Trails of Crossbell Review

 

 THE GEOFRONT

Clocking in on 115h in Tales of Azure, a thought crossed my mind; man, what a journey this has been.

As part of the English speaking Trails community, once there was no hope that I would ever actually get to experience this series in its entirety. There was little chance that Falcom would ever put the games up for localisation when they had already moved on towards the later arcs of the series. Then I wondered at how far we have come ahead as a global community and how passion and love can enable people to break insurmountable barriers together. Once even capable teams would have flinched and passed over pouring their blood and sweat in translating thick tomes of Japanese text that would put to shame the entirety of Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter volumes. Besides for a game on a now defunct system and a niche fan-base, the returns would just never justify the struggle. A barrier it was high and strong indeed!

However, passion is blind and crazy and some set out alone to surmount this quest. Who would have thought that their attempts would light a fire inside the heart of the community? Certainly I would never have. Who would have thought that years down the line a fan would look at something that is literally a love letter to the series and be lost for words? Because to be honest, those crazy individuals not only surmounted this quest, but these fiery warriors climbing on the backs of each other raised the bar of the quest even higher as they inched closer breaking barriers that were not even visible. I don’t think that there really are words that can provide justice to the sweat and blood, the selflessness and fiery passion and the persistence of these quest bearers for fulfilling a dream for so many throughout the world. I can at the very least say that indeed Crossbell Arc of the Legend of Heroes Trails series is the one of the most exciting, grandest, most noir and classic adventure to grace literary works in the interactive arts medium of video games. An epic of epics, It is indeed the greatest arc of the series so far and rightfully the peak of this grand quest of Zemuria that has been building up for nearly two decades. Beholding with my eyes and praising in my heart, with tears streaming down my eyes and a fire alighting my soul, for this love letter, a literal re-master of the Crossbell games, to all those who worked their backs off over the years to make this possible and to the legendary heroes of this final product, the Geofront Team, I say thank you. 

Lloyd Bannings

 

 Story & Characters:

There is potential to spoil a lot in this segment so I’ll try to be as vague as possible. Trails of Azure and Ao are primarily the tale of Crossbell city, a land embroiled in conflict between two large superpowers. Perhaps the most classic example of this from our world would be Kashmir between India and Pakistan since it fits Crossbell’s size perfectly or more recently Ukraine between Russia and NATO/USA. 

After the Liberl arc, Crossbell focuses on the next stage of events that are going to lead to upheaval and change in the continent of Erebonia. In the shadows, various powers of dark and light struggle to meddle about in the progress of such events. In all of this, the people of Crossbell stuck for decades in suffering and slavery as the vassal state of the two powers must discover their national identity and they want to see themselves in the dawn of a new world order.

Crossbell is not only chained by external factors but internally as well by various mafias effectively controlling the whole state from their dark underworld because of the weak laws of Crossbell state and their connections with the powerful external elements that would not let the state gain independence or prosper militarily.

All of this is shown through the eyes of a newly inducted detective, Lloyd Bannings, a citizen of Crossbell and an affectee of the various events and accidents that have made hell the lives of many in the state. He carries a personal agenda through all this, a case he ultimately wants to resolve. There is a fire burning in the man’s heart and we really see him mature over the course of the story. It was like seeing a man rise in full of glory of youth ready to take on the world. Little did Lloyd know that once he comes back to Crossbell, he would find himself in a unique position where he will serve a very unique newly formed division in the police department that would put him on odds with the rest of the force from the beginning of his career. There are expectations attached to his name and he desperately wants to live up to them despite multiple barriers he finds blocking his way. Crossbell is indeed a very personal journey for Lloyd Bannings and his struggle to overcome these insurmountable barriers but he won’t be doing this alone. With his companions of Special Support Section, Lloyd would go on to rise from lowest points to build bonds  with characters in the state, in the underworld, in the higher social echelons and the bracer guild whose often seen as a competition to his section of the police department as well as elusive Society of Ouroboros and the Septian Church. Lloyd will have to come to accept the challenge and prove that he is worth every bit a detective as someone the City of Crossbell mourns to this day.

Each character in this tale comes with a distinct personality and an arc of their own and through the process of uncovering the layers of Crossbell’s real secret, these characters would slowly reveal their true natures and progress on with their personal journeys the same as Lloyd.

Crossbell thus offers a multi-layered narrative and deep characters that are unforgettable; a tale that is wrapped in grey strands of moral dilemmas that will definitely make one ponder over what was the right choice regardless of the endings.

