A number of story, gameplay, and development details for The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV have been revealed in a Famicom interview with Nihon Falcom President and CEO Toshihiro Kondo as reported by SiliconEra.
Trails of Cold Steel IV is set to be the stopping point of the Cold Steel subseries of the Trails games, a spin-off of The Legend of Heroes games (which themselves are a spin-off of the Dragon Slayer games). The list of titles is positively massive, with Trails of Cold Steel IV making for the fourteenth overall game in the massive meta-narrative of the games. This is the first time that Nihon Falcom has definitively announced a title as being the "last" of a narrative saga and the company feels the pressure of undertaking such an endeavor. It is, however, not the end of the Trails series as Kondo has previously announced that there will be at least one more arc, focusing on the Culvert Republic
Falcom wants to meet the expectations of fans of the series and they're working very hard on every element of the game to meet those expectations. The care they're putting into their craft goes as far as ensuring the logo design incorporates callbacks to past games; for example, the sphere behind the number IV represents The Great One and the two treasures from the previous title. Elements from other games in the series are mixed into the logo as well.
There will be more playable characters in The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV than in any previous title in the series. The subtitle The End of Saga reflects the finality of this entry for the Cold Steel saga, meaning that Falcom is working to get the various plots and subplots of the game to their conclusion. Speaking of story, the following paragraph will contain a number of spoilers about the upcoming game.
The overall state of the Empire has changed thanks to the curse and the nation getting mobilized. Relationships between opposing sides will change, with even the enemy side seeing change-ups. Crossbell Police Department Special Support Section members Lloyd Bannings and Elie MacDowell will be moving towards the conclusion of their story arc discussed in The Legend of Heroes: Ao no Kiseki. We'll get to see the "hopeless conclusion" to Rean's story, as well as the question of whether or not Rean is even the protagonist in the first place. Many characters from past titles will be featuring, and enough focus will be given to each of the individual characters that this title can stand on its own as a hearty RPG.
The game was first announced in early November and a teaser site was opened just a few days ago. Development of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV is approximately 45% complete as of the time of the interview. There's a lot more (spoiler-laden) details packed into the article, so do be sure to read the lot of them if you're interested in seeing where the conclusion of the epic Tails saga is headed.
What do you think of the details revealed about The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV in the Famicom interview? Do you like the direction the game is headed? Let us know in the comments below!
