YMMV / The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure

• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • In Zero, the second fight with Garcia (as opposed to the rather harder first fight where he's a straight Climax Boss) who is alone and vulnerable to both debuffing and AT Delay, at a time when you have multiple spammable attacks that inflict that status. It Makes Sense in Context as Garcia was fighting against the effects of the Gnosis he was given.
  • Joachim's One-Winged Angel phase, at least by comparison to all the other final bosses in the series. The fact that he has a Post-Final Boss segment after you beat him up (similar to Sky FC's final battle) fairly just adds to the humiliation. This is because unlike most final bosses, he can be afflicted with status debuffs. One Calamity Claw^note Speed and Movement -50% art later and the heroes can take around 8 turns or more before he can finally move.
  • With a proper evasion build complete with equipping the Keeper^note Revives the user with a set percentage of HP while having the enemy focus on him. Master Quartz, it's possible to turn every Flunky Boss in Azure into this. Have the boss and his minions waste all of their attacks outside of arts and S-crafts on an opponent who will just dodge all of their attacks while the support at the back can buff and cast arts at leisure.
  • The end boss of Chapter 2 in Azure is a pretty big letdown after the incredibly dramatic story moments leading to it. Rather than a named terrorist leader or another Arc Villain, it's just an armored car (and unmanned to boot). Its attacks aren't very dangerous, it's slow and vulnerable to all stat debuffs, and when damaged enough its armor breaks down and drops its ADF for 9 turns. Even worse, the armor breaking consumes its turn, so with proper speed management (which isn't hard given you have access to Burst in this dungeon) you can wail on it without giving it a chance to retaliate.
  • Campanella is normally a Goddamned Boss, but if you put Arts Reflect on your party and group them together when he casts Flare Butterfly, he'll take out most of his own HP.
  • Depending on how you played earlier, the fight with Arios in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. It's the last fight before the final boss gauntlet, and it's the culmination of many of the SSS' personal plotlines. However, his stats and tactics haven't changed much since his Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight in Chapter 4. If you were able to beat him them, he should be a joke now.
• Anvilicious: As the Gnosis subplot in both games have shown, don't do steroids and rely on personal strengths!! The game isn't exactly subtle about it with the whole demonization thing.
• Base-Breaking Character: See here.
• Best Boss Ever:
  • In Azure, the three "seemingly unbeatable" boss fights (where you aren't required to win, but winning is possible and gives bonus DP) against Sigmund, Arios and Arianrhod get a lot of love from more challenge-minded fans for being tough but fair, and for serving as excellent Climax Bosses.
  • Campanella in Azure is a memorable and cool fight entirely for how weird it is: the Fool fights like no-one else, employing Teleport Spam, reflecting Arts by default (at a point where magic is a Game-Breaker, forcing you to re-evaluate the usual strategies) shuffling your positions, re-directing attacks to your allies (including S-Crafts) and turning your party into peppers. Being the character's first fight after his build-up in the Sky arc, along with the first use of "Unfathomed Force", helps too.
• Broken Base: See here.
• Catharsis Factor: Facing Arios in the final dungeon of Azure, and finally getting to decisively overcome the one who had been a insurmountable barrier to the SSS ever since the start of Zero, all while "Get Over The Barrier - Roaring Version" plays. Especially since it follows finally learning the truth about Guy's death.
• Cargo Ship:
  • Joachim X Red Pills due to him being obsessed about not being willing to acknowledge Aidios as the goddess and wants people to take them.
  • There's also Lloyd X Barriers because of the theme of the Crossbell arc.
• Complete Monster: Dr. Joachim Gunter, appearing as a kind doctor and professor of the Medical College, is actually one of the last survivors and high-priest of the D∴G, whose stated goal is to find a way to strengthen its abilities to become more than human. Joachim experimented upon and killed hundreds of children as a result, surviving the destruction of the cult, later using his Psychic Powers to brainwash all consumers of the Gnosis, controlling the entire army of Crossbell, the Mafia, and many innocent citizens. He then announces his intent to capture KeA, the child adopted by the SSS whom he describes as a divine being with miraculous powers and actual leader of D∴G, to complete the project. Joachim intends on continuing his experiments to become supreme, even praising fellow monster Georg Weissmann as a kindred spirit, being unwilling to stop no matter how many innocent children die in his inhumane experiments.
