The Legend of Heroes is a series of role-playing video games developed by Nihon Falcom. First starting as a part of the Dragon Slayer series in the late 1980s, the series evolved into its own decade-spanning, interconnected series with fourteen entries, including several subseries. All nine games released since 2004 are part of the Trails subseries, known as Kiseki in Japan. The most recent entry, , was released in 2018.
History
The first entry of the series was released in 1989 as ', and was part of Nihon Falcom's Dragon Slayer line of games. It was released for various computer platforms, as well as consoles such as the Mega Drive, Super Famicom, and the PC Engine. The PC Engine version would be the only version to be released in English, and the only Legend of Heroes title released in North America until 2005. Meanwhile, in Japan, the series continued with ', released in 1992 for a similar selection of platforms. Subsequent games in the series dropped "Dragon Slayer" from the title. The Legend of Heroes III, The Legend of Heroes IV, and The Legend of Heroes V comprised the "Gagharv trilogy", a set of connected games taking place in the same world. After the conclusion of the Gagharv trilogy, Falcom introduced a completely new world and story with their next game in the series: ', which would later receive two sequels: Trails in the Sky SC and Trails in the Sky the 3rd. This trilogy of games makes up the first arc of a new subseries: the Trails series, known as Kiseki in Japan. This series would end up becoming a major success for Falcom, spanning multiple story arcs set in the same fictional continent of Zemuria. Falcom switched to a duology for the next arc of the series, consisting of' in 2010 and in 2011. These games were met with critical acclaim in Japan and Asia, winning multiple awards. Following that, the company moved on to the Cold Steel subseries, releasing Trails of Cold Steel in 2013, Trails of Cold Steel II in 2014, Trails of Cold Steel III in 2017, and Trails of Cold Steel IV in 2018.
A Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroesoriginal video animation anime was released in 1992, the same year that Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes II was released, loosely based on the story of the first game. In 1997, it was dubbed into English by Urban Vision and was released onto VHS in North America. The English dub has yet to be released on DVD. In 2009, three volumes of a Sora no Kiseki manga were published in Japan by Kadokawa Shoten, followed the next year by a sequel Zero no Kiseki - Pre-Story - Shinpan no Yubiwa, published by ASCII Media Works. Two original video animation anime episodes of Sora no Kiseki were released on October 10, 2011 and January 28, 2012 respectively.
