Trails to Azure Out Now!

The time has come. The Geofront’s The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure has officially launched, meaning you can download and begin installing now.

As stated during the release date announcement, you will need ONE of the following:

• The BG_setup.rar file for Joyoland’s Ao no Kiseki in Chinese.
• A previously existing installation of Ao no Kiseki in Chinese without the Geofront mod installed.
• A physical copy of Ao no Kiseki in Chinese released in Mainland China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong.

Most users will likely be going the first route, which means they need to acquire BG_setup.rar if they haven’t already. If this applies to you, then you can download the file either HERE via a Chinese hosting provided by Joyoland or HERE via archive.org. We expect both of these downloads to be slow on release day, which is why we advised fans all week to download this file ahead of time. Third parties may choose to host this file for the sake of fellow fans, but we will be unable to police and verify the authenticity of any downloads outside of the two we have provided. However, the authentic BG_setup.rar is as follows, so if you download it elsewhere, verify it through an unpacker or checksum tool.

Size: 1961792597 bytes (1870 MiB)
CRC32: 7662D11C
CRC64: 573517279414CDE9
SHA256: 7ED1417E84C170A4E0F9DDDB549269F15DEEF3EE48C6249592437DF632D88EF5
SHA1: 70A0E1B6D523E96AED91E4A0AB10A785784DDCC2
BLAKE2sp: 0638B823DA516C2946471C353671528F07C258CD3A75C1E2F91C347A11ADB516

If you choose to install the game via BG_setup.rar, you must purchase the license to the game via Joyoland’s website to legally play it. Here is a post explaining the purchasing process on Joyoland’s website. The Geofront does not condone piracy. While purchasing options for Ao no Kiseki on PC are less than ideal, we did everything we could within the system Joyoland chose to distribute the game with to make it legally obtainable for fans around the world, including playing a hand in seeing a PayPal option added.

Additionally, we strongly advise against downloading a pirated pre-patched copy of Trails to Azure. Our Azure requires dependencies such as LAV Filters, which is necessary to correctly display all of the game’s custom video files, of which there are many. Using AzureLauncher.exe is what installs this so that the game will work fine on your machine. Having done this once already with Trails from Zero, we have seen many players come to us with troubleshooting questions where the answer boils down to, “It didn’t work right because you downloaded a pre-patched version.” Go through the proper installation process to ensure optimal performance.

The Installer

If you’re familiar with downloading and installing Trails from Zero here from geofront.esterior.net, then the process will be very much the same. In fact, a lot of the following is verbatim from Zero’s launch last year:

You can find the installer on the Trails to Azure page.

Be sure to verify that the link you’re provided is one of the Geofront links. These are the only links that we can vouch for as not being modified or updated outside of our control. With the way the downloader on the site is setup, all links, both local and mirrors, can be found tagged with the Geofront subdomain before pulling the file.

If this site does go down during the process, many of us on Twitter will help provide the mirror links for you.

To help with updating the game, we have built an installer to make it as easy as possible for you to install the patch and its contents, and be able to play the game as a launcher with it. This launcher will detect which version of the Geofront patch you’re running, which can help confirm if you’re using the most updated version.

STEP 1: UNZIP THE PATCH FILE AND RUN AZURELAUNCHER.EXE

The Azure patch comes as a zip file, so use a program such as 7zip to extract the folder.

In the folder, you will find the launcher’s executable, a config file, and several mod files that contain the patch’s content. All you need to do is run AzureLauncher.exe.

STEP 2: PERFORM THE LAUNCHER INSTALLATION

The launcher can install your Chinese copy of Ao no Kiseki (either from BG_setup.rar or a physical disk). In fact, we recommend installing the game this way as it will be the most efficient.

Choose where to point the launcher to so it can perform the installation. For many of you, this will be the BG_setup.rar file in your downloads folder or wherever you have saved it. For others, it may be the ED_AO.exe from a previously existing installation. (This is also how you would update the game with any future patches). If you have a physical disc, point it to setup.exe on the disk’s image.

Next, you will see a window saying where the game will install to and everything you will be installing from our patch on top of the Chinese game.

You’re good to install wherever you’d like, except for the root directory of any given drive—the install will fail if you try. By default, the game will install to a FALCOM folder on your computer’s main drive, but you can redirect it to install where you prefer such as your Steam games folder for example.

At the top you will see the three major dependencies, which we suggest checking all three just to be safe. Many of you will already have them if you’re installing on the same machine you played Trails from Zero with. That’s perfectly fine, and having these checked won’t do any harm or delay the installation process.

The files below are all of the mods we’re providing. This, naturally, includes the English text, localized textures, and more. You’re safe to install all of these for the full Trails to Azure experience.

Finally, you’ll be shown a summary screen of every operation that is about to be performed. In other words, all the mods you’re installing and to what (such as BG_setup.rar file). Simply hit Install and let it do its magic.

STEP 3 (OPTIONAL): ADDING THE GAME TO STEAM OR GOG GALAXY

Once the game is fully installed, you’re welcome to launch it via AzureLauncher.exe or by simply opening ED_AO.exe in the game’s directory. However, you can also add the game to your Steam or GOG Galaxy libraries to go with the rest of your collection. The same can obviously be done for Trails from Zero.

To add the game to your Steam library, simply go to the lower-left corner of Steam, select “ADD A GAME,” and then “Add a Non-Steam Game…”

Next, choose “BROWSE” to open Windows File Explorer, locate your installation, and choose ED_AO.exe. Then, hit “ADD SELECTED PROGRAM” and voila. It will now be in your Steam library as “ED_AO.” From there you can right click to manage properties and name it “The Legend of Heroes: Trails to Azure” or whatever you like.

For Galaxy users, hit the plus button at the top of your library and select “Add game manually.”

Next, this window will open. Type in “Ao no Kiseki,” select the original 2011 release, and then hit the purple “LINK EXECUTABLE” button.

From there, use Windows File Explorer to locate your installation and open ED_AO.exe.

Once the game has been added to your launcher of choice, you can also customize it with artwork to make it feel more official and fit in with your other games. Inside the same folder where your ED_AO.exe is located, you’ll also find several image files for adding the game’s artwork to your Steam or Galaxy libraries.

Issue Reporting

There are several ways to report issues, bugs, etc. with the game. You can file a report through our website HERE. You can also join our Discord server where we have channels open for troubleshooting and reporting text bugs. You can also send screenshots to the Geofront Twitter or my personal Twitter if it’s a simple text bug, and I will most likely see it and make the fix.

Conclusion

There isn’t much to be said that hasn’t been at this point. Today marks the end of a several-year journey that was embarked on by dozens of people. From the original translators that volunteered to work on Zero and Azure (we love you, Guren), to those of us in the Geofront C Sector who’ve sacrificed so much in the last 14 months to see the second half of the Azure-Zero Project finished. We have achieved something miraculous. From today onward, regardless of whether any western publisher steps up to the plate someday, the West will have the Crossbell arc forevermore. I cannot put into words how proud I am to have been a part of it or how proud I am to deliver my favorite game ever made to all of you.

I can’t say what the future holds right now, but I know it will be bright. We still have so much more to give you, so please look forward to what we have to announce next, be excited to finally play Ys vs. Trails in the Sky later this year, and finally…enjoy Trails to Azure.