#CS4Spoiler

[monasatlantis]

Final Review of Trails of Cold Steel 4 (Don’t search for the review of act 3, there is non!)

So yesterday I finished Trails of Cold Steel 4 and that means it is time for my final review for the game that finished the Cold Steel - Saga and brought a happy ending for this wretched fairytale XD

Spoiler for all Trails - Games including Hajimari!

Lets start with saying that all in all I absolutely agree with those people who said that CS4 has some of the best scenes in the whole series, but all in all is just so-so otherwise.

As you’ve read in my previous reviews, I had a lot of trouble with the pacing of this game this time. It was too slow, then too fast, then suddenly slow again, then suddenly fast again and... you get it. Act 3 was over so fast that I couldn’t believe it was actually over already, while I almost died of boredom in act 1. And its not just the pacing that it was the problem, but also the way the plot was delivered. I mean, from the end of CS3 to the final day of CS4 its been only two months and we barely played one month of those two months and it felt extremely rushed in a weird way. Saving Rean, finding missing Friends, rushing into the the first rivalries and all that in an in-game-week or so. It felt longer and it should have been longer. Even with the Courageous 2 at our disposal it seems impossible to walk though half of Erebonia for all those hidden-missions and so on in one day, enjoy some quality-time with your army of Friends and lovely Ladys in between and then rush to the next Shrine (which is a huge dungeon with hard bossfights by the way...), that you have to free from some sort of barrier first and all that in one freaking day. And while your enemies are so exhausted from the fights that they collapse. we go on, rush though the dungeon, fight monsters, win against the next boss and all we need is this healing-station-thingy and a few spells. Damn are we good!

Fun fact: There was some extremely unnecessary padding in this game, despite the fact that the plot was delivered in such a rush-rush way. Or was it really necessary to run through 5 overlong highways to talk to 3 different people, who all tell you thinks you already knew, just to find a place full of scarlet pleroma grass wish you are supposed to stake but only AFTER someone fights you and THEN makes you fight against a diving knight? While I was searching for a plot, those 3 people that are left of Zephyr were asking the guy who was wanted by the Empire to randomly join them. Huh? Lets not talk about all the necessary stuff you had to do to finally get into the Einhel Keep, when you were freeing Leeves. Or our little adventure though 5 of those Salt Pale towers, with overpowered teams and unnecessary fighting as leveling these guys up didn’t really bring you much for the rest of the game...

Boy was act 3 hard for being over so fast. Actually, I was playing on very easy and still found the game really hard. I mean, around every corner was either someone from Ouroboros, and Aion or a Diving Knight waiting for you. At some point in the game all 3 of those were waiting for you. How do those brave soldiers playing on Nightmare survive this game? And why isn’t Reans damn S-Craft killing everyone in one blow anymore? I was counting on that! XD

I am not going to talk about how they pushed New Class7 on us every given chance anymore. I am just saying that I was really disappointed because I thought they managed the whole “new class7″ and “old class7″ and “Rean belonging to both” thing so well in CS3 and I think they really fucked that up in CS4. I can not believe that they actually dared to say that new class7 is stronger then old class7, given how much more experience old class7 had. Or the way they constantly wanted to portray that new Class7 knew Rean better, even after barely half a year with him as their homeroom teacher... If they think that CS1 and CS2 and old Class7 sucked, then they shouldn’t have made those games!

I say it again I think the Bonding-Event-System sucked! What if I simply want to be friends with those girls for gods sake? I get that Rean is an hopeless oblivious player that deserves a few more trademark glares from Alisa and all... but do I really have to kiss myself though the girls, when I only want to be friends with them? In the end, I basically avoided almost all of them once more and that is really something Falcom has to work on of they want to keep the bonding-system. Personally, I do not dislike the bonding-systems. Relationships make more sense this way, but I want it to be MY choice if I want to allow Laura to kiss Rean or not. And if I have to skip all her events to avoid that, then this is not the right way to do that. Point.

