CrossOfFate
A massive step up from the first game in every way, this game picks up immediately after the last game's ending and doesn't bother to explain shit to you, so you'll be pretty confused if you try and start here. The improvements are immediately apparent though.
The combat here is a massive step up from the last game even if it's still pretty simple. There's actually a proper tutorial this time that teaches you how the main mechanics work and the graphics still look really good with you visiting a far larger amount of locations compared to the last game. But even the things I liked about the last game have been improved.
The story in this game is incredibly good, with it having two different paths that split during the end of Act 1 that completely change how the rest of the game plays out. Your choices actually feel like they matter and Letho, the new villain who serves as Geralt's rival, is a genuinely great character whose motivation gives him a lot of depth once you find out why he's doing what he's doing.
My only problem is that the game is pretty short since it expects you to play it twice to see all the important stuff, and it ends on a cliffhanger without resolving most of the important plot threads. I still haven't beaten the Witcher 3 since it's so Goddamn long but I know for a fact that one of the routse from this game is completely invalidated and Iorveth is just fucking gone (I don't even think anyone mentions him in 3), so that's incredibly disappointing right out the gate. I might go back and try to beat that one eventually, but on its own Witcher 2 is an amazing RPG that is a great example of how to make a traditional western fantasy RPG like this right.
The combat here is a massive step up from the last game even if it's still pretty simple. There's actually a proper tutorial this time that teaches you how the main mechanics work and the graphics still look really good with you visiting a far larger amount of locations compared to the last game. But even the things I liked about the last game have been improved.
The story in this game is incredibly good, with it having two different paths that split during the end of Act 1 that completely change how the rest of the game plays out. Your choices actually feel like they matter and Letho, the new villain who serves as Geralt's rival, is a genuinely great character whose motivation gives him a lot of depth once you find out why he's doing what he's doing.
My only problem is that the game is pretty short since it expects you to play it twice to see all the important stuff, and it ends on a cliffhanger without resolving most of the important plot threads. I still haven't beaten the Witcher 3 since it's so Goddamn long but I know for a fact that one of the routse from this game is completely invalidated and Iorveth is just fucking gone (I don't even think anyone mentions him in 3), so that's incredibly disappointing right out the gate. I might go back and try to beat that one eventually, but on its own Witcher 2 is an amazing RPG that is a great example of how to make a traditional western fantasy RPG like this right.
This has got to be the single strangest game that I have ever played. Not in terms of its contents, but in terms of just how extreme it is with the differences in its quality. In a single mission it can go from being a unique and amazing game to one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had with a video game, then switch back before the mission’s over. I have never seen a game of extremes this insane before.
First off what it gets right. Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor has what might just be one of my favorite ideas for a setting in any form of media. It’s set in the 2080s after a silicon eating microbe appeared in 2020 and wiped out all forms of advanced technology like computers and smartphones in a world changing event known as the “Datacide.” This has essentially set Earth’s technology level back to the 1940s, but with new technologies having been developed since the Datacide such as giant, dieselpunk mechs known as “Vertical Tanks” or VTs. You play as a guy named Winfield Powers (which is a fucking awesome name), a veteran VT pilot who fought in fucking World War III (which happened in the 2060s) and is called back into action to free the United States after its invaded by the Chinese. China’s also taken over the UN and become the world’s de-facto superpower along with Russia, who they’re locked in a Cold War with.
Not only is this setting incredibly unique both conceptually and visually, with some amazing designs for the mechs that look like walking tanks with really detailed interiors, but it’s surprisingly fleshed out between the story, mission briefings and letters your squad mates can get from their family members. And your squad is one of the major highlights of the game. This game does what I wish more mech games/shows would do and has the mechs be controlled by crews of people instead of just one guy. Here, the VTs need crews of 4, with you having a battalion of 40 people that can crew them with you throughout the game and every single one of them can be killed during a mission and die permanently. Each of them have their own personality and custom voice lines, so the tone and dialogue of some missions can change completely depending on who’s with you. You can also customize your VTs by changing their camo and unlocking bonus parts through certain missions. All of this might sound amazing, and the stuff this game does well it does exceptionally well. But there’s a lot of problems that hold this game back from being great, or Hell even good, a lot of the time.
