The Gagharv trilogy: Legend of Heroes III, IV and V
The Gagharv trilogy, The Legend of Heroes III: The White Witch (1994), IV: A Tear of Vermillion (1996) and V: Song of the Ocean (1999), shares a single world divided by Gagharv, a vast chasm that splits the land into separate regions with separate histories. Each game occupies a different region and era, and the trilogy's boldest choice is its chronology: released first, The White Witch is the story's distant finale, a pilgrimage across a world whose past the player has not yet seen. A Tear of Vermillion is set earliest, Song of the Ocean between them, and details planted in the earlier-told games recontextualise the finale, an anachronic structure the Trails arcs would later adopt at ten times the scale.
The West met the trilogy in its most confusing possible form. Bandai's PSP remakes were localised across 2005–2007 in scrambled order and numbering: A Tear of Vermillion first, stripped of its numeral and sold simply as The Legend of Heroes; The White Witch second, retitled The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch; Song of the Ocean last as III, so Japanese III became English II, IV became I, and V became III. The translations were widely criticised for errors and flattened prose, and the trilogy's Western reputation suffered for a generation. The record is still being repaired: in 2023 the Geofront, by then the officially-adopted translators of Crossbell, announced a fresh fan translation of The White Witch, and a licensed mobile remake, The Legend of Heroes: Gagharv Trilogy, launched in 2024.
