YEARS AFTER THE ENDING OF COLD STEEL 2 but NOT MANY, the times are a-changing in erebonia, and civil war hero turned government attack dog/public relations mascot REAN SCHWARZER finds himself taking a teaching position at THORS...... BRANCH CAMPUS, which unlike the elite military academy rean himself attended in the previous cold steels is essentially a garbage bin where erebonia dumps the disgraced, the inconvenient, and the unsightly so they can be used as cannon fodder. rean's own class contains crossbell's top lloyd stan and game deuteragonist JUNA CRAWFORD, rare vander family twink KURT, and oz series of artificial humans' latest model (and millium's sister) ALTINA ORION. newly thrust into the unfamiliar position of teacher, is rean a BAD ENOUGH DUDE to KEEP HIS STUDENTS SAFE through dangerous missions, government intrigues, and the rise of fascism in the empire?!?!?!?!
gameplay wise cs3 has added a new stagger mechanic for its enemies, which becomes a lot more significant in boss battles, and expands the mech battles to include rean's students in real robot style mechs rather than simply being the rean and valimar show. orbments have again been changed, this time to the arcus 2s, which i hate way less than the arcus 1s because you get to set two master quartz which solves quite a lot of the combat issues.
graphically we have some steps forward and some steps back: the games now being for ps4 allows for more detailed modeling and textures for both characters and environments; this means character models' faces are now fully modeled and animated rather than facial expressions being texture animations, and with this being a first for trails it means the characters emote a lot more stiffly. character acting hasn't advanced at all since the previous games, unfortunately, and probably the worst thing about the new graphics is the desaturated pastel color treatment, Specifically because it has drained every brown character except leo of their melanin... ONLY in the character models. it stands out worst in gaius' in-game character illustrations vs his model. what have they done to our boy...
but it's the scenario and quality of writing that ultimately lead me to give cs3 a thumbs down, because it feels to me like this is the point in the trails series where falcom had maybe gotten a little bit high on their own farts. cs3 is really blatantly just CS1 Again in terms of plot format, down to repeating a number of plot points in ways that start to feel really contrived really quickly. we have cliche sexual misunderstandings again because CS1 had them, we have a school dungeon added to the gameplay loop because CS1 had one... and so on and so forth.
but the number one thing that is most frustrating about cold steel 3 compared to all the previous games in the trails series is that This is where the contradiction of the writers wanting to tell a story about complex political drama, but also wanting trails to be an optimistic series where humanity is ultimately good, tumbles and falls ass backwards into full conspiracism via a string of writing choices that would be laughable if they weren't undermining seven entire games' worth of storytelling. we have officially entered the erebonia apologia era, where the empire's long and bloody history of nationalism and imperialism and war crimes against its neighbors and its own citizens--which have been a huge factor in this series since trails in the sky 1!--are actually Really the fault of a supernatural evil mastermind, because no human government would Ever harm its own citizens for its political goals. dieter crois? who is that? we forgor! crossbell is better off annexed anyway and if juna is upset seeing the way we erebonians are treating her home and neighbors, well, actually that is all her being unreasonable and an immature child. yes erebonia is actively planning to cause anime world war 1 but they are actually tragic and not to blame about this we prommy :^)
even given that falcom simply cannot help but ♥♥♥♥ the bed when it comes to crossbell, this was a real low point in both the cold steel games and in the trails series overall. it is REALLY frustrating watching falcom plunge directly into writing that is this lazy, convenient, And Also Kinda Sinister If You Care About Real World Implications, ESPECIALLY because previous games in this very series show that they can do better when they want to. it sucks to see a series with previous installments you've really enjoyed SPECIFICALLY for their nuance get really into bootlicking. not even the return of trails franchise all-stars like tita, randy, and campanella could salvage this one for me, and i love those guys. that is how much i hate some of these writing choices.
and i am bummed to have to give a whole second trails game a thumbs down! beyond my personal disappointment, it makes it way harder to recommend trails to people who i know would enjoy the good parts of the series.
cs3 ends with another cliffhanger of course as mid-arc trails games are wont to do, and cs4 Is genuinely better than this hot mess, so there is that at least. and, if you've played all the trails games up until now, you may well be invested enough to tank the slings and arrows of cs3's hottest nonsense on your way to cs4. (maybe wait until it is on sale to hit add to cart.) and if you just want to watch a lets play of this one and mooch clear data off a buddy so you can skip to cs4, that's a fair choice to make.
but idk if you prefer games with honest and uncomfortable writing to this sort of stuff, maybe go play clair obscur or the hollow knight games or something instead.
