The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III

As its been said Best game series you have never heard of. 10000% worth a play through

Stories + Characters are great. Best of all is the immersive soundtrack and epic battle osts. Has an overarching storyline across titles therefore highly recommend playing or watching the walkthrough of the previous games in the franchise before playing this.

Гномы выковали меч. insert mr. incredible meme

I think I enjoyed this game less than I wanted to, CS3 feels like straight build up for CS4, instead of its own self contained story. There are series wide payoffs for really neat things and plot points, But this is where the series really takes everything prior into account and creates a grand story going into CS4. Things like the lack of wide exploration of Chapter 2 really made this game feel like it had alot of missed opportunities.

I'll say this about the whole Cold Steel series, given I haven't played the previous games (nor the later games). There are a lot of flaws here, mainly clichés common in jrpg and anime: plenty of fanservice involving very curvy schoolgirls, the notion that a group of kids can save the world, minors dressing in ways that can easily be deemed inappropriate, a younger sister who has romantic feelings for her adoptive brother, enemies being very easily forgiven (regardless of any damage their actions have caused for bystanders), a school festival so important that we can't allow it to be cancelled even if the world is ending, a bring-Sasuke-back situation and a ridiculously selfless chick magnet of a protagonist with a supressed demon side that is oh so very hard to control and turns his hair white and his eyes red. The kids also speak constantly of working hard for the future: it feels like they are throwing political discurse all the time and no teen in any world speaks like this. ABout the abundant use of the power of frienship I won't complain because I've felt that power and I know it's real. And, well, if we weren't willing to suspend our disbelief about a unch of kids saving the world we couldn't enjoy Harry Potter, or Avatar and Korra, Digimon or the Persona games. That said, ToC also has very engaging characters, a fulfilling gameplay, a complex plot and a number of good ideas that, by my standards, are well written. The situation these kids find themselves in is NOT a simple good and evil, black and white, especially on the second game, and they acknowledge it. The best path for a large nation is not a simple matter! Every faction in the game commits selfish, reprobable acts and surprising developments happen time and time again. For many of us who have lived in democracy all of our lives, the view of an empire that these games give is a bit surprising: Erebonia is just a country, with people who simply do what they think is right and best. I have a friend who refused to hear a single word about these games because empires are evil and imperialism means oppression and domination against human rights, but these are very complex matters and these games acknowledge that (as much as they can without getting grim and realistic)! All in all, I think these games are at least worth a shot.

Anyone can still be loved, even with darkened eyes.

Trails of Cold Steel 3 took every single aspect of the first two games, stripped them down to the studs, and rebuilt them from the ground up. Gameplay, Combat, Character Models, Voice Acting, Music, Environments, and numerous other things were all improved in this game, which makes for a stunning presentation from the moment you boot the game up. This game was insaenly good, and the first game in the series that made me take a look at how I rank the Trails games without my "first-arc nostalgia" glasses on. I'm struggling to find any flaws with this game. Some people say it's too bloated, but the purpose of these games is to live in these worlds, not tear through it as fast as you can, so all of the "bloat" is all story arcs/quests that add so much depth to these already gripping characters. This game was almost double the length of the first two games, but it felt half as long because of how engaging the entire package was. The Trails series absolutely thrives off of the "Hold It Right There" moments, where an unexpected character comes out of the blue to interveen, and this game has no shortage of them, and they are all amazing. A big thing that this game does well is raise the maturity level. Sure, playing as the original Class VII in the first two games is a delight, but having the main character now be the instructor (a role that fits Rean perfectly), a little older, and more mature makes the last two games feel a little on the childish side when it comes to the themes. The other big plus for me was that it felt like Juna was a co-main character with Rean, as she was so well written. If I had to land on one thing this game improved dramatically over the last two games is the music, specifically the battle theme. In any RPG, the battle theme is the tune you're going to hear the most, so if you're using the same battle theme throughout the whole game, it better be an earworm, and damn does this one hit all the right notes. The battle theme, mini boss theme, boss theme, etc, all feel very epic, heroic, and adreniline enducing which is how battle themes should sound. I could ramble on and on about how great this game is, but you'll have to play it for yourself. Playing the first two is a requirement though, as nothing will make any sense if you start with this one, and you won't get the same emotional vibes from some of the recurring characters. Still got a few more games to go, but this game cracked my Top3 Trails games and shuffled everything up. As of now it's Zero < CS2 < Azure < CS1 < Sky 3rd = Sky FC < CS3 < Sky SC.

This game is like that book in a series that is just ALL set up for the next book to just come in and go crazy. A lot of good changes, UI, Graphics, etc. The first half of the game was good, and but really lays it on the 2nd half and does let off not even at the closing seconds on the game. Can't wait to see if Cold Steel IV pays off for this set up. It took a while to warm up to the new characters, but Kurt basically beat the final bosses for me. Crazy ending too! Edit: After 3 hours after beating the game its still on my mind. I was too harsh this was a great game.