Cold Steel 1 isn't a bad game, but it is a rough one.

The gameplay and combat have been simplified in ways that noticeably reduced the skill ceiling and the potential for interesting and creative team building. The visuals are awkward with the series' first foray into 3d. And the story, while it does have some interesting plot beats, goes on for longer than needed and is way too heavy on setting up future games at the expense of providing a satisfying experience here and now.

But its not all bad. The way the game handles its changes to party composition are a step up from the Sky games and its characters, while a mixed bag, have enough bright spots that I'm pretty positives on the game in that respect. They get enough texture to their personalities to shed the anime archetypes they start out as and actually feel like well-rounded individuals with a life that doesn't revolve around being the main character's friend/love interest.

If you're interested in the Trails series, I'd still recommend starting with Sky. Cold Steel is not a great introduction to the series despite its attempts to make the experience smoother for newcomers. And while I can still see somebody playing this and still deciding to continue with the other games, its a much more awkward foundation compared to previous entry points. And for those who have already played the other Trails games, Cold Steel 1 is still decent enough to be worth getting through.

(Scores are for my own purposes and aren’t trying to be objective, and are subject to change as I add more to my list)

So, Trails of Cold Steel. My first game in this series, and I had mixed feelings going into it, not being sure what to expect. I ended this game completely sold on playing ALL the games in this franchise.

I came to this accustomed to Atlus’ SMT/Persona style of turn based JRPG. The first thing that took getting used to was the fact that you could move around the field and that positioning, formation and ranges were important parts of battle. At first I found it daunting, but once I got into the groove of things, it was really satisfying using my pary members to fulfill different roles, with tanks drawing enemy aggro, healers in the back etc.

The combat system is also extremely versatile. You can “link” characters together to enable followup attacks and other useful abilities. As the game goes on, this ability strengthens and becomes even more versatile.

The spells in this game are known as Arts, and are determined by the quartz system. Its great since it essentially allows you t completely respec your characters arts on the fly at any time, by rearranging and redistributing quartz amongst party members and in conjunction with your typical selection of different accessories, weapons and and armour.

Characters also have innate abilities known as Crafts, which can be used based on a separate gauge which automatically charge up. At 100-200 craft points, you can use an ultimate attack, which can be used to interrupt enemy attacks. Useful when the enemy is about to take a critical hit turn, but you steal the turn for yourself! They’re also extremely fun.

Different turns sometimes have different buffs or debuffs that apply to whoever takes that turn, which adds another layer of tactic to the game, which I love.

Another thing I liked about the gameplay loop is that, for narrative reasons, half of the areas force you to create a party from half of your classmates, which means you are forced to learn each characters niches. From a narrative standpoint, it also allows the characters to develop their own arcs without following the trope of the entire group going through the exact same experiences.

The narrative is also amazing, however this game is ultimately just buildup to the second game. But my god is it worth it. All the worldbuilding in this game feeds in massively to the next games’ arc. All the different factions you meet, and the references to the events of other games which happen concurrently make the world and story very rich and lived in. Narratively, this franchise is ambitious with its scale.

For this game specifically though, it does follow a fairly rigid structure of going on a field study in a various region, solving one of your classmates personal issues, then exploring the dungeon at school and doing some quests and events on your free days

This game is very tropey however. Plenty of typical anime highschool hijinks as the backdrop for this political narrative. I think it gives the game a certain charm however, pretty reminiscent of some 00s anime. Thankfully the overarching story is pretty good, with amazing setup for future games, many games become super tropey without any substance.

Without the final few hours/cliffhanger ending, my score probably be a bit lower since the entire game is set up for something much larger. Still well worth my while, because that ending is one hell of a rush though.

When I heard that Trails of Cold Steel had the weakest reception for a Trails game I was curious as to why that is. It's the first game in the Trails series that reaches AA level in terms of production quality, so you might assume that the overall experience would be better as a result. Other people probably assumed the same, as apparently it's popular to skip over the Trails in the Sky games and the Crossbell duology in favor of starting with this game.