The biggest problem, far and away, is this. The controls for this game do not work. At all. It uses the Kinect along with a regular controller and the Kinect cannot handle what this game needs you to do to progress. Half the time it just spazzes the fuck out and has you grab random shit or switch you from AP shells to HEAT ammo (with HEAT ammo only hurting infantry and not, you know, the enemy VT shooting at you) its infuriating. And what makes it worse is how inconsistent it is. Some times it looks like it’s working fine or at least as fine as it can, then it’ll fuck you for somewhere between a few minutes and a few hours. I can say with confidence that I didn’t play through a single mission in this game without the Kinect fucking up or trying to get me killed at least once.
The sad part is it feels like the devs knew this was a problem, so some missions are ridiculously short. You can legitimately beat at least 4 different missions in this game in under 3 minutes. They’re basically glorified QTEs. It doesn’t help that most of the normal missions have incredibly shit checkpoints and force you to lose like 10 minutes of progress if you die. Every time I had to fight an HVT I legitimately started to sweat since I knew that if I died I would have to restart the entire level since not a single level with those fucking enemies has any checkpoints whatsoever except for one fight near the end at the military factory.
The weird part is the actual content of most missions is still good for the most part. There’s a mission where you hang out and help your mechanic get some upgrades on your VT up and running, a level in the snow with shortened visibility where you can optionally find one of your wounded squad mates out in the blizzard and save him from freezing to death, a level in the desert where you’ve got people riding on top of your VT, the variety between missions is great. The actual main story isn’t that interesting, and it gets pretty absurd when halfway through you go from trying to liberate America to flying to Morocco and it just starts recreating what happened in world war 2 verbatim, complete with the final level taking place in Berlin. But the story surrounding that, about you and your crew piloting your VT, trying to survive and becoming close to each other as the war goes on, is phenomenal. Some characters are clearly better than others, but the knowledge that any of them can die and be gone for good made me care a whole lot more than if it was all just scripted.
This game could have been something really special. And to some extent, it is. The stuff it does right it nails and I genuinely can’t think of another game that does anything close to this in terms of first person mech games, or Hell even just mech games in general. But I would hesitate to call Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor a good game. It’s infuriating to play, frustrating at the best of times and it feels like it’s fighting you every step of the way. I’d say it’s worth checking out for the sheer uniqueness of it considering how you can get both it and a Kinect together for like $28, but I don’t blame anyone who passes this up or gives up on it. You’ve got to be a really specific type of person for this game to appeal to you, but if you are then you’re in for something truly memorable.
First off what it gets right. Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor has what might just be one of my favorite ideas for a setting in any form of media. It’s set in the 2080s after a silicon eating microbe appeared in 2020 and wiped out all forms of advanced technology like computers and smartphones in a world changing event known as the “Datacide.” This has essentially set Earth’s technology level back to the 1940s, but with new technologies having been developed since the Datacide such as giant, dieselpunk mechs known as “Vertical Tanks” or VTs. You play as a guy named Winfield Powers (which is a fucking awesome name), a veteran VT pilot who fought in fucking World War III (which happened in the 2060s) and is called back into action to free the United States after its invaded by the Chinese. China’s also taken over the UN and become the world’s de-facto superpower along with Russia, who they’re locked in a Cold War with.
Not only is this setting incredibly unique both conceptually and visually, with some amazing designs for the mechs that look like walking tanks with really detailed interiors, but it’s surprisingly fleshed out between the story, mission briefings and letters your squad mates can get from their family members. And your squad is one of the major highlights of the game. This game does what I wish more mech games/shows would do and has the mechs be controlled by crews of people instead of just one guy. Here, the VTs need crews of 4, with you having a battalion of 40 people that can crew them with you throughout the game and every single one of them can be killed during a mission and die permanently. Each of them have their own personality and custom voice lines, so the tone and dialogue of some missions can change completely depending on who’s with you. You can also customize your VTs by changing their camo and unlocking bonus parts through certain missions. All of this might sound amazing, and the stuff this game does well it does exceptionally well. But there’s a lot of problems that hold this game back from being great, or Hell even good, a lot of the time.
The biggest problem, far and away, is this. The controls for this game do not work. At all. It uses the Kinect along with a regular controller and the Kinect cannot handle what this game needs you to do to progress. Half the time it just spazzes the fuck out and has you grab random shit or switch you from AP shells to HEAT ammo (with HEAT ammo only hurting infantry and not, you know, the enemy VT shooting at you) its infuriating. And what makes it worse is how inconsistent it is. Some times it looks like it’s working fine or at least as fine as it can, then it’ll fuck you for somewhere between a few minutes and a few hours. I can say with confidence that I didn’t play through a single mission in this game without the Kinect fucking up or trying to get me killed at least once.
