This review contains spoilers
Oh boy. Where do I fucking start with Trails of Cold Steel III. This should have been an easy layup, easily one of the best games in the series. All the pieces were there. And for awhile, it looked like it would live up to that. But then you get to the ending, and I don't think I have ever seen another game pull a plot twist this bad. One that just kills the plot of the entire Erebonia arc instantly. This shit is right behind Star Ocean 3 for "worst plot twist in the history of fiction," and it's really damn close. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
There is a game to talk about here before the plot takes a nose dive off a cliff. Falcom continued to make Rean a more fleshed out and interesting character by using him to deconstruct the standard anime/light novel hero. You really feel for the guy as he's constantly used by the people in power to advance their agenda and is unable to fight back because he knows that if he does, then the people he cares about will be hurt to keep him in line. Some of the new characters like Ash are great, and Altina becoming Rean's surrogate daughter is easily a standout since she had very little going on when they introduced her in CS II. I also really like how all of the original Class VII members have moved on with their lives and continued to grow as characters. It continues to show that Trails knows better than any other series how to make the world feel real. The battle system also got some upgrades with the Order system and the mech battles are better than ever since now you have a party of 3 instead of it being just you. Much like the other Cold Steel games though, there are some noticeable flaws.
The worst one is easily the character bloat. This arc already had way too many characters so them introducing even more with new Class VII and the Branch Campus is an incredibly stupid move. It doesn't help that a lot of these just downright suck. Kurt has no personality and is just a worse version of Laura, and it annoys the shit out of me that he's the Vander that joined the main party instead of Mueller who is both infinitely more interesting and foreshadowed to join the party in Sky the 3rd. Juna is only relevant during chapter 2 where she gets some great scenes before being relegated to yet another member of the harem. And Musse is just completely worthless and unlikable. She is the purest example of waifubait in the entire series. It also doesn't help that the pacing took a hit and we're back to slow high school slice of life shit after how much better CS II was. It's not as bad as CS I, but it definitely feels like there's a lot they could have cut to keep the plot moving. Luckily the plot is pretty interesting for the first 3 and a half chapters. It builds off what happened in the previous games, starts tying the story of the Erebonia arc into what happened in Crossbell and sets up an amazing idea for the climax to be about a potential world war between Erebonia and Calvard.
But none of that shit matters! Because all of it goes to waste the second they introduce The Curse. The idea of Erebonia being "cursed" is brought up in CS I and II, but it's treated completely differently there. In the first two games, the curse a purely symbolic thing. Erebonia is "cursed" because the people of the country and the people in power keep making the same mistakes and refusing to learn from the past. It's why the War of the Lions and the Civil War in II echo each other so much. Because the nobility refuses to learn and change so the same conflicts will continue to play out and Erebonia will never be able to truly move forward, being forever trapped in the Spiral of Erebos. It's why the themes of moving towards the future and the youth of today becoming the foundation for a better tomorrow are so important, and it's why Rean becomes a fucking history teacher in this game to teach a new generation of students to avoid the mistakes of the past. Mistakes that he witnessed firsthand and was unable to stop due to how the civil war played out.
If Falcom stuck with this and this was all the curse was, then it would be amazing. It would be a great, downright poetic piece of storytelling and this arc could have been the best in the franchise. But NOPE! Instead, the Curse is literally people being FUCKING BRAINWASHED to be evil by an alien demon thing that has never been mentioned up to this point, and is responsible for EVERY EVIL ACT THAT HAS EVER BEEN COMMITTED IN THE HISTORY OF EREBONIA. War of the Lions? Curse. The Hamel Incident? Curse. The Civil War? Curse. The potential war with Calvard? C U R S E!
I don't think I have ever felt this angry while playing a video game before. This is some of the worst writing that I have ever seen in any piece of media. It is so incredibly lazy and makes it that every single villain has the exact same motivation and no depth besides just "They were brainwashed by the Curse." You could not have written a worse twist if you tried. And then this shit has the BALLS to try and end on a cliffhanger! As if ANYONE would give a shit about the next game after how bad the ending of this is! You tanked the story. You have killed all the potential for anything interesting to happen going forward for at least the rest of the arc. You did not earn that cliffhanger. Sky FC earned its cliffhanger. Trespasser earned its cliffhanger. Cold Steel I, a game from this very arc, earned its cliffhanger. This game does not. It is the perfect example of how to make an ending that alienates everyone.