After playing Trails of Cold Steel myself, I think the upgrade from a small-scale series to AA levels of production quality drew in a lot of unfavorable comparisons to contemporary games. Instead of being impressive for a small series, Trails is now underwhelming for AA standards. Trails of Cold Steel is a bit ugly. There's pop-in, ugly textures, way too many low-poly objects, stiff animations, and it all unfortunately gives off the appearance of a cheap looking game. And personally, I think the new presentation loses a bit of the charm of the older games. Trails of Cold Steel uses 3D character models instead of character portrait artwork to accompany its dialogue. The faces of the character models are way less expressive than the character portraits, so it sometimes feels like this game has less of a personality than the older ones. Speaking of lost personality, the treasure chests no longer talk to you when you check them twice. I'm aware that's something that was only in the English translations of the older games, but it was one of my favorite things about those games so it's unfortunate that it's not here.

The presentation is one thing, but I think the big reason why this game has a mixed reception from fans is its story. After Trails to Azure we've now reverted to a Trails in the Sky style setup game where very little happens for the majority of the story's duration. But where Cold Steel differs from Trails in the Sky First Chapter is that FC managed to have a self contained conflict that was resolved by the end of the game. The late stages of Trails in the Sky are about stopping a military coup. The late stages of Trails of Cold Steel are about putting on a school festival - with some random ass-pull final dungeon and final boss in the mix that come out of nowhere and don't push the story forward much. The climax of Trails of Cold Steel actually happens after the final boss... but there's no real additional final boss, just a series of gimmick fights before the game ends and tells you to play Trails of Cold Steel II. Don't get me wrong, the ending was actually my favorite part of the game, but I can't say this trend of making an uneventful 80 hour RPG where the ending is the only time something significant happens is something I'm very fond of. But I will say the ending definitely saved the game for me.

Trails of Cold Steel feels a bit like a Persona game, as it takes place at a military academy. There are school life segments in addition to the field studies which advance the main story. This is fine as a setup, but what I think Trails of Cold Steel gets wrong about this formula is that there's no sense of looming danger while the school life segments are going on. In the Persona games there's always a countdown until something bad happens while the school life segments are ongoing. In Trails of Cold Steel there's no danger during these parts so it just ends up feeling like a life-sim cozy game that drags the pacing of the story down. This is still the case even though the life sim elements of Trails of Cold Steel go by fairly quickly. Contextualizing the gameplay loop back into the main story is important. Also I just have to say... At this point in the Trails series I am really starting to get sick of all the busywork sidequests that are required to advance the story. It looks like the sidequest doors of Trails in the Sky the 3rd will remain unmatched.

If the purpose of this first Trails of Cold Steel game was to get the player to like the main cast, then they did a passable job. I liked how certain characters were antagonistic toward each other but became better friends due to the events of the story. But I will say that for all that effort in trying to make the characters likable, there are a number of characters that I straight up dislike. As far as first games go, it seems like Trails From Zero accomplished a lot more with its characters without any life sim elements and without a plot with the pacing of molasses. Also, because of certain characters, Trails of Cold Steel is the most cringeworthy game I've played since Xenoblade 2.

It might just be stockholm syndrome as a result of trying to play all the Trails games in sequence but I actually enjoy the combat of this game a fair bit. It's the same combat as in the previous games but the addition of link attacks is pretty fun. Combat is where the the upgrade in production values really shines. Having full character models instead of chibi sprites allows for attacks to have more impact with the increased animation quality. However, I'm not a fan of the changes to the orbment system. In previous games maximizing your orbments to get the best possible arts felt like a satisfying puzzle, but in Trails of Cold Steel the system has been dumbed down to just allow you to choose what arts you want directly. Lame.

