Trails to Azure, Trails to Azure News

Trails to Azure: Now Available to Purchase Via PayPal on Joyoland’s Website!

Posted on Author Addaberry

Hello! I’m Addaberry, one of the editors on Trails to Azure. Today, I’m happy to explain all the details on how you will be able to purchase the base version of Trails to Azure for use with our eventual patch. The journey to this point in time has been long and arduous, so I’m going to give a brief history lesson on versions of this game, and few general notes about the game before explaining our recommended method of acquiring the game.

After Zero no Kiseki’s PSP release in 2010, Falcom contracted the Chinese company Joyoland to port and localize the game over to PC in Chinese. Falcom then took the Chinese port and released it in Japanese. This is the version of Zero you all are likely familiar with. So, when Ao no Kiseki was released, it went through a similar process of being ported from PSP to PC in China. However, it did not make it back to PC for Japan this time. Falcom saw dwindling sales in the Japanese PC market and decided it wasn’t worth bringing back over. To this day, the only PC version of Ao no Kiseki has been locked behind Chinese payment platforms. Until now!

The base version of Azure functions as two separate pieces. First, the game’s files, which are free to download directly from Joyoland’s site at this link. Secondly, the activation license. This has been the source of most of the trouble, and the methods listed below are instructions on how to get a hold of activation keys. For now, we do not recommend you install or attempt to activate the game once you’ve purchased it. The game comes with aggressive DRM that may trip any anti-virus software you have installed.

1. Joyoland’s Website Via Paypal

Yes, you read that correctly. After years of being totally inaccessible to Western fans who don’t have Alipay and a passport, we were able to have our Chinese contact—Pockle7, who is an avid Falcom fan, like us—speak with Joyoland and convince them to implement PayPal support. While I realize that not everyone will be able to use this method due to regional restrictions and whatnot, if you have someone you trust in the community, Joyoland does allow users to gift codes. 

You will need to set up an account on Joyoland’s site. If you have reservations about giving out your email, you can get a burner account here. You can navigate through Joyoland’s website to the checkout page, or simply click this link to go straight there. The game currently sells for 60 Yuan, about $8.50 or ‎€7.50. Do keep in mind this price is subject to change, and is entirely Joyoland’s decision. As stated above, we do not recommend installing or activating the game at this time. For additional help purchasing the game, you can follow this visual guide I made.

If you insist on installing the game to confirm your ownership, then you will also have to download the Joyoland platform patch here. Simply unpack this file and drop it into the main game’s directory and overwrite all files Windows asks you to. This updates the game so that it’s compatible with your Joyoland account. When you boot ED_AO.exe, you will be prompted to put in your Joyoland.com login info to verify the game is on your profile. Once you do, the game will start, confirming that you have legally purchased Joyoland’s version of Ao no Kiseki.

This is the only method that the vast majority of you all will be able to use to officially purchase the PC version. From here on I will cover the other methods I uncovered during my research. Consider the rest of this article to be a bonus history lesson/tour through my madness. You may also want to jump down to the very bottom of the article for how else you can support Falcom if you cannot use PayPal or know someone that can.

The studious among you might be thinking, “Well, what about key seller site X or Y?” In my nearly 50 hours of researching all this, only one place other than Joyoland actually has game codes in stock:

2. Tencent’s WeGame

This is a Chinese Steam-like platform. I, as someone who can’t read a word of Chinese, have been able to purchase a copy of Azure from here. That said, there are two major barriers that prevent me from wholeheartedly recommending this. First, to even log in, you need access to one of two Chinese social media platforms, QQ or WeChat. I found QQ to be totally inaccessible, requiring a valid Chinese phone number. WeChat was much easier to get into, however, it has the strange requirement of you needing to have your account verified by another member who is already on the platform. So after hunting down someone to verify me—the verifier must also meet a list of requirements, such as having been one for at least one month—I was finally able to get into the store proper. 

I chose to do this on their standalone client rather than their website. Payment is also done through whichever method you used to log in, so, in my case, WeChat. After trying to buy the game with three different credit cards over close to ten different occasions, I was finally able to use a burner card with the Privacy App to actually buy the game. Out of excitement, I tried to buy Zero with it as well, and it didn’t work. I have not been able to buy anything on WeGame since. 

So, now, I finally have the game. Unfortunately, this leads to the second barrier I alluded to earlier: DRM. The game is launched through the WeGame client, which is a lot like Steam. So aside from the usual DRM like having to have the client open to play your game, WeGame also does integrity checks of the game files. Modifying the game’s files leads to crashing, or the client refusing to play the game. Since the goal of this from the outset was to find a version to patch, this was the final nail in the coffin of this being a viable way of getting the game into peoples’ hands.

