Closing the Curtain on Trails from Zero: Patch 1.1

artwork of the trails of zero cast, done by enami katsumi

Hello, everyone! It’s been one year since Trails from Zero released, and we’re ecstatic to be able to celebrate that anniversary with this post. We’ve made quite a few changes to Zero in this past year, and the time has finally come for us to publish Zero’s last feature update and for the game to take its final bow and ride off into the sunset.

Why did there need to be an update?

Three major things have happened in the year since Zero released: NIS America launched Trails of Cold Steel IV, we edited the entirety of Trails to Azure, and thousands of you have told us about your experiences with our patch. As you can imagine, that leads to more changes to the script than could possibly be documented here.

To give you a general idea, we first and foremost implemented every newly localized term in Cold Steel IV. This includes things such as the naming of the Residential District, Elie’s Randy-given nickname, Ilya Platiere’s moniker, and so much more.

a screenshot from the game displaying the following text:
'Arc en Ciel'
'Its current leading actress, Ilya Platiere, is known as the 'Fervent Dancer,' and has many fans around the continent.'

Beyond that, there have also been changes to the script to make the game more congruent with the editing style of Azure, add more polish, as well as correct any text bugs that have been submitted to us over the last year.

The technical changes

However, there have also been several other changes to the game underneath the surface. As alluded to in the last Azure update post, Zero’s script is built on a new format than from when we originally released the game a year ago. This format, which is also what Azure uses, is based on EDDecompiler. The change has made both games much easier to edit and is partially responsible for Azure’s editing process having been as smooth as it’s been.

A positive side effect is that our Zero script is now more consistent with the Japanese releases. What I mean is, an unintended consequence of the older, clunky format was that we had the ability to inadvertently change the number of text boxes in the game. This occasionally led to instances in the main story where some text boxes would not have voice acting when playing a scene using the Evolution voice mod.

A screenshot from TrailsintheDatabase showing an example of text from in the game.
Taken from trailsinthedatabase.com

In the above, the blue text would be a text box that correctly has voice acting play with it, and the black text indicates that we added a text box where there wasn’t one, thus no voice acting would play. These instances were rewritten and consolidated to the correct box count, and this mistake won’t be repeated when we eventually release Trails to Azure. All in all, the scenario files are far more stable in this format, and any crashes related to the scenario should be a thing of the past.

There have, of course, been several other fixes that you can read about in the changelog below. A few highlights are improved controller support, corrected resolution option settings, and a new-and-improved version of our installation and launcher program. We’re also happy to say that the few of you interested in installing and playing the game on Linux should have a much better experience with this version.

One feature we, unfortunately, were unable to implement was support for any languages beyond English and the original Japanese — namely Chinese. However, with the coming PC port of Zero no Kiseki: Kai by Clouded Leopard Entertainment for Chinese and Korean, I think that will be a non-issue for any fans wanting to play in Chinese. We apologize and thank you for your understanding.

A screenshot from Trails of Zero with Chief Roberts saying, "Let me know if your terminal breaks, my dear Tio! I'll be there in a jiffy to fix it."

The visual changes

Finally, among the features added to Zero are visual improvements. This includes a few new textures that have been backported from Azure to enhance the graphics in Zero. Additionally, there’s one visual improvement that I’m personally very proud to announce: the support for HD video.

The unmodded version of the game doesn’t support video higher than 240p — the same as what’s in the PSP version, obviously. Our lead programmer, Jose, was able to add support for 1080p. All of the game’s movie files are now in full HD, including a remastered opening edited by our video editors, Choojermelon, DrCullenPHD, and _seaPancake, and a new ending done by our graphics maestro, Sorcerian.

To our talented artists and editors, thank you for indulging me and making this goal of mine a reality. I felt as though HD movies were the one thing Trails from Zero was lacking for it to truly be a complete and modern port. Hopefully, everyone who plays Zero from now onward will appreciate this addition, and, suffice to say, you can also expect HD movies to be a part of Trails to Azure.

