Trails of Cold Steel 3 is officially being translated for English release Fall 2019. The news broke on twitter January 17th and immediate fan reaction was mixed. NIS America will be handling the translation of this recent entry in Nihon Falcom’s Kiseki/Trails series. This breaks from the series past translation exclusivity with Xseed. The mixed reaction comes stems from fan fear that NISA will poorly handle the JRPG’s dense script, turning the newest entry into a pale reflection of the series past glory.
Worry makes sense considering NISA’s recent history. They translated the most recent entry in Nihon Falcom’s other major series, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, which received wide criticism for shoddy translation and buggy ports. Past experiences do set a troubling precedent for NISA, but I believe they are capable of learning from their mistakes and will make a quality product. Their handling of the fan reaction to their work on YS VIII and how they’ve announced Trails of Cold Steel 3 makes me confident they’ll improve.
Kiseki/Trails spotty English history
Xseed Games translated Trails in the Sky 1-3, Trails of Cold Steel 1 & 2. Each game contains a massive amount of text. Trails in the Sky 1 has roughly the same amount of text as the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the games have gotten larger as the series progressed. Xseed’s stellar attention to detail made each game of this massive cross-connected series believable through consistent character voices and world building. The effort involved in keeping each game consistent is staggering.
Not that Xseed’s work is problem free. Their attention to detail and limited staff resulted in lengthy delays between games. Jason Schrier has written some amazing articles for Kotaku on the series, including this one detailing the difficult translation process from the first two games. He does a perfect job capturing what happened, so no need for me to repeat it. I’ll summarize it as a lengthy and difficult process, which left fans wondering whether anything passed the first game would ever be released in English.
The delay between Trails in the Sky: First Chapter and Second Chapter, also created a massive gap in the series translation. While these two games were slowly translated to English, Nihon Falcom released Trails in the Sky the 3rd, Trails of Zero, Trails of Ao and Trails of Cold Steel in Japan. By the time the second game released in North America, the series had quadrupled in size. This left Xseed with a problem, did it translate all the games or pick and choose?
Xseed picked the second option. They released Trails of Cold Steel, then doubled back and completed Trails in the Sky the 3rd. Trails of Zero & Ao were ignored completely. Xseed simply didn’t have the time or money to focus on all titles, and Cold Steel is the most modern title. It made financial sense to move forward, but it left part of the series in limbo for English fans.
Trails in the Sky: FC and SC also received a number of complaints about buggy PC releases. Patches were released to fix issues that stemmed from the games Japanese releases being very old, which made the new English releases problematic to run on modern PCs. Xseed learned from this and Trails of Cold Steel 1&2 received unanimous praise for their PC ports. Programmed by Peter “Durante” Thoman, they are considered better than the original ps3/psvita releases. Bringing him for the ports showed Xseed’s commitment to releasing a quality product.
I love Xseed’s work on the Trails series. Without them these games would never have left Japan, and I wouldn’t have experienced their amazing characters and story. I’m not going over Xseed’s flaws to dump on them, but to remember that even great works are not always perfect. Even the good work Xseed did had problems.
NIS America’s past problems
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana released in 2017. The game is largely combat focused, with less dialogue and complex story elements than any Kiseki/Trails game. That’s not a complaint, I adore Ys, but I need to point out the difference in scale between the two series. The comparatively light translation work of Ys VIII was a problem, so how will Trails of Cold Steel 3 turn out when it contains 10 times the scripting to translate?
I understand the concern, but I also think the history of NISA fixing Ys VIII is being forgotten. They acknowledged fan outrage over the translation quality and re-translated the game to address those concerns. Many companies would sweep the issue under the rug, or defend themselves, but NISA didn’t. They owned their mistake and worked to correct it. The translation of Ys VIII was corrected through patches and for future ports.
Of course, the translation of Ys VIII isn’t the only problem to consider. The PC Port was a broken mess of a release despite multiple delays. Set to release in Q4 2017, the game was delayed until April 2018. Even with the delay the port was unplayable for many. A patch fixed most of the issues in July 2018. Some fans report continued bugs, but overall it seems to be playable. The Switch version was good right from the start, but only due to the release of a launch day patch by NISA.
More recently, NISA released Disgaea 5’s PC port with missing features from the original release. This is another title that suffered multiple delays while being translated and ported. SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy had a controversy of its own recently. There’s no denying NISA’s work has been problematic, but still looking at their history shows repeated efforts to improve and correct. My hope is this has taught them something about how to conduct themselves as a business.
NISA’s Trails of Cold Steel 3
Ys VIII was a difficult experience as a fan of the series. Xseed had problems with their releases, but the final product was always strong out the gate. NISA can’t say the same. They needed patches to fix numerous problems, but they did own up and fix them. It’s not the best business practice, but it’s better than not doing anything to correct an error. Trails of Cold Steel 3 announcement shows signs of NISA learning from those errors. The two major signs that give me hope are the inclusion of Trails experienced localizers and the lack of a PC port.
The translation team is the best example of NISA understanding western fans concerns. Xseed’s translation efforts have been widely praised, while the Ys VIII translation was derided. Fans suspected NISA would gain control of the Trails/Kiseki series after they took on Ys VIII, and voiced concern online over changing the translation team. NISA has gotten ahead of this fan concerns by hiring staff who worked for Xseed. They’re actively addressing fan concerns.
Brittany Avery announced she’s been contracted as freelance editor / localization producer. Ryan Thomson and Kris Knigge are also on NISA’s ToCS3 team. All three worked on previous games in the Kiseki series. NISA hired talented people who understand the world and characters of this massive story driven series. NISA did their homework and hired the right people for the job. I’m confident the new NISA team will handle translating Trails of Cold Steel 3 to English properly.
The other aspects of NISA’s announcement that leaves me feeling positive about the series direction is no PC or Switch port announced. This sounds strange, especially considering I don’t own a PS4, but stay with me. NISA knows announcing a PC port would have had fans recalling the recent Ys VIII debacle. They already have to deal with fans concern over translating the game, and for now that’s the only concern. They’ve avoided half the fan worry by sticking to the translation of the PS4 Japanese release, and they’ve made a good attempt to quell that concern with their translation team.
I’m also not naïve, NISA won’t leave money on the table. PC and Switch ports are very likely. Falcom has expressed interest in seeing more of their games on Switch, and Trails in the Sky is currently only available on PC. These two platforms will widely expand ToCS3’s sales if ported. However, if NISA has learned they’ll delay announcing these ports until they have a way to quell fan concern. Perhaps gameplay demos of ports or a news announcement that Durante has been hired would be enough. Whatever they do, they would be smart to get ahead of fan concern.
All of this is speculation and hope. Being concerned for Trails of Cold Steel 3 is justified based on NISA’s history, but there’s also nothing fans can do. Nihon Falcom gave the translation license to NISA. For better or worse, this is the only formal English release coming for the Trails/Kiseki series. Fans can complain, but it won’t change the series moving to NISA. What I’m hoping to have done here is review the past and paint a brighter picture of the future for Trails of Cold Steel 3.
I believe fans of this niche series should think positively. Believe in things to get better. NISA seems to be learning from the past. I’d like to support that rather than meeting it with anger and hatred. Perhaps if we champion NISA, tell them we believe in them, that they’ll hear it and respond with a great product. It can happen. I choose hope. I think Estelle would do the same.