Last is the method many probably thought would end up higher on this list:

3. Physical Copies

There are many versions of Ao no Kiseki box sets floating around on Chinese second-hand sites. You can get a detailed breakdown of those at this link. In the time I spent searching around, I found Taobao to be the most accessible site to buy through, but I don’t doubt there are others that are accessible or are easier to work with. For the sake of brevity, I won’t go into all the gritty details of the purchasing process. If you really want to do this method, then googling some Taobao guides will do you well, and will guide you through the process of setting up an Alipay account. In my case, the shipping costs from mainland China to the central United States ended up over $50. So between limited stock and outrageous prices, I would only recommend this to the superfans among you.

So ends our journey for today. For those who read this whole thing, thank you for humoring me. I had to leave out quite a bit, but I think you all probably had more than enough of this for one day. For those who jumped down here from the earlier section, if you can’t purchase the game from Joyoland’s website or have someone who can gift you a key, there are a few ways to still support Falcom directly. Although these versions won’t be compatible with our patch, you can purchase a PSP copy from Amazon or PS4 copy from Falcom’s shop, or digitally on Japanese PSN. You could also gift a friend a Falcom game on Steam or buy the digital version of Ao no Kiseki’s official soundtrack from Amazon. That said, I highly recommend buying the game through Joyoland if you are able. Doing so shows Falcom the demand for this game on PC, and rewards Joyoland for being kind enough to work with us to bring you all this experience. That’s all from me for today. I look forward to talking to you again when it’s time to get over the barrier once more!

62 Replies to “Trails to Azure: Now Available to Purchase Via PayPal on Joyoland’s Website!”

  1. It’s nice to get an official copy of this game too. Thanks Geofront for getting Joyoland to implement Paypal support!

    Still hoping that Nisa brings these to Steam at some point, so I can actually support Falcom for making these amazing games.

    1. Not sure if that will happen anytime soon unless there is some magical rabbit they can pull out of their hat, one can always hope though. I imagine NISA is up to their gills in work with ToCS IV and Ys IX. Heck if Cold Steel IV is as popular as Cold Steel III was for them, I wouldn’t be surprised if NISA decided to localize Hajimari no Kiseki right after they finish with Ys IX. Regardless I will be purchasing my copy of Azure from Joyoland and waiting to install it till further instructions from Geofront.

      1. Hajimari no Kiseki (Trails of …. Genesis?) is coming out soon on Aug 27 for Japanese/Chinese PS4 markets. Considering the time needed for English localization, hopefully it will be scheduled for release on Steam on 2022/2023 timing.

        More importantly, Trails of Cold Steel IV is coming soon in 2021. Hooray~ 🙂

        1. Well, I just purchased the game from the joyoland website. I used a burner e-mail and deleted the Chinese program (downloader) straight away after my copy was downloaded and I extracted the .rar file. I did not install it yet as I will wait for the Geofront patch. I will not be giving any of my normal e mail addresses to a Chinese company, which is why I used a burner one (hopefully that won’t be required to play the game, as I hope the Geofront patch will circumvent that and let me start it normally once patched like I do with Zero through Steam Link:)
          Glad to have my legal copy sitting on my SSD waiting for patch day to install. FYI. It was about $8 USDollars at the time of my purchase.

          1. Where do you actually download it from Joyoland? I bought the game, it’s on my account, but I can’t find any sort of “download game here” link. Am I missing something?

  2. €5,60 is a steal! But as you mention that it is best not to activate/install the game, I will hold off with purchasing it for now. I assume details on how to legally purchase the game, as well as install it and the English patch, will be included in the post once you’ve finished the Ao no Kiseki translation? If so, I will wait until then.

    In any case, thank you for all your hard work in figuring this out for us! I, and I’m sure many others, really appreciate the work the entire Geofront team puts into not only bringing us the English version of Trails from Azure but also try to do it in a way that supports Falcom.

    1. Well…After all, this game was ported to PC since March 2013. After 7 years, the game should (or must) have a relatively low price, no? 🙂

  3. Successfully grabbed the license for Azure by following your instructions. $6.40 is really a steal considering the value that these games hold.
    I hadn’t started on Trails From Zero due to fear of not being able to play the second game in the West. But then, I see an exciting trailer saying you guys are already 3/4 done! Thank you for all the effort you guys are putting into this, and in such a timely manner too! Can’t wait to get to this arc.
    I’m finishing up Trails in the Sky Third Chapter, so I’m hoping that will hold me over long enough to get the official patch and further instructions on how to apply it after purchasing from Joyoland. Keep up the great work guys!

    1. I wish I would have bought when I first saw this – went to buy tonight and the price jumped a little – still a fine price but I ended up paying $8.60. So to everyone saying they’re going to wait….I wouldn’t!

