A great palette cleanser that hearkens back to the more standard Trails from Zero rather than the massive saga that was Cold Steel IV or the episodic reflection of Trails into Reverie.
As is typical for a first game of an arc in this series, there are sweeping system changes, mostly to combat and how arts work. Combat-wise, the field combat is an amazing new addition and is a great base for future games. S-Crafts now also require S-Boost, a team-wide resource similar to Bravery Points in the last game, that mostly serves to curtail the S-Craft spam that dominated every fight that allowed preparation. The Arts system has even more complexity than previous games, but buyable plug-ins and drivers allow you to get the spells you want easily. Overall, arts are not as powerful as Zero or Azure, but are a little more interesting than Cold Steel.
Story and characters-wise, the game starts off a little bit slow as it eases you into Calvard, but picks up pace around chapter 2 or 3. The smaller cast and mostly self-contained story overall is what makes playing this game so much more relaxing than Cold Steel's marathon 5-game plot and massive cast of 50+ playable characters. Crawling around the city doing sidequests felt like Crossbell, and the slow introduction of new party members like in Sky helped you build a bond with every character, unlike Cold Steel, which gave nearly your entire core party for the first 2 games at the very start, and had to work to endear them to you as they fought for screen time.
I know I talked a lot about Cold Steel in this review but that shit seriously traumatized me and this game is much better. Overall, the missing star mostly represents a slower start and mediocre final dungeon (swear to god in the final chapter you have to destroy like 30 shields). But this is the best game since Azure.
As is typical for a first game of an arc in this series, there are sweeping system changes, mostly to combat and how arts work. Combat-wise, the field combat is an amazing new addition and is a great base for future games. S-Crafts now also require S-Boost, a team-wide resource similar to Bravery Points in the last game, that mostly serves to curtail the S-Craft spam that dominated every fight that allowed preparation. The Arts system has even more complexity than previous games, but buyable plug-ins and drivers allow you to get the spells you want easily. Overall, arts are not as powerful as Zero or Azure, but are a little more interesting than Cold Steel.
Story and characters-wise, the game starts off a little bit slow as it eases you into Calvard, but picks up pace around chapter 2 or 3. The smaller cast and mostly self-contained story overall is what makes playing this game so much more relaxing than Cold Steel's marathon 5-game plot and massive cast of 50+ playable characters. Crawling around the city doing sidequests felt like Crossbell, and the slow introduction of new party members like in Sky helped you build a bond with every character, unlike Cold Steel, which gave nearly your entire core party for the first 2 games at the very start, and had to work to endear them to you as they fought for screen time.
I know I talked a lot about Cold Steel in this review but that shit seriously traumatized me and this game is much better. Overall, the missing star mostly represents a slower start and mediocre final dungeon (swear to god in the final chapter you have to destroy like 30 shields). But this is the best game since Azure.
guah
3 months ago