La ultimísima entrega de la saga Trails. Con una fórmula más que quemadísima, pero que sigue resultando lo suficientemente entretenida.
Al menos, con esta entrega, una especie de epílogo de todo lo que acontece en Cold Steel I - IV, despojan del contenido de mayor relleno y se centran en historia y gameplay sin mucho filtro.
Irónicamente, es de los Trails con más cantidad de contenido secundario opcional, pero al menos esta vez todo es realmente optativo, puedes interactuar con ello y puedes dejarlo de lado (juegos de cartas, puyopuyo, magical girls, date sims...) sin perderte "demasiadas" cosas. Trofeos y tokens, pero poca cosa más.
Aunque el combate me gusta, me parece que Into Reverie suma toodos los problemas que ha arrastrado la saga: lentitud y bloat de personajes. No es de recibo que la velocidad estandar a la que tengas que jugar sea con el turbo activado en todas las situaciones de gameplay. Ya de base eso me parece absurdo. Tampoco entiendo que haya necesidad de meter 55 personajes jugables con los que formalizar combinaciones constantemente. El Reverie Corridor suena muy bien sobre el papel, hasta que tiens que pararte a itemizar a cada uno de los personajes. Al menos, a la veintena o así que más utilidad quieras que aporten.

En cuanto a la historia, el gancho principal de esta saga y por la que sigo jugando, me ha parecido un tremendo pifostio de proporciones gigantescas. Es un desbarajuste de sacadas de rabo (molonas, vale, pero... ya les vale), powerups innecesariamente metidos con calzador, explicaciones supercomplejas a motivaciones que se me antojan bastante sencillas, planes dentro de planes y dentro otros planes que parecen siempre salir bien para el héroe y el villano... cero riesgos en ningún momento. Incluso en el punto final en el que podían haber matado a un personaje, se vuelven a sacar el rabo para hacer tachan y salvarlo. Porque sí, porque no podemos dejar que muera NI UN SOLO personaje de los 55.
Y tampoco parece que realmente haya habido mayor consecuencia si te paras a pensar: la amenaza que inicia el juego es neutralizada y todo se queda como iba a estar desde el principio... prácticamente.

En fin. Como última entrega de esta larguísima saga está bastante bien y deja el estado del mundo de Zemuria en una situación muy interesante. Apenas diferente de lo que estaba ya en CS IV, pero con tres o cuatro adiciones bastante chulas que pueden dar un juego profundo en la próxima iteración de la saga. Aún así, no lo veo justificable. Es un totum revolutum hecho para que los fans del inmenso cast de personajes puedan tener un rato de gloria con su personaje/s favoritos. Prefiero verlo así y esperar que con Daybreak en Calvard el scope se reduzca bastante más y que ciertos personajes no vuelvan NUNCA jamás a ser protagonistas de nada y que si tienen que salir, sean en cutscenes y ya.

Culmen inmejorable tanto de la saga de Erebonia como de la de Crossbell. Su premisa, sobre el papel, no deja de semejar la de esa típica OVA o película que sucede a una serie de anime de éxito, sólo que esta vez ese especial no es un elemento de fanservice vacío, sino que crece sin parar tanto en propuesta como en ejecución y, aparte de coronarse como inmejorable epílogo, estructura su narrativa (ese guion reenfoca conceptos anteriormente vistos en la saga de manera magistral) y, sobre todo, desarrolla a sus personajes mucho mejor que la obra madre. Rean Schwarzer era ya un protagonista con todas las de la ley en Cold Steel IV, pero aquí recibe ese último empujón que necesitaba para entrar en el olimpo del género. Las otras dos figuras principales, tanto Lloyd como el misterioso C, reciben exactamente que lo que merecen y conforman entre todos una triada inolvidable. Y no podemos olvidarnos de los demás: la Clase VII, la SSS y la panda de Liberl. Un último baile inolvidable con todos ellos.
Mucho más ágil y directo que cualquier Cold Steel, empapado de la mística de Zero/Azure y recuperando por fin cierta herencia del espíritu familiar y bonachón de Sky, quizás Reverie no sea el mejor Trails libra por libra, pero sí es el Trails definitivo y aquel que los fans necesitábamos. Qué larga se va a hacer la espera hasta Daybreak.

