Zero no Kiseki

The long-awaited sequel to Legend of Heroes VI, 'Zero no Kiseki'' moves the setting to the bright lights of the wealthy but corrupt city of Crossbell. Four rookie cops are enlisted to improve the reputation of the police. Of course, it doesn't stop there...

One of the game's unique points is its intense focus on the city of Crossbell as a setting. Unlike Trails in The Sky, which has you bouncing around a number of roughly-equal-sized locations and learning some stuff about each to make up a country as a whole, Crossbell is gigantic and makes up a substantial portion of the entire game. While you will eventually leave the city limits to travel to other parts of the wider Crossbell State, these all really serve as "suburbs" of the city itself and the focus is on Crossbell City itself, in all its grand, towering, corrupt, decadent glory. When combined with series staples like orbments, it creates a fairly unique "Urban Fantasy in The Fifties" atmosphere. The only really comparable games would be the Shin Megami Tensei games, and even then there's a lot of differences in tone and content.

This game is getting a sequel called Ao no Kiseki featuring the same characters and continuing the plot (in the same manner that Trails in the Sky SC continued Trails FC). Feel free to add related tropes.

This game contains examples of:
"Lloyd: Aniki, huh...now that you mention it he is either dull minded or just unsociable. He didn't even realize Cecille-nee's feeling for such a long time too...There are many times I think of kicking him to makes him realize it. Tio: ...*kicks Lloyd*"
 * Anachronism Stew: Applies a fair bit once again. While most of Crossbell is styled heavily on the 1930s-to-50s, there are still things like Lloyd's very modern-looking jacket, most of the Bracers insist on using melee weapons (so do Lloyd and Randy, for that matter, despite being police officers with access to government-issue firearms), and the beginnings of an internet being worked on in Crossbell (a technology that wouldn't really get serious use until the latter parts of The Sixties in reality). Crossbell itself is also a bit of an anachronism in the wider setting, given how much higher the technology base is comparatively (but then, non-Crossbellans point out in-universe how disorienting they find modern Crossbell at times, so this is likely intentional on Falcom's part).
 * Art Shift: Although the sprites and world design remain the same, the characters got a very different art style this time. Just compare Joshua in this game with Trails in The Sky Joshua, or Estelle. A little justifiable in that they're older now, but still.
 * Also, (late-game spoiler)
 * Ascended Extra: Anton and Ricks, two popular NPCs from Trails in The Sky, have a fun cameo in Zero.
 * Abbas, Mireille, Sully and Michael are upgraded with portraits in Ao no Kiseki. The latter three are also integrated into main plot (in Zero, they're just parts of sidequests).
 * Awesome By Analysis: Tio.
 * Beware the Nice Ones: This game and its prequel series will have you second-guessing everybody's motives.
 * Bifauxnen: Sully.
 * Big Applesauce: While clearly not actually New York, Crossbell City as a setting takes a lot of obvious cues from the New York of the 1930s-to-50s in terms of fashion, design sense and culture.
 * Big Badass Wolf: Zeit
 * Big Damn Heroes: Arios seems to have this as a hobby. Lampshaded by Randy, who suspects he does it on purpose.
 * Arios actually does it on purpose in some cases; he usually waits and sees if Lloyd and co. can solve the problem at hand by themselves. He only steps in if they bite off more than they can chew. This is likely due to the fact that.
 * Ao no Kiseki is full of these. Everyone did it to some extent.
 * Brainwashed and Crazy:
 * Catgirl: The sensors on Tio's headband look remarkably like cat ears.
 * The Cavalry: This happens at least once every chapter.
 * Chaste Hero: Lloyd, although apparently it's in the blood.
 * Chaste Hero: Lloyd, although apparently it's in the blood.