Farewell to Zero

Thank you all for going on this journey with us. Trails from Zero has been a project that has touched and changed many of our lives. Sharing it with you all has been the opportunity of a lifetime.

We’re still hard at work finishing up Azure, so please be patient with us. Releasing this month is unlikely, as the game still has several outstanding bugs and things to be completed before we’re comfortable launching. However, we are getting closer, and the game has taken great strides this month. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Before you go, have a look at Trails from Zero‘s updated opening and feel free to peruse the full changelog. Thanks again, and see you all soon.

Changelog

To install the patch, download the installer again, extract it, and run the launcher. Please note that all past and current save files will continue to function, so long as you keep track of your savedata folder.

Mod/Functionality

  • Implement support for higher resolution movie files.
  • Improvements and design adjustments to Sound Test and the underlying music.json. The format should now be easier to explain. It now displays entries with their disk/track numbers in the original soundtrack.
  • Fix resolution settings not sorted/matched correctly on some systems.
  • Fix controller analog stick behavior: Dead zones are now radial instead of biased toward cardinal directions. Using the stick to navigate menus should also be improved.
  • Improvements to voice matching. More “vanilla” lines should play during cutscenes where no “additional” voice is present.
  • Fixed three known “default pose” Lloyd appearances in theater event scenes.
  • Fixed two known “default position” party appearances in event scenes where the bus is ridden.
  • Use Evolution timing/sequence for chase scene after theater scene at end of Chapter 2.
  • Use Evolution timing/sequence for chase battle scene in Chapter 3 Day 2.
  • Improve voice timing throughout the game.
  • Implement Japanese descriptions for the settings menu when Japanese display mode is used.

English Files

  • Fixed typos on a couple of quartz notebook pages.
  • Improved appearance of various textures, most notably the place introduction images.
  • Changes to align with choices made in Trails of Cold Steel IV.
  • Countless changes to the text of the game to correct typos, as well as for accuracy, consistency, and much more.

ZeroLauncher

  • Ported launcher to .NET 5, which is a more modern base. Includes numerous improvements and bug fixes.
  • The program is now a “self-contained executable” and does not have a separate setup process. Simply run the launcher with the mods in the same folder, and it’ll present the same installation process.
  • Greatly improved install speed and correctness for the game’s original files (.arc archives).
  • Improved the install progress reporting to show the files being copied.
  • There is now a 32-bit and 64-bit version of the same launcher, allowing those with 32-bit operating systems to install the game and mod. Linux users may appreciate this, as well.

23 Replies to “Closing the Curtain on Trails from Zero: Patch 1.1

  1. Previous versions of Trails from Zero had some rendering and crashing problems when playing the game on Linux via compatibility layers. I did a bit of testing with Ribose to fix some of these problems and improve Linux compatibility all around. In order to use the launcher before, it required installing various .NET versions in order for the program to even run. This process, as some of you may be aware, could take up to twenty minutes, which is obviously not very ideal at all. The new version of the launcher is a completely self-contained executable, which means installing prerequisites is not required.

    I decided to write up a quick and easy Lutris install script for Trails from Zero to make it even easier to get this game up and running on Linux. Do note that in order for this install script to be useful to you, you must provide your own setup file for the game. This script simply downloads the Geofront launcher’s data and then guides you through the install process. The link to the install script can be found here: https://github.com/TommyB123/zero-lutris-installer

    The install script itself mentions this, but I cannot stress enough that you should NOT click the play button after the initial install of the game. Important Wine DLL overrides are applied after the installer is closed, so if you attempt to launch the game through the installer, the Geofront mod will not actually get loaded and a reinstall may be required. I originally experienced a few graphical issues when playing the game with DXVK, so I tested it with WineD3D for a while and the game was perfectly playable. After a while, I decided to test DXVK again and found no issues with that either, so your mileage may vary. I’d recommend trying the game with DXVK first (which is the default option with my script) and falling back to WineD3D if you have any rendering problems. If anybody experiences any problems with the install script, feel free to create an issue on the GitHub repository. Thanks!!

