It's still my favorite Cold Steel game by a large margin and actually played the past game, the experience that this game gives you is immaculate and rewarding.

The whole Liberl and Crossbell coming back after 3 games feels so damn satisfying and pleasing to see them in 3D.

The sidequest of this game is definitely the glow up for me, so much lore behind and i was actually suprised i was even interested at reading it, the curse thing is a thing that really differs from people but i really find it okay overall and how the handled it.

This game shows how much the build-up for 9 GAMES and how they made his one of my favorite of the franchise and how that can apply to rean as well.

BASICALLY I FUCKING LOVE REAN SCHWARZER.

6/10.

To sendo generoso em questão de nota, não serei tao imparcial hoje.

Cold steel 4, o fim de um saga de quatro jogos, fim de um arco...
Resolução: Vingadores ultimato so que melhor porem nao bom + Light novel energy+ battle shounen+ one piece pós time skip+ Full metal alchemist brotherhood

Com essa descrição pode soar bastante ruim esse jogo e olha... ele nao é tanto, mas pode se dizer que sim.

Cold steel 4 é um jogo pretensioso eu diria, na real o arco de erebonia vulgo toda quadrilogia cold steel é pretensiosa, porém com uma execução ruim e insuficiente quando sai do aspecto ruim.

Nao posso negar que existia potencial latente pkrl nesse jogo pra ele ser excelente, mas não foi o caso.

Realizei quase 100 por cento desse jogo ns minhs primeira run, em termos de conteúdo opcional, 75 horas de duração.

Devo dizer que até em termos de conteúdo opcional ficou inconsistente a qualidade, ainda que este seja o núcleo mais prazeroso e frutífero deste jogo.

Muitos personagens tem sua conclusão de arco narrativo de personagem neste jogo, outros so se tornam decentes, outros se mantém a mesma merda e etc, os bounding events (social links do Paraguai) se tornaram muito bons em texto de personagem do que este em história central direta.... PARABÉNS FALCOMM, SUA ARROMBADA.

O protagonista deste arco havia demonstrado traços de evolução em sua escrita e tendo substância em cold steel 3, mas cold steel 4 meio que é uma prosa fraca, um texto fraco e uma conclusão incompleta a tal personagem, então como digo.... eles escolheram o arquétipo de protagonista de light novel e deram um resolução absurdamente genérica pra ele e ficou um gosto amargo na minha boca.

4 jogos pra desenvolver um protagonista e não foi decente.... pqp, torcendo pra reverie salvar pq senão....

Dito isso o plot desse jogo tem tantas coisas chatas, retcon, plot armor e etc que sendo sincero foda se.

Gameplay, em resumo é cold steel 2 2.
Eu odeio a estrutura de cold steel 2 e esses malditos refizeram ela melhor, mas isso nao significa muito pra mim, ja que os problemas dessa estrutura ainda se mantém.

Nao vou entrar em detalhes, mas esse jogo meio precisei grindar, fazer builds e etc, foi divertido fazer certas coisas, mas enjoa dps de um tempo.

A trilha sonora deste camarada sofre igual a de cold steel 2, so uma musica ou duas marcantes.

Majestic roar ou coalecense e to the future foram as osts que mais curti, mas em suma tudo música ok.

Cold steel 4 tem muitos problemas, pouco tempo pra fazer algo que demoraria 2 ou 1 jogo a mais pra se realizar de forma verdadeiramente interessante, muito personagem controlável e uso mal regulado de alguns e etc.

Chegou num ponto que peguei síndrome de estolcomo com esse jogo e começei a gostar de muita bullshit.

