While the JRPG genre has seen a wide range of franchises spawning several decades, it’s rare for them to tell a connected story from game to game, often reinventing themselves with each iteration, rarely ever returning to them. The Trails series can then be looked as something of an oddity as it spans almost a dozen games, all connected and often intertwining with one another. While my experience with the series is solely limited to this third entry in the Cold Steel saga, it’s converted me into a franchise faithful, as I track down the previous games to dive more into the backstory of this absolute masterpiece.
As I’ve said, Trails of Cold Steel III is my first experience with the Legend of Heroes saga, but given I knew I was jumping into a very lore heavy franchise, I attempted to at least do my homework first. I watched hours upon hours of summary videos that detailed the events of the first two games to entire plot summarizations of the other games in the franchise; Trails in the Sky, and no Kiseki. I also read through the lengthy text-based backstory feature that is accessible within the game itself, even if it does leave a few things out. I also tracked down highly detailed character bio’s for every single member of the cast and I just recently received the collector’s editions of the first two games in the series and am currently a third of the way through the first installment. After putting in a bit over 90 hours into Trails of Cold Steel III and about 15 hours into the first game thus far, I can say without question that this is my favorite JRPG of all time.
So while this review is written by a newcomer to the series, I did not go in entirely blind. While I will certainly attest to lacking some of the emotional attachment to certain characters, at least initially, the way in which they are written and performed here still made me truly care about each and every one of them. Now, one aspect of why I wanted to dive into Cold Steel III before playing the previous games was to see how exactly it treated newcomers as while the previous Cold Steel games are available on the PlayStation 4, VITA, and PC, they are not presently available on the Nintendo Switch, the platform that Trails of Cold Steel III just recently launched on. As these two games were handled by a different publisher, it’s hard to say if they will ever see the light of day on the Switch. While you can certainly find entertainment across the nearly 90-hour game as someone new to the franchise, you may want to do a bit of research like myself to at least get a basic understanding of what is going on, because this game is packed with a ton of events, places, and people where context is crucial.
Trails of Cold Steel III feels very much like the Infinity War of the entire Trails series, a statement I’ve seen shared among other players. It features a ton of characters from every single Trails game leading up to a fourth and final chapter in the Cold Steel series that releases this fall, with even more characters from both Sky and no Kiseki making an appearance in a very Avenger’s Endgame sort of way. Hell, even one character in Trails of Cold Steel III even mentions that we are in the endgame now. As I mentioned in my opener, Trails of Cold Steel III also made me realize that this is one of the few JRPG’s that exist in the same world game after game, using many of the same characters time and time again. While Ys, which surprisingly had a crossover with Trails on the PSP, does have a consistent narrative, it doesn’t feel anywhere as connected as what the Trails series is doing here. Games like Final Fantasy, or Dragon Quest, and several other longstanding JRPG’s constantly change up their games to feature new worlds and characters, but what Trails has done here is create a vast wealth of lore and backstory to complete some characters arcs over the course of hundreds of hours and multiple games.
Trails of Cold Steel III takes place two years following the events of Cold Steel II, and also after the events of Ao no Kiseki, for those keeping score. The Cold Steel saga has been largely built around Rean Schwarzer, who is not only coming off of graduation from Thors Academy but also having been dealt some interesting news about his parentage. The first two games set up a great deal of what is effectively focused on here as various groups who have worked in the shadows have been playing the long game to kickstart an event called the Phantasmal Blaze Plan. Now, there is a lot of back story that goes into exactly what this plan is, the efforts on behalf of certain groups to ensure its success and the history of the land from long long ago. To go into any detail about what happens here is diving deep into spoiler territory, so I’ll move on.
During events leading up to Cold Steel III, Rean was heralded as a war hero known the land over as the “Ashen Chevalier” and this game will make damn well sure you know how to pronounce it as it might be more common in the script than “the” or “and”. This title was given to Rean as he helped end the Erebonian Civil War with the help of his Divine Knight, Valimar, leading the Noble Alliance’s forces in defending Crossbell from the invading Calvard Republic. While this act ending up saving a ton of lives in Crossbell, it was during this time when Erebonia was annexing the state, taking it under its control. Trails of Cold Steel is a very politically driven saga as you spend a considerable amount of time seeing what it has done to not just the common people, but also those who are behind much of the moves Erebonia has made, even if they don’t always agree with those choices. There is also a very detailed through-line of classism, via the common folk and the nobles that plays a major role throughout the series, especially through that of the first Trails of Cold Steel game. Now, Erebonia, the land in which this game is largely focused on, is a country ruled by Emperor Eugent Reise Arnor III, and while his presence is mostly in the background, it’s his right-hand man, the Blood and Iron Chancellor, Gilliath Osborne, who is a very central figure here, and one that is tied into major story moments of the past two games.
