Despite being leaked ahead of time, it’s hard not to be excited by NIS America’s latest announcement via the Falcom 40th Anniversary Concert that four Trails games are getting localized, and they’ll be ported to Switch to boot.
For starters there are the two blind spots fans have been asking for – Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. This middle chapter of the saga was originally unlocalized due to the sizeable gap between release and localization, with the PSP essentially being a dead platform by the time the releases caught up. Unfortunately this led to some awkwardness with the subsquently localized Cold Steel games, which refer to the events of the duology fairly regularly.
Thankfully, NISA has struck a deal with the fan translators at Geofront to bring their work over in fall 2022 for Zero and 2023 for Azure.
There’s another long-awaited localization, too, in The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails. This action-focused spin-off is fairly removed from the mainline series, having more in common with Falcom’s Ys series. This version is the one released in Japan just yesterday, featuring updated graphics and artwork, and we’ll get it in 2023.
Finally, there’s the next mainline entry, set after Trails of Cold Steel 4. Titled Trails into Reverie for the west, this one will release in 2023, as well.
Needless to say, it’s a good time to be a Falcom fan.
Written by Tom Brown
Whether it’s an exciting new entry in a series long established or a weird experiment meant only for the dedicated, Tom is eager to report on it. Rest assured, if Nintendo ever announces Elite Beat Agents 2, he’ll be there.