 * Cop Show: The heroes issue parking tickets as well as fight monsters.
 * Cool Mask: Arianrhod. combines this with Badass Longcoat.
 * Continuity Lock Out: Ao no Kiseki. Sweet Aidios. It requires basic knowledge of what happened in Zero and SC. Then, some characters' goals, behavior and interactions wouldn't make sense if one didn't play The 3rd.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Arianrhod vs everyone in her first appearance.
 * Before that, we have Tio defeated.
 * Disability Superpower: Since she is blind, Shizuku has developed her hearing to the point where she can identify both the identity and the number of people in her vicinity just by their footsteps.
 * Expy: by appearances alone: Lloyd and Randy, meet Shing and Creed.
 * Even the Guys Want Him: Lloyd's innocent charm makes him popular with all the ladies - and some guys. It earned him the Fan Nickname of "Capturing King Lloyd" in Japanese fandom.
 * Evil All Along:
 * Evil Costume Switch: Also overlaps a bit with Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains on the same character, since  is quite sensibly-dressed when seemingly allied with the heroes, and then the new outfit is... yikes.
 * Evil Versus Evil:
 * Bigger spoiler:
 * Eyes of Gold: Tio has 'em, as does KeA. For anyone who has played Trails in The Sky, yeah, that's a hint.
 * Girl in a Box: Lloyd's first encounter with is this.
 * Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Tio loves Missy, the cat mascot of the local theme park, and keeps several dolls in her room.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: Both and  try to pull this, but get interrupted.
 * Hero of Another Story: Even moreso than in Trails in The Sky; Investigator Dudley, Arios MacLaine, Wazy Hemisphere and the Seeker sisters all definitely feel like this, even if Noel Seeker joins the party for a bit. Natch for Estelle & Joshua, too.
 * Interestingly, most of these characters will be joining the party, at least for a while, in Ao no Kiseki, with Noel and Wazy confirmed as permanent party members. The only ones seemingly not returning in any form are the Brights.
 * Surprise,
 * Hey, It's That Voice!
 * Lloyd is Simon.
 * KeA is Louise, Shana, Taiga,...
 * Elie is Aya Endo.
 * Randy is Roy Mustang.
 * Tio is Miyako.
 * Arianrhod is Judith.
 * Drama CD-only: Cecille is Selvaria
 * Is That Cute Kid Yours: At first, Cecille thinks KeA is actually Lloyd's daughter!
 * Jurisdiction Friction: The 1st Department of the Crossbell Police like to step in on all the interesting cases, to the annoyance of both the 2nd Department and the Special Support Section.
 * Late Arrival Spoiler: Ao no Kiseki's promotional materials have oodles of these for Zero, especially concerning . Magazine promotional articles have also openly spoil many plot elements from Trails in The Sky SC.
 * Double Subverted by Lechter. The promotional materials for Zero and Ao didn't shy about revealing ; yet they keep their mouth shut when it comes to.
 * The Man Behind the Man:
 * Master Swordsman: Arios.
 * Mysterious Past: Randy.
 * Mysterious Waif: KeA.
 * Mythology Gag: Halfway in the game Lloyd and a character he choose disguises themselves and Lloyd uses his dead family member (in his case brother) Guy's name just like what Estelle and Joshua did in Trails in The Sky.
 * The way appears in front of the party in Ao is basically this. To elaborate:
 * Name's the Same:
 * The fact that Lloyd is a Chaste Hero whose romantic life can be affected by Relationship Values reminds us of an another Lloyd who has gone through the same thing.
 * Noel is a squire with short hair, a beret and uses dual guns.
 * The Nicknamer: Randy likes coming up with nicknames: Tiosuke, Ke-bou, Jona-kou...
 * Non-Human Sidekick: Zeit, to Tio
 * One-Winged Angel: The final boss has several forms, each more over-the-top than the last.
 * does so as well.
 * And
 * Real Men Wear Pink: and so does Michael and Lechter
 * Red Baron: These come up again, naturally.
 * Arianrhod: The Steel Saintess.
 * Arios MacLaine: The Wind Sword Saint
 * Garcia Rossi: The Killing Bear
 * Kevin Graham: The Thousand Protecting Hands
 * : The Son of The War God, The Red Reaper
 * Sigmund Orlando: The Ogre Rosso
 * Shirley Orlando: The Bloody Shirley
 * : The Blue Testament
 * The Remnant: is a surviving member of the D∴G cult, which got wiped out by the Bracers, the Crossbell police, and Ouroboros few years prior to the start of the game.
 * The Reveal
 * The one that killed Guy is
 * Samus Is a Girl: is a girl.
 * Shout-Out: Plenty to events and regions in Trails in The Sky. Characters even talk about a book from FC!
 * A state surrounded by an empire and a republic? The Hero comes from outside of the capital? Hello Valkyria Chronicles!
 * Sibling Yin-Yang:
 * Spell My Name with an "S": Yep, this comes up again.
