The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV

An atrocious amount of problems with the story, gameplay and characters to count on a steam review. They utterly failed at making a conclusion to the overarching story lasting multiple games even before the cold steel arc started, wrote themselves into a corner while destroying all tension, rewrote past events and butchered multiple characters story wise. As such everything is a massive disappointment and a rage inducing experience. I was legitimately angry the whole time playing this.

Trails of cold steel IV. As known as the game that made me give up on the trails series despite going from the first game to the ninth game in 3 - 4 months. Sure, there have been a few hiccup along the way, but that have been an amazing 500 hours or so anyway. But that game? I just can't bring myself to finish it. It is the final nail in the coffin that is cold steel. I should probably say that I dislike cold steel as a whole; if the first five games are 9/10 games, cold steel is 7/10 on average. And cold steel IV brings it to a whole new low and I cannot play it anymore. I love trails, which is why I can't play anymore of this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Or at least those are my feelings after trying to finish that game for 3 month, an almost longer time than it took me to go from the first game to that game to begin with... And of course, I'm putting "not recommended", but anyone reaching this stage of the series will try it anyway.

altina my beloved <3

mid on mid crimes

For those of you who have known me for any period of time.. or it may be more accurate to say, for those who I trust enough to speak without reservation, you would know I have an incredibly complicated history with Sen no Kiseki IV. This game, since its release, has been the most divisive entry in this entire franchise for me. It should be of no surprise to anyone that I live, breathe and thrive off of Kiseki so I would imagine my words have some weight. However, I am writing this due to my selfish desire to leave some record of my thoughts in this infinite sea of data. Ultimately, when Sen no Kiseki IV is good, it is some of the greatest moments this series has ever produced but when it is bad, it is arguably the worst. But- I'm not really going to talk about that. I had an entire review written up to air out my thoughts regarding this entry in the franchise and- I think I'm alright. Genuinely speaking, I have went on for hours and years about how I find masks to be an incredibly contrived plot point that insults both the writers and the readers. I have went on about how I feel the "curse" is a joke outside of the main narrative. And I have went on about how I feel regarding some of the other pertinent negatives I experienced playing this game. But I want to talk about what I liked because I want to gush about my passion for this franchise, as I usually do. To begin I would like to mention shifting the protagonist role to Juna. This was the best decision Falcom had made. Putting my absolute love and adoration for Juna aside, she best embodies both Lloyd and Rean's spirit. She possesses Lloyd's will to surmount even the most impossible of barriers and Rean's will to relentlessly move forward into the unknown. She is the bridge between Crossbell and Erebonia, and between Class VII and the SSS. She possesses the staunch stubbornness seen in Rean and Lloyd and the unrelenting drive to do the right thing which is precisely what Zemuria needed come Sen 4. To this end her desire to act, which has been shown repeatedly in Sen 3 stemming from her desire to protect Crossbell, snaps Class VII out of their stupor and pushes everyone to action. This allows the narrative to shift focus to New Class VII and provides them an opportunity to demonstrate their growth as Rean's students. I adore this shift in dynamic and feel it adds a breath of fresh air to the story. Of course, I am bias because this means more Juna and you can never get enough of Juna. The last detail I would like to eagerly mention is the world-building and lore. Sen IV does an excellent job of executing on the lore we have been provided so far. I would even say this is when the game is at its greatest. Eryn is one of, if not, my favorite town in Kiseki. Saint Gral Labyrinth is one of my favorite dungeons. Hexen Breed are absolutely rich in culture and background and Eryn serves as an excellent hub for that first portion of the game to say nothing of the OST. Additional locations and their associated tracks are also simply beautiful, Alster, Osgiliath Basin, Tuatha de Danann, Sanctuaries, etc. etc. etc. all are wonderfully crafted and execute well on the "magic" aspect of Erebonia. It is difficult to find fault in this as there is passion and purpose behind each location in this game. I genuinely love the mythical, fantastical aspect of Erebonia and deeply adore how Sen IV melds such fantasy into the narrative. Additionally, it must be said that Act III and beyond in Sen IV are wonderful. The conclusion of Lianne and Rutger's stories, the determination and resolution demonstrated by Duvalie and Fie, the assault on the Pales and final confrontations at Tuatha de Danaan were all enthralling. Final chapter does an excellent job of tying up loose ends and bringing closure to Liberl as well as Elie's stories. And I think this is the important part. Every moment from Act III onwards, aside from those involving the absolutely inane masks, feels deserved, deliberate and satisfactory. It is filled with a genuine desire to bring to conclusion everything this series has been building towards and pave a new path for future entries. In this game, we see the culmination of two years of Class VII's struggle. Two years of pain, grief, sadness, anger, hate, pity and all the other messy emotions binding us to our humanity. We witness the realization of Olivert's dream and the conclusion of so many stories within Erebonia. As Sara mentions, and as Emma has mentioned previously, Class VII truly is the greatest class and they embody such pure determination and hope as they make their way into the future you can only cheer for them. And to that end, the emotion this entry provokes, the genuine familial bond demonstrated between Class VII and their desire to become the foundation of the world is nothing short of perfection. And I will never not be grateful for being able to witness such a beautiful story. Class VII is the best class.