The sad part is it feels like the devs knew this was a problem, so some missions are ridiculously short. You can legitimately beat at least 4 different missions in this game in under 3 minutes. They’re basically glorified QTEs. It doesn’t help that most of the normal missions have incredibly shit checkpoints and force you to lose like 10 minutes of progress if you die. Every time I had to fight an HVT I legitimately started to sweat since I knew that if I died I would have to restart the entire level since not a single level with those fucking enemies has any checkpoints whatsoever except for one fight near the end at the military factory.
The weird part is the actual content of most missions is still good for the most part. There’s a mission where you hang out and help your mechanic get some upgrades on your VT up and running, a level in the snow with shortened visibility where you can optionally find one of your wounded squad mates out in the blizzard and save him from freezing to death, a level in the desert where you’ve got people riding on top of your VT, the variety between missions is great. The actual main story isn’t that interesting, and it gets pretty absurd when halfway through you go from trying to liberate America to flying to Morocco and it just starts recreating what happened in world war 2 verbatim, complete with the final level taking place in Berlin. But the story surrounding that, about you and your crew piloting your VT, trying to survive and becoming close to each other as the war goes on, is phenomenal. Some characters are clearly better than others, but the knowledge that any of them can die and be gone for good made me care a whole lot more than if it was all just scripted.
This game could have been something really special. And to some extent, it is. The stuff it does right it nails and I genuinely can’t think of another game that does anything close to this in terms of first person mech games, or Hell even just mech games in general. But I would hesitate to call Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor a good game. It’s infuriating to play, frustrating at the best of times and it feels like it’s fighting you every step of the way. I’d say it’s worth checking out for the sheer uniqueness of it considering how you can get both it and a Kinect together for like $28, but I don’t blame anyone who passes this up or gives up on it. You’ve got to be a really specific type of person for this game to appeal to you, but if you are then you’re in for something truly memorable.
2015
A completely overhyped dogshit game with some of the most annoying characters and fans in the history of video games. It gets one star because the soundtrack is pretty good, but that is literally it.
This review contains spoilers
So, here we are. The worst Trails game. I will never understand how there are people out there stupid enough to try and defend this shit, but the Falcom fanbase already feels like it's made up entirely of braindead simps so I don't know why I'm surprised. I could sum this whole thing up by saying that I genuinely cannot think of a game, JRPG or otherwise, that's as disappointing to me as this one. That this was my reaction to the series as a whole once I finished CS IV. But for an actual explanation as to why Cold Steel IV is one of the worst games I have ever played, here we go.
First off, I'm skipping over the good section because Falcom does not get credit for anything in this game that's good. The overall gameplay and combat are identical to how it was in CS III, both on foot and in your Divine Knights, so they don't get points for that. You don't get to say "Hey they fucked up the story but at least they didn't fuck up the gameplay too!" and act like that's not the bare minimum. And when you market your game as a story focused RPG, with literal hours upon hours of cutscenes, and your story feels like it was written by a 10 year old, then you have failed at what you set out to do.
The writing in this game is some of the worst shit that I have ever seen in my life. In any form of media. I have read literal fucking fanfiction that is better than this. I don't know what happened between this and CS III, but every character is an idiot now. They all either waste their time with shit that doesn't matter while the actual plot advances offscreen, or they just constantly talk about how much they want to fuck Rean. Rean has been turned from a deconstruction of the stock Light Novel/Anime hero, to just being the stock Light/Novel Anime hero. They have stopped trying to do anything interesting with his character anymore and just turned him into what everyone who hated him said he was. This is capped off by him getting a God-awful redesign that looks like someone's Deviantart OC circa 2006.
They continue to use the Curse as a crutch so every villain sucks and has the same exact "they were just brainwashed" motivation. And making things even worse is that the pacing is somehow worse than CS I! The first 2 Acts of this game do not matter. They are pure filler built around bullshit fetch quests and saving Elise, who I am now calling the single worst character in the entire franchise. Elise Schwarzer is Estelle Bright if Estelle Bright was completely unlikable and written by a dude who is jacking off to Lolicon as we speak. She is every creepy anime incest trope rolled into one insufferable package. So of course, she's perfect for this game.
The only time anything remotely interesting happens is during Fragments, which is ruined when Catgirl Celine shows up because you've got to get that money from the Furry crowd apparently, and Eventide. Eventide feels like what the rest of this game should have been, and it's nice solely because you get to see this massive cast of characters actually interact with each other like people for one of the first times in the series. But even this is immediately undermined by how contrived and poorly written the Finale is.