My favorite thing about this game aside from the combat system is the music. Is it a hot take to say that Trails of Cold Steel has one of the best selections of music in the series? Every battle theme is good - even the normal battle theme, which is something I can't say about some of the other Trails games. It's my favorite normal battle theme in the series because it actually pumps you up for battle. And you can definitely tell that the sound team has gotten a lot better with JRPG town and field music since Trails in the Sky FC. I think Cold Steel I and Trails in the Sky the 3rd are my picks for best overall soundtrack so far. But I'll have to give them all another listen to be sure.

I don't hate this game. But there are a good amount of things that I don't like about it. I'd be a lot more negative if the game just ended after the final boss without the events that take place afterward. I think this could be the start of a good story arc but I'm a little concerned that the other Trails of Cold Steel games seem to have somewhat lower reception from fans as well. But one thing is for sure: don't start the Trails franchise with game. Not only does it spoil the events of Trails to Azure, but the slow pacing and uneventful story might be enough to make you disinterested in the franchise.

My first foray into this series and it was a good time. The flow of combat is slower than more modern turn-based games, but the built-in turbo button helps make that easier to deal with.

What really impressed me was the effort put into world-building and story. This setting is vast and very detailed. There is a library filled to the brim with books that just go into detail of this world. As for the actual story, it's solid. It's biggest issue though is it's game 1 out of 4 and pacing feels like that. The constant twists help keep it going though.

A huge step forward for both the series and Falcom, the first of Cold Steel saga is relatively a mixed bag compared to two very strong entries that came just before. However, that also is due to the role the game plays in the series, both the Erebonian arc and the Trails series as a whole.

I remember playing this after Persona 4 Golden, and thinking its school setting and the academic schedule structure were a poor man's imitation at what Atlus had done with the two Persona games up to that point. However, playing it now after the Crossbell arc, it is essentially a evolution of the Zero and Azure way of storytelling--one big event happens once about a month, and one chapter covers that. In a way, the school setting itself is superficial and misleading; one can even say that visually announcing its structure like that made it so rigid that it becomes even more codified and standardized, which works against the game. However, beneath that false expectation lies an evolution of the Crossbell games in terms of structure.

Instead of everything happening in a single state, each chapter has (half of) the crew travel to another place in the Empire. If the Crossbell games allowed the region itself to be a character of its own, which fed into the Azure's late game stories better, the Erebonian Empire of the Cold Steel saga is a massive place. I'm not talking about the physical size of the map here: the storytelling structure, the regions themselves and how the characters from different parts of the country all interact with each other build towards just how massive Erebonian Empire is as a concept.

People joke about how this is 70-80 hour prologue of a game, but it is true--in a good way. Those hours are not just used to introduce characters or meander in low-stakes events, but they build a world where so many pawns are at play with differing interests that are not revolving around the main cast. When you leave a region, unlike most RPGs, you know that socio-political issues you experienced there does not end. You know that those regions have their own life almost, and they interact with others in the system. If Crossbell is portrayed as a character you want to protect, Erebonia is a sleeping monster you know is about to wake soon--and everyone in it is trying to align their interests desperately to what's to come. In that sense, the school setting also makes sense--this is not a high school like Persona, this is more like the academy in Fire Emblem Three Houses, where people from different backgrounds gather in a melting pot of a place, bringing all their baggages and troubles. It serves as a nice comparison to the local regions the party visits throughout the game, which in turn adds to the world building further. I don't give a f-ck about my school in Persona, but yeah, I would give my life to protect Thors.

Cold Steel gets a lot of flak (some deserved) for an aesthetic style that is "too anime" but beneath all that, this kind of world building is still there, and the game uses most of those hours to build them up. Only Trails would dare to have an entire game this long as a prologue, and I would say they pulled it off.

