Man, it's been a ride. I first got into the Trails series during my senior year of highschool with Trails in the Sky all the way back in 2018. From there, i proceeded to pretty much binge the series all the way to Trails of Cold Steel 2 (with the exception of Trails of Azure, as a viable fan-translation wasn't out at the time). Then, last year, the PC version of Trails of Cold Steel 3 was finally released although due to my old PC having a broken screen and me having thought i lost my saves in the transferring (until i discovered them earlier this month) led me to put off completing that game for a while.

Now here we are, in May of 2021, and i have finally completed Trails of Cold Steel 4. This game can be considered the Avengers Endgame of the series, for better and for worse. Much like Avengers Endgame, it's kinda hard for me to view this as a normal game because it really feels more like an event. This is a game that knows it's the finale of a saga (but not the series) spanning over a decade so it ends up feeling like a spectacle, a spectacle that ends up bringing together every game up until this point. For example, the first characters you play as in this game are not the heroes of Cold Steel that you've been playing as for the past four games. No, this game's prologue opens up with you playing as the heroes of both Trails in the Sky and Trails to Zero/Azure. The Japanese version of this game has the subtitle "End of Saga" and the prologue essentially lets you know that immediately. And over the course of the game, a ton of characters from the previous arcs end up showing up, not all of them playable, granted, but they show up regardless. The end of the game's second and final acts are with this spectacle is especially noticeable and for the record, both segments happen to be my favorite moments in the entire series. Heck, the final boss fight is reminiscent of the final fight of Endgame, where a bunch of characters come through portals to join the fight although it's more accurate for it to be the other way around since this game does predate Avengers Endgame by a year.

Of course, like Avengers Endgame, being a spectacle doesn't excuse it from it's flaws. Trails of Cold Steel 4 does still suffer from problems that affected both the previous Cold Steel games and the series as a whole plus some brand new problems. The three biggest ones that come to mind are the fact that Cold Steel 4 has pretty much nullified the threat of death for our heroes for pretty much the rest of the series. Characters that died in the previous game actually "secretly survived" or were straight-up revived. Now, i'll admit, i can't be too hard on this part because of the reason why the Act 2's finale is so good in my eye's is because of a certain character's comeback but i do know that if a character is killed off in a future game, i won't believe it unless there's absolutely no way they're coming back. The other big flaw with this game's plot is that at this point, i think the main villain group Ouroboros is one of my least favorite villain groups ever. I'll admit, they have produced some good characters but the villain group's goals as a whole are still a mystery nine games in. Literally what the actual fuck do these guys want? Even when they're called out on how their organization doesn't actually make sense, they're still like "uhhh it's all part of the Grandmaster's plan". Like, i could compare this to Emperor Palpatine and how his plan to take over the galaxy made no sense but at least we knew what it was he wanted. Oh and speaking of villains, it is kinda lame that a sentient curse being behind it all is kinda lame. The game does make a point that the curse isn't solely to blame but i would've preferred if there were no curse.

I've been talking a lot about the writing because to be fair, that's kinda like the biggest deal for this game. Thankfully, the gameplay is just as solid as it's always been. I don't have much to say about it but i do question the way they nerfed Brave Orders. They nerfed the effects and made them more expensive to use and that was honestly kinda annoying. Then there's the fact that because this game has too many playable characters and it didn't feel like there were enough resources to properly outfit all of them with the latest gear and whatnot.

If you ask me, Trails of Cold Steel 4 was very much worth the wait and it makes me glad i got into the series a few years ago. Just like Avengers Endgame, it was a spectacle i enjoyed until the end (but unlike Endgame, i'm still invested in the series' future whereas i don't really care what the MCU does from now on) Now to wait two years until the next Trails game gets localized because Falcom hates the West.