After Rean served his time assisting with the war, he was eventually offered a job teaching at a new Branch Campus for Thors Academy. He would swap from the role of student in the previous games to one of an Instructor, taking over the reins of shepherding in a new Class VII. Now, during Trails of Cold Steel I and II, Rean is part of the first Class VII, who consisted of; Alisa Reinford, Elliot Craig, Laura S. Arseid, Fie Claussell, Machias Regnitz, Jusis Albarea, Emma Millstein, Gaius Worzel, and Millium Orion. These students were led by their previous instructor, Sara Valenstein, and often joined by a series of other characters who are more or less unofficial members of Class VII. While this adventure is very much set in creating a new Class VII, these previous characters all play major roles here, some more so than others, and every single of them can be added to your team at various points throughout the story. By having a history with these characters, who have grown up and found new lives since graduation, you get a sense of being part of not just their past, but their future as well. While my initial attachment to them was largely minimal, they very quickly became my favorite JRPG cast ever.
The back story and depth given to this franchise is often staggering, and seeing how certain characters met in the original to how they act in this third chapter is pretty remarkable. Seeing Machias and Jusis butt heads in the first game to their incredible friendship in this newest entry is something that benefits from having some experience with the prior games. While I am sure I am about to dive further into other moments like this as I push through the first two games, it does solidify that this series requires knowing at least certain parts of that history for character arcs like these to resonate and have that emotional punch to them. Now, that said, there are a few moments as a newcomer where I still felt emotionally attached to certain characters, and this is very much due to the wonderful English voice cast. In fact, much of why I was able to get so invested right off the bat is that this game has a significant amount of voiced lines amongst the text-only conversations and big action moments. Had the game only been voiced in Japanese, it’s likely it wouldn’t have resonated as well with me. Much of your engagement in the game, and frankly the series, will come down to whether you prefer the Japanese or English voice cast. While not every line is voiced, much of the game does feature a ton of voice work both in and out of battle.
Now, as Rean is put in charge of the new Class VII, his grouping of students is far smaller and while I was initially puzzled by this much smaller cast, it eventually makes sense given you’ll be joined by so many characters that it would have been pointless for Class VII to be as big as the prior ensemble. Here, you’ll have Juna Crawford, Kurt Vander, Altina Orion, Musse Egret, and Ash Carbide, with the latter two joining a fair bit into the game. Each student, much like the previous class, will find themselves as tour guides of sorts as you take on missions in each of their homelands. Much like in the original Trails of Cold Steel, this is to show these locations in-depth as you learn about their people, their customs, and the politically charged landscape presently occupying that city. It’s an interesting way to explain its lore and develop the character’s backstory and personality without massive lore dumps. Now, that said, there is a tremendous amount of lore and exposition that will convey itself to you across various means, with some cutscenes and conversations pushing a bit past a half hour at times. In fact, one of the final cutscenes before the final battle is nearly an hour long and is immensely gripping during every second.
Each chapter in Trails of Cold Steel starts and ends in largely the same ways. You’ll start off a new month at the school, teaching your students, taking part in training, to having Rean once against taking on side quests of him helping those in town or a variety of characters on the campus. You’ll also have time to bond with your students by helping them out with tasks or having a conversation with them in the bathhouse on campus. After you’ve completed a series of days in the month, you’ll be tasked with taking on Field Assignments, which are pretty much identical to the field study quests in the previous games. Here, you’ll travel to a new town or city, with it being the hometown of one of your students, and assist the locals with a few tasks and find a monster or two that has been spotted somewhere just outside town. While some of these quests may feel throwaway, they more often than not convey a great deal of story within the city and how its people are dealing with their government. As the game dives further into the political tensions that are building, some of these stories offer a lighthearted break from that tension, often resulting in some comical dialogue that kept making this game one of the most hilarious I’ve ever played. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much during a game as I have with Cold Steel III. Once you’ve completed your series of tasks, the game then switches to how that area is then tied to the overall plot, usually revealing the villains of the piece and diving into their motivations and plans. These end of chapter encounters are often huge set pieces and usually result in a reunion with several members of Class VIII. The number of times Rean would be ready to summon his Divine Knight, only to have someone shout an equivalent of “on your left” to him was hilarious and led to some of the game’s most extremely cool moments.
Trails of Cold Steel III features over 2 dozen party members that will pop in and out of your party based on where you are in the story, with a good chunk of them being available almost all the time. Given the fact that the first game had such a massive cast, most of the characters that will be in your party will be from the first two games. From those, some of my favorites include the battle-ready Fie Clausell who has been hard at work getting stronger over the past two years, as well as Millium Orion, an artificially created human and technically the sister of Altina, a character that had other allegiances in the previous game. I also adored Emma Millstein and her talking cat Celine, and the class’s former instructor, Sara Valestein, has been incredibly fun to have in my party when she’s available.