9.5/10

Ellie McDowell

 

 

Soundtrack & Voice-Acting:

I am simply going to push through this like another barrier and seize the truth and proclaim it with unfathomed force that this is Falcom’s best Kiseki soundtrack. I don’t have the words to describe the overall vibe of the soundtrack. It has heavy motiff for many of its tracks that play during critical story moments. It dips into various genres and really spins the mind and body in its magical allure. I haven’t enjoyed a soundtrack this much in a really long while. There is one masterpiece followed by another and to that end, the whole soundtrack does a great job in complementing the mood of the game as well as the swell and fall of emotions and tone of the tale. Honestly, I don’t have the words to describe some of the tracks in this game but I can definitely say I found my favourite dungeon theme of all time that I’ve been listening to since I first heard it called “Mystic Core”. Apart from this just the main Battle Themes from both Zero and Ao are just one of the best damn things you will hear in music. I honestly did not ever think Falcom would have ever surpassed the brilliance of “Silver Will” but the composers seem to hear those thoughts of mine and were like, “Hold my Beer!” Some of the most memorable and fan favourite tracks from this game are a must hear, freely accessible from Falcom’s Official Youtube Music channel. These include, ‘Seize the Truth, “Aoki Shizuku”, “Beyond the Paradise of Lies”, “A Victim’s Past Wish,” “Unfathomed Force”, “Get over the barrier”, “Geofront”, “Special Support Section”, “Water, Plants and Blue Sky”, “Arrest the Criminal”, “Revache & Co”, “Underground Kids”, “Shwarze Auction”, “The Will to Protect Until the End”, “A Bell that Cannot Ring”, “Inevitable Struggle”, “Firm Strength” ,”Get Over the Barrier~ the Roaring Version”, “Zero no Kiseki”, “Conflicting Passions,” and Oh My GOD I must really stop this because I’ll just end up listing the whole soundtrack. 

Randy Orlando

 

There was one track however even among all these that made me go like, “Falcom! What is this?” Like seriously, it is called “Dark Throne” and it’s faster more epic version is called, “Delusions of a Thousand Year,” and the composition is nothing short of out of this world brilliance. I was totally blown away by these two, particularly, “Delusions of a Thousand Years,” especially the moment they chose to play both of these songs was a pitch perfect selection. I have been totally enthralled by the spell of this track in the past few days and just cannot seem to get rid of it. It is as infectious as nothing else can be, not even Covid 19.

Coming to both of the Opening Songs; “Way of Life” for Zero and “Aoi Kiseki” for Azure. Both of them are amazing songs with strong compositions and I really cannot choose one over the other. I was a fan of both of these tracks long before I ever played the games and have been rocking at them for ages. Both of these songs complement the games and the overall emotions they convey perfectly. Just two more tracks to add to enjoy in the list above.

You know I find it weird how Falcom simply chose to discard this impressive soundtrack and rearranged it all for the Evo releases on PSVITA and botched the soundtrack completely, at least for Zero. I’d say this clearly to anyone reading this, avoid the Evo version of Zero Soundtrack at all costs, it really is as bad as every fan has complained about it to this day. Strangely enough, they seemed to improve significantly with these arrangements by the time Azure rolled and that can go neck to neck with the original soundtrack in some of the compositions.

 

Finally, I’ll talk about the next core component that really impressed me a lot; The Japanese Voice Acting. The voices of almost all characters, major or minor are done super well and some of them like Wazy and Lloyd when they talk have an orgasmic power to them. Yep, they totally made my feet tingle in their back and forth banter. Totally in love with this voice acting performance to the point that I do not think that this game can ever be more enjoyable without listening to these and this is a complement I can give for very few games. The voice acting was part of the evo version and it’s great that fans have again worked to bring about these as mods for PC. It is pretty disappointing how the newer soon to be released Console versions would lack these but honestly PC is the way to go then because these are simply something that must be experienced. I refuse to call the Crossbell experience complete without hearing this impressive performance from the voice cast who really deserved to be appreciated worldwide.