happiness not as something to be fought for, not something to be gifted only after untold suffering, but simply an obligation. an obligation to those we love, an obligation to those we've left behind

we are given life, and it is those we love who provide meaning to live that life. the gentle kiss of a lover, the weathered yet comforting arms of a mother or father, the welcoming uproarious voice of a friend, the nuzzled murmurs of a snuggled up pet. all are reasons to continue, all are reasons to continue walking this form we're given. and all are reasons that happiness, indelibly, graces our souls

maybe that's all we need to find a reason to wake up every morning. to persist when persistence is lost. to subsist when we walk among our fettered lives. that even as we rot, as we burn in our own anguish, the unmitigated love of all the souls we cherish are reason to find a way to continue

i am but a gentle dream, of warmth and weariness. wake up, have a little cry, and forget i ever happened

Trails of Cold Steel V in disguise and they thought we wouldn't notice....






This game is hard carried by the C route. The other two routes bring literally nothing to the table.

i feel like the main plot somehow is not necessarily has to happen to really wrap up the cold steel + crossbell arc. but idk, perhaps they're referencing to this game a lot in daybreak thus the game is made (i havent played kuro/daybreak).

that aside, the fluff/side stories were so fun, i love seeing the huge roster of characters living their lives post cold steel 4 event. i love the feeling knowing they're living their lives unattached to the cold steel event. i also enjoy the pace of this game because there werent too many side quests needed to complete to proceed with the main quest like usual.

Trails into Reverie, the 10th entry into the long running continuous narrative that is the Trails series and a title that aims to wrap up loose threads from the Crossbell and Erebonia arcs. In fact it's so important that you have at least played those games that NISA went out of their way to localise Trails from Zero and to Azure before getting Reverie localised. While it seems publishing issues holds things up in the West, Falcom did port all 4 of the Cold Steel titles onto Switch in Japan. Both of those insinuate just how important it is to have at least played the Crossbell and Erebonia games before Reverie and on top of that the in game novel from Cold Steel IV, 3 & 9, also plays a huge part in Reverie, leading to it getting included on the main menu of Reverie too, to allow players to catch up. All this to say that talking about elements of Reverie is near impossible without spoiling some elements from previous arcs so keep that in mind if you plan on reading this review for it. With that out of the way….. let's see how this Trail ends.

As usual it is always easier to go into the incremental changes in gameplay and what we have here is very much a culmination of the Cold Steel battle system in all its glory. Arcus Links, Brave Orders, and all that good stuff is back with one new major addition to the system - United Fronts. Cold Steel III first introduced these purple icons at the bottom right of your screen that allowed you to instantly break a foe before entering battle with them. Well now these Charges as they're called can be used in battle to unleash a United Front, where all of your active party members and reserve members combine to unleash a powerful group attack or heal. You can choose between an Art based or physical attack as well in these United Fronts, giving you options which is handy in case you don't have optimal set ups on your characters. With 50+ playable characters in the game, accessible throughout most of the game, sharing the same resources… yeah, unless you have a lot of patience to move your equipment about, you're probably gonna have moments where your characters aren't set up how you want and these United Fronts offer a good option in case you don't have healing set up properly or you're lacking a powerful arts attacker etc. With battles you have more options than ever and a near infinite set of possible character combinations and orbment sets to explore and it's all wrapped up in combat being the culmination of years of additions and improvements, leading to a very satisfying and engaging experience.

Falcom have also taken the opportunity to test out a new engine here, with it getting used for a few select cutscenes and wow, what a difference! You can tell when it gets pulled out because all of a sudden characters move much more fluidly, the camera is much more dynamic and the scenes are much more kinetic. I could live with the old stilted robotic scenes but when you see how much of a difference having that dynamic, kinetic action makes, gosh does it look fantastic.

Where Reverie mostly differs from previous Trails experiences is how it handles its story. Similar to Trails in the Sky the 3rd, it's an epilogue game to wrap up some loose ends and tease for the future but unlike Sky the 3rd, this game features a more traditional Trails style story outwith a Phantasma dungeon like set up with its new Trails to Walk system where the story follows 3 different protagonists in an intertwining story. We do lose the traditional Trails side quests but we still get to explore the world and revisit old areas as well as redone areas for a more traditional RPG experience compared to Sky the 3rd that was mostly focused on dungeon crawling.

