As part of the long-running JRPG series The Legend of Heroes, Trails of Cold Steel has one of the longest and deepest story arcs in any JRPG franchise ever. T෴he developers♔ at Falcom have always done things their way regardless of what the biggest franchises like and are doing.
Their approach to storytelling can be quite divisive among fans of the genre because of the amount of commitment that a series like that expects of its players. The Trails of Cold Steel series alone can take up to 800 hours to play and complete. That’s not including the Trails in the Sky series which is also heavily connected to Cold Steel and the fan-translated Crossbell arc. Now that the final episode is out, those interested in committing to such a huge series need to know whether it’s worth diving in now or going back to the🌳 beginning.
10 ꦕ Best: A Fantastic ♓Finale
For fans that have followed this series from the first episode, Trails of Cold Steel IV is everything one would expect from a finale of this magnitude. It’s comparable to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame where several important characters from the series hi♚story show up as cameo for the final battle.
It’s true that the game is very long-winded and can take its time at certain points of the game, but for fans, this is exactly the kind of payoff one would expect from the♔ most epic RPG series of all time.
9 Worst: A Terrible Starting P𒈔oint 🌊
As a finale to a long-running series, Trails of Cold Steel IV does exactly what it set out to do in providing fan service and an epic ending for those that have i🌟nvested several hundred hours of their time.
Unfortunately, as a starting point for new gamers, it should go without saying that jumping into the series with the fourth entry would be ꧃completely pointless for new gamers. The t⭕hird entry makes quite a lot of effort in world-building and gives players a lot of lore to catch up on but the fourth entry doesn’t quite manage that.
8 Be𓆏st: Excellent Characters
Despite its 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:anime looks and art design, the characters in the Trails of Cold Steel series have always gone way beyond expectations and surpassed the cliches one would expect from a Japanese RPG. With a series as long and as epic as this one, the character develop🌜ment is unrivaled in the genre.
They are flawed, likable, and more importantly, relatable — as how the📖y react to crisis situations throughout the series is handled in a realistic manner. Their emotional reactions to the circumstances that the war has thಞrown them into are completely believable and utterly compelling to watch unfold.
7 Worst: Very Dialogue Heavy ꧟
For fans of the genre that have lost themselves in huge adventures like Suikoden, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Tales of series, lots ♑of dialogue in an RP꧟G is to be expected.
However, even for a JRPG, the dialogue in Trails of Cold Steel IV can prove to be a little long-winded. The dialogue is fantast🎃ic for the most part but there are times where players will be sitting around watching some long and drawn-out scenes.
6 💦 Best: A Well Established Universe
With four entries in a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:long-running RPG series where each entry has the potential to last the player around 100 hours each, it’s unsur🌄prising that the games have an amazing and well-established universe.
However, the Trails universe extends even beyond the four entries in the Cold Steel series. For players in the West, the Trails in the Sky trilogy (which is available on Steam) has a lot of connections to Trails of Cold steel that ultimatﷺely build toward one huge saga that’s unri⛦valed in gaming.
5 🦩 ▨ Worst: The Pacing Issues
As mentioned above, Trails of Cold Steel IV can be very dialogue-heavy and long. It’s a huge game with a massive cast of characters so one would expect a lot of the dialogue and story 🉐sequences that usually come with a game in this genre.
However, the ga🦩me’s pacing issues come from a lot of the excessive exposition that comes along with many of these scenes. In a finale, the pace of the game’s story should keep its players on the edges of their seats. Unfortunately, there are some scenes that kill the game’s momentum and don’t quite keep things moving as they should.
4 Best: Excellent Storytelling 🐟
Despite its pacing issues and the excessive dialogue, gamers that have stuck with the series won’t be𒆙 disappointed with the game’s payoff at the end. The story is fantastic and arguably the best the genre has seen in years when taken as a whole.
The world-building is second to none on current – and next-generation – systems and everything just falls i🔯nto place by the end of the game’s story. The series h💙as delivered on creating believable cultures and history, which helps its player get emotionally invested in a moving and emotional storyline.
3 🅷 Worst: The Translation Falls Short
If there is one area where Trails IV falls short compared to its predecessors, it is the translation that can be hit or miss at times. NISA seemed to work hard on making sure that Trails III more than lived up to the expectations of fans.
Something that will disappoint players of past games will likely be when they notice that characters that were established in Trails in the Sky have🌸 mistranslated names. Thankfully, there is still a patch that’s planned to rectify these issues in the future but no timeline has been given yet.
2 ﷺ Best: 🔯The Combat System
The 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:turn-based combat system from the previous entries has returned and it’s more or less identical to its predecessors. That’s no bad thing, however, because the combat system is a lot of fun but complex and tact🐠ical too.
The characters can form links with each other which establishes their relationships in the game’s story and gives them new combat abilities. The turn-based system feels quite old school and is absolutely a throwback to classic JRPGs of old. It fits perfectly i🐬n a game like this.
1 Worst: The Series Isn’t Easily Availꦆable ౠ
The Trails series is huge and according to fans, to fully appreciate it gamers should try and play the other entries in the series too. There are the Trails in the Sky games which are available on Steam in the West and willಞ run on even some older PCs.
However, there are games in the series known as the Crossbell Arc that never made⛄ theඣir way out of Japan. To play these, gamers will have to seek out the fan-translated version which can be found with a bit of Google search. It’s unfortunate that fans of the series have to go out of their way like this to play these titles.