Thoughts on Cold Steel 3

My connection to Trails goes back quite a bit. I first caught word of the series after seeing a couple Sky characters in fucking MUGEN of all places, so when I got to playing Ys Felghana and Origin, I noticed similar sprite work and eventually found Trails in the Sky on the PSN store in 2015 while looking for something to play on my PS Vita, a device I used a ton during my college years given I had a half hour bus ride to college every day and plenty of breaks in between classes some semesters. I got a decent way into FC, but as anyone who has played FC will tell you, that game is very slow to begin and it's not uncommon for someone to drop it before picking it back up later. I ended up playing Cold Steel very shortly after it released on the Vita, and while I could already tell there was a significant shift in how they wrote the games between Sky and CS1, I came to really like the series as a result of CS1. I played CS1 and then 2 when it released, before going back to Sky to finish it, the latter of which truly cemented how much this series would come to mean to me.

With that said, CS3 released in English in 2019, a whole 3 years after CS2. CS1 has some pretty defined issues, but I'll still defend it overall as a game. I did not particularly care for CS2 for a fair number of narrative and gameplay reasons (the latter of which was mainly due to how exceedingly broken the game innately was; even though CS1 is still a fairly breakable game, its structure limits its brokenness potential, and starts you off with a baseline and makes you figure it out first first), one of them being that the game has a lot of shit you need prior games to fully get the context behind. So in 2016 I started to play the rest of the series. And I took it slow; I beat FC in 2017, SC in 2019, 3rd in 2020, Zero in 2021, and Azure in 2022. Thankfully the last 2 are officially in English now with actual care put into them and not just spreadsheets and machine translation. But with all that done, 7 years later, it's time to come to terms with the remainder of the Cold Steel arc I patiently built myself up to catching up to over that time.

So...CS3.

I'mma be real, writing this right after finishing it...this game is fucking weird to talk about.

I'll start with some of the nice things I have to say about it. I think this game's class VII is much better introduced than 1+2's. Instead of giving you 9+ characters to figure out, several of whom really get very little in the way of character arcs, several of whom start off on really bad notes, and a couple of whom don't really get delved into until way too late. CS3's class VII largely starts off with a nucleus of 3 students (one of whom is a returning, underdeveloped character from a prior game) and the CS protag (we'll get to him a bit later). It expands to 5, but that core nucleus is kept much smaller and tighter, which thank fucking goodness. And they're generally just better characters with more defined personalities and relations to one another (even if those are still a bit undercooked compared to previous installments of the series thanks to Cold Steel getting too into knock-off social link mechanics), whom I could tell you more about in the first 30 minutes with them than I could several members of the Class VII of 1+2. Heck, the old Class VII actually felt like they were holding CS3 back by being there, because honestly I was more interested in the new kids than I was in catching up with the previous cast who were taking up plenty of screentime despite several of them being relatively completed characters and who already had their "oh hey it's you your back" moment in CS2. I still don't love the cast of the CS games the way I do Sky or Crossbell, but I think CS3 did make good progress compared to the steps back of CS1.

I still don't particularly like Rean as a protagonist, partly because of him being both a bit on the plain side and partly because he shares a few too many traits with Lloyd from Crossbell (a protagonist who also benefits from being in a generally more interesting game and narrative), which is even called out a couple times in this game...but I think CS3 is the best depiction of him thus far. His foibles are a bit more on display, and his role as a teacher is remarkably original for a video game. It puts in in a position where him being the protagonist generally makes sense because his position of leadership over a group is kind of de facto already there, it fits his personality of being overprotective while reflecting some amount of growth in how he interracts with those around him. There's also at least a bit more internal conflict with him on display at least in parts given his role in the story, and while I think they could have done more with that, I think it was at least a step in the right direction. This game feels like they did a lot more interesting with him (even if a couple parts of him get a bit Flanderized), and it's the first time I legitimately felt anything really all that compelling about him.

In general, the voice acting in this game is pretty solid for what it is, they did well with the script they were given.

CS3 has some good parts to its story. I think this game's Chapter 1 goes over something I've wanted to see in this series for a long time, and I was really happy they did it, because finally getting to that point sets a really interesting tone to this game. It's easily my favorite chapter of the CS games thus far. Chapter 2 is also a welcome throwback; it's a bit of fanservice (no not the sexy kind) but it does a decent job of demonstrating the passing of time and the events that have shaped the landscape over several games. And then...I think I'd say the ending scenes to Chapter 4 made for an interesting shot in the arm.

