#just that weird feeling like despite the fact that you’ve grown and hopefully improved as a writer

[doctorweebmd]

both zero-sum and the litany of love and loss were concepts that possessed me and would not not get out of my head until i wrote them but i have wastly different feelings about both of these stories despite loving them equally

[popculturebuffet]

Quick Thoughts: Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl Reveal Trailer and Initial Roster

Whelp I didn’t expect to be doing another one of these so soon but welcome to quick thoughts where I give well quick thoughts on stuff instead of the longer form reviews I usually do. 

So as longtime or even short time readers of this blog might know I love NIck. I don’t review shows from it as often as Disney or Cartoon Network, but it was still a beloved part of my childhood and still makes great shows today such as the Loud House, Harvey Beaks and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s horribly mismanaged, which is why two of those shows are no longer with us and the last of them is weirdly missing from this game, and have a long and storied history of screwing things over.. and i’m not exagerating when Mr. Enter, no matter your opinon of him now, did a whole marathon of every nicktoon almost every entry included the fact the show had been screwed over in some way. 

But as anyone who knows my history with Disney will tell you just because I don’t sugarcoat a brand I like’s fuckups dosen’t mean they aren’t near and dear to me at the same time. I”m a grown up: I can have complex emotions towards a chlidren’s tv network. So I love it’s varied shows some of whom (Avatar, Harvey beaks again, Danny Phantom, Hey Arnold) are among my all time faviorites. 

Now something readers of my blog probably WOUDLN’T know is I love Nintendo, they have their own fuckups like weird release strageies and never doing a remotely decent discount like the competition, but their still a company I love and since I only play handhelds most of the time are my primary source of good shit. So naturally Smash Bros is my faviorite franchise of theres. I love the idea of fighting games but often struggle with the combo heavy nature. So Smash Bros, having a roster of some of my faviorite characters ever, a plaformer style control scheme, and a deceptivley simple style that’s easy to learn and fun to master with the right character, is my shit. Sure I won’t rush out to buy every dlc character, but you better belivie I played the hell out of Ultimate, will likely go back to it again some day, and did buy Banjo and Kazooie because fuck yeah. 

So yeah I needed to talk about Nick making their own smash bros clone. When I heard the rumors I wasn’t sure, mostly because Rumors can be just that.. but nope this game is happening and i’m all on board for it. This isn’t Nick’s first crossover rodeo in recent memory either also making a pair of Kart Racing Games: one I KINDA wanted to play till I looked at the roster, had a good laugh and lost that i want, and the other I really want to play as it seems like the first game if it were you know an actual game with a decent track selection, a deep character roster and an actual love of it’s properties. 

So making their own Smash Bros was a logical step and one i’m here for. We haven’t had any of the big cartoon networks make one since well.. Cartoon Network, and Nick has just a deep a bench to pull from, one that will hopefully get CN to get their cast to throw hands once more. 

For now though the idea of the vast history of nick all throwing hands with each other is amazing. Look i’m honest with myself: this looks like a decent smash clone,functional but nothing specail, but with the expressive character animation and solid roster you need for a game like this. I know going in i’m not going ot get Smash Ultimate quality of brawler, but i’m probably going to have fun with it. 

The only downside I see so far is , like the Kart Racers, theyd idn’t seem to get ANY voice actors for this which smacks of laziness, especially since most of the voice actors for these characters are still active, and in some cases like Spongebob or Loud House are still working with you. So you have no real excuse for this, shame on you.

But yeah the game looks good.. despite the trailer being pretty bad. It’s just some generic music set to “LOOK WHO WE GOT”. And granted look who they got is really spiffy and i’ll be diving into that in a second, but it dosen’t give any of these characters a reall chance to show off how they play or how awesome they are. It’s just a bland montage of whose in the roster in the same 2 or 3 stages. And when you have 15 stages overall to show off that’s not excusable. Again i’m not expecting Smash level quality revelas, this game dosen’t have the marketing budget, but you have a really great concept and roster here, you coudl’ve revealed it better and this game better. The Kart Racers 2 Trailer was also mildly bland but it did show off the game better, showing off several tracks and how VASTLY improved the roster was, so you CAN make a good trailer you just didn’t. It felt like they thought the poitn of all the smash reveals trailers was here’s a character and missed all the style and substance to them. 

That being said while the trailer was weak.. it was boyed by the fact this roster is REALLY damn good. Let’s face it I woudln’t even be talking about this game if the roster wasn’t this minty but they clearly learned from Kart Racers not to half ass it and while they learned the long lessons from Smash in how to promote the fighters they have, they learned the right lessons in having a nice mix of crowd pleasing faviorites for kids and vetrans alike along with a few deep cuts for said longtime fans. And this is JUST the intitial reveal roster: Given the Box Art isn’t out yet, I feel there’s more to come, especially since despite being perfect for the game there’s no one from the Avatarverse yet, but I also feel that Nick is saving that for a second trailer to announce the release date. But I can and will go into who i’d LIKE on the roster in another one of these sometime soon. -

Spongebob, Patrick and Sandy (SpongeBob Squarepants): I’m getting these three out of the way as their essentially to this what Mario and Co were to smash: necessary and inevitible.  As for who was chosen.. it was as obvious as putting spongebob himself int he game. Sponebob is Nick’s mascot, Patrick is nearly as iconic and Sandy is well loved as well as the spongebob character most associated with buttkicking. Being an expert martial artist is both part of her character and a cerntral part of her character and relationship with Spongebob. So yeah not a lot ot say here: it was ineivible but I don’t mind at all having grown up with them and with my niece and nibling being huge fans. 