Conclusão: cansativo e fraco

as much an answer to the question of cs2 as to 3; a machine rapidly switching between the best and worst trails game; a stupid, utopian, optimistic humanist version of mecha anime like ideon which approached post ww2 and cold-war era questions of human nature/capacity for violence wrt nuclear weapons through the idea of “the weapon fighting the war itself”...
seeks catharsis through tracing the genre's concerns back to the second industrial revolution, the outbreak of world war 1, and more fundamentally prehistory; a retelling of (among other things) the universal century narrative where instead, the weight of history is a barrier that can be fully overcome, where the symbolic power of the mecha can be fully reclaimed, and where the evil behind all the conflicts, the invention of the weapon, can be isolated and defeated, revealing the ultimate truth resting in its origin: earth and fire could just as well become a human body and beating heart, the only thing the future really needs. never again listening to anyone who complains about the lack of permanent death in these games when the resurrection at this story’s end is literally the thematic completion of the entire series lol

The Legend of Xenogears: Trails of Cold Saga IV
(the game that broke my brain)

Where do I even start with this game? The lore is batshit insane (derogatory), everyone treats Rean like he's the second coming of Anime Jesus, the characters take literal days to rest in the middle of WW3 after doing a day or two of hiking, the vast majority of the returning cast is flanderized to hell and back TO THE POINT IT HAPPENS IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CUTSCENES IN THE GAME (thankfully Renne is at least spared such a tragic fate), they revive 3 separate characters (Toval, Olivier, and Victor) who died very much onscreen, in a very unambiguous way, to which the party's reactions were very apparent, because Falcum can't stand killing off their OCs (yes it's a spoiler and no I don't care), they revive Crow 3 times by taping his soul to Valimar or some shit, the curse only exists to make the party have 3 billion boss fights with the most rando characters imaginable (WHY AM I FIGHTING THE FUCKING MUSIC TEACHER FROM CS1 GET ME OFF THIS TRAINWRECK), Thomas fucks off for the 4th game in a row despite being built up to hell and back (hey remember when Dominions were actively involved in the plot and eventually became party members? well that sure is a thing of the past), TOWA ISN"T PLAYABLE YET AGAIN, Musse becomes a grand chessmaster or something idk, McBurn sure is a boss fight and mcburninates everyone and activates his inner Trogdor and gives you an item that unlocks the true ending (?????) and you can only get the true ending by completing all the quests in the game (????????????) and the last quest is beating up the dragon Holy Beast (???????????????????????????????????????), all the women party members, INCLUDING REAN"S FUCKING STUDENTS (INCLUDING FUCKING ALTINA) (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA), are romanceable (screaming internally) (I still can't get over the Laura cave scene and that's a whole other bucket of worms), TOWA ACTIVELY FORGIVES CROW ON SCREEN FOR BEING DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ACTIVELY AND QUITE POSSIBLY KNOWINGLY PUTTING HER LIFE IN DANGER IN CS1 (that shit should give her PTSD at least and that's not even getting into her very possible abandonment issues SET UP ONLY 1 GAME PRIOR), Alberich is there to be a bad guy who does evil bad guy things because that's what the evil bad guy do (on top of functionally being a really bad ripoff of Dmitri Yuriev which should be a war crime on its own), Kloe isn't playable yet again AND IS LITERALLY PUT IN A POSITION TO BE PLAYABLE but Falcum didn't want to animate her or something I guess (I don't think she even gets a Brave Order either when Schera of all people does which is extra retarded, especially with hindsight from Hajimari BECAUSE SCHERA IS PREGGERS AND IS IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ACTIVE WARZONE), the party fights Osborne and Arianrhod at the bottom of the Gnome BDSM factory hobbit hole thing (??????????????????????????????????) way before the end of the game which takes away what little crumbs of gravitas he had left (I don't think he even gets an Anti-Order WHICH YOU"D THINK HE WOULD SINCE HE APPARENTLY CAN SPREAD THE ANTI-ORDER VIRUS TO THE IRONBLOODS), the writing generally being barely passable at best and an absolute fustercluck at worst, the gameplay being the easiest it's ever been even on Nightmare and every enemy being walking bags of HP (I checked at least a few times per chapter if I didn't accidentally switch it to an easier difficulty even when I wasn't optimizing everyone), and a lot of other stuff that probably slipped my mind but I don't care because this game's plot is frighteningly worthless.