Music is all around solid. It's Falcom, and Unisuga, Sonoda, and Jindo are still pretty good here. Though I will say I'm a little bit worn on certain musical licks that they do.

The side content is solid. I liked Vantage Masters more than Blade, and Fishing was fun.

I think this game improved on the Valimar fights from CS2, where I found them to be pretty dull. They're still not great, but at least they're a decent amount more interesting in this game and take more actual thought.

Umm...

All right so I gotta get to the stickier bits. By this point in the series, if you haven't gotten caught up with prior games you'll probably be a decent bit *lost* playing this one. I lost count of the number of times I pointed at the screen and said "Oh hey I remember that" and probably laughed because NISA marketed this game as "you can play it without playing previous Trails games". I know they said that to try to get it to sell, but there is not nearly enough information in the game's backlog of books and residual information to get you caught up on the five games prior to Cold Steel which feed more heavily into this one than even 1 or 2. On the one hand, it is kinda rewarding to see little bits of payoff to a great many things, to have a sense of being rewarded for having paid attention. On the other, it feeds into an issue that started to come up in the Crossbell games. Zero is probably the high point of the series for me, but it also is a game that has a few too many threads linked to Sky that it makes it feel a bit shakier in terms of standing on its own. Cold Steel 3 is almost a bit worse because it does so not only for CS1+2 but also for Sky *and* Crossbell. Azure has the problem of there being probably too many forces and factions at play with the events, something that reaches the point of almost comedy by the time you get to CS2. By CS3 there's so much at work that like even with all the background knowledge it honestly gets to feeling like too much (and not in the "I couldn't follow what was going on" way but in the "it gets kinda bloated" way). This feeds into one of the bigger issues I had with CS3, which is that the game feels too much like a setup game. I know CS4 exists so it spoils that 3 isn't the end of the arc by default, but I'm not one hundred percent convinced they needed 4 games to tell this whole story.

Chapter 3 of this game starts to really set in just how much of this game is setup. So often you get into a fight where you obviously aren't meant to score a resounding victory in the previous chapters, but by Chapter 3 the lack of payoff gets old. I get that the chapter spends some time giving some backstory to characters who needed it, but it gets kind of old. Chapter 4 starts to really drag, and it's like...man, I know Trails games have some lengthy periods of setup but this is ridiculous. Sky FC and Zero may have things they do set up but the games have their more self-contained parts too where it felt like something happened *and* got resolved. Sky SC twiddles its thumbs a bit too much but it more or less resolves its primary story. We're in the 3rd game of CS by now, on top of stuff that was left over from Azure, the time for setup was 2 games ago. Azure was the point of the series I think Falcom started getting too ambitious, but at least it resolves most of its pressing conflicts. Ultimately, CS3 has some real pacing problems. Even though I like Chapter 1 and 2 and forgive them for what they *do* accomplish, it's annoying just how little of significance truly happens until nearly the end of the game, especially when this game has the number 3 in the title.

And then a shit ton happens all at once. And let me just say...that last chapter is kind of a clusterfuck. And not in a really good way. It's big time spoiler territory so I won't even begin to really get into it, I know some people read these regardless, but I genuinely don't even have a lot to say about this game's last chapter beyond the fact that the way some characters act is jarring and certain narrative threads and plot devices are...really dumb.

On the matter of script and narrative...There's probably some errors here and there I missed, but I felt the localization was honestly fine. As someone without the Japanese script, it's hard to tell if a line was weird or bad because of the localization or because Falcom themselves sorta started drinking the kool-aid around this time. But this game has some other issues. There are some beats that it *way* over uses to the point they become cliche from within. For example, the sheer amount of times you see some character from a previous game be introduced to the scene or plot with a "that won't be necessary" or "stop right there!" as they come in to bail the cast out of a mildly to very precarious situation. Or the amount of times the camera pans out to show someone watching the main cast, make a remark like "how interesting", and then the scene changes, like this game isn't the worst I've ever seen when it comes to foreshadowing (cough Xenoblade 3) but it has some really bad habits of doing this. Speaking of foreshadowing, it kinda becomes a broken record with how much it does crap to tease the player for something later, even worse than previous Trails games. There's also just plenty of scenes that go over certain recurring beats to the point even the characters start hanging a lampshade over it (e.g. "let me guess...") And then finally, boy howdy everyone has a fit of the giggles in this game because I swear every fourth or fifth text box in non-serious conversations start with a haha, teehee, or otherwise. I knew that people had commented about this pverindulgence of "haha"s, but you *really* start to notice it when you play this game for as many hours as I did. And supposedly, the localization team actually trimmed a decent number of them out from the original Japanese text.

