LogFAQs > #964589907

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (PC)
Well, we're definitely not in Liberl anymore, folks.

Little bit of a tough game to talk about because it's such a setup-heavy game in the same vein that Sky FC was and so the most fair way to look at it would be in comparison to FC individually, but it's been a long time since I've played FC and I now have the rest of that trilogy altering my perception of it a bit. But with that said, it certainly doesn't feel like CS is gonna hit the heights that SC and 3rd did. The cast doesn't seem quite as interesting (although some characters have great potential) and I don't know if the overall plot is gonna be able to quite pack in enough intrigue to make it feel truly different from the "shadowy organization prompts upheaval with complex machinations" story that we already got in the trilogy, but hey - there's three games left, I could always be proven wrong. The ending was an odd mix of twists that had been pretty obvious (i.e. C's identity) and some that came a little out of nowhere (i.e. Misty) so we'll see where that goes. Don't know how I feel about the whole ancient mech combat stuff; maybe I'll have a more firm opinion on it eventually but given that that still hasn't happened with Scrapped Princess long after I watched it, who knows?

Gameplay was mostly more of the same. Trails battles never blow me away but are always fun enough. One thing I can say definitively that I prefer in Sky, though, is the orbment system - I have a much more fun time determining Arts through Quartz with different values and figuring out that optimization puzzle than I do just setting Quartz that straight up give you set abilities.

Thors Academy is a pretty good setting and maintains the typical Trails charm of following the lives of all of the NPCs as they develop, especially as you get to know some of them super well considering you spend the whole game in one place as opposed to the short bursts that generally defined Sky.

I expected to really hate the whole dating sim/Rean harem aspects because I usually do, and they definitely weren't my favorite part of the game but I think their prevalence may have been a little overstated. I will say, though, that I'd be getting a little concerned if I was the adopted sibling of any of the writing staff of the series, because this is now two different settings in the same universe with an adopted siblings romance subplot and it's really not getting any less weird the longer I play.

I feel like I don't have many more super interesting takes to give here but if any big Trails fans that are around in this topic are curious about something, feel free to fire questions away. I plan on playing Zero next when it officially gets released in September because I always need a little break from the series after I finish an entry.