Before I start ranting about the game's comically lopsided reception compared to how it actually is, I want to say that there are a handful of things I did like about the game.
-I liked that Juna was basically the protagonist for the first chapter of the game (and honestly she should have just been the protag, or at least a deuteragonist, for the rest of the game). Alisa entirely dropped being the deuteragonist during CS2 and it would have been nice to have someone fill in that role, especially since it would give a chance to split the cast to focus on other parts of Erebonia with Class 7 focusing on one part and Class 7 2 focusing on another part (why in the shiny fuck we didn't get to go to Jurai or North Ambria instead of farting around for the entirety of Chapter 2 I will never fathom). But anyway, Juna protag I very much appreciated for the short time it happened, since she's easily the only one left with any amount of tangible reason to want to stop Daddy Osborne from being a big ol' meanie (and NO, Crow no longer counts).
-There were a handful of bonding events I liked, despite easily being the worst handled aspect of the arc. I liked the one with Altina where she tried to help liberate Ymir from Imperial soldiers, the one where Emma tried to purge Ishmelga from Rean at great personal risk to herself (even though, let's face it, the only reason they did it was to have a reason for Emma to be naked), and the one with Musse showing Rean her suicide gun. There were a few problems with the setup for each of them (and frankly for Emma's it really should have just been a plot scene instead of Insert Epic Anime Fight #236754762354) but the fact that I really like the ideas for them more than makes up for their shortcomings.

And now for the rant.

If it isn't obvious, this is one of the worst games I've ever played, and not just because it's such a massive blueball for longtime fans who want something more substantial than having shiny objects dangling in front of them. And it really stinks because the plot can be summed up as "Xenogears meets Highlander during WW3" which sounds fucking awesome, but somehow Falcum made it the most boring, mind-numbing, tedious waste of time ever. Falcum has been building up Osborne since FUCKING SKY THE THIRD and his scene in Ao where he was openly threatening Dieter in a room full of dignitaries from other countries was easily one of the best scenes in the entire series, and in this arc he's been nothing but an absolute tin can of a person. I legitimately can't even tell if it's one of those "iT wAs JuSt iShMeLgA aLL aLoNg" plotpoints or if Osborne was completely in control the entire time because the way the writers explain the mind-melding whatever the hell was going on with him and Alberich is extremely confused and misleading. To be fair I completely clocked out by that point in the game, but I actively tried to look it up and ask other people what was happening with that, and either method didn't help me to understand much better beyond "Ishmelga and Osborne were doing stuff together". To put it in perspective, one of my favorite game series is Xenosaga. There is a very delicately woven, intricate plot of subterfuge, corporate spying, fucky experimentation, and intrigue all centered around an event that took place 14 in-game years ago. There are many different factions with different interests either trying to vie for control or to oppose the factions that would disturb the peace. To say that the player needs to almost take notes at some points while playing the games would not be an understatement. And those games are much easier to follow than most of anything in this game and Cold Steel because the writers had a goal they wanted to accomplish and actively articulated what everyone was doing when they were doing it, and the player can easily see what was happening and can make reasonable guesses as to what could happen next, and has many twists and turns to keep it interesting that don't come out of the same nowhere that Ishmelga showed up from. With this game, that sense is very much absent, at least for me. And Takahashi's plans got derailed partway through making the series; he had to cut down from 6 games to 3 games, with some supplementary content to fill in necessary gaps that couldn't make it into the games proper. What Takahashi accomplished in just 3 games, a VN and a phone game was monumental; what this game accomplished with all the buildup, time to develop and money that Falcum could muster was a tragedy. And for the final nail in the coffin, the entire Xenosaga series can be 100% completed in roughly the same time someone would 100% complete CS1.

