Where do I even begin? I started my Trails journey with the Liberl Trilogy(FC/1st, SC/2nd, 3rd) and then Zero and Azure which is the Crossbell Duology. Now I'm entering this journey, which has been called the Cold Steel arc. It has FIVE GAMES. Oh boy...
I'll start with the positives of this particular first entry. For the first real 3D Trails game, it looks nice. I had max settings and one of the settings for Shadows is "Insane". I can see why it has that name, it fits. The characters look nice and distinct. The different locations you go to are vibrant enough and distinct. Some of the characters are pretty cool personality and writing wise. Also, the ending is fantastic.
Middle of the road stuff....the soundtrack. I did like a few pieces here and there such as the opening, the ending, the day to day school theme, and the final boss theme. Everything else didn't stand out, not even the battle theme. Out of all the characters in Class VII including the main man Rean himself, I vibed with four of them...out of eleven. That's a sharp decline from previous games where I absolutely adored ALL of the party members if not 99% of them. Also some of the humor was hit or miss. I don't know if that's a translation issue or not, but I found myself laughing harder with the previous games than this one. It might have leaned on the tropes a bit too much here. One last thing I found mid, the routine. You are a student, I understand that. However, every chapter is basically the same. Pre-Free Day, Free Day, Practical Exam, Field Study, something goes haywire, Boss, rinse repeat. This might be the formula of previous Trails games, but they did a MUCH better job at hiding it. The best way to do a routine in a game is to either hide it or make it the main focus. I believe they tried to do both here to mixed results.
What I didn't like is what they did to the Quartz system. The previous games made the Quartz system a bit of a game within a game. You had to balance out the quartz that you wanted with what arts you would received and what combination could synergize the best. In this game, each quartz corresponds to an ability ONLY. If you want a particular powerful spell, you just slot it in. You might think that's great. I disagree. I think it's a massive step down. Not only that, magic in general is far more costly, slow, and ineffective. You are better off slotting for Crafts in this game. They're faster, the abilities for Crafts sometimes far exceed any Art/magic you can use, and it uses Craft Points. Craft points regain either automatically with a piece of equipment, with a healing item, A Master Quartz, or with normal attacks...including Crafts. You can easily sweep this game with crafts alone, it's that busted in your favor.
I like my Trails games with a fine balance of Arts and Crafts(no, that's not an intended pun).
If this review seems negative, I promise you it isn't. I still recommend it if you are already playing this series. This game is a TERRIBLE place to start though. I will die on the hill that you must start with Trails in the Sky 1st/FC. This game tries to invoke some of those vibes, and I understand that quite a few did start with this game. However, there are far too many things that happen in the plot and the background that make it an abysmal starting point. Don't skip to this game either. Come here naturally. So, yes play it.
PS: How dare you lock Shining Poms behind DLC. I miss those Metal Slime references. Actually the DLC for this series started here and it gets...yeah. Thankfully, you don't need any of it.
