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The Trails of Cold Steel saga of RPGs — developed by the developer Falcom during the last decade — was an grand undertaking, considering the multitude of characters and storylines featured. It required the developer a quintet of games to completely flesh out these protagonists. Emma Millstein's character development is developed in tandem with Cold Steel’s main story, but it's by observing the subtle change in her abilities that we fully understand the extent of her inner growth.

Note: The following content contains light plot details for the central plot of the Cold Steel series.

In Legend of Heroes: Cold Steel, the character Emma is a typical young woman, similar to the rest of the students of the academy's her class. As the class president, she's friendly to everyone and strives to prevent any conflicts between her fellow students. Although she approaches her studies very earnestly, she has a secret identity. She is in fact a witch, a part of the magical Hexen family. Enrolling in Thors is part of her real mission of guiding Rean, the key individual of her class, who is fated to awaken a ancient guardian.

In each Trails of Cold Steel game, nearly all playable personas have at least one ultimate ability, a unique skill that demands you to have a sufficient quantity of Craft Points to activate. These finishing moves are intended to be your ace in all fights. Special Crafts are furthermore a way for the narrative to depict the transformations characters are experiencing. They can represent the development of a character’s technique, for example Rean's S-Craft his new technique in Cold Steel 4, which he gains after reaching the rank of master swordsman. In other cases, such as Emma’s, Falcom utilizes S-Crafts to convey the personal growth a individual experiences.

When the conflict in the empire begins in the first game, Emma Millstein's response to the situation is the idealistic but logical belief that fighting means attacking. The war extends to the sequel in the saga, where the dual S-Crafts she has are Albireon and Rain. Each are damage-dealing skills that target all opponents on the arena.

When we have the opportunity to see Emma again in Cold Steel 3, we witness a transformed girl. She has graduated from the academy, and after practicing with her witch community, she appears to have grasped an important truth about who she is. Even though she grows into a formidable spellcaster, Emma realizes that, primarily, she’s a guardian. She’s willing to sacrifice herself to protect the group — but most notably Rean Schwarzer — out of harm's way. Her desire to occupy this position is hinted at by her ultimate skill, which in the third installment transforms into Palace of Eregion.

When you use the S-Craft Eregion, Emma summons a quartet of glowing pillars of magic, and shields form connecting them and encircling the combat area. The characters affected by this ability gain a few stacks of Absolute Reflect, a status that negates damage of any kind. The character had not once been a aggressive individual, so she transitions to a protective approach, reflecting the caring demeanor she had consistently demonstrated to her companions.

It’s compelling to observe how Nihon Falcom utilizes a persona's abilities to enrich the series' plot. RPGs typically rely on dialogue or cutscenes to inform players what a persona is thinking. But Emma Millstein demonstrates that even a spell can contribute another layer of insight.