And I'm not here trying to say everyone who likes this game is bad or anything, but I genuinely envy the people who can just turn their brains off and enjoy this shit. Superficially, longtime favorite characters make appearances and generally do things that they might do in this situation, so the immersion isn't ruined. There's a lot of pretty crazy stuff happening after Rean makes a comeback which amps up the stakes for the latter half of the game, and Cassius comes out of retirement to teach Rean a pretty cool and (relatively speaking) mechanically interesting S-craft that, admittedly, is one of my favorites in the series and can reasonably compete with all-time greats like Sakura Morning Moon.
All that being said, the amount of praise this game gets despite how much of a shitshow it is at a glance deeper than cursory always baffled me. There's people who either love this game to pieces or there's people who absolutely hate it with every fiber of their being, which is really unfortunate because the writers (might) still have an amount of passion for the series but to have it fail on this scale, especially with a relatively decent track record, says to me they need to slow production of this series down and let the series breathe a bit and have them think through everything properly. With the few things that I liked, even when it's an unfortunately very small part of the runtime it's genuinely up there with some of the other games I really enjoy. And to top it all off, I don't think Trails is even recoverable after this game; Hajimari did a decent job of trying to retcon a lot of the really dumb nonsense that was set up in this game and is basically just CS4 2: The Search for More Hanging Plot Threads, but Falcum's braindead insistence on having characters futz around on screen until the plot happens has finally caught up to them, and the plot is no longer something I can take seriously in any capacity.

Anyway, Cold Steel in general is an arc that I suggest people skip (the amount of stuff the player needs to know from it to get into Kuro can literally be summed up in a paragraph) but especially skip this one. The only parts of it that I think are worth watching are up on Youtube so just search around there.

I'll get this out of the way first. My ONLY complaint about the game is the localization is an absolute mess. Main story scenes are thankfully fine, but when it comes to side-quests and NPC dialogue there's tons of grammar issues, changed names (Like the Bose region in Liberl was changed to Beaus for some reason or Sieg, Kloe's pet falcon was called Zeke...) as well as so many messed up text-boxes where the text was outside of the box. NISA really needs to step up their translation game because even fan translations like Geofront are leagues above this shit.

Now that that's out of the way everything else that I have to say is positive.

Let me start off by saying that Cold Steel IV was my GOTY for 2020 and Falcom have delivered once again, not like I expected any less. Showing all other developers how to make a long-running series built upon in-depth, detailed world-building, character development and an interconnected story the goes through the entire series.

The story is fantastic as always with some moments easily being among my all time favorites out of the entire series, a LOT happened in the game, this has to be the most action-packed Trails game since Ao no Kiseki, there's plenty of shocking reveals and well thought out plot-twists and I feel that the writers really gave the Erebonia arc the finale it deserved.

The world-building is of course just as great as always, bringing back many NPCs from all previous games and arcs, showing how they are now and even making some older NPCs who felt inconsequential have a bigger role in the main story, this is just truly special and something only Trails can pull off. Plus one thing I absolutely loved was how as the main story progresses, more and more NPCs start disappearing from towns because they're being conscripted and drafted into the war effort and it really made that looming threat of the war between Erebonia and Calvard feel all the more real.

While the cast of characters is pretty massive at this point, no-one felt underutilized to me and everyone gets proper time to shine and develop. It was especially always a pleasure seeing old characters from Trails in the Sky or Zero/Ao no Kiseki meeting and teaming up with Class VII and other Cold Steel characters for the first time. Also even older characters from the Trails in the Sky or Crossbell games have moments that show they're still growing as people and it just proves to me that when it comes to character writing and development, Falcom is the undisputed champion.

The OST is incredible and one of my faves from the entire series so far. It has tons of variety with a mix of more calmer town music, bombastic orchestral pieces for the really epic moments, shreddy power metal for battle themes and tons of atmospheric, mood setting tracks. There's a lot of reused themes from past games and even some special arranged versions of older themes, but all the new tracks are fantastic.

There's TONS of content. You always get your money's worth when it comes to Falcom games and Cold Steel IV is no different. Lots of side-quests that help build the world and develop side characters even more, some fun little mini-games like the card game Vantage Masters or the Puyo Puyo styled Pom! Pom! Party! Plus all your typical Trails standards like constantly updating NPC dialogue, long cut-scenes, bonding events with teammates and in game books you can read, like 3 and 9 which apparently give in-depth backstory of 2 new characters in Hajimari no Kiseki.