Starting the game up you're thrown into a prologue section where the SSS are in the process of liberating Crossbell from the remaining EDF members who are disappointed with how Erebonia ended up after the Great War and are clinging onto Osborne's old ambitions. It's a great start to the game and helps further emphasise that even though the curse of Erebonia did influence people into craving war and conflict, that deep rooted desire was always there in some people and that ending the curse doesn't automatically stop all Erebonian’s from ever wanting conflict again. The SSS carry out their mission in Orchis Tower in style, including help from a lot of returning Crossbell based faces like Noel and Wazy who are so nice to see again after so long.
With SSS success, Crossbell is free again and prepares to celebrate its hard fought independence… only for a few familiar faces to gatecrash the event and reclaim Crossbell under the EDF and a man calling himself the Supreme Leader of the United Nation of Crossbell, proclaiming the lofty goal of uniting all of Zemuria. The SSS are soundly beaten by this man and Crossbellans watching the event lose hope, their heroes defeated and independence snatched from them yet again, they give into despair and believe in the United Nation dream being sold to them.

The prologue kicks off the events that split into the three storylines that the Trails to Walk system follows. In your first playthrough you'll experience each act 1 in a set order and that's the order I'll be going through them.
First up is Lloyd's route which follows on directly from the prologue events. Having recovered from the events there thanks to Rixia looking after him, it's up to him to find where the rest of the SSS have dispersed to and once again get over the barrier to Crossbell’s independence. The core plot of Lloyd’s route does go through similar elements as Azure did and Crossbell's fight for independence has been something that has been going on for many a game but I think that is oversimplifiing and underselling the story here. Now that we're free from the complex Cold Steel story that was trying to carry and weave together a few too many plot points and way too many characters to give satisfying arcs to, Reverie returns to what I'd say Trails is so good at - compelling character driven stories. While Lloyd's route does cover similar beats to Azure, the core character drama of the SSS having lost sight of what they were originally for is what makes this route so good. The exploration of how people's weight of expectations and idolising of you can cause you to lose sight of yourself and lose your way. For Lloyd he was a simple detective who supported those in need and in turn the people of Crossbell supported the SSS, they relied on each other. 2 years of Imperial rule however had changed the dynamic to where Crossbellans felt they needed a hero to save them and they looked to the SSS to be those heroes. It's such an interesting look on how people's emotions can have an effect on each other and we'll be going into that more with the other two routes, don't you worry.
For those that have played the Crossbell games, Lloyd’s route offers a lot of satisfying catching up with characters who we haven't seen in a while, as well as seeing just about all of Crossbell fully modelled in a 3D environment to scale having had bits and pieces done throughout the Cold Steel games. Seeing not only characters like Wazy and Noel but also Chief Sergei, Dudley, Zeit and Wald as well as locations like the Mainz Mining Village all back again after so long is a special treat for long-time Crossbell fans. That's what this route is mainly about really, giving Crossbell fans the closure they've been craving since Azure and it's done really well that it's hard to complain.

Our second route follows Rean, who after his heroics in stopping the Great Twilight, is taking the chance to relax at his home village of Ymir with a few members of new Class VII. The core plotline of his route is mainly about investigating the mysterious disappearance of the Courageous II, which was carrying the newly wed Olivert and Scherazard on it. Rean's route follows a Class VII style investigation of each area you visit, meeting people and learning about what's happening in the area, etc. Again, like how Lloyd's route followed Azure plot beats, those familiar with Cold Steel will find Rean's route familiar. However, being free from bonding events, meandering plotlines, and every single girl fawning over Rean, Rean's route feels pretty fresh. Being free from that stuff helps the writing feel a lot more focused and again, that means the character specific stuff gets to shine. For example Claire shows up early in Rean's route and she was a character I had a few issues with in Cold Steel IV but Reverie takes the opportunity to sit down with the character and actually explores how she feels. She and Rean have this heart to heart where she admits that she's throwing herself into her work because she's struggling with liking herself for what she's done. Rean is a parallel of sorts where he doesn't feel like he deserves happiness because of how he was the one who unleashed the Great Twilight. It's great stuff and something Cold Steel fumbled with a bit because of how much it was juggling with its main plot.
There's also Juna struggle with the news that Crossbell has been occupied again and she's trying to deal with it on her own because she doesn't want to be a burden to everyone else and Rean picks up on that, telling her that everyone wants to help her, only for her to point out he does the same thing and it leads to this great moment where Rean admits he has a problem and needs to work on it. Yeah it's something he's been struggling with for 4+ games now but Reverie actually takes the time to explore his issues properly and let him work through it and that is so appreciated as someone who goes through a similar thing.
As you may have picked up on by now, Rean's route explores how thinking about dealing with your problems yourself and being willing to sacrifice yourself affects the people you love in negative ways. We may think we're not burdening others by doing that but in reality our bonds carry our emotions to each other so bottling things up only causes pain and suffering to those worried about you and willing to help.
A few plot elements from the Cold Steel arc do reappear here and I was worried when I first saw them because I was at the point where I was done with them and thought we had moved past it but thankfully these elements are not used in a convoluted way and are handled a lot neater, keeping things simple.
This route is mostly about wrapping up Rean’s character arc so if that's up your alley then you'll find this to be a pretty satisfying route though I do understand for many, going through more Rean stuff for the fifth game in a row could be tiresome.

