The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III Review

By Anton Carino

Player(s): 1
Platform(s): PlayStation 4

Before we jump into this review of Trails of Cold Steel III, here’s a quick disclaimer: This is my first experience with a Legend of Heroes game, let alone a Trails of Cold Steel game. There are fans of the series who believe that each individual game has enough of their own story elements for them to stand alone without having to rely on knowledge of previous games. But it surely rewards veterans of the series. But I’m mainly writing this with the intent of informing new players what they’re in for both with this game in particular and with the rest of the series based on what I can gather.
 
The story takes place in a world that seems to be a mix of industrial aesthetics with fantastical elements. In this world there are empires and such that are politically involved with each other and go about conquering stuff. That’s pretty much the extent of what I’m willing to summarize about the world because this series is super, super dense with lore and political intrigue that will no doubt go over the heads of some players, mine included. What’s infinitely more interesting are the inhabitants of this world. The game stars Rean Schwarzer, protagonist of the Trails of Cold Steel series. The story takes place after his graduation from Thors Academy, following which he goes to the Branch Campus to start his new life as an instructor. His students include the very tsundere Juna Crawford, Kurt Vander, who looks and acts like he’s a part of some royal family, and Altina, a mysterious girl who Rean seems to have crossed paths with in previous games and will no doubt go through that “following orders to following own heart” character arc.

At first I didn’t think too much of the story because it seemed to be packed with anime clichés that I’m not fully fed up with yet, but I am a bit more aware of. But as I continued through this game, the world continued to expand more upon itself and quite a bit of what is revealed directly affects the characters you interact with. The characters themselves even grow into their own people and that’s not limited at all to the main party and the main side cast. Your students join clubs, meaning that whoever our students are friends with also become our friends by association. You do side quests for the non-combat staff of the school and you learn more about their stories too. The best part for newcomers is that almost all of these characters are new to the series, especially Rean’s students, meaning that it shouldn’t take much to connect with them from the start anyway. That said if a character DID play a big role in a previous game, the game generously flashes back with enough context to keep you informed but not so much that you’re watching full cutscenes of what happened before. As someone who loves Legend of the Galactic Heroes, I am a big fan of these dense stories with their own dense history, and this game seems to carry on its tradition well based on the fact that there’s also a “The Story So Far” tab on the main menu which summarizes the previous two games in great detail, down to what happened in each chapter.

The gameplay of Trails of Cold Steel III is standard world exploration with turn-based combat. In my opinion, it does take a lot to make turn-based style combat compelling and this game nails it. Commands such as attack, arts, crafts, items etc. are mapped to each face button just to make battles that much quicker. One command that did catch my eye at first was the “move” command. That was when I discovered that, much like in Chrono Trigger, positioning is key and unlike in Chrono Trigger, you can manipulate that mechanic yourself. This becomes mega useful when an enemy has a wide attack range, prompting you to scatter your units so that they won’t all get hit at the same time (something that took a bit for me to get used to). It’s also useful for when an enemy is charging their powerful technique which encourages you to move your units out of the way when it's their turn. Or you can hit them with their weakness or a sleep-inflicting skill.

There’s also a lot to talk about when it comes to the adorably named “Arts” and “Crafts.” Crafts are character-specific skills which cost CP. What makes Crafts unique is that almost all of them are AOE skills ("area of effect") which you can aim with, either via a straight line or an AOE circle. They’re amazing crowd control tools and the fact that CP regenerates when you either hit something, or get hit by something, incentivizes them even more. Arts are magic spells which characters can cast via their Arcus device. Players can assign arts via the Orbment function by placing Quartz in slots that grant them such abilities. What I dislike about Arts is the amount of time it takes to cast sometimes. Unless I need to heal someone or an enemy is SUPER weak to an element, I just stick with crafts. When you’re greeted with a very satisfying critical hit notification, you can either build Brave Points (BP) by having the attacker’s link partner follow up with their own attack or you can unleash an all-out attack with two or all of the party members. BP isn’t only used to spend on tag mechanics though, you can also issue orders which act as buffs for the party. Rean’s orders include a call for defense or strength specifically. 

My main issue with the gameplay is how it’s balanced. I’m exploring an area outside of the city taking down monsters no problem, and then suddenly I’m hit with a mandatory boss fight who just kicks my teeth in. There are weird difficulty spikes sometimes and these bosses are the main culprits. It feels like there is a huge gap in strength between the common enemies I face and some of them. Sure I can open more slots and customize my orbments better while getting better gear as the story progresses but the drop rates aren’t amazing either. I almost never have enough Sepith to open a new slot. Maybe I just need to grind more. Though it is a good thing that I’m able to skip battles if I want to anyway thanks to the lack of random encounters.

Sound is a bit of a mixed bag too, at least in the music department, the battle sound effects are just fine. It’s especially satisfying and crispy when you get a critical hit, but in terms of the music, I’m just not sure. The main title theme is incredibly pleasant elevator music in the best way possible; it feels inviting in a sense. The battle themes also do their job in depicting either random struggles or the aforementioned tough mandatory boss fights. There’s also an anime style opening theme which gets you in the mood for some anime RPG action. However, outside of those, I’d be hard pressed to even remember what a lot of the other songs sounded like. They’re not bad per se, but in terms of JRPGs I’m kind of a stickler for music. Also, if you plan to play this in Japanese, make sure you know some Japanese yourself because there are bits of dialogue that are not subbed at all, particular during battle sequences. Lastly, if you’re the type of person who really hates dubs, this dub track in particular won’t change your mind. Performances felt iffy at first but they grew on me.

Presentation is also amazing except for one little gripe. One thing that does throw me off a bit is the anime artstyle they decided to use. It’s not bad, it’s just not... unique, but by god does everything else look crisp and polished! There are even environments that I think are very well done. The main hub town outside of the school looks like a pleasant countryside to live in. There are still genuinely fantastical areas to behold. The mecha and weapon designs also look slick. As big as the game is, I’m glad it looks this good and when it wants to be dynamic, boy is it hype! I especially like what the game does to highlight rush attacks or S-crafts by flashing character portraits a-la Persona’s all-out attacks or Capcom's Vs Games’ Hyper Combos. S-crafts especially are very well detailed and just a blast to look at.

​I sometimes comb internet comments and forums about JRPGs and notice that there are those who think that the JRPG is dying, especially turn-based ones. I see people say that they don’t make JRPGs like they used to. In my opinion though, Trails of Cold Steel III contains what made those classic JRPGs great and then some. This series deserves to be played alongside Dragon Quest, Persona, and Valkyria Chronicles.

For More On Trails of Cold Steel III:
https://nisamerica.com/games/trails3

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Story: A 
Gameplay A+
Music: C+
Sound Effects: A
Voice Acting: B+
Presentation: A

Overall: A

Pros:
+Densely packed story with characters who change with the times
+Fantastic battle system
+Looks beautiful
+Crisp sound effects 

Mixed:
+-Music is decent but forgettable 
+-Voices are well done but Japanese voices don’t always have subs while English takes some getting used to

Cons:
-Slow beginning
-Balancing issues 

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