First off, Osborne's motivations in this game win a special award for managing to out nonsense everyone else in this garbage plot and ruins the ending of Azure in the process. If everything he was trying to do was to free Erebonia and the world from the Curse, and if the Curse only affected the people of Erebonia, THEN WHY DID HE NEED TO ANNEX CROSSBELL? The entire emotional crux of the ending of Azure was Crossbell getting annexed by the Empire despite everything and then it turns out that not only was the occupation not that bad if you go off how everyone acts in CS III, but it apparently only happened because the people making the decisions are the dumbest motherfuckers on the face of the planet. Osborne was originally written to be an Otto von Bismarck/Napoleon expy who loved his country and wanted to annex Crossbell because he wanted Erebonia to eventually rule over the entire continent. Them trying to pivot to all of this being a big plan to stop the Curse not only turns one of Trails best villains into a dumbass, but it feels like a massive retcon that only happened to make this specific game fit in with the rest of the series.
In the end, to borrow a quote from the RPG Site Review, Trails of Cold Steel was a mistake. It took everything that could have made this the series best arc and fucked it all into the dirt beyond the point of redemption. CS I & II, when taken on their own, are worth experiencing since they're at least coherent and feel like they're building up to something. CS III is good as long as you stop right before you finish Chapter 4. But I cannot think of a single reason for anyone to play this game other than sunk cost fallacy. The writing is terrible, the characters have been bastardized to the point that they might as well be different people, the plot makes no sense if you put even a moment of thought into it, and the whole thing feels more like it exists out of obligation rather than as the "climatic finale" to the Erebonia arc that it was supposed to be. I'm going to see Trails through to the end, but every game that I play going forward will be with a massive amount of hesitation in the back of my mind. Because after seeing this and the ending of CS III, I know now that Falcom can fuck it up at any time.
First off, I'm skipping over the good section because Falcom does not get credit for anything in this game that's good. The overall gameplay and combat are identical to how it was in CS III, both on foot and in your Divine Knights, so they don't get points for that. You don't get to say "Hey they fucked up the story but at least they didn't fuck up the gameplay too!" and act like that's not the bare minimum. And when you market your game as a story focused RPG, with literal hours upon hours of cutscenes, and your story feels like it was written by a 10 year old, then you have failed at what you set out to do.
The writing in this game is some of the worst shit that I have ever seen in my life. In any form of media. I have read literal fucking fanfiction that is better than this. I don't know what happened between this and CS III, but every character is an idiot now. They all either waste their time with shit that doesn't matter while the actual plot advances offscreen, or they just constantly talk about how much they want to fuck Rean. Rean has been turned from a deconstruction of the stock Light Novel/Anime hero, to just being the stock Light/Novel Anime hero. They have stopped trying to do anything interesting with his character anymore and just turned him into what everyone who hated him said he was. This is capped off by him getting a God-awful redesign that looks like someone's Deviantart OC circa 2006.
They continue to use the Curse as a crutch so every villain sucks and has the same exact "they were just brainwashed" motivation. And making things even worse is that the pacing is somehow worse than CS I! The first 2 Acts of this game do not matter. They are pure filler built around bullshit fetch quests and saving Elise, who I am now calling the single worst character in the entire franchise. Elise Schwarzer is Estelle Bright if Estelle Bright was completely unlikable and written by a dude who is jacking off to Lolicon as we speak. She is every creepy anime incest trope rolled into one insufferable package. So of course, she's perfect for this game.
The only time anything remotely interesting happens is during Fragments, which is ruined when Catgirl Celine shows up because you've got to get that money from the Furry crowd apparently, and Eventide. Eventide feels like what the rest of this game should have been, and it's nice solely because you get to see this massive cast of characters actually interact with each other like people for one of the first times in the series. But even this is immediately undermined by how contrived and poorly written the Finale is.
First off, Osborne's motivations in this game win a special award for managing to out nonsense everyone else in this garbage plot and ruins the ending of Azure in the process. If everything he was trying to do was to free Erebonia and the world from the Curse, and if the Curse only affected the people of Erebonia, THEN WHY DID HE NEED TO ANNEX CROSSBELL? The entire emotional crux of the ending of Azure was Crossbell getting annexed by the Empire despite everything and then it turns out that not only was the occupation not that bad if you go off how everyone acts in CS III, but it apparently only happened because the people making the decisions are the dumbest motherfuckers on the face of the planet. Osborne was originally written to be an Otto von Bismarck/Napoleon expy who loved his country and wanted to annex Crossbell because he wanted Erebonia to eventually rule over the entire continent. Them trying to pivot to all of this being a big plan to stop the Curse not only turns one of Trails best villains into a dumbass, but it feels like a massive retcon that only happened to make this specific game fit in with the rest of the series.
