Cold Steel 3 has one of the worst gameplay loops of any Trails game I've played so far, and each loop drags on for far longer than it needs to.
However, the actual content of this game is quite good. I loved the character development that New Class 7 got, and the stories told in each field exercise location were very gripping. Plus the finale was a crazy sprint to the finish packed with crazy lore drops, plot twists, and a compelling ending.
Overall I think if I had a bigger gap between each Trails game I would have enjoyed this more - waiting a few years vs a few weeks to go from CS2 -> CS3 probably burned me out on the repetitive cold steel gameplay loop. I think CS3 is still my favorite game in the Erebonia arc so far tho, and I'm excited for CS4 but might take a bit of a break in between games this time.

Cold Steel 2 was a disappointment and gave a glimpse of the upcoming disaster, Cold Steel 3 is the full display, a clusterfuck whose only achievement is a graphical overhaul but fails in every other department.

There are many reasons for this failure, one of them is that Nihon Falcom decided that the so titled Cold Steel number 3, should be an entry point for the series, meaning this game is a soft reset, what have been explained and developed in Cold Steel 1 and 2 is now obsolete. The consequences are pretty obvious, Cold Steel 3 does not have enough time to recap 2 whole games and to develop its own story. The worst part is, even with the adequate amount of time, I highly doubt this new story could even be decent. Simply put, Cold Steel 3 is a copy paste of Cold Steel 1, but a cursed one which doesn't match Cold Steel 1's greatness even on a single point.

In that regard, I will enumerate a few examples.

Cold Steel 3 begins the exact same way as Cold Steel 1, Rean once again joins a military academy in a town located on the outskirt of the capital, he arrives there on a train and despite being in a town he never visited before, guess who welcome him into the new academy ? The exact same person who welcomed him into Thors in Cold Steel 1. Rean is assigned to a class named Class VII, just like Thors this new school appears to have a remote building that serves as dungeon purpose, during the prologue in that remote building, class VII will also do an exercice which causes class VII to fall into a floor trap, and somehow 2 students fall into each other and end up in the same position as Cold Steel 1.

The game structure is also the same with an alternation of field studies which allow the plot to advance and free days allowing the player to do bonding events, some quests and use the remote building as a mini dungeon. Similar to the OG class VII this new class needs some sort of rivalry, once again it will be a bunch of nobles and the same exact pattern occurs, after an exam and the academy sharing the class ranking, the nobles defeated by Rean's class will decide to crash the party. Just like Cold Steel 1, during the middle of the year, new students will join the class, though this time Nihon Falcom didn't even bother to make that a secret as the two supposedly surprise characters are playable in the introduction section which litterally spoil everything.

Honestly I could carry on and on, but you get the gist of it, Cold Steel 3 is an uninspired mess, even its ending is similar to Cold Steel 1, and the rare things Cold Steel 3 bring to the table are horrendous.

Starting with the gameplay which now includes a break system, the typical gauge that needs to be emptied before being able to apply real damages. To be fair, Cold Steel never had a wide variety of strat or build, but this new mechanic limits the player to an even more reduced amount of possibilities, every fight look the same.

What's even more asinine is the new main cast, among a total of five new characters, only one stands out in a positive way, one is a despicable mistake, the others are unapologetically dull, bland and they go through developments so non existent that their recap might as well fit on a post-it. Irony at its finest, the only decently written character is actually not a brand new one, it was actually introduced in Cold Steel 2. As for the one qualified as despicable mistake, this character manages the inconceivable, so badly written you actually forget its a character.

Since Nihon Falcom desires to create a grand crossover, starting with a meeting between the original class VII and the main cast of Crossbell Arc namely SSS, they ruined Cold Steel 2's ending, but afraid that some people would not have played the Crossbell games to ensure players would fully enjoy this brainless fanservice, they included one character who's only goal is to promote and talk about SSS. Like a living commercial, this character follows Rean around explaining how lame he is and how great SSS are. A stupid idea, especially considering this character's backstory would suggest a different behaviors toward Rean, Falcom justifies very poorly as to why this character would hate Rean for reasons and a certain logic, but those same reasons and logic are not applied to the rest of the cast.

But a badly written character is still a character, right ? Well, cherry on top, this character is actually a retcon, meaning it actually never appeared in the Crossbell arc, the SSS don't even know who is that character, but will act as if they know because fuck the logic says Nihon Falcom. From this moment, it is hard to consider this character even canon, and yet Falcom decided that it would be the face of new class VII.

