The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III

Genre: Turn-Based JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

The Legend of Heroes series has a long history across numerous consoles, branching out from the classic Dragon Slayer series of games, themselves only loosely connected to one another by producer Yoshio Kiya and the series’ tendency to incorporate RPG elements into the various genres that comprised the games. The series branched out again into the Trails sub-series, with the latest arc within that being the Cold Steel games, of which this is, as the number in the title suggests, the third entry, originally released on the PlayStation 4 in 2019 and brought to the Nintendo Switch in 2020.

Is your head spinning yet? I’ll just start by saying that one of this game’s weaknesses for most players is going to be that it thrusts players into the middle of a saga, one that likely few Nintendo Switch owners have been able to enjoy throughout its entire run. There are a lot of characters in this game, many of them with pre-established relationships, and there are numerous references to the events from previous games in the series. The game does provide players with reading material to catch them up on events and characters from prior games, but it’s a ponderous read and I suspect few will have the patience for it.

For those who aren’t fans of the series, my recommendation is this – go in with the idea that this is a complex world with a lot of lore and backstory you won’t be hand-held through, and an opening that has players starting off “in medias res”, and just roll with it. After a confusing opening section, the game slows down to give you a chance to get acquainted with the characters, and even if you don’t know the histories behind them, you get a pretty good feel for them before too long.

If you go in with this mentality, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with this game’s story, which focuses on a recently-graduated student of a military academy who is already seen by his nation as a hero, and who is now taking a post as a teacher at a newly-opened branch of the academy. Once there, he’ll discover the place to be something of a collection of misfits, one that he’ll have to help shape into a fighting force to face an unexpected threat on his nation.

The game’s story is told with fully voice-acted characters with anime-style writing, and I’d say that both the writing and voice acting here is pretty excellent. The main character Rean, in particular, is pretty likable and well-acted. Although, while I’m talking about sound I will say that the sound mixing in this game makes the music so quiet I can barely hear it most of the time. When it is audible, it’s decent anime-esque fare, but nothing memorable.

The graphics here are pretty good too, though not without a few caveats. The character designs are striking (and again, very anime-esque), and the animations are pretty good too. However, the environments are a bit bare, and the Nintendo Switch version of the game suffers from some really nasty aliasing. It doesn’t really hurt the gameplay any, but it does make for some ugly visuals at times.

As for the gameplay itself, Trails of Cold Steel III has a lot going on here. Characters move around during combat, and spells and abilities have areas of affect, so this is a factor players will have to keep in mind during the course of battle. Lumped-together characters will make group healing easier, but will also make them a juicier target for area of affect attacks. Meanwhile, you may find it worth your while to use a character’s turn to move them into a prime position for a future attack.

There are other clever systems at work here too, with “quartz” that are placed in slots much like Final Fantasy VII’s materia to allow for character customization, character linking to allow for combo attacks, magic attacks and skills (the latter of which rely on points that recharge through the course of battle), “break” attacks that leave a vulnerable enemy inactive… suffice it to say, Trails of Cold Steel III is no slouch when it comes to making its combat interesting and engaging.

If you’re a fan of JRPGs, there’s a lot to like about Trails of Cold Steel III. The presentation is mostly good, the story and characters are engaging, and the combat has plenty of depth and challenge to keep things interesting. The game does have some flaws in the way it relies on the assumption that you’ve played prior entries, some poor sound-mixing that washes out the music, and some ugly aliasing in the Nintendo Switch version, but as long as you can forgive these flaws, you’ll find Trails of Cold Steel III to be a superb entry in the genre.

tl;dr – The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III is a JRPG in a long series with a lot of lore and backstory, and that may scare off some who haven’t played prior entries. But as long as newer players can take that in stride, and tolerate a few technical flaws, they should find this to be a wonderfully engaging JRPG with great story and characters and engaging combat. Well worth a look for fans of the genre.

Grade: B+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best RPG/Action-RPG

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