What awaits you in Cold Steel:

Quality worldbuilding that effectively connects the two previous arcs and Cold Steel

Well-developed characters with distinct personalities that assert themselves multiple times

An outstanding and generous OST, maintaining consistent quality from start to finish without any roller coaster fluctuations

A strategic and dynamic combat system with some spikes in unjust difficulty, but it's okay

A gut-wrenching twist and an unexpected turn of events in the final chapter

i am so much like rean schwarzer (this is a cry for help someone please save me from myself i am in endless anguish and turmoil)

this game fucking rules btw this is the best first game of any kiseki arc up to this point (even over FC, despite the fact that i still love that game). best combat in the series up to this point too, enjoyed this on a gameplay level infinitely more than either crossbell games being completely honest

gonna start CS2 within 24 hours of writing this because those ending few hours shot me with like eight different bullets how the FUCK DID THEY END IT LIKE THAT I NEED TO SEE WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENS YOU CANT JUST END IT LIKE THAT

“The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel” is a fascinating game for those who’ve played through the series before. It’s the sixth entry in the series, and yet many fans used it as a starting point for getting into the series. I’ve been playing through the Trails series for nearly three years now, but I didn’t start the Cold Steel saga until earlier this year. Both the Sky Trilogy and Crossbell arcs are near and dear to me, not only because I think they are enjoyable to play, but because their stories and characters are so memorable and engaging. It’s safe to say that the games that follow those up have some big shoes to fill. Going into the Cold Steel saga was a little foreboding, considering how long a stretch it is, and I’ve heard mixed opinions about its quality, pacing, and length. Now, having put in many hours into the first game of the saga, I think it’s safe to say that, even in spite of its issues, it is simultaneously a return to form and a step forward for the series.

Story and Pacing:
A friend of mine introduced Cold Steel 1 as the “Trails in the Sky FC of the Cold Steel saga,” and when it comes to storytelling, I think that’s an apt comparison. The required story quests, pacing, and even story beats are very reminiscent, if not flat out references, to portions of FC. The pacing for each chapter is meticulous and formulaic, which can be to its detriment. The scope and pacing of FC gave ample opportunity for the development of its two primary protagonists, while also filling each chapter of the story with new party members and revealing more about the kingdom of Liberl, its history, and its residents. Cold Steel 1 uses similar pacing and storytelling, though it offers a more centralized setting and a broader scope.

At the start, Cold Steel 1 introduces the main setting of the story, Thors Military Academy, and the focus of the story, the nine members of Class VII. The class’ leader, Rean Schwartz, is the primary protagonist, the one character who is always playable and in the story, much like Estelle and Joshua in Sky FC. One major difference from FC, however, is that the rest of the Class VII members get considerable amounts of screen time throughout the game, instead of having only one or two chapters worth of relevance. While you are limited to certain Class VII members depending on story progression, this is the first time in a Trails game where you have multiple different party members available to you very early on. This is an interesting dynamic, as it combines the kind of storytelling and character interactions that the Sky trilogy had, while also providing a consistent cast like what Trails of Zero and Trails to Azure had to offer.

This dynamic has its pros and cons, however. The Sky trilogy excelled with its character interactions because, outside of the protagonists, your party members changed with every chapter. Zero and Azure excelled because they used their small cast to the fullest, focusing on how the protagonists all interacted with each other. Cold Steel tries to do both, and as a result, really nails some character interactions, while scarcely touching upon others. That’s the trade off for having a larger cast, but it does leave some characters with very few interesting interactions, or several interactions that come off as same-y. For example, Machias and Jusis butt heads throughout the game, and even though they have an arc where they learn to understand each other, they consistently act pretentious with each other throughout the entire game, painting both characters as needlessly stubborn and shallow.

Cold Steel 1 can be described as a slow burn, perhaps more so than Sky FC was. A lot of time is spent on school life at Thors and developing the new locales and characters across the cities and towns that Class VII visit during their different field studies, all while setting up a lot of story elements for later down the line. Because this game is meant to be a gateway into the large-scale plot that the rest of Cold Steel is founded on, it inherently has to spend a lot of time on establishing the world. It is a dialogue-heavy game, and your enjoyment of it may depend on how much reading you’re willing to put up with. I used this game for learning Japanese, so reading was one of my reasons for playing through the game in the first place. I also think the game progresses smoother if you take your time with it, instead of trying to binge through it several hours at a time. The game does have several tense moments spread throughout, but when the pacing is more relaxed, I think taking your time has its benefits.

Gameplay:
Cold Steel 1 iterates upon the classic Trails gameplay formula and, as each game tends to do, offers new mechanics and quality of life changes. Overall, the game feels great to play and offers a nice but fair challenge on higher difficulties. This game is pretty easy to break if you have the right equipment and strategies, so normal difficulty is probably more than comfortable to play through for fans who’ve gotten this far into the series. For my playthrough, I went through hard mode, which offered some really tough bosses but wasn’t frustrating to run through.

Apart from some changes to how orbments work, and some tweaks and additions to status effects and buffs, the biggest additions are the break and Link mechanics, which offer different varieties of follow-up attacks and back-up support. I wouldn’t consider them game-changers, but they have just enough strategy and impact to feel worthwhile and are effective enough to help turn the tides in a sticky situation.

The Link mechanic levels up as the bond between two characters grows stronger. Because Rean is the character that the player is always controlling, the player is only ever in control of leveling up his bonds with other party members. Leveling up a character's bond happens through both story quests and side content, so it isn’t difficult to raise if you’re sticking to just the main quests. Rean consistently levels up his Links with all of the cast, meaning you can comfortably max a good amount of them if you know what you’re doing; however, the Links between any other characters rarely level up at all. By the end of my playthrough, I didn’t have any characters with a Link level higher than 3, making it feel like an afterthought.

Presentation:
The presentation is as charming as Trails games typically are. For the first time, Trails has jumped fully into the 3D space, ditching the sprite style it maintained for the previous five games. That said, graphically, it shares the same limited but appealing feel that Trails games usually have. The music is once again great and does its job in fitting the mood, whether in calm and slow moments or intense and high-tempo duels. The voice acting is great as well, but the number of voice clips feels substantially downsized from previous titles. There are far too many scenes where not every character on screen has a voice. It’s especially noticeable, not to mention confusing, that in many of those scenes, Rean is the only one who isn’t voice acted. Refusing to give a voice to the protagonist that the player will spend the entire game controlling when the other classmates and supporting cast have voices is incredibly bizarre and breaks some of the immersion. I hear that the English dub has more recorded lines, but because I played with the original Japanese voices, I was stuck with random awkward silence between voiced lines.

Conclusion:
Cold Steel 1 is a quality experience, but it’s hampered down by its pacing, limited character development and interactions, and odd quirks. I had a fun time with the game, but I can see why others would consider it a weak entry in the series. When ranking it among the rest of the games, I think it’s fair to compare it to both Sky FC and Zero, since all three of them are introductions to their own respective story arcs. I consider it better than Sky FC, primarily for the gameplay being far more quality, fun, and fair, but I don’t think it holds up as well as Zero, which not only had quality gameplay but also had a more engaging story and characters.

6/10.

yawns

É cold steel é ok.
É sky first chapter só que um pouco pior e melhor ao mesmo tempo.

Não tô com saco pra falar muito, serei breve.
Trilogia sky muito boa, consistente de boa.
Duologia crossbell é deveras um ponto de picos e algumas descidas que doem, mas é o ponto bom.
Quadrilogia ou quintologia de erebonia, primeiro jogo de um novo arco sempre é meio parado, ao que me dizem, kuro é o melhor nesse quesito, amém.

A escrita parece de light novel, certeza que a tradução n ajuda, mas não é como se no jp fosse absurdamente bem escrito, fui checar com um amigo, embora seja melhor.

A prosa é mais fraca, cede a contexto político de worldbuilding que já estava sendo buildado antes, agora vamos ter um avanço significativo no plot... E QUE COMEÇO CHATO PQP, QUE PERSONAGENS DESINTERESSANTES, seja em design e personalidade, mas foi só no começo até o ch 4 (nessa parte eu tava com 25 ou 29 horas.) Deu uma melhorada, mas ainda não o suficiente, vou cobrar de cold steel 2 algo.

O que brilha nesse jogo, o combate.
Ele é fácil dps de um tempo, joguei no hard, mas no ch 5 tava só spammando s craft e matando tudo quando tava sem saco.
As master quartz nesse jogo são quebradas pqp, as craft tbm, é divertido mas bem fácil tirando 2 ou 3 bosses.

Os bounding event aqui são mais compreensíveis de existir que em azure e zero, isso me incomoda.
No fim gostei ou tenho esperança de melhora em um total de 5 ou 6 personagens.

Cold steel é um jogo inflado e são 7 chs, como faço tudo levei 55 ou 60 horas pra terminar, normalmente num jogo introdutório de arco nunca é tanto tempo tirando o sky fc que pode realmente chegar às 50 horas.

Uma narrativa fraca, um texto truncado, promete demais, espero que pague em suas sequências.
Não vou exemplificar os problemas ou falar deles, por que não quero escrever muito.

Mas assim, a trilha sonora desse jogo..... JESUS CRISTO!
É ÓTIMA, ela combina perfeitamente com todas as cenas, cenários, paisagens e etc, falcomm aqui cozinhou na ost, parabéns.

Quando toca a ost belief é hype.
Quando toca don't be defeat by a friend é delícia demais
Exceed é uma ost que eu gosto até o minuto 1:10, mas cresceu em mim.
Tie arcus link é bem bom mesmo
Atrocious raid é empolgante.

A direção musical ficou melhor, parabéns.

Os gráficos e animações eles são feios pkrl, pqp que jogo feio, eu não me importo tanto, mas as vezes incomoda o quão feio esse jogo é, to exagerado? Talvez, mas e o que sinto.

No fim gostei das sides, algumas são proveitosas, outras só engraçadas, mas maioria que fiz foi interessante.

Tem referências a jogos passados, arco de crossbell aparentemente se passa ao mesmo tempo que os 2 jogos iniciais de cold steel e tem sentido, tô interessado na sequência.

A vita cantando whereabouts of light foi bonito.

Oliviert aqui, salvou demais.

Antes de eu terminar eu gostaria de dizer, a escolha de dubladores foi precisa e ficou caprichada, joguei a dub japonesa.


No fim esse jogo tem soul ainda, foi uma experiência afável, mas longe de ideal ou boa, mas foi ok.

I'm feeling quite disappointed and disheartened. The storyline feels like more of a filler following Azure, and the characters seem to be trapped in the realm of tedious anime clichés. The text's quality has significantly deteriorated, and this is truly unfortunate. You could easily trim about 95% of the text without any loss to the story – that's how sad the situation is. Olivert used to be such a dynamic character, but here, he's merely a faint echo of his former self. The only aspects I found enjoyable are the main character's voice acting and the enhancements in combat (though the balance still leaves much to be desired).

This game's goated except for:
The new orbment system
The Nord Highlands
That FUCKASS mecha battle
That it's way way easy (even on hard) except for maybe one boss in the early game

Another decent Kiseki entry, although not without its issues which are much more noticeable. For one, the main cast size is bloated and doesn't include too many standouts. The best characters are definitely great, but the others range from serviceable to incredibly boring. The game's structure is also repetitive, which can become tiring. Despite all that, I still very much enjoyed this game. It's still a good introduction to its arc with enough political tension and unsolved mysteries of its own to keep me interested the whole way through, wrapping it up with a fantastic finale that makes me want to get to the sequels faster.