For the new Class VII, each character finds their way to become just as engaging as the previous iteration while also coming across as not just the same stereotypes all over again. Here, you have Juna Crawford, who was a resident of Crossbell during the war when Erebonia annex the state, giving her a unique take on being in a school run by the same government that overtook her home. Then, we have Kurt Vander, who has family ties to several characters from Trails in the Sky and wants to own up to the history his family has made across Erebonia. Next is Altina Orion, the “sister” of Millium and is another artificial human created for combat. Combined with her puppet Claiomh Solais, she is tasked to join the school to assist Rean with his new life. She starts off lacking a lot of emotions but as time goes on, she starts to think for herself and develop real feelings for her classmates. The last two characters added to Class VII are, as I’ve previously mentioned, Ash Carbide, and Musse Egret, who both are characters with various secrets and agenda’s and both of them have their moment to really shine, making them absolutely fascinating, even if Musse is largely thirsty for Rean for the better part of the whole game.
Being a nearly 90-hour JPRG, more so should you look to track down each and every recipe to cook, book to read, or specialty card for the card game, combat is going to take up most of that time. Whether its continuous battles or grinding away to make that next challenge a bit easier, you’re going to be doing a lot of it. Battles allow you to bring four characters to a turn-based battlefield with benched characters that can be swapped in and out during battle. Those reserve characters will also earn experience, even if they are not part of your current assortment, ensuring you never have to worry about if they are viable to your team or not. While Trails of Cold Steel really likes to deepen its combat systems with a ton of mechanics and tutorials to dive into, the combat is very easy to get a handle on and offers a ton of depth to master. So while I won’t deep dive into every part of what each system does at length, let’s dive into what to expect from Trails of Cold Steel III.
Enemies on the battlefield can be ambushed from the back to perform a surprise attack, or you can build up a charged strike from collecting resources from boxes and jars that you’ll find scattered about. Trails of Cold Steel III has done away with the rotating combat wheel from the first two games into a system where the d-pad and face buttons act as instigators to what you want from combat, streamlining the combat options into a far more intuitive structure. On the d-pad, you’ll have items, the ability to swap characters, running from battle, as well as a new feature, Brave Orders. These allow you to buff your team based on the number of Brave Points you have accumulated. On the right, using the face buttons, you have your crafts, arts, attack, and the ability to move elsewhere on the field, a mechanic that gives certain characters various attack ranges, such as while Ash is very strong, his range is greatly lower than other characters. By using a turn to move, it allows him, and other characters, to more quickly bridge the gap.
While some battles can be won simply by mashing down the attack button during your turn, or through tapping the right of the touchpad to turn on auto-battle, some encounters require that you take full advantage of other key systems. Arts, which are slotted into a device called the Arcus II, are composed of a variety of defensive to offensive skills, such as healing or laying waste to your opponents with fire, water, or earth. As you sink more resources into your Arcus II, you’ll be able to open up more slots to then equip more arts to that character. The Arcus II, which is like a mystical cellphone of sorts, is an evolved form of the Arcus from the previous games and has a ton of features, such as letting characters communicate via video calls, as well as syncing characters together for powerful link attacks. As you earn Brave Points from performing shared attacks, you can use them to perform greater team attacks, and should you have the full five BP available, you’ll be able to unleash a full team attack, using all characters on the field. These shared attacks are possible when you break through an opponent’s armor, setting them off-balance and vulnerable to attack.
Next, we have Crafts, as these are character-specific attacks they will learn as they level up and will utilize Craft Points, which can be earned back through battle or further increased depending on which Brave Orders you command to your team. These attacks are very similar to that of Arts, but with one major difference. At certain points in the story, characters will learn S-Crafts, very powerful attacks that consume 100 CP, and boosted if the character has 200CP, consuming all of it. These attacks are a risk-reward type system as it can take a few rounds in combat to get your CP back in a position where it’s viable for combat and can leave you at the mercy of either your basic attack strikes or your arts, which require a turn for them to charge up. Arts and Craft attacks have various attack ranges and layouts, so shifting your party around to ensure you have all your bases covered is a tactic worth pursuing.
Part of what makes combat so enjoyable is the co-operative nature of fighting alongside these characters, their flashy and impressive abilities, teamwork through shared attacks, and seeing everyone working together. Should you also just want to breeze through encounters as you grind away or do battle with smaller less-threatening opponents, you can either set auto-battle on during the start of the encounter or skip the flashy attacks altogether. Trails of Cold Steel III goes a long way to respect your time and offers ways to eliminate a lot of the padding that often comes with the genre. There is also a 4x speed setting as well, allowing you to sprint across the map insanely fast or have some battles done in seconds.