• Continuity Lockout: While Trails from Zero starts with enough of a clean slate to be an enjoyable standalone experience for newcomers with the exception of the Brights' subplot, the same cannot be said for Trails to Azure. It requires at least basic knowledge of what happened in Zero and Sky SC. Then, some characters' goals, behavior and interactions won't make a lot of sense if one hasn't played the 3rd.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Any enemy that retaliates with Earth-Shaker, such as Abyss Worms or Nepenthes. When playing on Nightmare, this can hit your entire party for high undodgeable damage, which can quickly lead to a party wipe if you take more than one after another. The only way to deal with them is either carefully pick them off one at a time, or do enough damage quickly enough to kill them before they retaliate.
  • Living Axes in Stargazer's Tower have a normal attack that hits in an area around them with a chance of instant death. And instant death protection is scarce to nonexistent on your first visit.
• Fanfic Fuel: The original timeline where the SSS got killed. Given how interlinked the events with Renne are to the plot, there has been speculation as to how the SSS still got custody of KeA. Particularly as to how they were able to enter the Schwarze Auction without Renne providing them the invite needed.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Kouryakuou Lloyd (lit. "Capture King Lloyd") for Lloyd, due to his large number of admirers.
  • Raniki - Randy. This is taken from "aniki," a masculine term used to refer to one's older brother, which fits with Randy's role as a Big Brother Mentor.
  • Tiosuke - Tio. This one is actually Randy's in-universe nickname for her which fans have adopted. English-speaking fans tend to go with either PeTiote (the fan-translation's version of her nickname) or Tio-tot, the official version from Trails of Cold Steel III.
  • Get Over The Barrier Glitch - Named after the theme of the game of "getting over the barrier" by glitching towards areas players aren't supposed to have access to in Zero.
  • Donald Trump - Dieter's look combined with the IBC that he runs before being president immediately gave off this vibe for by the time the duology hit the west despite the overall plot being written before 2010. Having a rich daughter just added more fuel.
  • Bruhfish / Basspog - Gluttonous Bass's nicknames that were created by Falcom's Discord. The nicknames generated a lot of popularity for the fish, causing Falcom to officially license Gluttonous Bass pins to be made by Pin Box.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Fans would prefer pairing Lloyd with either Rixia or Randy (for the Ho Yay side) compared to pairing Lloyd up with Elie. This is because of Elie being too normal and nothing going for her as a Love Interest. It doesn't help that Lloyd and Rixia both debuted in the West earlier than the rest and has a more established fan base in their brief playable segment.
• Franchise Original Sin: In hindsight, many aspects that would go on to be criticized in the Cold Steel arc have their roots in Crossbell.
  • Bonding Points. While many fans disliked seeing potential character interaction locked behind an obtuse game mechanic in Zero, it was mainly tolerated because most of said interaction is minor, and the structure of both games have the SSS constantly supporting one another and don't lack for screentime; the tiny size of the party also helped, because managing this for just three characters wasn't that much of a headache. Come Azure however, and several vitally important parts of your core teammates' backstories were hidden behind Bonding Points that provide additional complexity. In CS, the much, much larger playable cast ensures that most party members will be struggling for screentime in the main plot, only to have several interactions limited in your first playthrough (though that series at least grants the courtesy of letting you know what the relative bonding levels of various characters are). On that note...
  • New Game Plus scenes and content. In Zero, there are exclusive chests and a few scenes that only appear after a first playthrough, but weren't seen as especially important by most players. But in Azure there's an exclusive sidequest that all but spoils a major twist near the game's finale that's considered canon. This would get worse in Cold Steel II, where the Black Records form a key reveal that's carried over in III and is referenced as if a player would immediately understand the context, second playthrough or no.
  • Related to bonding events, Lloyd as a Clueless Chick-Magnet with multiple romance options. Although it's joked about many times in the story, surprisingly few of Lloyd's final bonding events in Azure are explicitly romantic, and those few take the time build up clear attraction from Lloyd's side, making him feel like his own person rather than a self-insert. Romance in the Cold Steel arc became far more divisive, as Rean had far more options and all of their final events were romantic, or even non-final ones in the case of CS4, which led to accusations of harem wish-fulfilment.
  • Unrealistically low body counts for seemingly dire events. Chapter 3 of Azure features a train derailment with no fatalities, something that would be virtually impossible in the real world, and this was likely done so the perpetrator, Wald could be redeemable later on. However, unlike in later games, events like these are the exception and not the rule, as Chapter 2 and 3's conclusions feature the Red Constellation explicitly killing people on-screen, among other events played just as seriously. Meanwhile, the Cold Steel arc featured nationwide war with very few obvious fatalities, which was far more jarring to fans.
