Game Review: Eiyuu densetsu: sen no kiseki (PS Vita)

Eiyuu densetsu: sen no kiseki (Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel) is another excellent installment in the Trails series by developer Nihon Falcom. This time, the action takes place in the Erebonian empire and focuses on a group of students attending Thors Academy, an elite military school.  The group, called Class VII, is a mix of commoners and nobles -- highly unusual in a country with a rigid social system. Players take Class VII members through their first year of military training, and, naturally, tropes, teen drama, and absurdities abound. The game was released in 2013.

Sen no kiseki does nearly everything right. The music is top-notch, with absolutely perfect tracks for all situations: battles, towns, character tensions, quiet evenings, mysterious happenings, even homeroom! I mean, a short speech during an academy board meeting gets an epic swelling score, which was both ridiculous and yet appropriate. The opening theme is fun, and so is the ending. At one point, Class VII even has a concert! Kudos to Falcom Sound Team jdk for their continuing magnificent work on the series soundtracks.

The visuals are similarly impressive. The biggest change from the game's most recent predecessor, Ao no kiseki (Trails of Azure), is that the characters are fully formed 3D models, rather than adorable little sprites:

Sprites vs 3D models

A drawback of these snazzy graphics is that it's easy to see that a lot of the NPCs are identical, which is much easier to get away with when they're li'l baby sprites.

The physical environments share the same look from all Trails games: vaguely European and nineteen thirties (trains! retro airships!), but with magic! Class VII spends a lot of time on campus, and visit various cities within the empire as part of their studies. In all these places, the indoor locations are oddly enormous. Meanwhile, the monsters' designs range from formidable to forgettable, and the dungeons are dank and thankfully brief (except the last one).

The gameplay is where Sen no kiseki really shines. In particular, it's helpful that equipping quartz and thereby gaining Arts (magic spells) is no longer a guessing game. In previous Trails games, specific Arts are only available when you line up certain values of elements (e.g. 2 Fire, 1 Time, etc.), but this time around, a single quartz can provide one or more Arts. Master Quartz, which were introduced back in Ao no kiseki, continue to be helpful with their status boosts. The turn-based battles are a breeze, so grinding is not too much of a chore. The boss fights aren't hard, either.

As with any Trails game, Sen no kiseki is a completionist's dream...or nightmare. There is an insane number of collectibles, many of which serve some obscure yet awesome purpose, like granting fragments required to forge a character's strongest weapon. Talking to particular NPCs reveals recipes, which yield multiple dishes, depending on who's doing the cooking. (I cooked so much that I barely used actual items.) And there's fishing! It's literally just button-mashing so it doesn't hold a candle to the glorious experience offered by Final Fantasy XV, but fishing has been a mainstay of the Trails series since 2004's Sora no kiseki.

AND YOU CAN RIDE HORSIES IN CHAPTER THREE! HORSIES MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER.

(to the tune of "I'm on a Boat") "I'm on a horse!"

Finally, little improvements make a big difference for gamers. For instance, the mini-map has dots representing persons in towns, and red arrows are enemies on roads or dungeons. Your next destinations are marked with symbols, with colors indicating whether they're optional or required. The characters can run at top speed, and you can just teleport to key locations to save time. Bonding with your classmates only requires a card game or a conversation. So easy!

But the real meat of any JRPG, indeed any video game, are the story and characters. The Trails series has set high standards that Sen no kiseki meets. The main character, Rean, starts out as a typical protagonist: earnest and skilled with a sword. But it's shown early on that he's hiding something, and so is pretty much everyone in Class VII. Even their instructor, Sara, is playing her cards close to her chest. All the kids in Class VII are interesting and well developed, and they grow together over the course of the year. I point to the drama in the diagram below:

Adversarial relationships to overcome: Machias (glasses, gun) and Jusis (blond, sword) + Alisa (blonde) and Rean (boy band hair) + Laura (greatsword) and Fie (the little kid). Plus Emma (glasses) has a different agenda

The supporting characters are a great bunch, too. My favorite is Angelica, who's constantly hitting on any woman in sight. Celine is also terrific, because she is a cat. A magic cat.

"Meow. Also, let me guide you to your destiny~"

Ostensibly, the students at Thors are pursuing their studies against the backdrop of increasing hostilities between two factions of the empire: the Nobles and the Reformists, very Meiji Japan. The Nobles want the class system in place; the Reformists want merit, not birth, to determine rank. Class VII is a microcosm of that larger conflict, with Machias, a hotheaded commoner, immediately butting heads with the aloof Jusis, scion of one of the Four Great Houses. Other classmates have issues with each other, too; see above. Rean is constantly called upon to keep the peace, and he actually does a decent job, if only because everyone feels super awkward after one of his "inspirational" speeches.

As everyone learns to get along, a new threat emerges: the Imperial Liberation Front, whose immediate goal is to remove the leader of the Reformist faction. The antagonists aren't cartoonishly evil: they each have their own backstories and motivations, and they try to minimize civilian casualties during their operations. However, members of the military are fair game, including students...

This is where players really have to suspend their disbelief: that a group of first-year military academy students consistently foil nationally-destabilizing plots by a well-organized and well-funded group, and the only consequence is one stern lecture from an instructor about how they might not be lucky next time. Also, why are we fighting robots with swords??? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Through it all, the game deals with a number of important themes: friendship and unity, knowledge and trust, power and responsibility, family and duty, and more. The writing is exceptional, if voluminous; Trails games are known for having LOTS. OF. TEXT. All the text. I played this in Japanese and watched runthroughs in English, and noticed that the XSeed localization can be...sassier. But certainly the translations capture the content and intent, as opposed to Tales games translations, which are atrocious, but somehow in a good way.

Anyway, on a final note, Sen no kiseki took me ~70 hours to complete, and about 30 hours were cut scenes. I'm not exaggerating--I calculated this based on EmiruTheKnight's YouTube videos of all cut scenes and boss battles. I had some doubts about picking up the sequel, but this game ended in a cliffhanger so Sen no kiseki II is on its way to me right now. I shall regain my honor and defeat my foes!!!

Random items of note:

• PSA: There's an update that fixes the slow loading times for the hard copy Vita version! Download immediately!
• PSA 2: Press the cancel button during cut scenes to fast forward.
• The timeline in Sen no kiseki overlaps with the Crossbell arc (Zero no kiseki and Ao no kiseki), and the scrappy little city-state gets a lot of mentions within the game. Still, Zero and Ao aren't required to enjoy Sen.
• Having said that, Rean is a lot like the Crossbell protagonist, Lloyd. They're both earnest, competent, have troubled pasts...
• This is mean, but I disliked Alisa's English voice so much that I'm getting Sen no kiseki II in Japanese. I'd rather struggle with kanji (and boy, do I struggle) than listen to her. 
• I'm shipping Rean and Laura:

Laura's dad already approves of Rean! Get to it!

TL;DR: A strong start to a spectacular trilogy! I'm into it!

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This post brought to you by a mini avocado!