Finally we have the mysterious C route, focusing on new characters introduced through the 3 & 9 novel as well as a mysterious doll and of course our masked man donning the persona of the old Imperial Liberation Front’s main terrorist. The combination of characters in this route make for a fascinating quadlet, each one feeling like outcasts in a world that has shunned them.
C, while difficult to go into while avoiding spoilers on his true identity, is probably the best character in the game which I was not expecting going in. He has no qualms about using people to achieve his goals, happy to take on the mantle of villain, and has no regrets about the crimes he has committed. He walks a path in the shadows compared to previous Trails protagonists who have always shone bright, like the goody two shoes they are but my gosh, what a breath of fresh air that makes C. What's even better is watching his relationship with Lapis, the sentient doll that Swin and Nadia were tasked on delivering to him, develop and have a profound effect on him. C is very much a man who has lost his purpose in life, alone because he had no need for relationships and felt like his crimes had denied him from being allowed any relationships and then along comes this doll, with no idea on how the world works, no real sense of what makes a person good or bad or how someone's history weighs on them, and she just sees him for him. Lapis doesn't know what he's done, C is just C to her and that slowly has an effect on him to where his life finally gains a meaning again.
Lapis is on the other end of the scale. She's a doll with no memories and as such, she has no idea how she fits in this world and that comes with a heavy dose of existential dread. Nadia is very quick to treat her like a little sister, showing her around Heimdallr and treating her to food as the two form a bond. It's her dynamic with C that shines brightest though, just as she helps him discover his sense of self again, so too does he with her. He reuses her speech to him about how Lapis is Lapis and no one else can be Lapis Rosenberg. There's other fantastic moments with Lapis as her experiences with the Imperial Picnicking Front (as Nadia calls the group) shapes her view and allows her to make a definitive choice late on in the final battle.
Swin and Nadia are our 3 & 9 from the novel. Reading that is essential for understanding their backstory as two assassins who had escaped an organisation and killed the leader of it in doing so. This has meant their lives now have them constantly looking over their shoulder as they try to find somewhere they can belong and just be people instead of tools. The two make a great yin yang duo in traditional peak Trails dynamic writing. Swin is very much the reserved of the two, keeping an eye on Nadia while being dragged into her shenanigans. He provides the rational head and is the responsible one, always being on top of what he's getting involved in. Nadia is much more free spirited and will generally do what she wants. She has this wonderful dichotomy going on with this cute girl carrying a teddy bear look that hides the horrors she has suffered from being in the organisation. She's no frail little girl and there's an impactful scene where she very graphically describes how she would torture someone to gain information from them and it's quite terrifying imagining what a 13 year old girl has been through to know stuff like that. It's clear though that life in the organisation has traumatised her in ways as Swin is the only person she can feel comfortable enough around to sleep. Swin and Nadia make a fantastic duo, a pair of people who have through so much together at such a young age, working perfectly in sync together covering each other's weak points.
Character wise, C route offers what has been my favourite group of characters since the Crossbell games and story wise it's pretty strong too.
This route deals with C being gifted Lapis and hiring Swin and Nadia to help him achieve his goals. Part of that ends up including helping Lapis regain her memories and this route really shines when they take on the role of villains to push people like Rean and Class VII into the direction of the real issues at hand as they're much more well equipped for taking on the role of heroes. The core theme of finding your place in a world where you don't feel like you belong is the fantastic pillar of the route and it goes a long way into making it my favourite of the three.