• Fridge Brilliance: Mariabell's strong antipathy to Lloyd seems to make little sense. He is by far the most virtuous and innocent of the male members of the SSS and there is no reason to think he would try something with Elie as he is completely oblivious most of the time. This is until we find out Mariabell has been part of a conspiracy for years and tries to keep this hidden. His brother was a thorn in their side, which probably doesn't help, but the biggest reason is probably that Lloyd makes her uneasy. He has demonstrated many times that he is good at deduction and finding out hidden motives and truths. He is in fact the first member of the SSS who puts two and two together regarding their plans, even if he is too late to stop them from putting their main plot into action. So her antipathy might have little to do with Elie, like she pretends, but because she instinctively sees him as a threat.
• Fridge Horror:
  • Sigmund is so terrifyingly powerful that the characters themselves ask if he's really human. He's the second-in-command of Red Constellation, his brother Baldur is even stronger... or was stronger, before he died offscreen as foreshadowed in The 3rd, never appearing in person.
  • In light of who Joachim Gunter is really like, KeA's obsession with the SSS is pretty much the only thing that saved her when deciding that she should be staying at St. Ursula's Medical College.
• Game-Breaker: See the page here for details.
• Goddamned Boss: The final boss of Zero has two major and two minor problems, but is otherwise a standard damage sponge:
  • He spams the Confuse status effect. This is easily blocked by accessories, but you probably won't have the whole party wearing the right accessories before the fight. Hope you have a recent save!
  • After he's taken enough damage, he makes parts of the battlefield sink. If the whole party are standing on the wrong spot, it's game over. Hope you have a recent save!
  • You can skip your attack animations, but not those of enemies. One of the boss's attacks has a very long animation, but at least he doesn't use it very often.
  • There is a long cutscene before the fight. This is unskippable, and you may well see it more than once, but it can be fast-forwarded.
• Good Bad Bugs: In Zero, there's a way to clip through areas players aren't supposed to have access early in the game just by positioning the lead character to the door, saving, going back to the main menu, and loading the game. During those few frames, players can move the lead character to clip through the door a few pixels at a time. Just keep on constantly saving, exiting the game, and reloading, and players are able to pass through the door and get over the barrier blocking the way, allowing players to access areas they're not supposed to go (like the New Game Plus exclusive dungeon or even the final dungeon very early in the game^note Though only do the glitch for the final dungeon when doing Bleublanc's quest and have access to the Crossbell Airport, otherwise the game will glitch out and the game becomes Unwinnable).
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Practically every interaction involving Ian Grimwood and the Croises from Zero until the climax of Azure is this upon the revelations given.
  • Joachim's fishing trips get a lot less funny once you realize most of them were probably excuses to return to the Sun Fort and continue his Gnosis research.
  • In the climax of Zero, when deciding who to go to the Fort of the Sun to confront KeA, the SSS volunteer themselves. KeA asks if they are going to come back. In which they reply that they will. Jump forward to The Reveal in Ao in which that simple question isn't just mere fear...
  • In Azure, during the West Zemurian Trade conference, it turns out that the entire cast in attendance would have been blown up by the railway guns if it wasn't for Class VII. Cold Steel reveals that Towa was in attendance over there as well.
  • According to Word of God, Crossbell is based of Hong Kong, likely during The '50s. Hong Kong would go through a similar political upheaval in mid-2019, about eight to nine years after the release of the games.
• Ho Yay:
  • Lloyd and Randy or Wazy or Dudley, thanks to Relationship Values and Level-Up at Intimacy 5.
  • Wazy and Wald. It's more one-sided from Wald's side, as revealed in Azure.
  • Shirley and Elie. The boob-groping scene comes to mind.
  • Elie and Mariabell. Mariabell will NOT let anyone take Elie from her. After The Reveal where Bell turns out to be the Big Bad, they are still at it come Cold Steel IV where Bell still declares that she still loves Elie and Elie still is happy that she saw Bell again yet tells her that "she's the worst".
  • Ilya and Rixia. Illya is pretty much Rixia's Morality Pet. And Rixia seemingly doesn't mind taking some Skinship Grope from Illya.
• Hype Backlash: Due to being generally billed as the best story arc and game by the community, particularly when compared to the Cold Steel arc among the franchise over the course of the The New '10s due to localisation issues, some people that did finally play the game and experience the story thanks to fan translations are understandably underwhelmed due to the hype generated.