In the end, to borrow a quote from the RPG Site Review, Trails of Cold Steel was a mistake. It took everything that could have made this the series best arc and fucked it all into the dirt beyond the point of redemption. CS I & II, when taken on their own, are worth experiencing since they're at least coherent and feel like they're building up to something. CS III is good as long as you stop right before you finish Chapter 4. But I cannot think of a single reason for anyone to play this game other than sunk cost fallacy. The writing is terrible, the characters have been bastardized to the point that they might as well be different people, the plot makes no sense if you put even a moment of thought into it, and the whole thing feels more like it exists out of obligation rather than as the "climatic finale" to the Erebonia arc that it was supposed to be. I'm going to see Trails through to the end, but every game that I play going forward will be with a massive amount of hesitation in the back of my mind. Because after seeing this and the ending of CS III, I know now that Falcom can fuck it up at any time.
This review contains spoilers
The first Trails game I ever actually beat, Cold Steel I will always have a special place in my heart for getting me into the series. I tried playing Sky FC first but gave up after getting bored around the beginning of chapter 2, and even though this game has a lot of the same problems, they didn’t bother me as much for a few reasons.
First, exploring the world from a third person perspective made it a lot easier for me to get immersed than the old top down view (Even if some of the animations are rough as fuck. Seriously there’s a fight scene in this game that’s laughable with how badly it’s animated). Erebonia by itself is an incredibly interesting setting since you’re seeing things from the perspective of the people who live in the “Evil JRPG Empire.” The way this game and its sequels flesh out the country and its people are why I stuck with this through its many problems.
And the biggest problem is the pacing. Good. Fucking. God. The pacing. I’m going to preface this by saying that there is not a single Trails game out there with good pacing. Even Azure at its best struggled with this and that’s considered the best paced game in the series. But here, Holy Shit. This is one of the slowest fucking games I have ever played in my life. Not from a gameplay standpoint since the combat is much better and has a lot more going on than FCs (another reason why I beat this first) but the story moves at such a slow fucking pace that the only word to properly describe it is “unreasonable.” It is unreasonably slow. This is the kind of game that can actually put someone to sleep if they don’t care about really intricate worldbuilding or slice of life character stuff. And I really liked all that and still thought the game needed to pick the fuck up way faster than it did.
Thankfully, this game has one of the best endings I’ve ever seen, and it’s a perfect example of how to do a cliffhanger right. It hits you like a punch to the gut and makes you desperate to know what happens next. It’s something that it learned well from Sky FC (with that cliffhanger having the same effect on me when I went back and beat it), and something that CS III should have taken notes from considering how fucking bad that game’s ending is. But this does mean that CS I has now directly tied the quality of its story to its sequel, because while the cliffhanger might be effective it’s not a satisfying ending at all. But when you take it by itself, Cold Steel I is a good game to play like a few times a month over the course of a year. It’s insanely fucking long for a game that’s pure setup and way too slow for its own good, but I’d say it still succeeds at what it sets out to do and is worth playing.
First, exploring the world from a third person perspective made it a lot easier for me to get immersed than the old top down view (Even if some of the animations are rough as fuck. Seriously there’s a fight scene in this game that’s laughable with how badly it’s animated). Erebonia by itself is an incredibly interesting setting since you’re seeing things from the perspective of the people who live in the “Evil JRPG Empire.” The way this game and its sequels flesh out the country and its people are why I stuck with this through its many problems.
And the biggest problem is the pacing. Good. Fucking. God. The pacing. I’m going to preface this by saying that there is not a single Trails game out there with good pacing. Even Azure at its best struggled with this and that’s considered the best paced game in the series. But here, Holy Shit. This is one of the slowest fucking games I have ever played in my life. Not from a gameplay standpoint since the combat is much better and has a lot more going on than FCs (another reason why I beat this first) but the story moves at such a slow fucking pace that the only word to properly describe it is “unreasonable.” It is unreasonably slow. This is the kind of game that can actually put someone to sleep if they don’t care about really intricate worldbuilding or slice of life character stuff. And I really liked all that and still thought the game needed to pick the fuck up way faster than it did.