Meanwhile, the old class VII is relegated to the mere role of cameos, and despite being actual Valimar's secondary contractors, no one will get the chance to play a role in mech battles, instead they will just be caricatures of themselves, as for Rean he has now a sister complex, I guess that's comedy peak according to Nihon Falcom, ah sweet home Erebonia...

In conclusion, Cold Steel 3 is a shit show, through and through. In this title, Nihon Falcom strives into an even greater creativity to ruin everything, from a plagiarized story that do little to nothing in the grand picture, all the while mocking the very story it tried to copy without matching its greatness even once, with a new cast so badly written, you actually start thinking that any fanfiction writer would do a better job, to an impoverished gameplay. This game simply is a wretched pile of shit.

Sloppening the 3rd: The Hundred Hour War (of MID)


SLOP III is a really strange one because it had every recipe to be an absolute giga-banger; graphical upgrade, soft-reset, new cast, time-skip and at times it is GOOD but it seems to be set on fighting against itself in the attempts to be consistently GOOD. The new cast is great (minus 98% of Musse) and so much easier to care about, but they're constantly sidelined because the story has to be structured to where 2 old cast members return to save the day woo! It rips them from their deserved utilization and slaps you with the "oh you remember this character!!! they were your favorite right!?" which got really annoying especially after being repeated 6 times simply because I only really care for 3 reappearing cast members (Fie, Jusis and Emma) and just don't like Rean. Not that this a new concept either, Trails SC did the same and while nothing inherently wrong with this structure; the fact it was so repeated and the returning characters adding bare minimum of additional value other than to increase the runtime is what irks me (clocked 70 hours by the time all of old C7 returned out of 110 total). The game did get better after everyone returned and from the end of chapter 4 uptil the end, it was actually GREAT. The plot point utilisation, lore-drops, twist, rising stakes, tension, action, simple final dungeon and most importantly no filler. It was EXCITING. Shame because this is what the game could've been throughout.

On the positive note; the graphical improvement is fantastic, few models look a bit wonky but are good, the environments look modern, sledgehammer is great, I love the button set actions, music is more enjoyable than previous games (imo), and once again the new cast is great.

TL;DR
+ Graphix
+ New cast
+ Better gameplay
+ Great final chapter
+ Good final dungeon

- Pacing issues
- Old cast
- Too much padding
- Rean (he just sucks)

Overall: 3.5/5

This game has Randy.

We're so back.

Peak Steel III shits all over Cold Slop II.

they reused the first game's formula in term of gameplay cycle (with a bunch of school side quests before proceeding to main quests). that said, the pacing is very slow.

in term of character development, i think it was too short of a time jump for rean and the others to be that level of mature, idk why the developer act like they skipped 10 years after cold steel 2. but perhaps, the events in the game forced them to mature fast.

the writers did right by making the new class vii a smaller group, because now it felt like a close-knitted community where each student can shine accordingly.

7,5/10.

Complicado.....

Tantas coisas a comentar.

Cold Steel 3 é o melhor desse arco até agora e isso não é muito.

Esse jogo acerta de forma mista em X elementos que jogos passados não se saíram tão bem.
Cold Steel 3 em estrutura é um pseudo remake do 1 só que bem melhor.

O que tem de novo, não é muito, mas funciona bem a longo prazo, mas esse jogo tem excessos demais.

A narrativa virou lightnovel desde o CS 1, mas aqui está a escancarado.... muitos problemas ficam visíveis perante isso.

Tem muito personagem, muita coisa desnecessária, em suma temos uma gordura bem cheia.

Eu acho que esse jogo consegue fazer melhor coisas que os dois jogos passados não conseguiram fazer direito....desenvolver de forma minimamente decente os personagens.

A adição da nova classe 7 é mais funcional que a antiga, ainda assim o texto de ambos apenas promete algo pra cold Steel 4, mas é um começo bem legal.

Gostei mais do ash e da altina, infelizmente a juna é forçadinha...
A musse eu realmente não entendi essa personagem ainda
E o Kurt é ok, mas gosto bastante.

O Rean finalmente tem mais texto e desenvolvimento e no fim beira o insuficiente.... passou na média raspando.
Provavelmente o pior protagonista da saga trails, mas ainda assim tem seus bons momentos e uma substância muito interessante.... ainda que o texto num geral seja muito flácido.