I think Falcom could not handle the extreme mass of characters they thew at us. Which makes you wonder why they added Duvalie, after getting rid of Millium for the time being. Not to mention Crow or being allowed to use Tita and Randy and Sharon and sometimes even Celine. Once again, I hope they learn from that and don’t give a game that many playable characters again. I think the Crossbell-Saga handled that a lot better, even tho their cast wasn’t that small either - but they weren’t all playable, if you get what I mean. Plus... seeing how half the playable cast of Liberl and Crossbell came to our aid in CS4... how will they managed to pull that of with Reans team? Especially given that his new class7 has graduated by the time the Calvard-Arc starts.

Achem... enough with the bad. Lets say some good stuff about the game. I will stay away from “good music” as this is a given for me in Trails-Games. Tho I have to say CS3, was not just the best game so far in the saga, it also had the most amazing soundtrack. Still, the other Trails games weren’t bad with their soundtracks either, so I think it is worth mentioning that CS4 did really well with that too.

As I said at the start of this review. Some of the most amazing-scenes of the series were in this game. I mean yes, we have those memorable moments like when Joshua and Estelle finally were back together in Sky2 and so on. But in terms of amazing-ness CS4 takes the cake and eats it. Aside from the walking and talking part I think the whole part of act 2, were you are on the Pantagruel is just so amazing. I loved how the teams were reunited, how Rean finally was able to talk with Lloyd and how the teams were so harmonic with each other - just give me another round of Fie asking Estelle how far she already went with Joshua XD Or Elie and Alisa feeling the pain because they both fell in love with oblivious players XD Joshua being able to talk to Ash about Hamel. Having an all Girls and All Boys All-Star-Team to fight against Ouroboros. The return of Prince Olivert. Osborne stopping Cedric. B fighting on our side... it was amazing! The best scene in all Trails-Games so far in my eyes. But there were also a lot of other amazing scenes in this game. Not to mention the amazing Epilogue. First time the end of a Trails-Game made me feel whole.

I could write you an essay about how sick I am ob the “Sibling-Zoning” this game constantly pulls at me. Guys, Millium and Jusis are not the second favorite ship in japan (right after Crow and Rean and before Alisa and Rean) for having Siblings-Feelings for each other! The man-eating-tiger collapsing on top of princey-boy after she gave everything she had for him... because she sees him as a little brother? Yeah... right. Oh and by the way, riding a ferris wheel and watching the stars is not something you would do with your “little sister” if this was possible the last day of your life. This is something you would do with your girlfriend on the last possible day of your life. Which was wonderfully portrayed by Rean. There were a few scenes were the translation was changed to something that was less controversial and I do not like it!

I have cried like a Baby multiple times at the end of CS3 but I can not remember EVER playing a game that made me cry every damn chapter of it. CS4 was amazing when it comes to playing with may emotions one way or another. I cried of happiness, sadness and because I was proud or relieved multiple times throughout this game. It often were just a few tears, some of them stayed stuck in my eyes, but they were there regardless and I loved it. Even tho this game has a lot of flaws it still brought out the best of my emotions regarding all the characters we learned to love over the years. And the feeling of happyness for Rean and everyone else finally getting a happy ending was greater then I ever felt before in a game.

And for this alone, I still love this game.

[monasatlantis]

Für ein Spiel das ich erst dieses Jahr entdeckt habe, hat mir die Reihe von Trails of Cold Steel verdammt viel Spaß und Freude gebracht. Ich kann garnicht sagen, wie sehr es mich erleichtert hat zu sehen, das Rean jetzt endlich ein normales und vor allem glückliches Leben leben kann und dass alle Mitglieder unseres Teams überlebt haben und ebenfalls endlich normal und glücklich leben können. Danke Falcom, für dieses schöne Spiel. (Und für dieses meisterhaft über-priorisierte Ship das ich so liebe ♥ und das ship das ich habe niemals kommen sehen und das dennoch mein Herz erobert hat ♥)