Thankfully, this game has one of the best endings I’ve ever seen, and it’s a perfect example of how to do a cliffhanger right. It hits you like a punch to the gut and makes you desperate to know what happens next. It’s something that it learned well from Sky FC (with that cliffhanger having the same effect on me when I went back and beat it), and something that CS III should have taken notes from considering how fucking bad that game’s ending is. But this does mean that CS I has now directly tied the quality of its story to its sequel, because while the cliffhanger might be effective it’s not a satisfying ending at all. But when you take it by itself, Cold Steel I is a good game to play like a few times a month over the course of a year. It’s insanely fucking long for a game that’s pure setup and way too slow for its own good, but I’d say it still succeeds at what it sets out to do and is worth playing.
Really good story and writing with some solid if generic worldbuilding, but holy shit is everything else rough. The graphics still look good enough but the character models are pretty bad, to the point that they just give you a card with some naked artwork on it whenever you fuck a girl instead of showing some janky sex scene. Probably a smart move since the animations wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Just like how they can’t handle the combat. I don’t know what the fuck this game’s combat system is trying to do, but it didn’t do it. It’s some weird ass rhythm game with a stance system that never feels like it’s working properly even when you’re doing exactly what the game says to do. I managed to brute force my way through the whole game so apparently getting good at the combat doesn’t even matter in the end.
I’d say the game as a whole is still good with everything else that’s in it, but whenever it has you fight be prepared for either a headache or button mashing.
Just like how they can’t handle the combat. I don’t know what the fuck this game’s combat system is trying to do, but it didn’t do it. It’s some weird ass rhythm game with a stance system that never feels like it’s working properly even when you’re doing exactly what the game says to do. I managed to brute force my way through the whole game so apparently getting good at the combat doesn’t even matter in the end.
I’d say the game as a whole is still good with everything else that’s in it, but whenever it has you fight be prepared for either a headache or button mashing.
This is what happens when a group of fanfic writers with some decent coding skills and a list of disgusting fetishes a mile long try and make a mod while convincing themselves that they understand Fallout better than anyone else who has ever worked on the series. It gets one star for being so bad that it's actually entertaining (at least the NCR route is), but other than that you'd be better off playing literally anything else.
2012
Another of my favorite guilty pleasure games, the Game of Thrones RPG is a great example of how a good adaptation of a license and a great story can carry an otherwise mediocre to bad game.
I'm a huge fan of both the books and the HBO shows, and right out the gate the first thing I noticed is how the rough presentation is. The graphics and art design are a mix between the show and the books, faithfully recreating a lot of the most iconic locations like King's Landing and Castle Black. But any positives this might add are held back by how dated the graphics and character models look. Animations are stiff, the textures are blurry and the voice acting for almost every character ranges from boring to downright terrible. Even the two main characters suffer from this, with Alester's voice actor sounding confused half the time and Mors sounding like he's been smoking 12 packs a day since he was 9. Only the characters voiced by the actors from the show do a good job, especially Varys and Commander Mormont, who serve as the narrator and one of the main quest givers, respectively.
Combat is also pretty decent, with the entire system reminding me a lot of Dragon Age: Origins. Hell, on PC the UI even looks the same as DA:O. It's fine for the most part, but the lack of permeant party members really hurts it since it makes it almost impossible to plan for combat encounters going forward. And even when you do get a permeant party near the end of the game, it only consists of 2 people and a dog, so it always feels like the game is holding back from letting you go all out.
So by this point, this probably sounds like it's just another forgettable, low budget licensed game thrown out to tie in with the show. And it would be, if not for how good the story is. It was apparently co-written or edited or overseen by George RR Martin himself, and he officially gave it his seal of approval by voicing a character named "Maester Martin" modeled after him who shows up as a cameo. It's very clear that he had a hand in the writing since the format of how the story is told matches the style of the books and the show almost perfectly, alternating between Alester and Mors whenever the chapters switch before their stories sync up and they work together for the rest of the game. The story starts out slow but it gets really interesting as it goes on, with tons of twists, a decent amount of side content and one of the coolest final boss fights I've seen in a western RPG. I won't spoil it, but how that reveal and fight is handled is proof of how important a good ending is to a story like this, something that Game of Thrones the show would spectacularly fail at years later.
If you're a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire or either of the HBO shows, then you owe it to yourself to play this. It's $15 at most and goes on sale for much cheaper than that all the time on Steam. Even if it's just to set it to the easiest difficulty and playthrough the main story, it's a worthwhile experience that's backed by the author of the books himself.
