peak

if you've played all the trails games before this one to date, the amount of payoff and satisfying moments you get throughout the game is absolutely intoxicating, i fucking love the character cast in this series, even the more minor characters that don't get a ton of screen time grew on me so easily, but most of all seeing the liberl cast AND the crossbell cast AND the old class VII AND the new class VII is a fucking treat and the game even manages to handle it in a way that doesn't make it overwhelming for the player.

the fact you don't get rean until like, 15 hours into the game was a bit disappointing at first, but admittedly makes for a great payoff in that climactic moment of the game. and even so, the beginning portion of the game was still fun and had some really heartwarming and emotional scenes. seeing altina break down crying after waking up and remembering what happened to millium honestly kind of broke me, im not gonna lie

as for the middle sections of the game, which sometimes tend to be the weak point of trails games, i think this game does a good job of keeping you interested throughout with clever foreshadowing, giving you a trip down memory lane with memorable setpieces from CS3 (similar to what CS2 does but with CS1's locations), as well as drip feeding you incredible reunions (for the player) with characters from the past arcs of the trails series. furthermore, i love trails gameplay, especially in CS3/4, so there was a lot of fun to be had along the way in that regard too, with trial chests, cryptids, boss fights, etc... vantage masters and pom party provide a good distraction for your completionist itch as well

and then the endgame... man, the endgame. i will say this: gameplay wise, it can feel a bit repetitive and formulaic, in regards to the salt pales and empyreal fortress. but as far as the salt pales go, they are very short and don't overstay their welcome at all. so to me, it was just cool to play as the different sets of characters through the salt pales that you either didn't have access to at all or rarely did throughout the course of this game. it served as a really fun little build up to the main event. the empyreal fortress, on the other hand, did get a bit too repetitive for my liking, i honestly would have enjoyed the "split your big party into 3 teams so you have to strategize party management" mechanic employed earlier in this very game to make an appearance here. would have spiced these sections up and added some challenge as well. that being said, when it comes to the plot, this shit went HARD as fuck. call it corny, predictable, melodramatic, whatever you want, i fucking LOVE this shit. the confrontation with rufus especially was just immaculate. but in general, i just love class VII's group dynamic, and it really shone through during this part of the game. and then at the very end, that bait ending... brought me to fucking tears, and i'm not ashamed to admit it. honestly, i won't lie, that would have been a fucking baller ending, and i would still be giving this 5 stars if it ended like that, despite being a broken man in the process. but, knowing trails, i had a feeling there might be something post credits, and thank fucking aidios there was, because the true ending was so damn wholesome and satisfying. i know trails has a habit of not letting anyone die, which was VERY apparent in this game, but they usually explain it away well enough that i can excuse it, but there is no denying the heavy plot armor that exists in this series. do i care though? nah, rean crow and millium lived fuck yeah

since i've done nothing but gush about how amazing this game is i feel i should finish this review off with naming the problems i had with the game, which were very few but worth mentioning nonetheless. first of all, i'm not a huge fan of the whole "curse of erebonia" thing, just the concept of having a curse that makes people do stupid/irrational things to create conflict feels like a huge cop out to me, as well as unneeded. i think that it would have been completely fine to just have it be the fact that, tragedies like hamel happen because humans are innately flawed and are prone to making inhumane and awful decisions, and leave it at that. it's a fact of life, there are shitty humans out there, and decent humans that make horrible choices. but instead, everything is explained away as "the curse of erebonia" so that at the end of the day everyone can be seen as a moral saint that just got done dirty by the curse. i know the curse factors heavy into major plot points of the story regarding the great twilight, ishmelga, etc. so maybe it was moreso implemented for those plot writing purposes but it really just felt silly to me at times. this is the major gripe i have with the plot. another gripe i have that, i suppose is also plot related, is the whole persona 5 esque romance whoever you want mechanic, which unfortunately completely blockades the writers from writing in canon romances for the erebonia characters because all the girls have to be head over heels for rean. the one exception being millium, who was not included as a romance option for rean in this game and seems to have something blossoming with jusis, which is a very cute dynamic and one i like a lot! would have been really cool, IMO, to see more like this!!! (i guess technically there's like gaius/linde too??? idk wtf was going on there) but really seeing the relationships of like, estelle/joshua, agate/tita, olivier/schera in this game, made me really wish that we saw stuff like that with the cold steel characters, but you pretty much don't see it at all. to be fair, this isn't a cold steel specific problem, as we also didn't really see canon romances in the crossbell series either for fairly similar reasons. i won't lie, at first, when playing CS1 and 2, i really enjoyed the free time system and liked the idea of getting to take my pick of who i liked the most, coming off a persona 5 playthrough where i really enjoyed that mechanic. but the fact is, rean isn't joker, he is NOT a self insert, he is very much his own character, and it ends up feeling weird to be the one in control of who he is going to fall in love with. not to mention, EVERYONE wanting a piece of the action, including ones that don't seem to make a lot of sense, such as (in my opinion) sara, juna, and altina, isn't always the greatest. but to be honest, the romance plays a rather small part in the game and doesn't impact much of the writing at all, just a few special scenes and an odd dialogue option here and there. so it really isn't THAT big of a deal, and i enjoy the plot a fuck ton nonetheless, i just would have liked to see canon romances written into the story. even a boring one like rean/alisa! tbh IMO, rean/laura would have made the most sense, and laura isn't even my best girl by any means. i digress

i wasn't expecting to type this much but, yeah, this game and this arc and this series as a whole has really made a huge impact on me and i've loved every second of it. it's pretty impossible for me to not rank this as my favorite game in the series to date, it just really fires on all cylinders and is the complete package in every way. seeing "Trails of Cold Steel has reached its conclusion." hit me like a fucking dumpster truck, i am so god damn sad that this arc is over. i first played trails of cold steel, four god damn years ago in 2020 (because i did the jank play order where you start with CS1-2 before playing sky) and i just didn't want it to end man. from what i know about reverie though, it seems like it isn't over quite yet. i fucking love trails and am so glad that there are more games, this series is just simply fucking peak probably my favorite series of all time at this point. GG