The Cold Steel series of JRPGs — developed by the developer Falcom during the last decade — was an grand project, given the multitude of personas and events included. It took the studio five games to fully develop these cast members. Emma's personal narrative journey is unfolded in conjunction with Cold Steel’s primary plot, but it's via the progressive shift in her skill set that we fully understand the significance of her emotional journey.
Heads-up: The following content contains minor spoilers for the central plot of the Cold Steel franchise.
In Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, Emma is a typical teenager, like the rest of the students of Thors Military Academy’s her class. As the class president, she's approachable to all and aims to avoid any disagreements between her peers. Although the character approaches her studies with great dedication, she leads two separate lives. She is in fact a practitioner of magic, a part of the magical Hexen family. Joining Thors Military Academy is a component of her underlying objective of assisting the protagonist Rean, the central character of the group, who is destined to awaken a Divine Knight.
In each Trails of Cold Steel installment, the majority of party members have at least one ultimate ability, a powerful move that needs you to have a minimum amount of CP to activate. These finishing moves are designed to be your ace in each battle. These ultimate skills are also a way for the game to depict the transformations the cast are experiencing. They can epitomize the refinement of a character’s technique, such as Rean's S-Craft the skill Breaking Dawn in Cold Steel 4, which he unlocks after earning the designation of Divine Blade. In some situations, like Emma’s, the developers utilizes S-Crafts to express the emotional changes a character experiences.
When the great war in the empire begins in Cold Steel, the character's response to the circumstances is the inexperienced but reasonable belief that fighting means striking. The conflict spills over to the second game in the franchise, where the two ultimate skills she has are Lord Albireon and her second S-Craft. Each are attack-oriented moves that affect every foes on the battlefield.
When we have the chance to see the character Emma again in the third game, we observe a changed young woman. She has moved on from Thors Military Academy, and after practicing with her clan, she appears to have realized an crucial revelation about her own nature. While she evolves into a impressive sorceress, the character comprehends that, above all else, she’s a defender. She is ready to sacrifice herself to protect all her friends — but particularly Rean Schwarzer — safe. Her goal to occupy this role is shown by her special ability, which in the third installment becomes Palace of Eregion.
When you use the S-Craft Emma's new skill, she summons a quartet of glowing magical towers, and barriers materialize connecting them and surrounding the battlefield. The allies benefiting from this ability gain one or two stacks of Absolute Reflect, a buff that blocks injury of all types. Emma had at no point been a aggressive individual, so she shifts to a defensive strategy, echoing the protective demeanor she had always extended to her companions.
It’s fascinating to witness how Nihon Falcom utilizes a persona's skill set to enrich the series' narrative. RPGs often rely on dialogue or graphics to inform players what a protagonist is feeling. But this character proves that including a spell can contribute another layer of insight.
