Zitat
Aren’t there a few games that come before Trails of Cold Steel? What’s up with that?
Let’s get this out of the way: I am absolutely thrilled we’re continuing the Trails series in the West. It quickly became one of my favorite series along with Ys, and I absorb all information relating to it much like how a northern clingfish clings to rocks. Look up northern clingfish videos, by the way; they’re really cool.
When Falcom approached us with interest in seeing the game localized (and yes, they came to us), I naturally was all for it. But like most fans, I worried because of the two games that preceded it—Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki (which I will henceforth be calling Trails to Zero and Trails to Azure, though those should not be considered final or official names)—because they have some events in them that seem to tie in with Cold Steel directly. Is it okay to publish the series out of “order”? If we do take on Cold Steel, will people be missing out on some critical information by not playing Zero and Azure first?
I was fortunate enough to be able to express this worry in person to the president of Falcom, Toshihiro Kondo; I was also just as relieved by his response. Immediately, he responded: “Actually, this is kind of intentional. We wanted Cold Steel and Zero/Azure to be playable in any order because we noticed that, with Cold Steel, the demographic suddenly became younger. Many new fans of the series were going back to the old games.”
Essentially, their goal for Cold Steel was not only to continue developing the incredibly deep lore behind the Zemurian continent, but to do it in such a way that would both please longtime fans and help new fans feel right at home. Rest easy knowing that you can canonically play Cold Steel before Zero/Azure—you’ll simply be getting a different perspective on events, seeing things in an order that differs from what Japanese players experienced, but is still confirmed by one of the Trails creators to be A-OK and even pretty much as intended.
And, hey, while I’m all about encouraging people to play Trails in the Sky first, you could start with Trails of Cold Steel and then go back to the Sky series if you so desired; you’d just be enjoying a whole different set of Easter eggs. I absolutely adore the ridiculous amounts of detail this series manages to put out without completely shutting out a curious new audience at the same time, and apparently Falcom does, too.
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