The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV

it's an okay game, it's carried by it's legacy and it's final chapter, and wrapping things up together, but other than that it really has the worst pacing and padding out of any of the series, if you're in this far you kinda are obligated to finish it, but this would be awful to start with anyways at this point, so I cannot give this a positive recommendation

the events of COLD STEEL 3 have set off a DOOMSDAY CLOCK which is TICKING DOWN to the start of ANIME WORLD WAR 1, which IF ALLOWED TO BEGIN will sacrifice MILLIONS OF LIVES to erebonia's PARTLY SUPERNATURAL, but both ORIGINALLY and ULTIMATELY PETTY HUMAN BLOODLUST. our Every Chuunibyou Trope In The Book hero REAN SCHWARZER is temporarily OUT OF COMMISSION, meaning that it now falls to JUNA CRAWFORD to get everyone's heads in the game to RESCUE HIM, TRACK DOWN LOST ALLIES, and STOP THE WAR. there is no need to question if juna is a bad enough dude to accomplish this. she is obviously a bad enough dude. have you seen that kid. she was BORN READY. the real question is whether REAN can STOP WALLOWING for long enough to entertain the idea of LIVING PAST THIS CONFLICT, and to remember the real point of trails: DO ALL THE SIDEQUESTS. REACH OUT TO YOUR FELLOW ZEMURIAN. FOR THIS IS THE ONLY WAY TO BUILD A BETTER TOMORROW. if cs3 was just cs1 again but less effective because it's either deeply contrived or Suddenly The Dunkass Conspiracist Erebonia Apologia Tour, then there is a decent chunk of cs4 that is likewise Second Verse Same As The First-ing cs2 in both format and content--but enough is meaningfully different this time because the conversation is How Do We Permanently Decommission The War Machine that i will give that part a pass. on the subject of erebonia apologia, cs4 puts me a bit in mind of how trails from zero's writers room was at war with itself about whether to handle the topic of policing realistically or idealistically. there are still occasions where the game is full-chest Erebonia Did Nothing Wrong Ever, Everything Is Ishmelga's Fault, but many of the writers have remembered that a core tenet of trails since sky 1-3 has been Humans Dont Deserve Nice Things (sept-terrions) Because Human Selfishness Gets The Better Of Us And We WILL Misuse Them: ishmelga is Like That and only exists in the first place because ye olde erebonia, like liberl and crossbell of olde, did its sept-terrions dirty. SOMETIMES this is addressed with grace and nuance, sometimes it is a clumsy afterthought, but i will take They Tried over No Effort Was Made. this aside, cs4 is where rean is expected to Lock It In with one of the ladies, meaning falcom has formally taken all the men in rean's harem off the table. BOOOOOOOOOOOOO COWARDS. millium is off the table too and not for the reasons you might expect, but rean's students juna, altina, and musse Are available options. tbh i imagine that a lot of the people for whom this might be a dealbreaker were probably frightened away in sky 1 by jestelle's "are we siblings to each other or is there sexual tension?" will they wont they denial dance. AND cs4 is clear on rean refusing to take his students/underage conquests to bed until they graduate/turn 18, but like. the game expects you to know where the line is between reality and the comforting male fantasy of 20 attractive men and women managing your depression for you until youre emotionally ready to admit you need therapy; no amount of subtextual Kids Dont Try This At Home will be enough to overpower the ick factor for some. that is ok. cs4 is on the whole WAY better than cs3 was. it has its head on straighter (both connotations. so for better And for worse lol), juna finally gets her laurels, and its much more often an enjoyable ride. i had fun here. BUT. ok, this is the part where i have to be serious: cold steel 3&4 are the way they are/land the way they do about osborne because of the place judas (yes, the one from the christian bible) holds in gnostic religious belief and philosophy. gnostic imagery is baked deep into trails series lore in ways where the brick STILL has not fully come down nine whole games into this thing, and formal gnostic thought has had fingerprints on trails since zero, but gnosticism is not exactly mainstream and so this is something of a deep cut. NISA tends to gently excise the heiling from the english loc, but given that erebonia is very much intended to echo fascist germany, this choice of framing on osborne is... let's say fraught. it would need an incredibly delicate hand to pull off in a non conspiracist way. i don't think cs4 manages this. i worry whether the staff was united in wanting to pull it off in a non conspiracist way: there are red flags, but theyre SUCH deeper cuts than the gnostic stuff they're practically dogwhistles. take woden for instance: you SHOULD hear that name with the metal gear alert sfx and final boss music, but unless you've learned about historical nazi heinrich himmler's attempts to start a cult, it's not going to trip any alarms. rean's story arc is going to be most appealing to players who love preteen cool, butt rock, and spectacle. the writing encourages you to get hype and swept up in emotion: this is not a state conducive to staying alert to whether the one weirdo on the dev staff is trying to slip propaganda in under the radar. that, ultimately, is why i have to thumbs down Again. (i am depressed about it too, because you cant play 9 games of a series without getting emotionally invested.) cs4 needs a HANDLE WITH CARE label: KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING INTO IF YOU PLAY. if the stupid dumb blood libel cult as a recurring plot element has not made it clear enough, if you can't engage with trails responsibly, SIMPLY DONT ENGAGE AT ALL.

