Publisher NIS America and developer Nihon Falcom have announced the final March 2023 release date for The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC. Trails to Azure will launch on March 14 in North America, March 17 in Europe, and March 24 in Australia and New Zealand. This game is the sequel to Trails from Zero, which launched in the West for the first time last month. Together, the two games compose the Crossbell arc, which originally released in Japan between 2010 and 2011 on PlayStation Portable. NIS America and Nihon Falcom have a new story trailer for The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure to go along with its March release date.
Azure takes place a few months after Zero, and the Special Support Section is enjoying fame for its recent heroism. But “increasing pressure from the Erebonian Empire and the Republic of Calvard” forces protagonist Lloyd Bannings and his allies to take action again, spiraling into a conflict that will determine the “fate of the city-state.” If you have save data to import from Zero, it will trigger “additional event scenes and entirely new scenes” for Azure. Needless to say, there isn’t much point in playing this game if you haven’t already played Trails from Zero.
In the grand scheme of things, the Legend of Heroes franchise is still pretty niche despite having so many entries. But if you go to a place like r/JRPG, you would think everyone on Earth has played these games, so it’s all a matter of perspective and personal taste. Stay tuned for the March 2023 release of Trails from Azure.