Each route is split into 4 acts before everyone comes together for the finale and these stories are intertwined with one another where you'll be locked out of a route until another one catches up. Sometimes they directly overlap and you'll be jumping from doing a boss battle in one route before switching perspective and doing it in the other route, or you'll be progressing through a dungeon in one route before needing another route to work through a different dungeon connected to that one so that they can both open a door at the same time. It's really cool stuff and I haven't seen a game pull off a multiple route story quite with this level of interconnectivity between each route. The Trails to Walk system also lets you pause one route and jump into another whenever you want after a certain point and when you jump back to that route you paused, it's right from where you left off, no progress lost or anything. It's a brilliant system and when you have this many characters with so many different perspectives in the series, I can really appreciate the multiple route approach to the story telling.

As everyone comes together for the finale, the story wraps up in the spectacular way you're probably used to by now. The stakes get raised higher and higher and the finale explores some really cool ideas, using elements from both Azure and Cold Steel IV in a really satisfying way. There's really great moments as characters like Rean finally understand how taking on the burden themselves affects the people they love and there's this absolutely incredible scene between Lloyd and C with a line of dialogue that will probably stick with me forever. It's a fantastic end to one of the most well paced Trails stories to date.

Now it's time to get into the other side of Reverie, the part that borrows from Phantasma in Sky the 3rd - The True Reverie Corridor. Around act 2 of the story, characters start finding a shard of a purple mirror in their pocket and are whisked away to another plane called the True Reverie Corridor, a space set up to essentially allow you to level up your characters as the main story moves at a pace where some people will end up falling behind. The TRC has multiple stratums that are randomly generated dungeons and you get to use all the characters you've met up to that point in the story, as well as special guest characters, to build a party in whatever way you want to tackle these dungeons and level up your characters. But grinding on its own would be kinda boring, so the game incentivises you by rewarding you with Sealing Stones for taking on mini bosses and stuff. Returning from Sky the 3rd, these Sealing Stones come in multiple varieties. Silver offers random items, Red offers minigames, Blue offers Daydreams, and Gold offers new playable characters. The minigame assortment provides a nice break from the dungeon crawling and there's some fun stuff like a Magical Girl rail shooter and the return of Who Wants to be a Mirrannaire, a quiz about various Trails things.
Daydreams act much like the doors did in Sky the 3rd, where you'll get glimpses of events from the past and learn about stuff that happened off screen. While there isn't anything quite as hard hitting as Renne’s backstory, there's still plenty to enjoy here, like Olivert and Scherazard preparing for their wedding, Claire struggling with her family problems, Lechter trying to find his place in the world. A lot of good stuff to enjoy and a good variety of silly light-hearted ones as well as powerful emotional ones providing much needed character growth.
Throughout your time in the TRC, you'll find Trial Keys that can be used in the main hub area to unlock specific challenge battles for specific characters at specific levels. It does mean you'll have to do a little bit of level grinding if you want to fight all of these but you do get a reward of a better S-Craft for each character who partook in that battle.
These stratum levels unlock as you progress through the game up to around half of level 4 where something goes wrong with the TRC trying to shut down the space as it's no longer needed but events in the main story prevents that from happening. Instead a meaty post game of exploring the depths of TRC becomes available with even more Daydreams and characters to unlock, with some of these Daydreams even providing a glimpse into what's to come from the Calvard arc. The post game story continues on from the main game, linking in even more elements from Azure and nicely wraps up just about everything, even if all the talk about causality and stuff can be a little hard to follow at times.

While I absolutely love Reverie I do have a couple of minor gripes with it, mostly relating to playable characters and a few that have unfortunately been excluded. Mueller, despite being playable in Sky the 3rd and having a model to use in all of the Erebonia arc games, is for some reason not playable. Dudley was one of my favourite surprise party members from the Crossbell arc and he's got a new model for this game but he isn't playable. Kevin is unfortunately still MIA, not even getting a new model yet still being mentioned throughout. Kloe is another character who does have a model but is unavailable to fight. I feel like when you have 50+ playable characters then it's like, well what's wrong with throwing in one or two more y’know? Especially in the post game, where some of the playable characters choices are fun and a little bit out there, I think it would've been nice to have the ones that have models but aren't playable at least. It's a small gripe though and it's not like you're lacking from characters to pick from at least.