Cold Steel is good actually

帝国桃花剑最后一部，竟然是个大团圆结局，不过这结局是真的不错。

Trails of Cold Steel IV? More like Trails of Peak Steel. I adore this game, and in a wider sense, the Trails series. I like how Trails tell their story. They truly can make you feel the hopelessness from the scale of problem they are presenting, how you feel the hate towards some situations and characters from time to time, and fortunately it pays off in the end. I think what make this game works, and why it is so good, is due to how Trails have done in the past decade or so. They have endlessly built the world through 8 games leading up to this one and it's such a beautiful culmination and payoff for the fans of the series. This might have just become my favorite game series as of now.

With a series this long running, chances are you are here either because you are familiar with the series or you accidentally stumbled upon this title. if you're part of the former, you know the drill with the Trails series by now. Its a great JRPG with an anime art style, excellent battle system and mechanics, and compelling story, characters, and setting that evolves with each new iteration and stays fresh while not changing too fundamentally from its core. If you're part of the latter group and are completely new to the Trails series and think this game looks cool, you should know that this is game #9 in this long running series. Starting out on this game would be like watching Avengers: End Game as your first introduction to the MCU. I highly recommend you start at the beginning with Trails in the Sky FC. It's somewhat dated at this point, but its excellent art style and story carry it even in 2024. I know because I've marathoned every entry in the series up to Cold Steel 4 (so far) in 2024, and they are all fantastic games with great stories and sound tracks. Anyway, about this specific title: It's another great addition to the series. The characters from the previous games and the locations from Cold Steel 3 are back and under the spectre of the looming great war. Class 7 strives against all odds to find a light in the darkness to illuminate the path. For me, the Trails series has become the standard I measure other JRPG series against.

More like Trails of Lukewarm Tinfoil. Though, honestly, it's a great RPG with a lot of cool things, it suffers much from yapping and serious topics being resolved immaturely. Just a few examples: #1. This game has a lot of characters. In every scene every character present is obliged to make a comment. It feels as if every dialog written for one or two characters was later cut into one-liners. Feels very cheap. #2. [spoiler]No real stakes. Despite horrible things going on, war, no one ever dies. The series overall is infamous for this, but this game takes it to a new level. Also no sense of urgency despite urgency being one of the main drivers of narrative.[/spoiler] #3. [spoiler]No villain, be it a small miscreant or a horrible I-WILL-DESTROY-EVERYTHING fiend, never feels as an actual threat, since the resolution is always: "I didn't really mean it and I'm good inside actually" or "I was misunderstood, let's be friends", or the favourite "The curse made me do it"[/spoiler] Though, as a fan of TLoH series, I hold every game dearly, I just can't lie to myself that a normal person (someone not invested in the series yet) can actually enjoy this game for its narrative devices. But if you are reading this review, big chance it's not your first Trails game, so go for it why not :D