9.5/10

 

Tio Plato

Graphics & Art Style:

Crossbell is an utterly beautiful world full of spooky, abandoned places, dilapidated streets, bustling town centres, calm village life, livid forests, eastern and western themed cityscapes, sunny beaches and murky wetlands. On top of this varied terrain you get crazy fantastical caves, otherworldly spaces, stylish and mind befuddling dungeons. Each of these terrains bustles with a life of its own hiding more than one story behind the walls or wildness. It is indeed how the games make art shine is what renders their worlds memorable and Crossbell games succeed by a mile when it comes to world building through what they show. There is an impressive amount of colour and detail in the graphical presentation; from the extensively detailed sprites to the walls of the various zones of the bustling metropolis and the sweeping cinematic view shots of these very areas and the labyrinthine dungeons that the tale often takes us to. Even minor sprites appear distinct from one another and the world presents a strong character in and on itself. Combining all this art with ingenious use of technology made it possible to tell this epic on the original system it targeted; the PSP. Crossbell uses 2d sprites over 3d backgrounds reminiscent of Xenogears and places them at fixed camera angles almost representing a diorama of the world and then as the characters move through the world, it very fluidly moves the camera to maintain a cinematic look of the game that best shows the world from every side possible and yet makes it inviting to explore every corner where often times many secrets would hide. This kind of representation reminded me strongly of Final Fantasy X and almost seemed like a perfection of the style. It is indeed different from the previous sky arc where you could rotate the camera 360degrees in the cityscapes and it would lock at fixed angles in dungeons. Crossbell in the graphics and art department is suffice to say a master-class at world building that is beautiful to look at and explore and the hours spent over in the world will be very pleasing for the fans.

7.5/10

Wazy Hemisphere

 

 Gameplay

The old tactical command based battle system of the legend of heroes return and like with past games making improvements with each succession, the Crossbell games follow the trend. There aren’t too many differences from the Sky battle system except for cosmetic menu changes. Personally I felt the Sky menus were better by having all the ‘artes’ under one list instead of categories. Some newer additions to the battle system include Persona style group attack which would occur at random and their frequency can be increased if one equips certain items.

Similarly anyone who has played the first two cold steel games would know how characters gain the ability of a ‘Burst Gauge’ that allows them to remove status effects and perform attacks back to back gaining huge amounts of CP as well as no wait times on ‘artes’ which can be thus performed immediately in that turn. The Burst Gauge appears only in certain story related moments and fills as you attack more and more enemies. 

Noel Seeker

 

The Orbment system, reminiscent of the Tales of Abyss style Capacity Cores system, returns for fine tuning of the character stats and abilities so vital to any Role Playing Game. This time, the ENIGMA II, state of the art orbment unit developed by generous people of Epstein Foundation and funded by IBC leads the role of the centrepiece technology of tech enthusiasts and law regulating forces of Crossbell. :D  These Orbment units serve as the most vital part in the RPG systems of Trails game. Enigma II has this new concept of a ‘Master Quartz’ that will grow constantly with more and more battles and thus bestow beneficial abilities in battle right from the start of it on characters. Rest of it is same old stuff; you place various elemental orbments in different combinations, unlock and update the quart slots to allow access to more features. The quartz placement and the type of quartz you use will determine how much boost to various stats you will get as well as what kind of artes a character will gain. It is a fun system and its greatest strengths are tested in the hard and nightmare mode. 

Ziet

 

Apart from this, the battle system is interplay of strength and strategy. Status effects have always played a huge role in Kiseki games and they do so here as well.

Other parts of RPG systems which further help in battle include the equipment system particularly the accessories one can equip and the weapons that can be customised to gain certain status effect abilities. The accessories equipped provide with various stat boosts and resistances against effects.

On field map, Crossbell have this amazing feature where u can just destroy enemies if they are weaker than u by attacking them on field. Overall I did not have much issue in this game with enemies constantly haunting the progression through the fields; at least not in Azure probably because I was so high levelled by the time of the story. It is still less aggressive then what I had to face in initial two Sky games which could sometimes border on irritating. Apart from that you can adjust the placement of characters in the field just like Sky. 

Sergei Lou

 

 Furthermore  in both, field map and dungeons, you open various treasure chests and find beneficial items which can include consumables, quartz, accessories, powerful monsters and without a doubt witty replies if you try to open them again. Yep, that last item is a charming feature of Kiseki games of which Crossbell has the honour of getting witty contributions globally from its fan base. It is indeed a marvellous job and I had stitches in my stomach with every new reply from the empty chests. Kudos once more to the Geofront team for a fine job with the selections and placements of these witty lines in the Crossbell games.

Again coming to the dungeons, they are your standard JRPG affair of going through the nicely dressed corridors fighting enemy until you reach the big baddie and defeat them.

