The Trails of Cold Steel saga of role-playing games — developed by Nihon Falcom across the past ten years — was an large-scale project, accounting for the quantity of characters and plot points included. It took the studio several games to mature these cast members. The character Emma's narrative journey is unfolded in conjunction with Cold Steel’s primary plot, but it's through the gradual evolution in her abilities that we fully understand the depth of her inner growth.
Heads-up: Our discussion includes some story reveals for the central plot of the Cold Steel franchise.
In Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, the character Emma is a regular teenager, similar to the rest of the students of Thors Academy's her class. As the student leader, she's friendly to each person and aims to avoid any disagreements between her classmates. Although the character takes her student life really seriously, she lives a double life. She is in fact a witch, a initiate of the magical Hexen family. Enrolling in the academy is part of her true goal of guiding Rean Schwarzer, the key individual of the group, who is fated to unleash a Divine Knight.
In every Trails of Cold Steel game, nearly all party members have at least one S-Craft, a unique skill that demands you to have a sufficient quantity of CP to activate. These finishing moves are meant to be your trump card in each battle. Special Crafts are additionally a way for the developers to depict the transformations the cast are going through. They can epitomize the refinement of a persona's technique, like Rean Schwarzer’s ultimate move Breaking Dawn in Cold Steel 4, which he acquires after reaching the rank of Divine Blade. In different instances, for instance the witch Emma's, Falcom uses ultimate abilities to convey the personal growth a persona goes through.
When the war in the nation of Erebonia starts in Trails of Cold Steel I, Emma Millstein's reaction to the circumstances is the idealistic but reasonable idea that battle means striking. The war spills over to the second game in the franchise, where the dual S-Crafts she has are Albireon and her second S-Craft. These two are damage-dealing skills that target all opponents on the battlefield.
Once we have the chance to encounter Emma again a second time in the third game, we observe a transformed girl. She has completed her studies from Thors, and after practicing with her clan, Emma seems to have grasped an vital insight about her own nature. While she grows into a formidable spellcaster, the character comprehends that, primarily, she is a protector. She is willing to give up her own safety to protect all her friends — but especially Rean — out of harm's way. Her goal to occupy this position is shown by her ultimate skill, which in Cold Steel 3 changes to Palace of Eregion.
When you use the S-Craft Palace of Eregion, the character summons several semi-transparent magical towers, and shields appear linking them and enclosing the battlefield. The allies affected by this ability gain a few stacks of Absolute Reflect, a effect that prevents injury of every form. The character had at no point been a belligerent individual, so she transitions to a defensive strategy, echoing the nurturing attitude she had always demonstrated to her friends.
It’s intriguing to observe how Falcom uses a protagonist's skill set to enrich the game’s story. Role-playing games typically use storytelling or cutscenes to inform players what a protagonist is thinking. But Emma shows that right down to a ability can add additional depth of significance.
