The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III Reviews

If Alisa has a million fans, then I am one of them. If Alisa has ten fans, then I am one of them. If Alisa has only one fan then that is me. If Alisa has no fans, then that means I am no longer on earth. If the world is against Alisa, then I am against the world.

Game 8/13 My personal fave among the coldsteel games. And what made me realize how much I loved the crossbell games and its characters. Seeing the MC Rean grow from a student to a teacher with his own class of students was one of my favorite character arcs in all of trails.I also really liked the new class 7 more compared to the old ones. They were really able to flesh out these characters thanks to keeping a smaller number in comparison to OG class 7. I also liked the returning characters from the sky trilogy and crossbell duology in this game. This game is as much a continuation of cs 2 as it is with azure. Such a good direction where they went with the international relations in this game. It was a treat to see how different countries view the heroes of different arcs and the ramification of cs2's ending. Of course I loved the main antagonists of this one too with one exception. And of course that Evil ass ending. Thank goodness I did not play these while the games were coming out. The graphics also look way better now in this game compared to the psvita hardware graphics in cs1 and 2. The combat's evolution as always was really enjoyable to play and kept me engaged albeit completely unbalanced. I like how you could experiment with different builds in this one. It was nice building different characters with a big roster. All in all, loved this one. When I think of cold steel I always reminisce about this game compared to the others. It was a nice desert right before the ass (cs 4).

While I do wish the story writers would just commit Rean to a single romance partner rather than being wishy-washy with everyone (Laura's friendship route is like two lines long), that's largely the limit of my criticism. I greatly enjoyed the story and combat, and the inclusion of sub master quartz opened up even greater build expression.

Cold Steel 3 is a bitter-sweet game, and a top-tier entry in the Trails series. Pros: Music and graphical presentation are on-point. This also marks the first game in the series where I actually found the combat system truly engaging, instead of just serviceable. Story-wise, each chapter is better than the last. The stakes start smallish, but get higher and higher in a satisfying way. The protagonists are (mostly) just as likeable as ever, and even the new characters who I thought I wouldn't like won me over by the end. Cons: As much as I found it fascinating, I had two major issues with the story. First, the antagonist problem. There are many antagonists who the protagonists treat as misguided friends, when their actions/the things they support are simply horrendous. I felt disconnected from the protagonists at times because of this, which broke me out of the story occasionally. I'm hopeful that this issue will be resolved in the next game, with either major redemption arcs or 'just-deserts' arcs, but I'm doubtful they will be. Second is (I think) a cultural problem. I think the way the protagonists think about and engage with their fascist government is impotent at best, and complicit at worst. There were signs of this in the previous two games, but not as bad, and the protagonists were less mature, so I found it easier to ignore. But with this story, you could easily treat it as a cautionary tale against the strategy of appeasement and/or working within a corrupt system to change it, and I don't think that's an intentional theme. I think there are just many Japanese cultural assumptions that go into how the protagonists engage with the government. I'm not a part of that culture, and I found it harder to connect with the the protagonists at times as a result. It's difficult to judge this game because it's very clearly meant to be played in conjunction with its sequel. Maybe my issues with the story will be addressed entirely in IV. As it stands, the fact is I wouldn't feel so strongly about my criticisms if I wasn't so immersed in the world and story otherwise. Having played all the entries in the Trails series up to this point, I'd rank this one quite highly, probably in my top 3. If you've played the first two Cold Steel games and didn't hate them, I certainly recommend playing this one.

This game is amazing and well worth a large amount of game time. No ai, truly special music and animation and an incredible story to boot

The 8th Trails game, and the first to use an updated graphics engine originally made for the Playstation 4 instead of the Vita. This entry is a bit of a mixed bag. You will get to see lots of familiar faces from other games in the series and see the world in the beautiful new graphics engine. That's very exciting, but the story itself doesn't go far beyond setting the stage for the finale. No, you don't start with this game, if you are new to Trails start with sky FC/1st.

Emma is still number one. I like the addition of the sub-quarts. the Dodge Counter build was a menace this game. The sure crit was disgustingly beautiful. Story Wise: Again the core is friendship here and friendship there. Its kind of funny, that some of the characters actually call it out. and for a war taking place the amount of tragedies and high stake choices are quite low. Battle: With the new sub-quarts, its been even more fun to go about challenging enemies and creating builds. Characters: The new Class VII is great and the way their characters develop throughout the game, no issues. As I played CS first I dont really share the nostalgia sentiment of seeing the Crossbell Characters and Liberl references. made me curious instead.

Good game. But hear me out, DONT PLAY it as a starting point to the series. The game expect you to know a lot of things for you to enjoy it. Start with Trails in the Sky or event Trails of Cold Steel 1 for best results.

Tbh I would put this in the middle, I recommend the game if you enjoyed the first 2 games but I wouldn't recommend it at the same time. I enjoy playing the cold steel series but it honestly just feels lack luster. It's not that it's bad, it just keeps me wanting more out of it in a bad way. I think the story isn't paced well, I've played 3 entire games, each one being 100hrs+ and the story just hasn't progressed that much. The final chapter is what I want out of the entire game especially since I'm already 3 games deep. It makes sense to a degree, Rean taking the role of instructor, having to learn to take care of his students and what not but if you simplify what happens, it's just x character shows up, you fight them and they leave you with questions, then you go back to daily life until it happens again on repeat. But all this being said, do I enjoy playing it? Will i continue to the 4th game? Of course. The new set of characters for class VII were still a good addition, I didn't care for them at first but they did grow on me. A series with flaws but one that I like 7.5/10

This series has just gotten exhausting. The story is genuinely exhausting. If you played and loved the first 2, sure, 3 is fine. But just know that the tropey stuff only gets far worse here. Basically everyone is hiding stuff, basically everybody is lying or just letting stuff happen for no reason. There are some higher points, but ultimately there's a lot that doesn't make sense at all. People randomly become your "enemy" despite there not being any sound reasoning. I'm not gonna write more, suffice it to say, the story is a SLOG.