peak.

The story spins its wheels in all the wrong places, it rehashes content from Cold Steel II, and the cast bloat has started rearing its ugly head in earnest. Guess that means the game sucks, right? Guess again. It's still peak fiction baby

For everyone that has made it this far, it's worth playing Cold Steel 4 and seeing the saga to the end. It wraps things up in a decent enough manner. However, I still think overall the Cold Steel saga has been pretty mediocre especially in comparison to the Liberl and Crossbell arcs. The main issues are still too many characters which results in most not being developed enough as everyone has to get their screen time. Rean is still too much of a blank slate which especially sticks out when every single NPC in the game is crazy about Rean and all the females are kept open as romance options. It becomes really hard to care deeply for most of the events due to the above issues. However, the new Class 7 still continue to be the better characters, carrying over from Cold Steel 3. While the overall plot of the Cold Steel Saga is decent, it's execution overall is still lacking. Cold Steel 3/4 were improvements, however the series overall still suffers due to the poor work in Cold Steel 2 especially. Cold Steel 4 in particular just struggles with the typical jrpg tropes, some of which have been done one too many times and it comes at the cost of the player not caring enough anymore. I think the best part of Cold Steel 4 was definitely the start where the new Class 7 characters get to shine once again. Juna and Altina especially are MVPs. The middle part of the game tends to be weak and you just go along with things till the ending which is nice mainly because it's concluding the entire saga. Gameplay wise I have to say, this is still another weak entry. This is the first Trails game I played on nightmare and it was really easy. Most people who have come this far should be able to break it pretty easily utilizing orbment/order combinations. I played it blind and do not know the OP strats and yet I was easily able to dominate most fights. Most of the combat in fact just feels like having the right orders/buffs and just spamming damage. The positional/tactical stuff really does not come into play at all really.. Although I will say they improved the Divine Knight battles and they can be challenging especially on Nightmare. It feels nice for them to be difficult given the theme of the game and in the past games they were just roll overs. The minigames are fun. Vantage Masters is notable improved now and is quite enjoyable. Pom Pom Party is fun but there are 2/3 opponents in that which feel outright unfair and it feels too much like rng where you hope to survive their onslaught and hopefully win when you do the +9 lines attack. Otherwise, I talked to every NPC and did every side quest (Somehow missed the achievement ;-;). There were some nice ones sprinkled in. Especially was happy to see Anton again! Visually, the series looks nice. Soundtrack is good once again and has a lot of great tracks. Synchronicity and Twilight Green Passage were the notable standouts for me. Overall, I will say that Cold Steel 3 and 4 were decent enough to make me want to play Reverie in the future. I'd recommend anyone who has come this far to just see things to the end.