 * The Mysterious Waif of the game is consistently spelled "KeA" by Falcom. Yeah... with a second, random capital letter. Her name is pronounced with an elongated "e", for the record; the closest "proper" spelling might be "Keah". Many fans just go with "Kea" for simplicity's sake.
 * Then there's "Cecil Neues", the female nurse. Most fans spell it "Cecille".
 * Our female lead here is usually spelled "Elie" by Falcom sources. Problem is, that's the male version of that name; many Western sources correct it to "Ellie", the female version. (It's worth noting that a certain famous-in-Japan alchemist heroine, who may have inspired the name, runs into the exact same problem.)
 * The single absolute worst of the lot, however, is "Wazy" Hemisphere. That's based mostly on a the katakana given for his name. The way Falcom prints his name? Łazy. That is, the Polish/Slavic "dark L". Yeah.
 * And, of course, exactly how to render the title in English is a point of contention as well. "Trail of the Zero" would be the obvious choice (especially with SnK having an established title now) but there's a couple of options, given what the "zero" in the title refers to. "Trails in the Void" has been suggested as a possible title once or twice by XSEED staff; "The Zero Trajectory" is also favored by some fans (although it kind of messes up the "franchise" naming).
 * Don't forget that Lechter receives ANOTHER spelling change in Ao. FALCOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!
 * Spoiled Brat: Jona.
 * Squishy Wizard: Tio's arts attacks are really powerful but her defense is abysmal.
 * Story-Breaker Power: Arianrhod who is by far the strongest character in Kiseki series.
 * Stripperiffic: Illya and Rixia, though it's given due to their job.
 * And then there's
 * Shirley. Just Shirley.
 * Suddenly Voiced:  in Ao.
 * Survivor Guilt:
 * Teen Genius: Jona, Tio . There is dark side to the latter two as.
 * There Are No Therapists: So many characters.
 * Took a Level In Badass: And how. The Special Support Section start out as nobodies with no respect from anybody. By the end of Zero no Kiseki they've outsmarted a threat that no one else could stop.
 * Estelle and Joshua most certainly count too. They are now famous, highly-regarded Bracers, and Estelle is nearly at Cassius' skill level now, given that she can use his S-Craft Houou Reppa. As for Joshua, he's at last made peace with the idea that his ferocious potential doesn't have to be used for murder and terror and can be used for good - meaning he's one of the most skilled Bracers living. He won't kill you, but that's the only break you'll get.
 * The Un-Reveal: Too may to count, justified in that they're planning to make a sequel.
 * Urban Fantasy: Very much so; Crossbell is a big city, and much of it and its residents are styled on 1950s, especially the suits (sweet Aidios, the suits) and the cars (SWEET AIDIOS, THE CARS). This is a bit of a departure from the previous games, which were rather more Steampunk-19th-century-ish than this. (Estelle and Joshua do express some surprise at the technology they find on display in Crossbell, though.) This also gives the game quite a different feel from the previous Trails games, since so much of it is focused on one city; while you do visit some of what basically make up the "suburbs" of Crossbell, the focus is on events in the city limits.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist:
 * Would Hurt a Child: The D∴G cult.
 * You Shall Not Pass:
 * Took a Level In Badass: And how. The Special Support Section start out as nobodies with no respect from anybody. By the end of Zero no Kiseki they've outsmarted a threat that no one else could stop.
 * Estelle and Joshua most certainly count too. They are now famous, highly-regarded Bracers, and Estelle is nearly at Cassius' skill level now, given that she can use his S-Craft Houou Reppa. As for Joshua, he's at last made peace with the idea that his ferocious potential doesn't have to be used for murder and terror and can be used for good - meaning he's one of the most skilled Bracers living. He won't kill you, but that's the only break you'll get.
 * The Un-Reveal: Too may to count, justified in that they're planning to make a sequel.
 * Urban Fantasy: Very much so; Crossbell is a big city, and much of it and its residents are styled on 1950s, especially the suits (sweet Aidios, the suits) and the cars (SWEET AIDIOS, THE CARS). This is a bit of a departure from the previous games, which were rather more Steampunk-19th-century-ish than this. (Estelle and Joshua do express some surprise at the technology they find on display in Crossbell, though.) This also gives the game quite a different feel from the previous Trails games, since so much of it is focused on one city; while you do visit some of what basically make up the "suburbs" of Crossbell, the focus is on events in the city limits.
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist:
 * Would Hurt a Child: The D∴G cult.
 * You Shall Not Pass: