The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

Good story with great combat

Art style and localization are all in extreme decline, and by this point the series assumes you're so familiar with how to break its combat system it doesn't even try to balance any of the math. I dunno I keep playing it though. What do I know about what I like.

Feels like a mixture of the story structures from Sky 1st and Zero, taking the best parts of both and combining them. While this first game introduces Rean and his class, laying the groundwork for the rest of his story, the ending is foreshadowed heavily, with multiple twists being predictable if you pay enough attention. The gameplay is massively improved from Crossbell, though in no small part due to going 3D. While the overworld movement is a little hard to get used to, it's balanced out by the combat. The removal of the grid for aiming allows for a lot more freedom in determining what you want to do. Links make the game a little easy, but thematically they're great and they're fun to use. By far the biggest change is the Quartz system. Rather than adding up how much of each element exists in a line and giving arts based on that, each Quartz does what it says. HP gives HP, Aqua Bleed gives Aqua Bleed. While it makes the system very simple, it nonetheless allows for flexibility and build diversity to an extent. Overall this game improves upon most aspects of the Liberl and Crossbell games, and the unique things it introduces lay a strong groundwork for future games. I still prefer Sky 3rd or Azure over this game, but that goes without saying in the first game of a five game arc.