Written on August 23rd of 2020
So now that I've had some time to pick my jaw off the floor I can post a bit of a review.
Trails of Cold Steel III. The culmination of everything in the Trails series so far and the end of my 800 hour journey through the franchise. It's been a journey unlike any other and it's safe to say the Trails series is my fave video game series at this point.
Cold Steel III was just absolutely incredible. I'd say the story was the most "grand" or "epic" in scope out of the entire series, especially by the ending which was just insane, easily the best in the series to me so far and the massive plot twists and reveals that happened just blew my mind. It was so bleak and dark. It was basically the worst possible outcome, every thing that could go wrong (and then some) did and you just don't expect something to end like that so it was incredibly bold and REALLY makes you want more and get hyped for Cold Steel IV.
My fave parts of the game easily were seeing so many returning faces from the Crossbell arc and the Sky arc, how they've changed, grown and developed even more since their respective entries in the franchise and of course how the struggles of the Erebonian Empire directly effected them. It was just another example of how the worldbuilding in Trails is second to none.
The new Class VII characters took awhile to grow on me (Aside from Altina who I loved from the start and loved even more as the game went on) and I still don't think they're quite on par with the original Class VII, but they get tons of character development and I definitely started liking them a lot the more the game went on. Juna especially went from being one of my least fave characters in the series to being the complete opposite due to the sheer amount of change she goes through. Kurt learning to deal with his duty as a Vander, of being a guard to the Imperial family being revoked and finding a new purpose in life and Ash going from badboy loner to learning how to trust and appreciate his fellow class and team members were also very interesting. Musse ended up being my least fave, mostly due to not learning a whole lot about her and her being kinda a one-note character, but I'm interested to seeing how she will tie into the story of the next game.
Learning more about a ton of other characters that have been in the franchise for multiple games now was great as well. Osborne, all the Ironbloods and Sara among some others got a lot more detail to their back stories and histories and that made them much more relatable and interesting to me.
That's not even taking into the fact that Rean had so much development himself from becoming an instructor and learning how to lead his students all the while dealing with the aftermath and mental trauma that was left on him due to the events of Cold Steel II and after THAT ending I can only imagine how much more he's going to suffer, struggle and overcome in CS IV. He certainly does have it worst out of all the Trails protagonists IMO.
The gameplay was just as enjoyable as all other Trails games and mostly standard aside from a couple new tricks and gimmicks like the double Master Quartz system which lets you pair up with another team member and get some special abilities from them or the Brave Order system which gives massive battle boosts for a number of turns, I enjoyed these additions to the already fun combat system which kept it even more fresh and gave more variety.
The OST was awesome too. While I think it's overall the weakest of the Trails OSTs, it had some tracks I'd consider among my faves. Some super hype guitar driven battle themes, so happy and carefree music while exploring towns and some really epic orchestral pieces. Plus I love the opening and ending theme songs a lot.
All in all I adored every minute of this game, just as I did all the other games in the series. I greatly look forward to seeing how Cold Steel IV ends this saga and if it can top the grandness and intensity of Cold Steel III. I've not been disappointed by this series yet, so I have every reason to believe it will.
So now that I've had some time to pick my jaw off the floor I can post a bit of a review.
Trails of Cold Steel III. The culmination of everything in the Trails series so far and the end of my 800 hour journey through the franchise. It's been a journey unlike any other and it's safe to say the Trails series is my fave video game series at this point.
Cold Steel III was just absolutely incredible. I'd say the story was the most "grand" or "epic" in scope out of the entire series, especially by the ending which was just insane, easily the best in the series to me so far and the massive plot twists and reveals that happened just blew my mind. It was so bleak and dark. It was basically the worst possible outcome, every thing that could go wrong (and then some) did and you just don't expect something to end like that so it was incredibly bold and REALLY makes you want more and get hyped for Cold Steel IV.
My fave parts of the game easily were seeing so many returning faces from the Crossbell arc and the Sky arc, how they've changed, grown and developed even more since their respective entries in the franchise and of course how the struggles of the Erebonian Empire directly effected them. It was just another example of how the worldbuilding in Trails is second to none.
The new Class VII characters took awhile to grow on me (Aside from Altina who I loved from the start and loved even more as the game went on) and I still don't think they're quite on par with the original Class VII, but they get tons of character development and I definitely started liking them a lot the more the game went on. Juna especially went from being one of my least fave characters in the series to being the complete opposite due to the sheer amount of change she goes through. Kurt learning to deal with his duty as a Vander, of being a guard to the Imperial family being revoked and finding a new purpose in life and Ash going from badboy loner to learning how to trust and appreciate his fellow class and team members were also very interesting. Musse ended up being my least fave, mostly due to not learning a whole lot about her and her being kinda a one-note character, but I'm interested to seeing how she will tie into the story of the next game.
Learning more about a ton of other characters that have been in the franchise for multiple games now was great as well. Osborne, all the Ironbloods and Sara among some others got a lot more detail to their back stories and histories and that made them much more relatable and interesting to me.
That's not even taking into the fact that Rean had so much development himself from becoming an instructor and learning how to lead his students all the while dealing with the aftermath and mental trauma that was left on him due to the events of Cold Steel II and after THAT ending I can only imagine how much more he's going to suffer, struggle and overcome in CS IV. He certainly does have it worst out of all the Trails protagonists IMO.
The gameplay was just as enjoyable as all other Trails games and mostly standard aside from a couple new tricks and gimmicks like the double Master Quartz system which lets you pair up with another team member and get some special abilities from them or the Brave Order system which gives massive battle boosts for a number of turns, I enjoyed these additions to the already fun combat system which kept it even more fresh and gave more variety.
The OST was awesome too. While I think it's overall the weakest of the Trails OSTs, it had some tracks I'd consider among my faves. Some super hype guitar driven battle themes, so happy and carefree music while exploring towns and some really epic orchestral pieces. Plus I love the opening and ending theme songs a lot.
All in all I adored every minute of this game, just as I did all the other games in the series. I greatly look forward to seeing how Cold Steel IV ends this saga and if it can top the grandness and intensity of Cold Steel III. I've not been disappointed by this series yet, so I have every reason to believe it will.