Now on the technical side of things, my stubbornness of playing things on Switch because it's my preferred platform did throw a handful more issues into the mix. The Switch has never been great at running Crossbell through the Cold Steel games, with obvious framerate dips, especially in the Harbor District area. So when you have scenes that take place in Crossbell but they decide to pack in 50+ character models hoo boy does that framerate start to crawl… and it's the same in later scenes outside of Crossbell when nearly every single playable character is amassed. Now luckily, aside from the general Crossbell dips, all of these egregious drops take place in cutscenes and not actual gameplay so if you can live with that, then the Switch port offers a mostly competent experience. I had one crash while shuffling through the characters in the main menu screen instead of the character select screen but aside from that, it was fine. Obviously the other platforms are recommended and you can pick your previous game choices at the start of this one so you aren't missing out on much if you do change platform choice for this game. The PS5 version even just gives you all the save data bonuses anyway!

Trails into Reverie is a return to peak form for the series. It manages to keep its story moving at a brisk pace throughout its three routes with a beautiful story whose themes line up throughout each route. Bringing together almost all of the gang from across Liberl, Crossbell, and Erebonia, Reverie gives them all one big send off with a smile, reminding us every step of the way that your existence does matter and you are more loved than you realise.

I genuinely have no words. This game has become my favourite video game of all time, with the exception of a single visual novel. It set a new standard that I think I'll have to readjust quite a few of my ratings now. It's honestly difficult to even begin describing how I feel about this game, but I'll try.

Reverie is both a love letter and epilogue to the first three arcs of Trails, as well as the prologue to what comes next.

From the homely Liberl, to Crossbell's history of oppression and melting pot of a culture, to Erebonia's oppressive yet fascinating existence. From Estelle and Joshua's journey, to Lloyd's unyielding determination, to Rean's saga. All of that was already settled in Cold Steel IV, but unlike the bombastic, massive battles where everyone (well, almost — sorry, Kevin) from every possible side joined to end the conflict once and for all, Reverie decides to focus on a smaller amount of characters and make them go through incredible character development. That's not to say the stakes are low, though — this is still a JRPG. And so, the game, before the finale is split into three routes (actually just POV chapters but whatever), between which you can usually switch at will.

Lloyd's route, despite being the weakest of the three, is something that his character definitely benefits from. We have seen the SSS fight tooth and nail for Crossbell so many times that they, and other people, have forced expectations onto them. The land of Crossbell has been under constant threat of dictatorship and occupation by multiple parties. They just don't want to leave them alone. In spite of that, though, our guy Lloyd, who would face down the sun falling from the sky onto him and would still get back up, is still Lloyd, and it's hard not to love him for it.

Rean's route is a fitting after-story for the completion of his arc in CS4. While that arc may have ended, having doubts after everything is said and done is natural. It feels very organic and fitting as a character study.

C is a newcomer protagonist, and compared to the other two in this game, is more morally questionable. As someone with a dark past, he bonds with other misfits with complicated backgrounds. It's honestly really difficult to talk about this any further without spoilers, so I won't. But I'll just say that he's incredible.

Making a shorter Trails game split into three routes does wonders for this story's pacing, while at the same time having a wealth of side content. This is probably the best paced Trails game since Azure, and possible ever.

Falcom is at its peak with the technical (or at least until Daybreak/Kuro, wow that game is phenomenal), visual and sound aspects here. This is a very stylised game, with probably my favourite Trails soundtrack, which is saying a lot. Every route gets their own battle themes in a fitting style, such as having the spiritual sequel to Zero's Get Over the Barrier! and Azure's Seize the Truth! in Lloyd's route and Crossbell, as well as C's route's tracks, which blew me away. Not to mention the wonderful OP track. The gameplay is pretty much the same as CS4, but no complaints at that front either, especially since I enjoyed the fights in this one more. Trails was already my favourite JRPG turn-based combat of all time, and this just further cemented it.