  4. Great stuff! I’ll hold off on buying it till you guys have a release date in sight (Also kinda hoping that we get an official release on Steam before that, but probably wishful thinking), but nice to see that this problematic title is finally legally available.

    1. I personally don’t think Zero/Azure will come to Steam. Due to crack and bad port to Chinese PC market, Falcom had decided NOT to release successor PC ports to China PC market (the proof is, that the Cold Steel series you saw releasing on Steam did not come with Chinese localization, only Japanese and English languages are available). Instead, Fapcom released the Cold Steel series to China market via PSV/PS4.

      Besides, the PC port of Zero/Azure was coded by Joyland. If Falcom wants to release them on Steam, this means it has to go through some complicated copyright negotiations with Joyland, which I doubt will come true (at least, not THAT easily). 🙁

  6. Is anyone else having trouble downloading the game files from Joyoland? I was able to purchase the game without issue, but when I try to download using the link provided on this site, the progress moves at a crawl before failing entirely.

    Is something that might be streamlined upon release of the translation patch?

    (Also, thanks to everyone working with Geofront to provide translations and accessibility to these games! I played your Zero translation and it was professional quality!)

    1. The download was extremely slow for me too, I cancelled it and loaded it through JDownloader instead and now at least if it stops it will resume without losing the info, right now it’s been running for a while now (at least 30 minutes) and I have somewhere around 20 hours left to go. I’d recommend getting some sort of download manager that supports a resume if the website does and use it to download, like I said, I’m using JDownloader. Good Luck!

      1. I tried that and it made the process even slower. Apparently it’s not just me. An old Reddit thread I saw said the Joyoland links didn’t work at all anymore. Can anyone verify that they’re completed the download without issue using the provided link?

        1. Yeah I’m up to days now lol but I’ve gotten 469 mb downloaded so far I guess I’ll just let it keep going – maybe it’ll be done by the time the patch comes 🙂 lol Just take your time guys I can’t wait for the patch but I know you’ll release it when it’s polished and ready we all appreciate the incredible amount of work and dedication you guys put into this.

        2. Okay I finally got it downloaded it finished about 10 minutes ago! Hopefully you get yours downloaded. I did use the link and used my downloader like I said. So you have to give it quite a while – I’d say mine was about 15 – 18 hours (I can’t tell because the time on here is goofy for me lol) since my last reply said 6:09 am and it was more closer to midnight for me lol

    2. Where do you actually download it from Joyoland? I bought the game, it’s on my account, but I can’t find any sort of “download game here” link. Am I missing something?

  8. Fantastic news! Thanks so much for all the hard work you guys are putting in! Im almost done with Trails: SC and am so excited for Zero and Azure. What an amazing franchise, I cant believe I waited this long to get into these games!

  9. I followed the visual guide to purchase the game, and it seems like it worked, the money came out of paypal, I have not gotten a confirmation email yet however on the my order page it says paid but I have no cd key in the order summary. My order notes have this to say (chrome translate to english) “The right to use the digital version of this game has been activated in your account, please go to the official website “My Games” to confirm” and on the my games page it says “Bi Track Order to purchase game licenses 2020-07-02” so I assume I’m good? lol hopefully someone else can confirm? 🙂

    1. As I understand it, you would enter you joyland login details when you try to install the game. Per the visual guide:

      “If you were to try and install the game now (again, I don’t recommend you do this) you would enter your Joyoland account information in the game’s launcher.”

      I’m at the same step; the issue now is download speed. Since the core files themselves are free (and I assume we’ll be working around the DRM once the patch comes out) it would help if someone posted them somewhere it doesn’t take three days to get at.

      1. I’d upload what I have but I don’t know if we’re allowed to redistribute the files even though they are free. It took me less than a day to download, but yeah, I wish it would have been a little faster lol I figured it will activate when we install the game, I just was nervous my screen didn’t match the visual guide with a cd key. Maybe that fills in after you’ve activated the game though. Just have to wait and see! 🙂

      2. The original Japan release of Zero does not come with any DRM (the Zero sold from Joyland DOES have online DRM). I guess that’s why the reason why Japan release of Zero was chosen for patching. Unfortuntely, Azure never came to Japan PC market, so Chinese (with DRM) is the only one we can consider on.
        The DRM of Azure was made by Sony actually, which was also protected by an Anti-Temper mechanism onto the ED_AO.exe file (the exe file also contains some interface texts that need translations, so technically it’s nearly impossible to translate if the exe is not tempered). Interestingly, several months after its release since Mar 2013, some crack scene group managed to crack the exe file so that it becomes DRM-free. The currently -available unofficial English version of Azure (namely Ao no Kiseki) you can now see on the Internet was translated based on the cracked exe.