The combat is just as fun as ever, taking the new elements from Cold Steel III like Brave Orders and balancing them out a bit more. Trial Chests from Cold Steel II are back and used as a way to upgrade your Brave Orders, so your starting orders are nerffed, making the earlier half of the game feel a bit more difficult. Also I really loved how some bosses had their own Brave Orders they could use called 'Disorders' and they would cancel out your own orders and debuff your characters as well.

All in all I really have no complaints about this game aside from the messy localization. It's a fantastic finale to my fave arc in my fave J-RPG franchise and my new fave game in the series. Falcom simply continues to be the best in the world at what they do and I just don't see another developer ever even coming close to matching, let alone surpassing them when it comes to appealing to my own personal tastes.

This game's kinda polarizing because on one hand it has a large amount of undeniable garbage that sinks lower than this series ever has, namely the bonding events which made me crawl out of my skin every time I had to do one (also Agate, who was my favorite character in sky and now makes me cringe whenever hes on screen), and on the other hand it has some of the highest highs in the series.

The main story is raw as fuck but its very sloppily executed; the concept being a battle royale gauntlet between all the main players of the arc was so exciting, but they don't capitalize on it at all and make every climactic showdown identical in terms of circumstance and setting, making it feel like you're going down a checklist more than you're experiencing any kind of story. Most of the cities and zones you spend the majority of your time in are completely irrelevant and only the stage of the plot because it's the region they made for this arc (I know its unrealistic to expect them to recreate E. Erebonia in this engine, but at least some of the cities would've been nice. Also why the fuck is Heimdallr unused again).

Gameplay was a lot easier than CS3 albeit still fun and satisfying, and having a larger playable cast was really entertaining, although I wish they gave me a chance to build them all and tailor my party like in Sky 3rd. I appreciate that every boss doesn't fucking heal constantly anymore, but breaking became kinda useless as a result and there aren't many fights you'll struggle on that you can't s-craft dump through.

TLDR: It's a sloppy mess but a fun sloppy mess. Falcom you still have a chance to back out of what you're doing with Agate. Im going to kill myself if you go through with it and the blood is on your hands. I love Rean Schwarzer.

Cold Steel 4 is an enigma. A curious creation. Because I think this game is fucking garbage. However, I think its enjoyable garbage. See, if you are actively thinking while playing Cold Steel 4 it falls apart at the seams and becomes a fucking hot mess writing wise, as you slowly realise how many wasted concepts from Sky 3rd the game dumps aside, or how the overarching plot is completely fucked over for the stupid curse bullshit or for the dumb shit with the Gnomes and the Reinfords. However, if you turn your brain off, it becomes a dumb fun experience with fun gameplay and stupid plot revelations, with the only real comparison I can be making in this regard is to Fire Emblem Fates. Personally speaking, I love 2/3rds of Fire Emblem Fates, Conquest especially. However, those games are infamous for having incredibly dogshit plots, horrible writing in general, with the only real saving grace being Conquest's map design, the engine, and the music. Now, you may be asking, May, how is this relevant? Well the sheer amount of unironic comparisons I can make directly between the entire Cold Steel arc and Fire Emblem Fates is frankly ridiculous and absurd. The only problem here is Fire Emblem Fates is fully self contained, and has no bearing on any other game in its series. The Cold Steel arc, a four game long arc in a nearly 15 year running series, is NOT self contained, thus with this level of DOGSHIT writing contained within affecting 5 ENTIRE GAMES BEFORE THE ARC.

However I think the worst part about this is how I enjoyed this game more than Cold Steel 1 and 3. Cold Steel 1 is quite possibly the least engaged I have ever been playing a video game, and I've played Devil May Cry 2. Cold Steel 3 felt like an active betrayal, the game stabbing me in the back as I felt dragged into a false sense of security with its excellent first three chapters only for it to drop a bowling ball on a glass house in the last two. Due to where Cold Steel 3 ended, my expectations for Cold Steel 4 were absurdly low, and therefore, I feel like I enjoyed CS4 more than I would otherwise. CS4 also has a frankly hilarious soundtrack, Singa is one of the funniest composers of all time I can't believe Deep Carnival is a real track.

