several hidden references to other Falcom games, such as accessories referencing the Pikkard creatures from the Ys series and the Noi from Nayuta no Kiseki, and Dogi, Adol Christin's sidekick from the Ys series, is also mentioned as a doll.
 * 15) Several items you collect and things you do (such as Zemurian ores, maxed Link Levels and bonds with your classmates) can be carried over to the game's sequel, Trails of Cold Steel 2.
 * 16) * The PlayStation 4 remaster of the game allows you to do so with a save file from the game's original release.
 * 17) Some things, like answering academic question correctly, solving puzzles and completing quests (both mandatory and optional) will give you Academic points, which will increase your rank in the academy. Increasing your rank will net you special items, pieces of equipment and Orbments.
 * 18) Very good soundtrack, such as Suburban Town of Trista (Trista's theme), Abend Time (the radio theme), The Glint of Cold Steel (main battle theme), Tie a Link of ARCUS! (the mini-boss theme) and Belief (Gideon, Scarlet and Vulcan's battle theme).
 * 19) There are three different types of advantages you can obtain at the beginning of a battle. Triple Advantage occurs when you strike your enemy on the overworld in the back without it seeing you and slightly restores your CP (which are used to cast Crafts). Double Advantage occurs when you do the same, but the enemy sees you, and deals extra damage to the enemy. Single Advantage occurs when you just come in contact with the enemy from the back, and slightly restores your CP.
 * 20) Each character can unlock a S-Craft, powerful area-of-effect attacks which can be cast when you have 100 CP or more and consumes all your CP. You can also use S-Breaks, weaker variants of S-Crafts that can be cast in any turn, regardless of the character.
 * 21) Lots of very well-written characters, both on the player's side and the enemy's.
 * 22) The final battles in the game introduce Divine Knight battles, which help spice up things a bit.
 * 23) * During Divine Knight battles, you can hit one of three pressure points on enemy Soldats: head, arms or chest. Hitting the enemy in the correct point will unbalance them and set them up for a Follow-up Attack, which will give you a Bravery Point. Once you have enough Bravery Points, you can launch special attacks that deal particularly high damage.
 * 24) * Sometimes, enemies will change their stance, which will change the point to strike to ensure a Follow-up.
 * 25) * You can also cast Crafts that confer various bonuses to your Divine Knight, from increased damage and health regeneration to immunity to Follow-Up Attacks, and the possibility to unbalance an enemy during a counter.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The game ends on a cliffhanger (one arguably worse than Trails in the Sky FC, the first Western-released game in the series) that leaves many plot threads open. Most of them were explored or resolved by Trails of Cold Steel II.
 * 2) You can only cook with people inside your party, which is particularly annoying if you are grinding for rare dishes. Again, this was fixed in Trails of Cold Steel II.
 * 3) The areas visited in Field Studies are explorable only once, and several things inside of them (including quests, entries in the Fishing Notebook, recipes, entries in the Monster Notebook and chests) are missable until you begin a New Game + run.
 * 4) The game encourages you to talk to people and explore as your primary way to obtain sidequests, but you aren't given many clues. Thankfully, unlike the Tales series, the game warns you when a certain quest is going to expire and gives you a marker once the quest has begun, so that actually completing it is less tedious.
 * 5) * You can also purchase books you may have missed at Micht's Pawn Shop in the endgame, which is a big help.