Durante Reddit AMA Provides Trails from Zero PC Port Insight; Personal Trivia

A recent AMA with Durante, a prominent modder and optimizer for several PC ports of games, has revealed a vast degree of insight into how his work is performed. Additionally, updates for the upcoming Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure are provided.

There is way too much information to post in their entirety here, but there are some responses worth bringing up. Firstly, treasure chest messages will be present in Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. For those unaware, the Geofront fan translations of these two titles added in humorous dialogue when re-examining empty treasure chests as a nod to XSEED doing the same task back when they localized the Trails in the Sky trilogy. While Durante does specify that he doesn’t know if the Geofront messages will be staying in, it’s still great to see them included at all.

Also, regarding optimizations for these upcoming releases, Durante revealed that in addition to fixing geometry issues present in the original releases, UI scaling has been an integral factor the team has been working on so text can be cleanly viewed regardless of screen size. Further, both Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure are assumed to be Steam Deck verified at launch, but it’s not guaranteed at the moment.

Durante stated that the team is working on remedying many issues found in every prior release of both games, including the original PSP release, non-Japanese PC releases, and the Japanese PlayStation 4 release (Kai). The ultimate goal is “trying to make the feature set a superset of all previous versions as much as [they] can.”

The Nintendo Switch and PC versions of both games are aimed to have “100 feature parity”, essentially meaning that they will not have any exclusive game alterations aside from graphical quality and performance. A direct example given is how compression has aided in the Switch version having the total amount of save slots as the other platforms. Moreover, while not specified, there will be features in these upcoming localized entries not present in any prior versions.

Another aspect worth discussing is artistic intention, which Durante feels quite strongly on. Graphical enhancements will be made across the board, but since later versions of the games sometimes have art direction that differs from the original PSP release, the latter’s art direction will always be prioritized. This does not equate to graphical quality but rather the art design itself.

There are many other inquiries that Durante answers throughout this AMA, so I encourage you to read the thread for yourself.

The next localized entry for the franchise will be Trails from Zero.

Trails from Zero has players take control of protagonist Lloyd Bannings and the rest of the Special Support Section as they aid the citizens of Crossbell City with various tasks and gradually uncover a deep-seated corruption at the heart of the city with criminality at its core.

Alongside the strategical turn-based combat fans have expected from the series, the addition of cooperative attacks with party members makes the bonds between the Special Support Section an active ingredient in combat potential. This release boasts a High-Speed mode, which prior localized Trails entries contain. This functionality allows players to speed past cutscenes, combat, and exploration for whatever reasons they deem fit.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero is releasing for Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC via the Epic Games Store and Steam on September 27, 2022.