        I already finised the Azure game, but i prefer more on the completed-overhauled version from the Geofront team. Looking forward to that!

  12. Is there any chance of having a drive or hosted link for the game files? I’m trying to download them but I’m only getting 10kb/s.

        1. I mean, of course not. This one is just a copy of the chinese files from this post, but on a drive link so you can have more than 10~100 kb/s download speeds

  13. You guys are doing great work! Love what you did with zero. I’ve been waiting to play that game for so long. Do you have a rough estimate of when asura going to be done. Was thinking about playing it before cold steel 4 hits ps4 but if not then its fine.

  14. I bought the game and installed it, but when I try to start it, it shows me this

    This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way
    Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library error occurs
    Debugging
    Is my file corrupted?
    Did I place it in the wrong folder?
    Or what?
    Thank you if any response

        1. Devons drive? Little confused on doing stuff like this. Mostly use console. But I downloaded the file, download the joycon and replaced the files and i activate it threw the patch ed ao. Once I did that it showed the error message. But if I try to load it threw desktop it showed I have to have key to activate it. So pretty confused about it.

          1. a user above posted a link for the download instead of using the joycon link . I just tried to install the patch provided by this site and norton flagged it as a hueristic virus and deleted the file.

        2. Never mind ignore the first part. No I didn’t download it from his drive I did JDownloader and it download pretty fast. 40 min. Just don’t no why its not working.

          1. Norton keeps deleting the exe file for the patch. that could be a reason why your game is not working

          2. I deactivated my anti-virus before I downloaded it. The first time it deleted. But after that it worked… atleast that part anyways. Try doing that and see if it helps.

          3. do you know where to get the Laucher from. I want to download it from the site. I paid for it but when i click on the link of the game under my games, nothing happens.

  17. I FINALLY got the archive to download at a (almost) reasonable speed.

    I used jDownloader, had to tweak the settings a bit. (max chunks=3, max simiul=7)

    The download seems to be good:
    File: BG_setup.rar
    CRC-32: 7662d11c
    MD5: 628d24cd12e7769c5307e711bdcddcc6
    SHA-256: 7ed1417e84c170a4e0f9dddb549269f15deef3ee48c6249592437df632d88ef5

    Since it’s a public file, I wonder if geofront will publish a mirror once the patch goes live.

          1. I got the game from your link but the patch that geofront suggest we download had a warning about trojans

        2. Huh that’s weird, I haven’t got anything like that before. One guess I would have is if you are using a AV that’s not win defender, they usually give many false positives.

          1. So i released the quarantined filed from Norton and ran it like you suggested. the patch has has this english translated launcher login that has a url to digitalsoftwareservices.com . How is this site connected to joyoland?

        3. To be honest I haven’t even installed it, I just downloaded the files and bought the game. Since the post said not to worry about this part yet I believe they will include their own launcher to install the game and patch or some such. So I guess I’d recommend you do the same since I haven’t tried myself

  18. Hi, I’m new to this community but I’ve been a part of others (Shining Force Central and the Daisenryaku-related threads at the US PlayStation forums awhile back). Anyway, I wanted to start off by saying a big “Thank You” to the team who’ve been working on these translations. Having played through all three current Cold Steel games and all but the very end of Trails in the Sky 3, I’ve really been amazed at the depth of the world-building and deft storytelling by Falcom with this franchise.

    I’m posting here specifically, however, to ask a question. I followed the purchasing instructions to the letter on Joyoland’s website and I have the purchase confirmed under the “My Game” page, but there appears to be nothing I can click on to download it. Don’t worry, I read the warnings about not installing it for the time being, but Joyoland’s website isn’t very clear on how to actually play the game you’ve just purchased. There’s no activation code listed on my order invoice (I purchased it for myself); should I have selected the second option to purchase it as a gift? For now I’m kind of lost and would hugely appreciate any insight you guys can offer.

    Thanks in advance.

    1. Hi AtlantisAuthor,

      Have you figured out anything out with the Authorization Code. The same thing is happening to me I purchased and everything is there in orders but there is no code in the details. If you figured it out I love to know.

      1. I’m in that same boat. The PayPal went through and the game is sitting in the “My Games” tab waiting to be activated but there’s no CD Key in the details section. I’m not quite sure what to do.

        1. Hmmmmm, I think we all may have pressed the green activation button? It’s listed in my games so I’ll just let it sit there until the patch is ready as I wouldn’t know how to install it even if I wanted to haha.

  19. Hello i am new to this comunity!
    Will this work for Trails to Zero too?
    Is there a way for people for fans from south america to get the games safely?
    Since we don’t have any way to play the Cross bell games since it is not on steam

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