While playing this series I was wondering what about it works so well for me. Before starting Trails, I was wondering if a 500+ hour series can even be worth it. Seemed like a series that would not be amazing enough to justify such a lengthy commitment over shorter, yet acclaimed JRPGs.

Trails, when it wants to be, is a masterclass on what you can achieve with characters and world building in a JRPG. Well, of course the several hundred hour long series would have good world building, but it is impressive nonetheless, especially if you're a completionist. I'm not one myself, but it would be a perfect fit if I was. The amount of dialogue NPCs have after any given story event is crazy. And then there's the in-story lore and world. The regions in every game feel completely different, and if you go back to a previous region in a future game, it feels like coming home. Different musical styles, viewpoints, vibes, etc. It's not like Falcom made a carbon copy of Tolkien's world or something — to me, Zemuria is one of a kind. This variety extends to the characters, too. The protagonists of the games so far (Estelle, Kevin, Lloyd, Rean, C) couldn't be more different. Despite being a series with plenty of tropes, it has enough diversity to feel fresh every time. That includes thematically. It's impossible for me not to look forward to what they'll show me next, especially with this behemoth of a buildup. Trails is just special to me. This review I'm writing is longer than my usual ones, but it feels like I can always say more.

It's also impressive but kind of funny how this game doubles as damage control for people's issues with CS4. If you liked CS4, there's little doubt you'll like this a lot. And if you hated CS4, you will probably enjoys this a lot more. This game is as much Cold Steel 5 as it is Crossbell 3, and as someone who's greatly enjoyed both sagas, I couldn't be happier. I will probably do some side content in this game for some time, or maybe I'll take a break. Or maybe I'll just boot up Kuro 1 (Daybreak 1) ASAP. Who knows.

This game marks the end of one thing, but the beginning of another. Liberlian Bracers, Kevin, the SSS, Class VII, it's been a pleasure to witness your journeys. This is goodbye for now, but I'm sure I'll see you again... Someday, somewhere.

Es increible que con la premisa y outline de juego, que pinta más a OVA cutre que otra cosa, consiga no solo afinar el personaje de Rean dandole un buen cierre, sino que consiga redimir a C (dandole un tremendo cast por el camino, Lapis es tremenda) y refinar a Lloyd enseñandole las consecuencias de sus actos.

Se disfruta que este juego pueda al mismo tiempo ir más enfocado en sus protagonistas como dejarlos respirar viendolos desde distintas perspectivas con el sistema de Trails to Walk. Tal vez no sea perfecto, pero especialmente viniendo de Cold Steel 4 (que aunque disfruté, tenía muchas costuras) me alegro que se sienta que la maquinaria de Kiseki que tanto adoro (incluso en sus peores momentos) vuelva a brillar como antaño, aunque sea un poquito.

Yo que sé, tio, he pasado de odiar a X personaje a adorarlo gracias al trabajo de Reverie, supongo que ha estado guay.

God I finally fucking finished this shit. Where The Third was a big forward facing world expansion, Hajimari is a fucking victory lap. The way it doubles back on everyone's arc in the main plot is a little exhausting, where I often found myself wishing this was just C's story with occasional interludes with the rest of the cast. It's all really slight, which might feel like a downgrade considering how strong a game Kevin and Ries were able to support, but the main star is really the Reverie Corridor and the daydreams. The goofy ass expanded cast is so nonsensically power-scaled to reflect who's in the spotlight of the Erebonia arc that I can't get mad about shit like the Liberl team being horrible units. The numbers go up a ridiculous amount to the point where I feel bad for the bosses. The Reverie Corridor is definitely a little too long at a high level view but if it kept dripping out daydreams I would have never complained. If Trails had to pivot to being a VN should Falcom crumble, it might be to its benefit. Falcom has such a rich sense of character that they can put whoever the fuck in front of me and I'll clap and laugh like a seal. Sure hope Kuro is a little shorter 🫣

I wasn't expecting that right after Trails 4, Falcom would make another banger bringing together iconic characters from Liberl, Crossbell, and Erebonia on a new mission together. It was incredible to see characters from previous series in the new graphics, as well as playing with them again in the new game mechanics. Even the new characters introduced were well implemented into the plot naturally. The internal jokes with the protagonists that appeared from time to time were also funny, as well as answering various questions that remained unanswered for a long time throughout all the Zemuria games so far.