With The Legend Of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 coming out on the PS3 for us in November, I thought it was finally time to dust off the old console and finally get around to playing the first one in anticipation of the sequel; and boy am I glad I did.

Firstly, I would like to say that this is my first entry into the Legend of Heroes series but I did not feel lost in the lore or confused by the story elements and I can safely confirm that I will also be picking up the rest of the series the moment I finish Cold Steel.

You play as Rean, a new member of Class VII at Thor’s Academy, an elite group of military students that are tasked with going on military missions alongside their general studies.

Between field studies, the player is tasked with juggling friendships in order to gain ‘’Bonding points’’ which are used for increased link abilities, which we will go into more in moment. You have a limited amount of bonding points per chapter that you can use to bond with the characters of your choice.

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With these elements, it is impossible to not compare Trails of Cold Steel to Atlus’ famed persona series, however, Trails Of Cold Steel manages to hold its own against the long revered series.

The battle system is a classic turn based battle system where each of your four chosen characters takes a turn in attacking, using crafts or arts. Much like in Tales of Xillia, you can also choose to link two characters together to then use link arts.

The combat was a real highlight to the 30 hours I have spent so far in the game.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is a MASSIVE game and at 30 hours in I am just getting to the halfway marker. Despite its size I have not once felt overwhelmed or bored and would definitely recommend it to any JRPG fans out there.

Score: 9/10

With a fun battle system and an engaging story Trails of Cold Steel has filled the Persona shaped void I’ve had since 2009.