Trails of Cold Steel is the sixth game in the long running Trails/Kiseki series. This game is the start of the third story arc that focuses on Erebonia and follows the story of Rean Schwarzer as he enrolls at the Thors Military Academy to join it’s new Class VII.
Positives:
++ The Cast. Despite having a large roster of playable characters, I think they all have something to add to the plot and provide differing perspectives. I generally enjoyed most of them and most get some level of development.
++ Music. Again, Falcom remains remarkably consistent in their music quality with many good tunes to listen to.
++ Game structure. So this one surprised me a bit, but I actually kind of like how this game is structured. You spend half your time at the academy with side jobs, ending with the old schoolhouse dungeon, then you spend the second half on a field study where you explore a city in Erebonia and uncover more of the larger plot. Rinse and repeat.
++ Plot. A good deal of the overall plot deals with the Class system that Erebonia has been under for a long time, with a very distinct Noble vs Commoner divide and the growing conflict therein. They are represented by the Noble and Reformist factions and you get a good sense of the growing tensions between them as well as the less than savory methods each employs.
++ Save system. Quick, save anytime, lots of slots and comes with an auto-save feature
+ Fast Travel. It mostly limited to a menu and is really only useful at the Academy, but it’s there
+ The map. You get a map feature that can be rotated, angled, with path history and shows where NPCs and enemies are. You’ll need a quartz to see where treasure are though.
+ Cosmetic slots. Mostly for post-game and DLC content, but it’s there.
++ This game introduces Sepith Masses as a way to acquire money instead of selling off the more valuable normal sepith which you need for quartz and slot unlocking, so a good change here.
++ The Link System. This is the new gimmick added to the Trails combat formula which allows characters to act in tandem, supporting one each other’s actions for follow up attacks or other support skills. In the late you’ll get the Burst ability where you can unleash a team attack like the ones from prior games.
++ City design. This is more specially for Heimdallr, as I have to give credit for finally having a huge city in lore being depicted as a huge city in-game. Before in the series, city size was limited for gameplay reasons, but I like how they handled Heimdallr with districts connected via tram system.
+ The Blade card game. Color me shocked, but we finally have a unique mini-game in this series that doesn’t suck. It’s easy to learn, is mostly optional, and comes with no or low stakes when you do play. It’s the perfect mini-game to take on casually and is enjoyable.
+ The overall Voice Acting is fine. There’s a few standouts like Sara’s, but for the most part it’s all right. The actors do start out noticeably a bit flat in the Intro, but it gets better as you can tell they’ve adjusted to the roles.
+ Turbo Mode. It’s there, still useful as ever but sadly not a toggle this time around.
+ Orbment changes. It’s a new system here that is more simplified from previous games. It retains the Master Quartz from Azure but Quartz are now dedicated art or stat up options as opposed to the element calculations of before. It’s a fine system, but I’ll admit the old system was more interesting and creative.
++ New game+: It’s a good NG+ with selectable options for carryover. You get 5 points per playthrough to choose your options. The first playthrough will net you enough for the common carryover options, more playthroughs will allow you use other options such as additional resources or cosmetic options.
Negatives:
-- The visuals. There’s no way to say this nicely, but this game looks very dated visually. It’s not a huge deal and you do get used to it, but considering when this game out, in 2013, there were already PS2 JRPGs that overall looked better. A thing to know, is that this a Playstation VITA game and it very much shows. I can’t help but think that if Falcom had just dedicated their development to the PS3 at the time, this game would had looked a lot better, even for it’s time.
-- Control issues. There’s a couple of very noticeable issues regarding control in this game that most everyone encounters: One, the analog stick deadzone problem. From what I understand, they are still set up for the VITA D-pad so they don’t align properly with an analog stick so you slow down on diagonals. Second, the collision boxes of this game are a bit too large resulting in you often running up against invisible walls around things and this also slows you down to walk speed.
-- The Bonding Point System. So in this game you get a limited amount of Bonding Points which are used for optional scenes with characters to improve their link exp. First issue is having this limited to begin with. I’m never in favor of gating off content, especially in a story heavy game like this and while you can see most everything through save scumming, you can still only see the final bonding with a limited number of characters per playthrough. Second, the presentation of most of these Bond Scenes is just not great. Most of them are just dull talking heads scenes and IMO, these really should had been animated cutscenes.
- For a PC game, this is limited to 60 fps. Not a huge deal and it can be forced to go higher, but that comes at the risk of glitchy cutscenes so do so at your own risk.
- Millium. She’s probably the only character I have issue with in the game. For starters, she’s a literal child despite the game claiming she’s 13. Second, she is just a cartoon character and acts exactly like one and one I suspect is inspired by the Powerpuff Girls. The point is, she doesn’t really fit with the rest of the cast and as a result is quite annoying.
- Bugs. There’s a few here and there with text extending outside dialogue boxes or the wrong voice clips playing. Lacan’s hair mesh clipping past the skull is another common issue. Speeding through the game via Turbo Mode can sometimes result is glitches with misplayed music or misplaced NPCs for cutscenes. I experienced one crash during the final fight of the game.
- I find it weird that field banter has a text history, but actual dialogue doesn’t.
- Inconsistent Voice Over and a general lack of lip syncing.
- Can’t customize the controller layout. You can customize the K+M, but not the gamepad.
- No auto-battle. You can blitz through fights with Turbo Mode and hammering the A button, but there’s no hold A to auto-fight like in prior games.
- Shops don’t count equipped gear as being in your inventory.
I think that covers all the important stuff. I have more positives for story stuff but since it’s spoiler stuff, I won’t include it here.
This game kind of surprised me. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it after the roller-coaster that was Azure. Like most first games of a new arc, it’s slow and casual for the most part and I think I actually liked the cool-down period which made me appreciate Cold Steel 1 more. I’ve heard some describe this game as a good jumping on point for the Trails series and I can see that. It doesn’t lean too heavily on the prior games for build-up so a player could start here if they so choose. Obviously you will get a lot more out of this if you do play the prior games though so I still recommend that approach. All in all, this is the best first game of an arc in this series thus far.
Of interesting note is just how ‘influenced’ this game is by popular media of the time when it was developed. There are inspirations from Code Geass, Persona, Harry Potter and even Xenogears of all things here. Probably more that I didn’t pick up on.
Trails of Cold Steel 1 gets a solid recommendation from me and I give it an 8/10.