This isn't a game for you if you are a Trails fan. This isn't a game for you if you like RPGs. This isn't a game for you if you like coherent stories with good or even average writing. This is pure fucking garbage plain and simple. And to end off on a little cliffhanger of my own. Would you believe me if I said that the next game is even worse?
There is a game to talk about here before the plot takes a nose dive off a cliff. Falcom continued to make Rean a more fleshed out and interesting character by using him to deconstruct the standard anime/light novel hero. You really feel for the guy as he's constantly used by the people in power to advance their agenda and is unable to fight back because he knows that if he does, then the people he cares about will be hurt to keep him in line. Some of the new characters like Ash are great, and Altina becoming Rean's surrogate daughter is easily a standout since she had very little going on when they introduced her in CS II. I also really like how all of the original Class VII members have moved on with their lives and continued to grow as characters. It continues to show that Trails knows better than any other series how to make the world feel real. The battle system also got some upgrades with the Order system and the mech battles are better than ever since now you have a party of 3 instead of it being just you. Much like the other Cold Steel games though, there are some noticeable flaws.
The worst one is easily the character bloat. This arc already had way too many characters so them introducing even more with new Class VII and the Branch Campus is an incredibly stupid move. It doesn't help that a lot of these just downright suck. Kurt has no personality and is just a worse version of Laura, and it annoys the shit out of me that he's the Vander that joined the main party instead of Mueller who is both infinitely more interesting and foreshadowed to join the party in Sky the 3rd. Juna is only relevant during chapter 2 where she gets some great scenes before being relegated to yet another member of the harem. And Musse is just completely worthless and unlikable. She is the purest example of waifubait in the entire series. It also doesn't help that the pacing took a hit and we're back to slow high school slice of life shit after how much better CS II was. It's not as bad as CS I, but it definitely feels like there's a lot they could have cut to keep the plot moving. Luckily the plot is pretty interesting for the first 3 and a half chapters. It builds off what happened in the previous games, starts tying the story of the Erebonia arc into what happened in Crossbell and sets up an amazing idea for the climax to be about a potential world war between Erebonia and Calvard.
But none of that shit matters! Because all of it goes to waste the second they introduce The Curse. The idea of Erebonia being "cursed" is brought up in CS I and II, but it's treated completely differently there. In the first two games, the curse a purely symbolic thing. Erebonia is "cursed" because the people of the country and the people in power keep making the same mistakes and refusing to learn from the past. It's why the War of the Lions and the Civil War in II echo each other so much. Because the nobility refuses to learn and change so the same conflicts will continue to play out and Erebonia will never be able to truly move forward, being forever trapped in the Spiral of Erebos. It's why the themes of moving towards the future and the youth of today becoming the foundation for a better tomorrow are so important, and it's why Rean becomes a fucking history teacher in this game to teach a new generation of students to avoid the mistakes of the past. Mistakes that he witnessed firsthand and was unable to stop due to how the civil war played out.
If Falcom stuck with this and this was all the curse was, then it would be amazing. It would be a great, downright poetic piece of storytelling and this arc could have been the best in the franchise. But NOPE! Instead, the Curse is literally people being FUCKING BRAINWASHED to be evil by an alien demon thing that has never been mentioned up to this point, and is responsible for EVERY EVIL ACT THAT HAS EVER BEEN COMMITTED IN THE HISTORY OF EREBONIA. War of the Lions? Curse. The Hamel Incident? Curse. The Civil War? Curse. The potential war with Calvard? C U R S E!
I don't think I have ever felt this angry while playing a video game before. This is some of the worst writing that I have ever seen in any piece of media. It is so incredibly lazy and makes it that every single villain has the exact same motivation and no depth besides just "They were brainwashed by the Curse." You could not have written a worse twist if you tried. And then this shit has the BALLS to try and end on a cliffhanger! As if ANYONE would give a shit about the next game after how bad the ending of this is! You tanked the story. You have killed all the potential for anything interesting to happen going forward for at least the rest of the arc. You did not earn that cliffhanger. Sky FC earned its cliffhanger. Trespasser earned its cliffhanger. Cold Steel I, a game from this very arc, earned its cliffhanger. This game does not. It is the perfect example of how to make an ending that alienates everyone.
This isn't a game for you if you are a Trails fan. This isn't a game for you if you like RPGs. This isn't a game for you if you like coherent stories with good or even average writing. This is pure fucking garbage plain and simple. And to end off on a little cliffhanger of my own. Would you believe me if I said that the next game is even worse?
RyzaBright
4 months ago
Nice review.