Friday, August 18, 2017

Video Game Review: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

  I don't play very many video games these days, but when I do I tend to stick to a few genres, and probably my favorite genre has been for a while the JRPG.  A good JRPG often doesn't require great physical dexterity or reflexes to play, involves tactical strategy and choices, and has a long sprawling plot that is entertaining to unveil.  In particular, I was introduced last year to the "Trails" series ("Kiseki" in Japan), a series of JRPGs popular in Japan that took a long time to come over to America -first as PSP games and then later as PC ports.

  I loved the first two games in the series, Trails in the Sky and its sequel Trails in the Sky SC, when I played them last year, with SC being a particular favorite of mine.  The third game in the Trails in the Sky subseries ("Cleverly" titled "Trails in the Sky The Third") came out in May of this year, and was also a blast to play, even if it was kind of a step back form SC.  Now, as of 2 weeks ago, the american localizer of the series has ported the second (3rd in Japan, but 2nd to come here) Trails series to PC - it was originally on PS3: Trails of Cold Steel.  If you've noticed my book reviews slowing down on this blog the last two weeks, it was because I was distracted tearing through this game in around 75 hours.

  The good news is that Trails of Cold Steel is still pretty good if you like JRPGs.  Like Trails in the Sky it is a sprawling JRPG with LOTS of minor characters, many of whom have their own stories in the background that you can discover through optional dialogue as the game goes on.  The battle system is very similar to Trails in the Sky with a few tweaks that have some pluses and minuses and the story is mostly great.  The issue for me is that the game rarely presents you with particularly challenging battles and the "free day" of school to start each chapter is kind of a drag.  As a result still prefer the Trails in the Sky series so far, although maybe that opinion will change when this game's sequel comes out for PC later this year.

More detailed review after the jump:




  Plot:  Trails of Cold Steel takes place a few years after Trails in the Sky, in the neighboring Country of Erebonia, the superpower empire that so threatened the protagonists of Trails in the Sky.  The story follows Rean Schwarzer, the adopted son of a minor noble, and his Class at Thor's Military Academy, which is an experiment in that the Class - Class VII - features both commoners and nobles working together.  The game alternates between following Rean and Class VII at school - and on various field trips to different locations throughout Erebonia.  It's on these field trips that the Class experiences the conflicts between the forces of the old Nobility and a Commoner-led group which seeks to remove the class system at all costs, as well as a mysterious terrorist group that attempts to cause havoc throughout.  The story is pretty solid with various surprises here and there and the characters are mostly strong and interesting.

Gameplay:  In general, the gameplay is really solid, but I wasn't in love with the school activities the game forces on you at the start of each chapter.  Essentially the game tries to take a page from Persona (which I haven't played) and each chapter begins with a free day at school where you can take minor quests from various characters in school/town, and choose to spend bonding points bonding with your various classmates - but of course, you can only spend time with some but not all of your classmates each day, so you'll miss out on some relations by default on your first playthrough.  Each free day ends with a trip to a different level of the same dungeon.  Thereafter, half your class goes with Rean to various locations throughout Erebonia, where they do various more interesting side quests and get on with the main story.  The field trips are so much more interesting than the free day quests, which makes the latter a bummer.  Oh and like Trails in the Sky, there are hidden quests in places you'll never find without talking to EVERYONE everywhere at every time....or looking in an FAQ.  Meh.

Combat wise, the game retains much of the same system as Trails in the Sky with a few alterations.  Like that game, on each character's turn you can choose between a regular attack, using a Craft (which costs Craft points you get from attacking), using Arts (Magic) which take time to cast, or an item.  The main addition to the combat system is that you can link characters together, and if you "unbalance" an enemy by criticaling them or hitting them with the right weapon type, your linked character will get an extra attack or effect off.  The link system provides benefits for characters that you've bonded with more on your free days.  I didn't really feel like the link system added much honestly and basically never changed my strategy around it.

Really the question for me in any JRPG is whether the game can offer me compelling challenges that make me feel awesome after a victory (the same is of course true in other genres as well).  Trails in the Sky SC featured one of my favorite boss battles ever (against the penultimate boss).  As with those games, I played this game from the start in "Hard" difficulty mode, but still rarely felt THAT challenged - basically I found myself having challenging fights in the third Chapter (and probably because that chapter found me underleveled due to mechanics of that chapter encouraging me not to fight random battles) - and the main boss of the 2nd to last chapter.  There were various bosses though that required some thought to defeat even if I was able to handle them on the first try, which was nice.  The game features, like Trails in the Sky, multiple characters with the ability to "Delay" enemies from taking their turns, and while bosses tend to be resistant to this (though not immune), the result is that ordinary enemies usually aren't THAT challenging since you can dodge much of their actions with these attacks.

In short, the game has generally fun gameplay and presents a mild challenge, but not a great one, and has a strong plot, but has one gameplay element (the school days) that didn't work for me.  So I'd recommend this game to a fan of JRPGs, but really not for anyone else (whereas Trails in the Sky is truly great all round).  I look forward to the second game.

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