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The Cold Steel collection of JRPGs — published by Nihon Falcom throughout the past ten years — was an ambitious undertaking, given the multitude of individuals and plot points featured. It required the studio a quintet of games to mature these characters. Emma Millstein's character development is revealed in parallel with Cold Steel’s primary plot, but it's by observing the progressive shift in her abilities that we comprehend the significance of her inner growth.

Warning: Our discussion features some story reveals for the main storyline of the Cold Steel games.

In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, Emma Millstein is a regular young woman, just as the fellow pupils of Thors Academy's her class. As the student leader, she's friendly to each person and strives to avoid any conflicts between her classmates. Even though she takes her student life with great dedication, she has a secret identity. She is in fact a sorceress, a member of the magical Hexen family. Joining Thors Military Academy is a component of her real mission of guiding the protagonist Rean, the central character of the group, who is fated to awaken a ancient guardian.

In every Trails installment, most characters have at least one ultimate ability, a powerful move that needs you to have a sufficient quantity of CP to execute. These finishing moves are intended to be your ace in each battle. S-Crafts are furthermore a way for the game to narrate the transformations the cast are undergoing. They can represent the development of a persona's fighting style, like Rean Schwarzer’s special ability the skill Breaking Dawn in Cold Steel 4, which he acquires after earning the rank of Divine Blade. In different instances, for instance the witch Emma's, Nihon Falcom employs ultimate abilities to communicate the internal transformations a character experiences.

When the war in the empire erupts in the first game, Emma’s reaction to the situation is the naive but understandable belief that combat means engaging offensively. The conflict continues to the sequel in the series, where the pair of special abilities she has are her first S-Craft and her second S-Craft. Both are offensive techniques that target all opponents on the battlefield.

Once we have the opportunity to see Emma a second time in the third game, we see a different girl. She has moved on from Thors, and after training with her clan, she seems to have realized an important truth about who she is. Although she evolves into a formidable magic user, Emma realizes that, above all else, Emma is a protector. Emma is willing to sacrifice herself to keep all her friends — but especially the leader Rean — safe. Her desire to fulfill this position is shown by her ultimate skill, which in the third installment changes to Eregion.

When you use the ultimate ability Eregion, she conjures a quartet of translucent arcane structures, and magical walls form connecting them and enclosing the combat area. The characters under the influence of this skill gain a few charges of damage immunity, a buff that blocks injury of any kind. The character had not once been a belligerent individual, so she shifts to a supportive style, reflecting the nurturing attitude she had invariably demonstrated to her friends.

It’s intriguing to witness how the developers employs a protagonist's powers to complement the series' narrative. RPGs often rely on storytelling or cutscenes to show what a protagonist is feeling. But this character demonstrates that including a ability can provide another layer of meaning.