Bro this game is so good. Man that scene with Renne at the end had me balling my eyes.

very good

I sometimes hear that the Crossbell arc is the worst arc of the series. While it might not be exactly as grand, absolutely DO NOT sleep on these games if you loved FC/SC/3rd and want more! I went from 3rd to Cold Steel but this was a mistake; Crossbell DOES fill in some stuff from the previous games. Not required to enjoy CS, but it will deepen the plot and give more backstory.

The layered story and world-building are very similar to the Trails trilogy, and even though Zero has a slightly slow start, after a while I totally fell in love again with the characters and world. It still runs on the FC engine, which mean the graphics are less "modern" but are still overflowing with charm. The soundtrack has a few more "not-as-memorable" tracks than usual, but also has some true bangers.

After finishing Zero, I didn't feel like I played something inferior or skip-worthy; to me this was a full-fledged part of the Legend of Heroes series!

Man, I love Falcom so much.