As opposed to dealing with skill points when a character levels up, each character will have their own set of stats that increase as time goes on. You’ll have items called quartz that allow you to learn new Arts, but also a master quartz that comes with its own share of stats like higher HP or defense. You can also swap out master quartz as you track down more and you’ll eventually be able to equip a second one, even if it’s used by another character. As you level up and win battles, your master quartz will also level up and increase a variety of stats and abilities, so it’s good to usually stick with one that is more beneficial to that character. It’s a very detailed system that initially may seem convoluted but is rather simple when you see it for yourself. With such a variety of master quartz available and the ability to share them among other characters, there is an almost unlimited range in how you customize your party.
While most of your battles will take place on foot, you will have a few encounters where you’ll need to rely on powerful mechs called Panzer Soldats. These hulking mechs are tailored towards how the students themselves act, so Kurt’s Panzer Soldat will have his dual-wielding skills, and Ash’s will also be equipped with a big switch axe all its own. There aren’t too many of these type of encounters, usually either at the school via practice, or during the end of chapter battles. They also have link attacks as well, with a student’s energy being flowed through the Arcus II to grant you additional attacks and skills. Nearly every single mechanic in the game is based around these links with the students and characters all working together, and the game is incredibly memorable for it.
One of the last systems in Trails of Cold Steel III is your notebook. Here, you’ll keep track of your main quests, side quests, battle achievements, character bonds, in which Rean can romance one of three characters in the game, #TeamAlisa, as well as what recipe’s you’ve discovered, fish you’ve caught, what cards you’ve unlocked and what books you’ve read. Cooking in this game is interesting and I’m not sure if I’ve seen a more unique implementation of it. Each character will have a varying degree of cooking skill depending on the dish. Each dish has 4 variants that require different levels of skill to unlock, with each dish having different perks and bonuses from consuming it. So, while Ash may create an award-winning Hamburger Steak, you shouldn’t count out someone who isn’t quite as good at making it either. Fishing is back and frankly, it’s not something I really took advantage of as I don’t usually dive into fishing games elsewhere, but as you buy better rods or other components to aid in fishing, it becomes far easier as you spam the circle button to real in a fish or have the line snap and it gets away.
Now, given that Trails of Cold Steel series started out as a Vita/PS3 game, there is a visual identity to this series that the other Legend of Heroes games don’t quite have, being as they are much older games. For the first time in the Legend of Heroes series, this game was made specifically for the PS4 and it looks remarkably better but still maintains a certain ‘dated’ look to comply with the series’ overall vision. Frankly, this is only a problem if you’re expecting the series to compete with the big-budget JRPG’s out there, but there is certainly a charm here to having this look. There are a few animations that could use some work, sure, but there is literally nothing here within the game that ruins the fun or is any sort of a letdown. After having been deep in Cold Steel I, I can certainly appreciate the better visuals, character models, controls, UI, and quality of life features that make this newest entry more engaging and a blast to play. The fact this game is also on the Switch, almost makes me want to buy that version as well to have on the road or when I am away from home. Environments are far more detailed as well, and there is a much cleaner look to the characters too, offering up significantly better facial expressions and mouth movements, which was a bit of an eyesore in the previous games. While I would love to see this series adapt a more modern look, I still love its visuals and that it’s kept a certain look to make the franchise feel connected in not just its tremendous cast of characters but in its aesthetic as well.
I didn’t know what to expect going into Trails of Cold Steel III. It was a franchise deep in its own story, spanning several games and at a point where several plot threads were starting to either get resolved or evolved into something to further along the story to its final chapter. The impressive character work and voice acting went a lot way to aiding in what I found so fascinating and despite being new to the series as a whole, I still found it deeply moving and emotional. I’m currently working through the first game and while it’s interesting to see where the Cold Steel series began, it’s made me appreciate this latest game in significant ways. The story requires you to digest a lot and requires a great deal of time from you to fully grasp it, but when you do, it becomes this massive narrative that is almost impossible to forget. While I was mostly expecting to enjoy the game to a certain degree prior to playing it, based on trailers and the research I was doing, I wasn’t prepared for it to become one of my favorite games of all time. Trails of Cold Steel III is an absolutely thrilling experience and a franchise that has its hooks in me deep. With the Trails of Cold Steel series about to wrap up with its 4th and final installment this fall, It’s become one of my most anticipated titles this year.
A review code of Trails of Cold Steel III was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review and played on a PlayStation 4 Pro.
All screenshots were taken on a PlayStation 4 Pro.