• It Was His Sled: Due to XSeed being forced to skip this duology in favour of Cold Steel due to reasons stated under No Export for You and the fact that the Sen/Cold Steel and Zero arcs take place concurrently narrative-wise to prevent Continuity Lockout for the newer players, many major spoilers from this arc are pretty much common knowledge for the West by the time the third Cold Steel entry debuted in late September 2017. The Zero/Azure saga debuted in 2010-2011, which is around the same time the first game in the series came out in the West.
• Just Here for Godzilla: For many players fresh off the Sky trilogy, the primary reason to play these games is to see more of Estelle and Joshua, and to get closure on Renne's character arc. While many players stayed for the SSS in their own right, the Liberl cast is a strong draw indeed. Similarly, fans of The 3rd love Azure for having Kevin and Ries return in a major role.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Lloyd. There's a reason why he's nicknamed as "Capture King Lloyd".
• Memetic Mutation: See here.
• Moe: If you don't want to give KeA a hug, there's probably something wrong with you. Pick pretty much any list of moe traits and KeA probably hits all of them. The cast agrees.
• Moral Event Horizon: Shirley crossed it when she shoots up a crowded theater and drops the stage's massive chandelier in the middle of the performance which would have got Sully who was directly underneath crushed if it wasn't for Ilya pushing her out of the way and getting her lower half crushed instead, for the sole purpose of removing any 'distractions' (like friends or a life) that would keep Rixia from fighting her.
• Polished Port: Due to the terms they have with Falcom, NISA was not allowed to upgrade the PS4 version, but had free reign to add enhancements to the Switch and PC versions since those were made by NISA in-house. So, not only do the Switch and PC versions look better than the PS4 version, despite the Switch having less powerful hardware, features like the message log, BGM pop up and dynamic shadows, among others, are absent in the PS4 version.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The bonding system for both games, especially in Azure. The reason is because the points are hidden values and the chances to gain them are distributed throughout the game. This means that you can't properly gauge if you have achieved enough points to unlock the final bonding events you want or over-focused on one character before the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
  • These games were the first to introduce individual character proficiencies for every recipe, with some party members being better or worse at certain dishes than others. In both games, you'll need all Supreme and Peculiar dishes for 100% Completion, but this is easier said than done as the system is far more random than Cold Steel. You'll often see skilled cooks producing Peculiar and unskilled ones producing Supreme dishes, and there's always a chance of a "failure" that produces a Joke Item. Save Scumming is almost needed to complete the cookbook.
  • Casting will still result in a character's buff duration ticking down, once for starting the cast and once for ending it, making buffs run out faster on casters. Fortunately, this is no longer the case in the Cold Steel arc.
  • You cannot switch with your support members during combat, making them glorified backpackers. This feature would only be available from Cold Steel onward.
  • In the final chapter, two more party members join, bringing the total up to 8, which exceeds the limit for both active and support members, forcing you to leave two behind. These two can only be swapped in/out by backtracking to a specific location and talking to them, and miss out on Leaked Experience. This is frustrating for a few reasons: firstly, the final chapter has many optional story events that require specific characters, necessitating a lot of back-and-forth to see them all—which is especially frustrating during the liberation, since the city is swarming with Frag Troopers and fast travel is disabled. Second, the "core four" SSS cannot be removed, leaving you only two free slots. Third, reserve members will fall behind quickly, especially if you manage to beat Arianrhod. This all stacks up against Noel, who's much weaker by this point and now has to compete with Wazy and Rixia for a spot, and Dudley, who joins so late there's not much incentive to give him a chance—especially since neither of these characters are a Required Party Member for a Domain.
  • In areas with the Higher Elements active, more extreme turn bonuses appear. Most of these return from Sky the 3rd, including the Guard Turn, which negates all damage from whoever acts that turn. This often results in wasted turns or Arts through no fault of your own, and it's very difficult to exploit in your favor. Tellingly, this turn bonus did not return in Cold Steel.
  • Some enemies don't appear on the field, only showing up rarely alongside other enemy encounters. For those aiming to complete the monster notebook, this is extremely frustrating, and a huge Guide Dang It! as nothing in the game indicates these enemies exist unless you happen to run into them. Shining Poms can be more annoying, as while they appear on the map, if they don't show up at their spawn point, you have to go back to the nearest town and then return to respawn all enemies.
• Shocking Moments: The fandom freaked when a leak revealed an official localization. But said localization being Geofront's Fan Translation made official via a partnership with NIS America? NO-ONE saw that coming.