  2. Thank you for everything you have done for Zero ni Kiseki, I had a great experience playing it thanks to you all and I can’t wait to discover Ao soon! Thanks again!

  3. Thank you so much for your hard work! I love the high quality work you guys do, i enjoyed playing Zero and can’t wait to play ao as well! thank you a lot for giving us such a wonderful and professional translation

  4. I greatly thank you for all the work youve put in for Zero and Azure. Real good stuff and I’m looking forward to Azure. However couldn’t you have released this final patch like 2 days ago 😅. I just got Zero from DLsite and using your most recent patch (at the time) I started playing 2 days ago. Is it possible to apply this patch to an already existing version? Im 10 or so hours in and dont want to have my progress be reset. Sorry if this seems like a dumb question.

  5. Cant thank you guys enough for all the hard work. Been following the project for quite some time and I am extremely busy with a full time job and being a dad. its taken me a long time to complete FC and SC but I am now Im 13 hours into Trails chapt 3 and cant wait to dive into the two crossbell games that you have masterfully adopted for us in the west. You guys are truly heroes, thank you!

    1. Never intended for there to be! The improvements that we brought to the game are vastly incompatible with PSP limitations, unfortunately.

  6. Firstly thank you for all the hard work you’ve put into this among your other projects aswell, but I do have a question. I’ve been waiting for this last patch for a little bit and this would be my first time actually playing zero, and it says on the zero page with directions you can install the game itself through the launcher so I wanted to do that. But I can’t find what file(s) it wants me to target for it so if anyone could help it’d be really appreciated, thank you

  7. Hello , first thank you for everything that everyone here has done it’s awesome. I have a question do you have to delete the existing zero launcher to download the new patch ? I’m having trouble downloading it nothing happens when I try to download it ?
    Thank you

  8. Thank you very much for all of your hard work that went into this project! The high res opening video looks really amazing! The only thing this patch broke was the evo vids and soundtrack. It causes some whacky playback that wants to skip backwards every few seconds through each track. Hopefully a fix gets identified for this since evo content is supported.

    1. Can anyone else acknowledge this issue as well? I need help figuring out if I’m the only one. I did a full reinstall from scratch with the latest download. I have the .\data\bgm_evo and .\data\movie_evo created. All BGM was converted from .at9 to .ogg. All of the vids were re-encoded to 480×272 resolution and saved as .DAT files as required. Audio skipping still exists. Problem did not exist prior to this final patch. Any thoughts?

      1. I confirmed all my EVO sound and vid file integrity is good and completely ruled out any issues with LAV splitters or codecs on my machine. I did this by simply placing all of the sound files from .\data\bgm_evo into \bgm, replacing all of the original sound files. They play perfectly fine in game now when they are considered the “original” soundtrack. This means something is jacked with the code calling the “Evolution” set of files. Something is wrong with both sets playing nicely together, particularly when they live in bgm_evo.

        1. Also confirmed that vids don’t need to be re-encoded to lower res. That’s only a requirement for the EVO ed7_logo.dat, which is not honored in .\movie_evo for some reason and can only playback if it replaces the original in .\movie….but that is a separate unrelated issue. Just simply need to add code to call ed7_logo.dat in .\movie_evo when the option to play EVO movies is enabled.

          So yes, issues calling and playing back files in .\bgm_evo is the crux of the problem. Fix that, and it fixes the OST and OP and ED vids being synced to playback the EVO tracks properly. We are all looking forward to the release of the final “final” patch now 😀

          1. No patch required. Soundarc handled the coding of EVO BGM playback requirements. Transcode the audio at 44.1Khz resolution resolves the issue. You will experience the sound skipping issue if your .OGG’s are 48Khz.

    1. They said in the previous update that they will not make it compatible with the steam release. It would be a crazy amount of work to make everything work with that release.

  9. Honestly, big props to the tester team for being really professional about the whole thing, and keeping things at zero leakage.

    Got my DLSite copy all warmed up for this. Can’t wait.

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