Nihon Falcom announced The Legend of Heroes: Hajimari no Kiseki will launch in Japan on August 27 on PlayStation 4. This is quite surprising. Indeed, for years now, Falcom has usually been releasing their games in Japan on the last week of September.
We learned the release date of The Legend of Heroes: Hajimari no Kiseki via this week's Famitsu magazine. Many more pieces of information on the characters and the battle system were included. All the details are below.
Note that this article contains potential spoilers seeing Hajimari no Kiseki takes place after Trails of Cold Steel IV.
Famitsu magazine included new info on Hajimari no Kiseki's battle system. It works similarly to Trails of Cold Steel IV, but with new features, one of them is called Valiant Rage. You need at least five characters in your party to be able to use Valiant Rage, and up to ten characters can use it simultaneously.
In order to use Valiant Rage, players need to fill the Assault Gauge, AG, by enacting certain actions like destroying objects on the battlefield. The gauge is at 1 on the UI. You can then spend AG to activate Valiant Rage commands with R2.
There are three types of Valiant Rage commands: Valiant Attack, Valiant Heal, and Valiant Arts. Using Valiant Rage efficiently allows to deal huge damage while healing yourself. You can also use any Valiant Rage command multiple times per battle as long as you refill AG. Valiant Rage also allows you to restore BP, meaning you can use Brave Orders more frequently.
More returning characters were also "confirmed" in the magazine. "Confirmed" because for most of these, either Toshihiro Kondo already said they're coming back, either we've already seen them in the 1st Web CM:
Arios MacLaine (voiced by Toshiyuki Morikawa). Lynn, Scott, and Aeolia appear as well.
Rixia Mao (Rina Sato)
Zeit (Osamu Ryutani)
Ilya Platiere (Yū Asakawa)
Matteus Vander (Rikiya Koyama)
Orie Vander (Yukana)
F. Novartis (Mitsuaki Madono). Vita Clotilde (Yukari Tamura)
Famitsu magazine included comments from Toshihiro Kondo, revealing more on the characters: Arios, Lynn, Scott, and Aeolia mainly appear in the Lloyd/Crossbell route. Rixia both fights with Lloyd as a main party member in his route, and performs with the Arc-en-Ciel troupe. Rixia is also rehearsing for a big performance commemorating Crossbell's re-independence. Ilya will have more screentime than in Zero and Ao. Zeit stays in dog form. Matteus and Aurier will each get involved with Rean in his route in different ways. We'll get to see them fighting too. While Aurier first appeared in Trails of Cold Steel IV, this is the first time we'll see Matteus in action. They're both really strong. Besides Novartis and Vita Clotilde, other unspecified members of Ouroboros will appear and we'll see a new side of their personalities, unseen in past games.
Lastly, Falcom revealed save link bonuses in Hajimari no Kiseki:
- Zero no Kiseki Kai system save: 200 Sepith of each attribute
- Ao no Kiseki Kai system save: 600 Sepith Mass
- System save of both Zero Kai and Ao Kai: Unique accessory Proof of the Liberator (highly increases all stats and CP gain rate)*, Zelam Capsule
- Trails of Cold Steel III system save: 50 U Material
- Trails of Cold Steel IV system save: S-Bom Spirit Fragrance
- System save of both Cold Steel III and IV: Unique accessory Proof of the Hero (highly increases all stats and CP auto recovery rate)*, Zelam Capsule
- Trails of Cold Steel IV clear data save at Rank S: Unique accessory Emblem of the Lion (highly increases all stats, immunity against stat debuff) *
- Trails of Cold Steel IV clear data save at Rank A+: Accessory Crimson Emblem (Increases all stats, immunity against stat debuff) also findable ingame.
- Other ranks gives you less important stuff
You'll get Proof of the Liberator when starting the Lloyd route, and Proof of the Hero when starting the Rean route.
Items marked with an * means the save data link is the only way to obtain them.
The Legend of Heroes: Hajimari no Kiseki is a full-fledged game making the bridge between the Erebonia arc / Trails of Cold Steel and an upcoming new "Calvard" arc. Players can freely switch between three different story routes:
Lost Symbol route following Rean.
The Day of Reindependence route following Lloyd.
The Miserable Sinners route following a masked character named <<C>>.
Profiles for some of the characters revealed so far can be found on Hajimari no Kiseki's official site. Sadly, I don't have the time to translate them all.
As a reminder, the Trails series, known as the Kiseki series in Japan, is a long running RPG franchise by Falcom. It's officially described as a Story RPG to reflect the fact it has a huge amount of characters, dialogue and lore. You'll love it if you love reading. The series is made of multiple games:
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky The 3rd
This is the first arc of the series, called the Liberl arc.
- The Legend of Heroes: Zero no Kiseki
- The Legend of Heroes: Ao no Kiseki
This is the second arc, called the Crossbell arc.
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel I
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV
This is the third arc; called the Erebonia arc. Hajimari no Kiseki takes place after this arc.
Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki are currently Japan exclusive. However, PS4 "Kai" versions of the games are launching in Japan on April 23 2020 and May 28 2020, respectively, and Falcom teased on multiple occasions these will be released in English at some point. Meanwhile, a fan translation of Zero no Kiseki was recently released.
Trails of Cold Steel IV was recently announced in English by NIS America with a Fall 2020 release on PS4, and a 2021 release on Switch and PC.
In my opinion, if you started the series with Trails of Cold Steel I or III and haven't played any of the past games yet, I'd highly recommend doing so before playing playing Cold Steel IV. As for Ao no Kiseki, since it doesn't have a translation patch, you could read a story summary. You could do that for all past games at worst. Or else you won't enjoy Trails of Cold Steel IV as much and won't understand its stakes. The Japanese subtitle of the game, "The End of Saga", isn't there for show. Playing Cold Steel IV without knowledge of the previous games would be like watching Char's Counterattack without having seen anything else Gundam related. Or, to take a post 2019 mainstream example any american would get, it'd be like watching Avengers Endgame without having seen any other movie before it. Then again, you're free to do as you wish, I'm just an underpaid game journalist, not your parents. Plus, some people do prefer starting with a climax, and experiencing later what lead to there. But I personally wouldn't recommend it.
In the past, we covered the first details on Hajimari no Kiseki. We also translated Toshihiro Kondo's first video interview on the game.
The Legend of Heroes: Hajimari no Kiseki was first teased by Falcom in March 2019. It was furthermore teased with screenshots and story hints in June 2019, at the Kiseki Series 15th Anniversary Event. Lastly, Falcom mentioned in November 2019 that a new Kiseki game would launch by September 2020.
Update: Added and corrected certain details now that Famitsu magazine is officially available.
Update 2: Also added direct-feed screenshots.