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The Cold Steel collection of RPGs — developed by Nihon Falcom across the 2010s — was an grand undertaking, accounting for the quantity of individuals and events featured. It required the creator five games to completely flesh out these characters. Emma Millstein's character development is developed in parallel with Cold Steel’s central narrative, but it's via the gradual evolution in her powers that we truly grasp the depth of her personal transformation.

Heads-up: The following content contains some story reveals for the central plot of the Trails of Cold Steel franchise.

In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, Emma Millstein is a typical teenager, just as the rest of the students of Thors Military Academy’s her class. As the representative, she's friendly to each person and strives to avert any conflicts between her peers. While she takes her student life really seriously, she lives a double life. In truth, she is a sorceress, a initiate of the Clan of Witches. Attending Thors is part of her real mission of guiding the protagonist Rean, the leader figure of her class, who is meant to call forth a powerful mech.

In every Trails of Cold Steel title, nearly all party members have at least one ultimate ability, a unique skill that demands you to have a minimum amount of CP to use. These supreme skills are meant to be your key advantage in each battle. S-Crafts are furthermore a way for the narrative to narrate the changes protagonists are undergoing. They can epitomize the advancement of a individual's combat prowess, like the protagonist's special ability Breaking Dawn in Cold Steel 4, which he acquires after earning the rank of Divine Blade. In different instances, such as Emma Millstein's, Falcom utilizes S-Crafts to communicate the personal growth a character experiences.

When the conflict in the nation of Erebonia begins in Cold Steel, Emma Millstein's approach to the events is the idealistic but reasonable idea that combat means attacking. The struggle continues to the next installment in the saga, where the pair of special abilities she wields are Albireon and her second S-Craft. Each are offensive techniques that target all opponents on the arena.

When we have the opportunity to see Emma again in Trails of Cold Steel III, we witness a different young woman. She has graduated from Thors, and after honing her skills with her family, she clearly to have grasped an crucial truth about who she is. Even though she becomes a powerful sorceress, Emma realizes that, primarily, she’s a defender. She is prepared to give up her own safety to protect everyone — but most notably Rean — out of harm's way. Her desire to take on this position is shown by her ultimate skill, which in Cold Steel 3 changes to her new defensive S-Craft.

When you use the ultimate ability Emma's new skill, Emma summons four glowing magical towers, and magical walls materialize linking them and enclosing the field of battle. The party members affected by this skill receive a few charges of total reflection, a effect that negates harm of all types. Emma had never been a aggressive person, so she transitions to a supportive approach, reflecting the caring demeanor she had consistently shown to her companions.

It’s fascinating to observe how Nihon Falcom utilizes a character’s skill set to enrich the series' story. RPGs often employ dialogue or graphics to tell us what a character is feeling. But Emma demonstrates that even a skill can contribute additional depth of meaning.