Current Trails game ranking:
Zero > Azure > Sky 3rd > CS2 = Sky Sc > Sky FC > CS4 > CS3 > CS1.
I can't fucking wait to play Reverie.

An amazing conclusion to the Cold Steel Saga. The arc that was built up for 5 games though the Sky arc and Crossbell arc.
There is never a dull moment, you feel the pressure of the games atmosphere as the world is going to hell and being in the hotbed in the middle of a war. Every character you've known for the past games showing up working together to help fight, unexpected allies and past enemies. More twists and answers revealed about past events that get even more crazy and it even drops even more crazy bombs of questions that make you wonder in the finale what is gonna happen in the future of this series and this can also go hand in hand with Hajimari with it making people wonder what the hell is going to be happening. Crazy ass game that's fucking raw and awesome as fuck and that's only scratching the surface. Reans character arc in this game really starts to show that he’s one of the best.

I think if I had to really pinpoint which game best represents the shallow melodrama, clusterfuck of plot threads and ideas, bad character writing dumbed down gameplay and lack of care or attention given to its mechanics of cold steel i think IV fits the bill in every aspect.

Nothing about this game feels cohesive every one of its ideas and executions feel stale and messy the experience is marred constantly with the same issues every cold steel game seems to have and i'm not sure if they're even aware of what they're doing half the time as it seems like CSIV looses track of what it's trying to be halfway through although at times it seems like not even they knew what they wanted to be.

In general if you want an idea of what exactly is wrong with cold steel's direction look no further then the pantagruel scene big setpiece with all these characters from better games mingling with the CS cast which then results in the same 5 villains repeated ad nauseum since fucking SC getting in a zoom call with the cast while they're all angry at them which then culminates in a series of piss easy filler boss fights that ends on a deus ex machina with a character that was thought to have died in the previous entry coming to save them out of nowhere.

I really don't think i can say much as anything else would just be repeating the obvious fuck cold steel lmao

trails of cold steel IV is the conclusion of the cold steel saga and an ambitious attempt to tie all loose ends, including the liberl and crossbell cast. while this game has high highs and abysmally low lows at moments, the cast is just so memorable and very well written that i had to close my eyes to all the asspulls and plot holes and similar.

first of all, the good things. i admit i understand why some people are simply tired of rean and his story but you just can't hate him (talking about the in-game rean, not the rean the fandom projects on). he's just a guy put in shitty situations and tries to deal with them, obviously with the power of friendship because what is a JRPG without the magical power of bonds. but it's okay, the writing was really good there, the new class VII was amazing and brimming with character. the ost is like a warm hug, i love it so much and the battle system is very fun, the quartz system will never get old for me. another good thing, which was a deciding factor for giving this game a high rating is, well the true ending.
it filled me with genuine happiness and emotions like yeah, i followed the whole cast for 6 years and they all end up happy, good stuff. also i love the lore and worldbuilding, it was really solid, though this game went off the rails at times so even the worldbuilding was a bit janky.
the normal ending was pretty good too, no asspulls level hirohiko araki, though it was bittersweet it was pretty solid.

now the bad things. like i said, this was too ambitious of a project, cramming such a huuuuuge amount of story and lore (of three branches of this series) in one game couldn't work at all. i get this game should be played slowly and going from one corner to another soaking in the information and atmosphere but in the late game and especially going for the true ending everything just goes crazy and some oddly convenient stuff for the main party happens, which is, frankly, unrealistic especially looking at the ''war'' theme and part of the whole story.
thank god the romance options were optional, because if they were mandatory i would give this game 2* at best, the way they're written is classic weeaboo incel cringe bullshit and totally ooc 💀 thankfully, the homophobia backfired and we have crow and rean as the canon ship of cold steel because it's much more real and genuine than any of rean's social link romances
also the playable cast can be overwhelming at times, but that's on me.
overall, it's an okay game and it does its job to an extent, it could be much better, but it's not bad per se.