Final Abilities Are Character Growth in the Cold Steel Trails Games
The Cold Steel saga of JRPGs — released by Nihon Falcom across the past ten years — was an ambitious project, given the quantity of personas and plot points featured. It needed the creator five games to mature these cast members. Emma Millstein's narrative journey is developed in tandem with the series' central narrative, but it's via the gradual evolution in her skill set that we comprehend the significance of her inner growth.
Heads-up: The following content contains minor spoilers for the main storyline of the Cold Steel games.
In The Legend of Heroes: Cold Steel, Emma is a ordinary young woman, just as the other members of Thors Academy's Class Seven. As the representative, she's kind to each person and works to prevent any disputes between her fellow students. While she takes her student life really seriously, she leads two separate lives. She is in fact a witch, a member of the Hexen Clan. Enrolling in the academy is a component of her true goal of mentoring the protagonist Rean, the central character of Class VII, who is fated to awaken a ancient guardian.
In each Trails of Cold Steel installment, most party members have at least one S-Craft, a unique skill that needs you to have a sufficient quantity of CP to use. These supreme skills are designed to be your key advantage in every encounter. S-Crafts are additionally a method for the narrative to depict the changes the cast are experiencing. They can symbolize the development of a individual's fighting style, like Rean Schwarzer’s special ability his new technique in Cold Steel 4, which he gains after reaching the title of master swordsman. In some situations, for instance Emma’s, the developers employs ultimate abilities to express the internal transformations a character goes through.
When the war in the empire erupts in the first game, the character's reaction to the situation is the naive but logical idea that battle means attacking. The struggle continues to the second game in the series, where the two S-Crafts she has are her first S-Craft and Zodiac Rain. These two are offensive techniques that affect every foes on the arena.
When we have the chance to meet Emma once more in the third game, we observe a different girl. She has moved on from the academy, and after honing her skills with her family, the protagonist clearly to have realized an crucial truth about her own nature. While she evolves into a powerful magic user, she realizes that, above all else, she is a guardian. Emma is prepared to give up her own safety to protect all her friends — but especially Rean Schwarzer — secure. Her desire to take on this responsibility is hinted at by her S-Craft, which in Cold Steel 3 changes to Eregion.
When you use the S-Craft Emma's new skill, she calls forth a quartet of translucent magical towers, and magical walls materialize linking them and encircling the field of battle. The allies affected by this skill gain one or two charges of Absolute Reflect, a buff that blocks damage of every form. The character had never been a belligerent individual, so she shifts to a protective approach, mirroring the protective look she had invariably shown to her companions.
It’s compelling to see how Falcom uses a persona's skill set to enhance the series' narrative. JRPGs frequently use written text or graphics to tell us what a character is thinking. But Emma shows that even a spell can contribute another layer of meaning.