KeA

 

Oh but my dear readers we are not done with the gameplay section at all because the real meat begins now. See Crossbell’s major part of world building is done through its gameplay features. How?

Well the major part of Kiseki games is moving around each location, talking to NPCs, doing myriad of side quests to update your rank as well as discover important items or story segments that help build background to the larger story as well as help build the bonds with various important characters in the games. Almost every NPC has a small side quest and updates their dialogue with each passing event. This used to be a little limited in sky games since you used to be locked in many locations during various chapters however Crossbell just goes crazy in this aspect. It has a myriad of locations within just the city itself with a hefty population of NPCs and a large amount of them offer their own mini side quests as well as views on the current events of the game. Now while this may be looked at as a positive, it also is one of greatest flaw in the game and I’ll tell you why. The thing is how Crossbell promotes these NPC interactions and wants you to jog down the whole terrain talking to the most minor NPC to get their dialogue.

Arios McLaine

 

 What Crossbell does here is that it places certain collectible materials like certain books or recipes with them which you have to collect for earning items late in the game that would allow u access to strong or ultimate weapons or crafts. The most egregious thing about this whole process are the hidden quests that often divulge vital lore or hide very important NPC interactions that would flesh out the main story. It’s very easy to miss them especially when some of them become accessible cryptically even after certain minor events. It’s a chore to track them all down in a single play-through if you aren’t using a walkthrough and it kills the pacing of the game at times and bores the player as they run through the whole city trying to just trigger these quests. Apart from that the books and recipes I mentioned also often are easy to miss and even if you miss one of them, there is not a single way to rectify that mistake later in the game without just replaying it. This in my opinion is the only major flaw of the game and the greatest irritant because most players would not bother playing a visual novel style story heavy game that runs for a hundred hours or so again just to rectify a small mistake that would make it unable to access a special weapon or armor in the end game. Honestly this is one thing Kiseki games need to find a solution for. Hidden quests are the most terrible way of dismembering a player of vital interaction. Either add a hint where to find that quest or an icon that would indicate that there is one present in the world after every story event if they want to promote this kind of gameplay. This is the one thing that really soured my experience at times when I just wanted to move on with the story and had to be running around in fast mode for more than an hour just to not miss any single item and still I managed to miss one or two and spoil the whole process I had gone through for a hundred or so hours. 

Ries Argent

Anyhow this is still not that big of a deal that it would take away from the game a lot. All it does is test a man’s patience. Otherwise, overall it is a great gameplay experience and as always something immense to laud about; their focus over world building with the hefty amount of NPC dialogue.

7.5/10
 

Kevin Graham

 Re-playability

 Trails games have always offered new game + modes with some additional gimmicks to unlock in the game but the core experience remains the same. Re-playability then depends on what you want from the game. In the two Crossbell games there are certain boss battles, crafts to unlock and all alternate bond scenes with certain characters that can only be won or experienced after a new game + is started. Otherwise, the core story and quests remain same. However there are additional modes that unlock such as Nightmare and Hard and each has a trophy for completion. Re-playability offers a lot for completionists but I personally don’t see myself investing another two hundred hours in these two games just for harder battles and these few unlockables. That said the opportunity is there if anyone wants to do it and that is always a plus.

 

Rixia Mao

 

Conclusion:

In the past few months, my time has been a wonderful journey through Crossbell. Patrolling through each minor street and crevice looking for tiniest bit of new dialogue and items, it truly felt like living the lives of the characters in a world on the brink of turmoil. Crossbell has offered me abundance of smiles, excitement and suspense. It’s jaw dropping moments were often well constructed even if some of them could be inferred at but then the game cleverly does want you to have these suspicions and tests you time from time with them. It is not easy to create a living and breathing world and with multiple interactions from past characters of the series, a deep multi-layered storyline and a tactical system that often tests your abilities. Crossbell is a hearty recommendation to any fan of the JRPGs and easily one of the top titles in the genre. Anyone wanting to get into it would still be advised to play the sky trilogy first because the knowledge of the events there and many characters whose arcs resolve finally in Crossbell play a vital role to the enjoyment of this odyssey. And apart from all this, Crossbell was a tale that will leave you with a burning reminder of fiery passion of youth and pondering at the philosophy of this tale. It is a bittersweet conclusion to a tale long in the telling and hints the dawn of a new legend in another land.

 9.0/10

Ilya Platiere

 Total Overall Score

 9.5+9.5+7.5+7.5+9.0/5

8.6