Take a dash of Suikoden‘s world-building, add some Grandia-style combat, stir it all in with the setting and social links of Persona, and bam, you’ve got Trails of Cold Steel, which comes out for PS3 and Vita in North America today. Australians will have to wait until January 29.
I haven’t played too much of Cold Steel — been trying to finish up Trails in the Sky SC and put the cap on one of the decade’s best JRPGs — but what I’ve seen so far is great, blending an evolved version of SC‘s combat with the charm you might expect from an XSEED-localised game. (The loading times on Vita are a bit too long, especially when entering battles, but it is what it is.)
If you’re confused by all these games with Trails games and want to know exactly which ones lead to which, here’s a quick breakdown via XSEED’s Brittany Avery:
Arc 1: Liberl Kingdom
- Game 1: Sora no Kiseki FC = Trails in the Sky (You can start here if you’re new to the series)
- Game 2: Sora no Kiseki SC = Trails in the Sky Second Chapter
- Game 3: Sora no Kiseki 3rd = Not in English
Arc 2: Crossbell State
- Game 4: Zero no Kiseki = Not in English (You can start here if you’re new to the series)
- Game 5: Ao no Kiseki = Not in English
Arc 3: Erebonian Empire
- Game 6: Sen no Kiseki = Trails of Cold Steel (You can start here if you’re new to the series)
- Game 7: Sen no Kiseki II = Trails of Cold Steel II
- Game 8: Sen no Kiseki III (Just announced earlier this week in Japan)
If you’re new to the series, you can either start with Trails in the Sky First Chapter on PC/PSP or this one, Cold Steel, which is on PS3 and Vita. Both trilogies are set in the same world and feature some crossover characters but tell different stories. Trails in the Sky SC, you might remember, is the game that took four hellish years to make it to North America.
All of the Trails games are slow burns — prepare for a whole lot of reading — and they’re also the closest we’ll get to new Suikoden games in the modern era, so goddamn if I won’t keep preaching about them. Trails is comparable to Suikoden in both charm and scope.
I’ll surely have more to say about Cold Steel as I play more over the next few weeks and months, so stay tuned.
Comments
4 responses to “Trails Of Cold Steel Is Basically Suikoden Meets Persona”
I really need to play my Vita more. Got a bunch of JRPG’s on there (including the first of this series), but don’t play it enough to put a dent in any of them. I’ve been chipping away at P4G for 2 years and haven’t finished it yet.
Why is the second arc not translated? What am I missing by not being able to play game 3 of act 1? Too many questions. Must find answers as I need more suikoden like games in my life
The second and third arcs both happen at relatively the same time but in different locations. So theoretically you don’t miss out on much by jumping to the third arc.
The second arc hasn’t been localised yet because these games are really really really large in terms of text and so XSeed made the decision to skip ahead to the third arc.
In regards to Trails in the Sky the 3rd, it is basically a side story and has a different main character that is introduced in second chapter.
Us trails fans are keeping our fingers crossed that one day we will get an english localisation of these 3 games. All we can do is hope that the cold steel arc sells well.
Its not said often enough these days. I love you.