Em termos de Lore e plot, esse jogo acerta bastante, mas nos
acréscimos do segundo tempo ele faz um gol contra.
Não vou perder tempo e explicar ou comentar muito, mas direi que a maldição de erebonia é bem menos problemática do que a porra do plot dos gnomes e como eles usam pra fazer um clímax na reta final...

Os bounding event desse jogo em sua maioria são ok-->bom, por sorte isso é consistente, me fiz de louco e investi pkrl em fazer a grande maioria e tive bons resultados, sinto que algumas bounding events deveriam estar na trama central, mas enfim é o que tem pra hoje...

Esse jogo tem em alguns momentos uma comédia não intencional que funcionou comigo bastante, aqueles que jogaram sabem, quando o real tenta invocar o valimar e quase nunca pode, a localização nesse jogo não é das melhores mas traz pérolas.

Finalizando essa parte, no quesito texto, esse jogo evoluiu, ainda assim não chegou num ponto o qual eu realmente aprecio totalmente.

O minigame de cartas é massa.
Fazer builds é divertido pkrl
As sides quest, numa porcentagem de 45% são realmente boas, algumas são um tanto emocionantes ( side quest da Claire.)

Antes de finalizar, tem a droga das dungeons, controla mais de uma party numa dungeon já existia em sky 3rd, porém em cold Steel 3 quando essa maldita mecânica retorna as dunfeons ficam muito chatas e longas, entendo a intenção de incitar tensão como no caso da dungeon pra lutar contra o dragao e a da fortaleza, mas é exaustivo.

Não esquecendo as osts... é achei melhor que a do cold Steel 2, step ahead, proud grudge, spiral of erebos (goat) e o arranjo novo da decisivo collision são as mais marcantes pra mim, ainda acho que cold Steel 1 tem osts melhores e mais marcantes.

Num geral, sinto que cold steel é uma arco muito problematico em suas decisões, algo como cold Steel 3 tendo uma progressão mais interessante em X aspectos que os dois jogos passados deveriam cobrir, só torna toda a experiência mais frustrante.

It's definitely flawed, I can definitely see where the complaints come from, but honestly, it's been a blast for me, and a major step up from CS1 and CS2. Definitely one of the better first parts of Trails arcs, not just graphically and with gameplay, but in terms of raw enjoyment and pacing. I might be in the minority with some of these, though.

A lot of first parts in Trails arcs are about exploration and character interaction, and I think the mentor/student dynamic in a school setting really helps with that. The more militaristic and sci-fi-ish setting really works for me. The field trips have some of the most fun episodic Trails content for me, and some of the cast being from Crossbell really brings an interesting dynamic to a cast that is for the most part from Erebonia. I also really like Rean in this one.

That ending really hit for me, as well. No idea how people waited an entire year for CS4 to come out like this. I immediately opened up CS4 and played the prologue, which blew me away, as well. The hundreds of hours invested into the series are definitely paying off. I will have high expectations for it and Reverie now. Let's hope that I end up being one of the people for whom CS4 really works, since I see extreme opinions on it more than anyone calling it mediocre or just okay.

Hay juegos que cuentan más en 50 horas que lo que lleva contado esta saga en 300. Por desgracia para mí, y pese a sus muchos peros, sigue siendo uno de los imprescindibles del JRPG moderno, por lo que tendré que seguir hundido en este pozo infinito.

Pros:
- El nuevo enfoque, pasando el protagonista de estudiante a profesor, le otorga mucha personalidad a la primera mitad del juego.
- Los nuevos personajes funcionan de forma sensacional, y los antiguos tienen tiempo suficiente para seguir desarrollándose. El mayor problema es que el rooster empieza a ser demasiado grande como para gestionarlo.
- Hay un pequeño salto en lo técnico que se hace palpable, aunque todavía falte mucho trabajo para ser un aspecto a destacar.

Contras:
- El ritmo es muuuuuuuy lento. Los eventos relevantes suceden a cuentagotas, y hay ciertas fórmulas que se repiten en exceso.
- Toda la complejidad del sistema de combate se echa a perder con ciertas mecánicas que lo rompen por completo, y que provoca que incluso las batallas contra bosses duren un único turno.
- La calidad de las animaciones sigue siendo demasiado pobre. Claramente el estudio está primando la cantidad por encima de la calidad, y el producto final se está resintiendo cada vez más.