I'm a huge fan of both the books and the HBO shows, and right out the gate the first thing I noticed is how the rough presentation is. The graphics and art design are a mix between the show and the books, faithfully recreating a lot of the most iconic locations like King's Landing and Castle Black. But any positives this might add are held back by how dated the graphics and character models look. Animations are stiff, the textures are blurry and the voice acting for almost every character ranges from boring to downright terrible. Even the two main characters suffer from this, with Alester's voice actor sounding confused half the time and Mors sounding like he's been smoking 12 packs a day since he was 9. Only the characters voiced by the actors from the show do a good job, especially Varys and Commander Mormont, who serve as the narrator and one of the main quest givers, respectively.
Combat is also pretty decent, with the entire system reminding me a lot of Dragon Age: Origins. Hell, on PC the UI even looks the same as DA:O. It's fine for the most part, but the lack of permeant party members really hurts it since it makes it almost impossible to plan for combat encounters going forward. And even when you do get a permeant party near the end of the game, it only consists of 2 people and a dog, so it always feels like the game is holding back from letting you go all out.
So by this point, this probably sounds like it's just another forgettable, low budget licensed game thrown out to tie in with the show. And it would be, if not for how good the story is. It was apparently co-written or edited or overseen by George RR Martin himself, and he officially gave it his seal of approval by voicing a character named "Maester Martin" modeled after him who shows up as a cameo. It's very clear that he had a hand in the writing since the format of how the story is told matches the style of the books and the show almost perfectly, alternating between Alester and Mors whenever the chapters switch before their stories sync up and they work together for the rest of the game. The story starts out slow but it gets really interesting as it goes on, with tons of twists, a decent amount of side content and one of the coolest final boss fights I've seen in a western RPG. I won't spoil it, but how that reveal and fight is handled is proof of how important a good ending is to a story like this, something that Game of Thrones the show would spectacularly fail at years later.
If you're a fan of A Song of Ice and Fire or either of the HBO shows, then you owe it to yourself to play this. It's $15 at most and goes on sale for much cheaper than that all the time on Steam. Even if it's just to set it to the easiest difficulty and playthrough the main story, it's a worthwhile experience that's backed by the author of the books himself.
An amazingly well written vampire story attached to a pretty solid action adventure game. While the gameplay may have aged a bit (mostly with the hit boxes during combat), everything else about it is more than good enough to make up for it. I could honestly listen to Simon Templeman narrate anything and I'd be interested after hearing his performance as Kain in this.
2011
The JRPG equivalent of Mass Effect, this is a truly special game that sadly looks like it will be locked to the Wii forever. Not only is the combat a ton of fun and the soundtrack is amazing (Invitation to Madness is one of Uematsu's best/most underrated battle themes), but the story is a perfect example of how to do romance well in a JRPG like this.
This and Lost Odyssey desperately need ports to anything else so more people can experience how great they are, but sadly that's unlikely to ever happen.
This and Lost Odyssey desperately need ports to anything else so more people can experience how great they are, but sadly that's unlikely to ever happen.
The peak of open world games for me, Red Dead Redemption II is the perfect example of how to use the size and length of your game to your advantage, with this game telling one of the best and most emotional stories that I've ever seen in a video game.
A massive part of this comes down to the characters. Arthur Morgan is an incredibly well written character in his own right and feels like the perfect main character for a story like, with the high Honor path specifically having the best version of his character arc. All of the other characters are just as good, with their evolution throughout the game feeling natural and showing why this game's length is used well, with the developers making the player feel like they are right there with the gang every step of the way during their final year together in 1899.
This further helped out by the game's presentation, both in terms of how beautiful the game looks and how the player interacts with the world. Every menu in the shops is shown as a magazine or other in universe item that you're using, you can go and watch stage magicians and dancers hold shows in the main city, and the main way to fast travel other than riding your horse somewhere is by buying a ticket and taking the train. The level of immersion on display here is staggering. Even the soundtrack stands out as amazing, with the music being used effectively to uplift most of the story's best moments.
It's crazy when you compare this and the first game to other open world games, since it shows how having a strong narrative and characters and tying that into the core of the experience can make a game in genre that's pretty oversaturated at this point standout. Rockstar was already the masters of this before I beat RDR 2, but to me this will always be their best game. I don't know how GTA VI or any other open world game that's trying to tell its story in a traditional way could top this.
A massive part of this comes down to the characters. Arthur Morgan is an incredibly well written character in his own right and feels like the perfect main character for a story like, with the high Honor path specifically having the best version of his character arc. All of the other characters are just as good, with their evolution throughout the game feeling natural and showing why this game's length is used well, with the developers making the player feel like they are right there with the gang every step of the way during their final year together in 1899.
