This was a return to form for the trails series I really didn't think was possible after the absolute dumpster fire that was Cold Steel 4. I had absolutely no faith in them to make a good game, much less a good game with such a heavy focus on the Cold Steel cast, but they managed to pull it off. There are a lot of small issues with the writing that I think are just going to be permanent fixtures of the series going forward: things like the constant joking about Tita and Agate being a couple and the bizarre apologetics for every single villain. On the whole, though, this was a great way to send off this era of the series that felt like they actually got someone competent in the writer's room.

Despite this game starting many infuriating trends in this series that persist to this day, I find myself strangely fond of it. While the overarching story was slow and uneventful, the individual characters were mostly very charming and fleshed out. The school setting also lends itself well to a series known for its cast of lovable NPCs. The other students at Thor's felt just as memorable to me as the inhabitants of Crossbell or Liberl, maybe even more so. While this game marks the start of a significant downward trend in the series, there's still enough to enjoy here for me to consider it a good entry in the franchise.

Clearly, people have had wildly different experiences with this game. Obviously having played Suikoden to understand what this game is trying to do helps, but even if you're intimately familiar with the Suikoden series, you may come away from this game disappointed. It suffers from an extremely noticeable lack of polish. Bugs aplenty, many cases of written dialogue not matching up with the voice acting, and many elements of the game seem suspiciously unfinished as if they ran up against time or budget constraints. There are a lot to very reasonable critiques to be made of this game.

But fuck everything I just said because this game is a masterpiece. The amount of heart you can feel in every aspect of the design makes this a very successful attempt at a love letter to the Suikoden series. The game is mostly very polished in the areas that really matter. The combat is flashy and fun with excellent art and animations. Recruiting characters is almost always a joy as each newcomer adds something new to the experience. Town development drags towards the end of the game but it's very easy to unlock the important quality of life features and important side content, with the rest being mostly for fun.

Overall, if you like the Suikoden series, you owe it to yourself to play this game. Full stop. You may not love it, but the amount of passion on display here should be enough to convince anyone that this is a genuine effort to revive one of the most beloved (and almost entirely forgotten) RPG series of all time.