The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III coming to Switch in spring 2020

[outlawauron]

Hiku said:

outlawauron said:

Well, there are just more games in the series. You have the 3 Trails in the Sky games and then the 2 Crossbell games. The former 3 have been localized, but the latter 2 only have fan translations.

You can start at Cold Steel and you'll be fine, but the other games while not a direct prequel, it's all set in the same continent. Characters re-appear and grow through all of the games. You can read Lord of the Rings without The Hobbit, but there are things you'll miss without it. I don't feel like it's fair to expect everyone to play through all of the previous games, because that's a daunting task, but I think it's a good idea. Maybe if you like the first two games enough, you should go back and play the others.

I used to confuse Trails in the Sky with Trails of Cold Steel due to the similar names. Wasn't sure they were part of the same series.

When you say character re-appear and grow throughout the games, you mean there are characters from Trails in the Sky that are also in Trails of Cold Steel?

Correct. Trails in the Sky is set chronologically before Cold Steel, so you see older version of characters in Cold Steel that were main characters in Trails in the Sky. In the third Cold Steel game, you have the main characters from Trails in the Sky and the two Crossbell games (Ao no Kiseki and Zero no Kiseki) as major and important characters in the overall plot.

It's easier to think of the mini-series as the story of individual nations in the world. Cold Steel is all about Erebonia. Trails in the Sky is about Liberl. Zero/Ao no Kiseki is about Crossbell. They're all neighboring nations.