This further helped out by the game's presentation, both in terms of how beautiful the game looks and how the player interacts with the world. Every menu in the shops is shown as a magazine or other in universe item that you're using, you can go and watch stage magicians and dancers hold shows in the main city, and the main way to fast travel other than riding your horse somewhere is by buying a ticket and taking the train. The level of immersion on display here is staggering. Even the soundtrack stands out as amazing, with the music being used effectively to uplift most of the story's best moments.
It's crazy when you compare this and the first game to other open world games, since it shows how having a strong narrative and characters and tying that into the core of the experience can make a game in genre that's pretty oversaturated at this point standout. Rockstar was already the masters of this before I beat RDR 2, but to me this will always be their best game. I don't know how GTA VI or any other open world game that's trying to tell its story in a traditional way could top this.
2009
Some of the best writing and stories that I have ever experienced in any form of media. If you're okay with a lot of reading, you owe it to yourself to try this out. You won't regret it. Just be sure not to Seek The Name unless you make a dedicated account for it.
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?
I’m saying this right off the bat, despite the problems that Trails of Cold Steel II has, it’s still the best Cold Steel game since it doesn’t have CS Is pacing, CS IIIs ending or the bottomless list of shit wrong with CS IV.
The game's story is an amazing follow-up to the ending of CS I. It’s really cool seeing a country, especially one as well fleshed out as Erebonia, in a state of civil war like this. I definitely think Falcom should have leaned further into this, but what they have now gets the job done. Especially since Rean, Fie, Jusis, and a lot of other characters who were still getting setup in CS I have some really great moments here. Rean in particular goes from a kind of generic Stock Light Novel Hero to a really interesting deconstruction of that kind of character and it's one of the things that I really wish CS IV didn't ruin by the end of the arc. But here and in CS III you see the potential, and what they have in both games is truly something special.
The pacing is kind of sporadic and the shrines in the middle feel a lot like mandatory side quests, but overall this is a huge step up from the first game. My biggest gripe with this is how the game ends like 3 fucking times, with you still having about 5 to 10 to 15 hours of gameplay left by the time you beat the finale and think the game is over.
Despite these issues, I really like Cold Steel II. The story is really great, even excellent at points, all the characters are likable and well fleshed out, the introduction of mech fights was an awesome idea (if a little underdeveloped mechanically) and it’s one of the few modern JRPGs to give you an airship (something that I wish more modern games would bring back). It’s kind of sad how this is where the arc peaked with how much CS III and IV were supposed to tie into the rest of the series, but it and CS I are a great story when you take the two together and if Falcom just stuck with what they had here instead of veering off into the stupid Curse shit, this could have been the best arc in the series instead of the most disappointing.
The game's story is an amazing follow-up to the ending of CS I. It’s really cool seeing a country, especially one as well fleshed out as Erebonia, in a state of civil war like this. I definitely think Falcom should have leaned further into this, but what they have now gets the job done. Especially since Rean, Fie, Jusis, and a lot of other characters who were still getting setup in CS I have some really great moments here. Rean in particular goes from a kind of generic Stock Light Novel Hero to a really interesting deconstruction of that kind of character and it's one of the things that I really wish CS IV didn't ruin by the end of the arc. But here and in CS III you see the potential, and what they have in both games is truly something special.
The pacing is kind of sporadic and the shrines in the middle feel a lot like mandatory side quests, but overall this is a huge step up from the first game. My biggest gripe with this is how the game ends like 3 fucking times, with you still having about 5 to 10 to 15 hours of gameplay left by the time you beat the finale and think the game is over.
Despite these issues, I really like Cold Steel II. The story is really great, even excellent at points, all the characters are likable and well fleshed out, the introduction of mech fights was an awesome idea (if a little underdeveloped mechanically) and it’s one of the few modern JRPGs to give you an airship (something that I wish more modern games would bring back). It’s kind of sad how this is where the arc peaked with how much CS III and IV were supposed to tie into the rest of the series, but it and CS I are a great story when you take the two together and if Falcom just stuck with what they had here instead of veering off into the stupid Curse shit, this could have been the best arc in the series instead of the most disappointing.
1995
One of the best Tactical RPGs I've ever played, this game manages to pull off fights on a scale that games today struggle with, let alone a game for the SNES. The route system is amazing and every route feels like there's a valid reason for picking it and the soundtrack is one of the best of all time (Knight's Errant is one of the best songs to ever be put in a video game, even if the genesis version is better and the Reincarnation/Mobile version is the best). While the fights might get pretty slow as the game goes on, everything else about the game more than makes up for it.