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The Trails of Cold Steel series of RPGs — developed by the developer Falcom throughout the 2010s — was an ambitious undertaking, given the quantity of personas and events featured. It took the developer a quintet of games to completely flesh out these protagonists. Emma Millstein's character development is revealed in tandem with Cold Steel’s central narrative, but it's through the gradual evolution in her skill set that we comprehend the extent of her emotional journey.

Heads-up: The following content features light plot details for the primary narrative of the Cold Steel series.

In The Legend of Heroes: Cold Steel, the character Emma is a ordinary teenager, similar to the rest of the students of Thors Military Academy’s Class VII. As the student leader, she's friendly to each person and strives to avert any disagreements between her peers. Although the character treats her academy duties with great dedication, she lives a double life. She is in fact a practitioner of magic, a initiate of the magical Hexen family. Attending Thors Military Academy is part of her underlying objective of mentoring Rean Schwarzer, the central character of her class, who is meant to call forth a Divine Knight.

In every Trails installment, most characters have at least one S-Craft, a powerful move that demands you to have a minimum amount of CP to execute. These ultimate abilities are designed to be your ace in all fights. These ultimate skills are also a way for the narrative to depict the transformations characters are experiencing. They can symbolize the refinement of a persona's fighting style, for example Rean Schwarzer’s ultimate move Breaking Dawn in Trails of Cold Steel IV, which he gains after attaining the title of Divine Blade. In some situations, such as Emma Millstein's, the developers employs ultimate abilities to communicate the emotional changes a persona experiences.

When the conflict in Erebonia erupts in Trails of Cold Steel I, Emma Millstein's reaction to the circumstances is the idealistic but understandable notion that battle means striking. The conflict spills over to the second game in the saga, where the two S-Crafts she has are Albireon and her second S-Craft. These two are attack-oriented moves that target all foes on the battlefield.

After we have the chance to see Emma again a second time in Trails of Cold Steel III, we witness a transformed young woman. She has graduated from Thors, and after honing her skills with her clan, the protagonist seems to have understood an crucial insight about herself. Even though she grows into a impressive sorceress, she realizes that, primarily, she is a guardian. She’s ready to give up her own safety to protect the group — but particularly the leader Rean — out of harm's way. Her desire to occupy this responsibility is subtly indicated by her S-Craft, which in Trails of Cold Steel III transforms into her new defensive S-Craft.

When you activate the special move Eregion, she conjures four semi-transparent pillars of magic, and shields materialize joining them and encircling the combat area. The characters benefiting from this ability receive a few instances of damage immunity, a effect that blocks injury of all types. Emma had at no point been a aggressive character, so she shifts to a protective approach, reflecting the nurturing attitude she had invariably extended to her friends.

It’s intriguing to witness how Nihon Falcom employs a persona's powers to enrich the game’s narrative. Role-playing games frequently use written text or graphics to inform players what a character is thinking. But Emma Millstein shows that including a skill can provide another layer of meaning.