JRPG The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel out now
It's our turn
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel [official site] has arrived on PC. It's an updated version of the PS3/PS Vita JRPG from 2013, improving the visuals and adding 5,000 new lines of voiced dialogue.
A trio of Nihon Falcom's Legend of Heroes games are already out on PC (the Trails in the Sky trilogy), and this one takes place in the same universe. But if you haven't heard of the Erebonian Empire, don't worry, because it's the start of a new story.
There's lots of flashy turn-based combat, as you can see from the trailer below.
You play 17-year-old Rean Schwarzer, fresh recruit to a military academy. It's your job to get through your lessons and help stabilise the Erebonian Empire, where tensions between the upper classes and the commoners are threatening to spill over.
"With nine hand-picked students of various backgrounds and abilities, Rean included, Class VII readies itself to dive deep into the political quagmire that threatens not only them, but the Empire as a whole."
As to whether it's any good or not, I couldn't really say because I didn't play the original. However, the Trails in the Sky trilogy has got very good user reviews on Steam, and people have recommended it to me in the past, for what it's worth.
Oh, and Peter "Durante" Thoman (the man who fixed the PC version of Dark Souls, among other games) has been working with Nihon Falcom on it, so it should be a stellar port. He's written a series of blog posts about working on the game that are worth a read. It sounds like he intended to work on the project one or two days a week but has been at it full-time, and now he reckons it's "in a much better state than many of the releases I had a look at over the past few years". He'll be working to resolve any issues that do arise, too.
It's out on Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store for £26.99/35,99€/$35.99, which includes a 10% launch discount until Wednesday.