• That One Achievement:
  • Tacti-Cool Advantage. A 3.x combat multiplier is hard enough to get in the Cold Steel games, but in the Crossbell games, the double/triple kill and link bonuses don't exist, and many of other bonuses are much less impressive (some of them only giving a .05 bonus instead of a .1), making it a LOT harder to achieve. The Azure equivalent is actually easier despite requiring a 4.x multiplier because it adds more bonuses, and several of the late boss fights spam group mook summonings, allowing for grinding of multi-kill bonuses.
  • Neverending Stakeout in Zero and Search and Leisure in Azure. While not difficult in and of itself (you simply need to play on the same file for 100 hours), the official English releases feature a turbo mode which speeds up everything... except for the in-game timer. With heavy use of turbo you could realistically unlock every single other achievement and do everything either game has to offer (including in New Game+) while still having under 50 hours on your timer, meaning you'll have to leave the game running for another 50 (or more) just to unlock the last achievement. And if you're playing on PC, you can't just start the game and minimize it - it needs to be the active window, meaning you can't do anything else at the same time.
  • Rise and Don't Grind in Zero requires you to beat the game on at least Normal with all party members at Level 40 or below. Not only does this make the Final Boss more difficult, it also requires very careful planning to keep your level low, as low-level characters in Trails games gain massive exp from even standard enemies. Most guides recommend skipping all non-required fights in the final three dungeons, which can become tedious and precludes getting other achievements.
  • Horror Buster. To obtain it, you need to score over 4000 on the Horror Coaster minigame in Michelam Wonderland. However, the opening between the point thresholds is very small. As in one or two seconds small. There are only 76 targets, a chain multiplier and a bonus of 1000 for nailing every single target. Highest possible score is 6320 (76x50 + 1520 + 1000). Go on Easy mode which reduces the number of buttons by half? The points earned is halved as well, making even the highest number of possible points lower than what is needed to obtain the trophy. Miss one and break your chain? Start getting used to the background music, because you are going to be listening this for a very long time...
• That One Attack:
  • The Armored Hydra's (optional Lv 35 monster chest on Mainz Mountain Path) Grand Flash is a Delay attack that hits the entire field, which can spell a Total Party Kill if both of them use it at once and nobody avoids it.
  • One of the Chapter 4 optional bosses, Org Virage, has Gale of Evil, a full field area attack that inflicts decent damage and cancels Arts. They'll always use it in response to casting, so if you want to use Arts in this fight, you'll need to ensure your cast goes off before their turn.
  • Arcane Gale, Arios' attack which not only has a huge area of effect and does nasty damage but also cancel any buffs you happened to have up at the time and it hits twice so it can take down a 200 CP Zero Field on its own. It's not even an S-Craft.
  • Arianrhod's entire arsenal can qualify but her S-Craft, Grand Cross takes the cake by being a definitive Total Party Kill if it lands.
• That One Boss: See here.
• That One Level: The Moon Temple in Zero has a confusing layout and tons of enemies that can inflict instant death on you, including one enemy in particular that does this as a Taking You with Me attempt when you brings its HP down to zero - so naturally, this enemy is the most common in the entire dungeon.
• That One Sidequest: Much like in previous games, the fishing minigame's sidequest in Azure can be a real pain to complete, mostly due to the final challenge against Lord Lakelord. The condition to win the duel against him is to fish up the exact same fish that he does, in the same order. The catch (no pun intended) is that one of the fish in the lineup (the infamous Gluttonous Bass) has no bait that allows you to catch ONLY that fish, meaning you're entirely at the mercy of the RNG as to whether you catch the Bass or some other fish. What's worse, the Bass is the 3rd fish you need catch (out of five), meaning whenever you fail, you have to catch the first two fish before you're able to try for the Bass again. And failing also means listening to Lakelord mock your lack of "skill".
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Ilya Platière is generally supposed to be a character that the player is meant to care about, being Crossbell's most famous dancer and actress, Cecile's best friend, and somebody the SSS frequently helps over the course of the story. Unfortunately, the way she gropes an unconsenting Rixia during her introduction has uncomfortable undertones that can make her look like a sexual predator, which can put a damper on her likeability. It doesn't help that she's the only character who acts like this who doesn't turn out to be a villain.
• Values Dissonance: Several of the bi or lesbian female characters (Ilya, Shirley, and Mariabell) grope other female characters (Rixia and Elie) without their explicit consent and clear discomfort. In Japan, while frowned on by the LGBT, such portrayals of Skinship Grope are still widely used in media as comedy, and even to humanize otherwise villainous characters with affection.