I've always been a bit terrified of jumping into the Kiseki/Trails series. Nine main games, three separate arcs, with each game well over 40 hours long, and with one entire arc not officially available in English; that's a lot of video game, with one big gap in the middle in the form of the Crossbell arc. Nevertheless, I succumbed to RPGFan peer pressure and dived into The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, and boy oh boy I think I'm in this for the long haul.
Cold Steel is a slow starter. It begins gently, introducing you to Thors Military Academy, Erebonian politics and the members of Class VII, each with their own distinctive personalities. I struggled to start with, finding the repetitive sidequests and the early chapters a bit of a drag, but the more people I met and the more I found out about Erebonia the more I wanted to play. Each character you meet has a part to play, and every time I met someone knew I immediately started to try and figure out where they fit into the puzzle. It also helped that the battle system was so simple yet addictive, where area of effect magic and space play key parts in victory. I could sit fighting enemies for hours with turbo flicked on, relishing in Falcom Sound Team JDK's outstanding battle themes as I sliced through enemies. Do yourself a favour and check this soundtrack out on Spotify if you haven't already.
The world itself is incredible, but this eclectic class of students is what kept me coming back for more. I can't get enough of Jusis and Machias' bickering, and Laura's dedication and pride made me fall in love with her. Seeing these characters grow, in particular main protagonist Rean, was delightful. It only makes the cliffhanger at the end all the more bittersweet and difficult to swallow. I can only imagine the pain that people felt playing this back in 2015, and having to wait two years for the sequel!
Not having that handicap, I started up Cold Steel II within weeks of beating the first game, and I'm currently a third of the way through it. I simply couldn't wait. There's no way I could leave these kids alone for even another month, not knowing what befalls them and Erebonia. I plan to be there on October 22nd when Cold Steel III releases, ready to welcome the new Class VII with open arms. And yes, before you ask, I'm absolutely going to go back and play the Trails in the Sky trilogy. I've been bitten by the Kiseki bug, and it's been a long time since an RPG series has gripped me this much.
While not technically my first Kiseki experience, Trails of Cold Steel was essentially my introduction to the series and the land of Zemuria. I quickly fell in love with the characters, the music, and the politically tinged story. Once I started the endgame sequence, I knew I was hooked. I immediately jumped into Trails of Cold Steel II, and I've been desperate for the third and fourth games in this arc ever since they were announced.
I've played Cold Steel a few times (on several different platforms), but this playthrough for Retro was my first time having context from the Trails in the Sky games, which I finally played earlier this year. From a story perspective, the experience enhanced my appreciation of the character and world-building at play in Cold Steel. The game is still a good entry point for people who are new to the series, but there are hints and references that make even a third playthrough an interesting experience for those who have played other Kiseki games. On the gameplay side of things, it was great to see the evolution of various mechanics, and I felt like I had a much better grasp of how to use the combat system effectively. I even surprised myself by playing on hard after my usual preferred difficulty setting of normal felt a little too easy.
With Trails of Cold Steel III coming out in a few months, I'm glad I had the opportunity to replay the first game in the arc to refresh my memory of various people, places, and events. I played on PS4 this time, and while it was definitely a better experience than my original Vita playthrough, PC remains the superior version of the game. If you haven't played Cold Steel yet, I enthusiastically recommend it, and that goes double for those who haven't played any Kiseki games. Yes, they start slow and the graphics always look a generation or two behind, but there really is something special about the world Falcom has created with this series, and I would love for more people to experience it.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel makes no bones about being but a single chapter in a larger story: there are dozens of references to past games taking place in the neighboring Liberl and Crossbell, and the game ends on a shocking note at the very start of a nation-spanning conflict. It's equal parts frustrating and fascinating.
The greatest strengths of Trails of Cold Steel are characters and world-building. Over the course of the game the player grows attached to Thors Military Academy Class 7, with the nine central characters' personalities and dialog being appealing and well-written. These teens are so likable that there's probably something for anyone as long as you don't mind a little bit of anime in your RPG. The story of the Cold Steel games (which take place in the Erebonian Empire) hints at a much larger world (which also contains the kingdom of Liberl, the city-state of Crossbell, the republic of Calvard, and several others that would necessitate a Google search for me), which makes me want to play more of them. Which is all according to plan for Falcom, as Cold Steel 1 is game six out of nine in the Trails saga.
Fundamentally as an RPG, Trails of Cold Steel is also excellent. The combat and associated systems are sound, the city areas feel lived-in and are rife with side quests (for better or worse), and the story has a great sense of escalation and a few entertaining plot twists. I loved Trails of Cold Steel, and my largest complaints are that it has too much content hidden from the player, and the story ends on a cliffhanger. There are worse objections.
The Trails series has been sitting in my backlog for years. I'd started Trails in the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel previously, but despite checking off many of my boxes, like good characterization and deep, turn-based combat, I could never make my way through them. They started a little too slowly and something else would inevitably distract me. I was excited when the opportunity to podcast about the first Cold Steel came up; I knew I'd finally get to the "good" parts everyone was always telling me about.
Trails of Cold Steel is by no means a perfect game. It gets off to a sluggish start. The characters take a while to develop. I found myself frustrated by how constricted the game felt early on. My completionist tendencies went a little crazy when I missed an important collectible because I didn't talk to an NPC in a specific time-frame. I appreciate the thematic direction of the side quests, which ask Rean and the rest of Class VII to help with small tasks that real people need to have done, but they were mostly fetch quests that didn't add much to the lore for me.
So, after 15 hours, I still wasn't sold. By the end, though, I was completely enraptured in the story of Class VII and the beginning of the Erebonian Civil War. I'm a huge Suikoden fan (just look at my avatar) and this game scratches the same itch: excellent world building, a story that looks at both sides of a conflict evenhandedly, and characters who are trying to find a way to do the right thing amidst it all. Many of them, notably Jusis, Alisa and Machias, move beyond their initially frustrating characterization and become real people. Additionally, the combat system is wonderful throughout, and as you get more tools at your disposal, it becomes delightful to find just the right build to take down the enemies quickly.
I was so impressed with the second half of this game that I played Trails of Cold Steel II to completion before we even recorded the second part of the podcast, and that's a rare thing. I can't wait to get my hands on Trails of Cold Steel III now, and I'm sure I'll go back to play previous games in the series in the near future.