Visually the game looks like a big step up from CS1 and 2, generally being better about expression and scene choreography and camera work...but it's still not great. The character faces still look a bit stiff compared to the drawn portraits of the older games, action choreography is still kinda underwhelming during cutscenes, being better than CS1+2 by a lot yet somehow still feeling behind even the sprite-based games which had more excuse.

And now I gotta talk about the combat system of this game, because...oh boy.

I genuinely adore the Trails combat system from FC onwards to a certain point of Azure. I really enjoy JRPGs with a non-straightforward turn order, and Trails system with how each ability has a certain amount of delay behind each action is really cool. I also really enjoy the way S-crafts can circumvent the turn order for decent short term payoff but with a lot of delay behind it. Sure, there are ways to break the games, but I never felt that they were so obscenely broken that I didn't really feel like I was playing the game "correctly". Sky SC (and to a lesser extent, 3rd) could get to being outright bullshit at times on higher difficulties, but outside of one truly obscene fight it never felt like something I couldn't figure out with enough determination. Since then, the series has gotten generally easier. Azure on Nightmare has its share of bullshit too, but many of its truly hardest fights are the optional ones. But Azure starts getting to the point where the cheese gets ridiculous, between how busted evasion and the Bell quartz are if you know what you're doing. CS1 was a fairly big shift in terms of what was good, but I felt the game's structure kept its more broken aspects in check. CS2 on the other hand gives you so much obscenely broken crap that I more or less circumvented half the game, which is a big part of why I hold a lower opinion of it. Granted, I played CS2 on Hard, so I decided I would see if playing Nightmare on CS3 would help some of my issues. In turn, I found out: Trails of Cold Steel 3 on Nightmare is the most absolutely beautiful mess of a JRPG combat system I have ever seen in my life. Good lord. It's so terribly, truly bad that it almost becomes good.

I knew S-Crafts were pretty ridiculous in this game, because in playing the game, holy shit they just delete so much of the game, even on Nightmare. They've always been strong, but we're a long ways away from SC where sometimes you literally need to S-Craft just to survive a turn. I actually originally planned to set a self-imposed restriction where I would not use S-Crafts unless this game threw some absolute bullshit at me. Turns out, that's something it's really good at! If you try to play this game on Nightmare at a more methodical pace like with past games, you simply will get outpushed because almost every boss in this game has a desperation mode it goes to at about half HP, where it gets a stat buff and self-heals. And they love to use this multiple times over, so not only does damage become harder to come by but they start to outheal you. So the way I counteracted this frequent garbage was to delicately dance around the boss's HP thresholds and then set myself up for super turns in which I can do half of a boss's HP in a single go so they wouldn't even be able to get to their desperation phase. At that point, I am no longer fighting against the boss, I am fighting against the very strings holding up this game design. Seriously, who thought those damage numbers were okay? Who thought the amount of buffs to break damage was okay? Who thought the Brave Orders were even remotely balanced? It's like they learned nothing from how broken CS2 was and decided to just let things that were broken in past games be even more broken, then added more broken things. Evasion tanking is still hilarious too. I thought about lowering the difficulty and just not using S-Crafts...but honestly the game was so full of shit that I basically decided to not leave anything off the table. It wasn't completely devoid of challenge, I had to change tactics a few times and some bosses gave me a run for my money, but by Chapter 4 that was largely gone.

This game's combat system is an absolute disaster of imbalance. I get that some of it is that I did a metric shit ton of the side content which yields solid rewards that naturally make the game easier, but it was never this bad in past games. Honestly I cannot recommend ever playing it on Nightmare, just play on a lower difficulty and don't use s-crafts or Chrono Burst or the other delay abusing shit, and maybe you'll have a better time (or don't if you just wanna steamroll lol). It's just...beautifully disgusting. I'm in genuine awe.

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ToCS3 is a great example of a game that exemplifies why I don't do number scores for games anymore. It is littered with significant problems of game design and narrative. But would I say I enjoyed myself? Definitely. There are plenty of parts of this game that are among the best in the Cold Steel arc, and even though I'm past the parts of the series that I have high hopes for going into, I can still find enjoyment out of these things. And no matter what any of these games do, they won't take away from what I liked about previous games.

All right, on to CS4. What in the hell am I even in for...