87 Leo and 87 Mikey (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles): This one i’m mixed on. Not on the turtles being here: i’m a MASSIVE TMNT fan and i’td be stupid to leave them out since Nick Owns them, made the last two series, and they fit this kind of game like a glove, even having had their OWN smash clone to themselves once. 

No my issue is obviously in the version choseN: The 87 turtles. Again I have no beef with the guys themselves, I haven’t seen much of 87 but I want to and they look really gorgeous and nicely cartoony. It’s just a REALLY weird choice. The 87 turtles have never been on a nick network due to rights issues, have never been associated with nick, and aren’t the ones most kids of EITHER DEMO would be familiar with: Grown up fans of nicktoons from the 90′s like myself would be more familiar with 2003, and kids and teens from more recent eras would be more familiar with 2012 and rise, which REALLY should’ve been the rep. I mean their weird shame of rise bothers me enough on a good day but not using EITHER show you actually made bothers me, it bothers me a lot. I’ll still probably play Mikey, i’m not made of stone and as I said I have no beef with the 87 turtles, I just wish nick had used the others or hell just gone all lin and used one turtle from each cartoon. I mean if your going to use stuff you’ve barely aired why not give me some 2003 nostalgia too huh? Though it could just be that since, unlike the rise and 2012 turrtles the 87 turtles have the same body type and colors it was easier to just do all 4 and just give each unique facial expressions. Who knows... I knows it was probably that. 

Lincoln and Lucy Loud (The Loud House, Duh): Another pretty obvious one as The Loud House is currrently nick’s co-flagship show with spongebob. Still waiting for my diffrent world spinoff with Bobby and Lori guys. So yeah Lincoln isn’t a suprise and Lucy is only minorly one as it was a matter of “which sister”... and Lucy is one of the most popular. Neither really fit a combat setting.. but given this is a fun crossover game, that really dosen’t matter and in fact is kind of the fun: taking just the most insane matcchups imaginable and mashing them together. I mean this is a game where Lincoln and Lucy can beat up Leo and Mikey, why wouldn’t I want that kind of crack on my nintendo switch? I am hoping for Luna to make her way to the stage next as she was absent from Kart Racer 2 and would be really fun to play. Plus having ANOTHER bi fighter in the mix if korra gets in there would be awesome, let alone letting the two beat up or punch each other’s face. But again I could and probably will mak ea whole article about other possible fighters i’d want. 

The Plesant Suprises: Nigel Thornberry , Oblina and Powdered Toast Man (Wild Thronberries, Ahhh! Real MOnsters1 and Ren and Stimpy) : Yeah while only one of these cartoons was a faviorite as a kid (Wild Thornberries)... I have nothing but respect for these choices. One of the funnest things about Smash is while you can see some roster members coming sometimes you get utter curveballs like Mr. Game and Watch, Pirana Plant and MInecraft Guy. They also go for more cult franchises like SNK or Earthbound (the latter of which is fucking awesome localize mother 3 already dammit) too among the big heavies, making it feel like a true tapestry of Nintendo’s history. 

Nigel is the only one of these three that’s really obvious. He’s a meme, he was the best part of his show.. but it’s still just uniquely batshit to put NIGEL THRONBERRY in a fighting game. You better belivie he’ll be one of my mains. 

Oblina is more a suprise because I thought they’d go with Icket, but instead went wtih the character who was more popular and had a really unqiue and cool design, so i’m pleased as punch to have her. Finally while I don’t have any real attachment to ren and stimply apart from Log, and really it’s hard to gain any now knowing i’ts creator was a pedophile piece of shit, the franchise is still a cornerstone of nick history, the rest oc the crew didn’t abuse power or not make deadlines or be a com plete piece of shit, and powerded toast man is genuinely great. I”d love to see Really Big Man too, clash of the weird superheroes, I love me a weird as hell superhero. This also speaks promisingly that w’ell get some real weird curveballs to come and i’m here for it. 

The Rest: Helga, Zim, Danny and Reptar. (Hey Arnold, Invader Zim, Danny Phantom and Rugrats! ): Note i’m not lumping these together because their bad: their all graet nostalgic picks from timeless shows and with the rugreboot currently running on Paramount+, it’d be weird not to represent them. 

And since I brought it up reptar is a fun chocie, another oddball but one more understandable as no one wants to beat the shit out of a toddler. Or rather no one playing the game would care you could because it’s a silly fighting game and a 12 and 8 year old are also beat upable, but someone would probably throw a fit somewhere. Plus again it’s a game where you can have danny phantom fight reptar. Shut up and take my money. 

The rest are all great choices if ones I’m not suprised by: Hey Arnold’s an all time classic and being tough is a lot of Helga’s character, and again I can have her throw hands with nigel thornberry, reptar and a ninja turtle in the same match. Zim is another fan faviorite and fits the game like a glove and Danny Phantom is the one out of Nick’s three suprehero classics it actually still cares about so my boy getting in there isn’t a shocker, though his attacks lookw eird. Hopefully they green them up before the final prduct. 

So yeah overall it looks really promsing and really fun and i’ll probably check this game out if I get enough money when it comes out or more likely put it on my christmas list. But I will get it somehow this i swear.. speaking of which put manny in the roster dammit. If you liked this.. thing consider joining my patreon for a buck a month fo exclsuvie reviews and ot help me review tuca and bertie, amphibia and more as part of my memebership drive. 

[dcarevu]

DCAU #18: See No Evil

“Hey! Who locked the bathroom?!”

Watching this show in production-order as opposed to airing-order is drastically altering how I perceive it. This is an episode that I had no memory of. Like, none. And then when I watched it, yeah, I managed to sense some vague familiarity (at least enough to know I didn’t miss it the first time I went through the show), but it was basically like watching it for the first time. This time was different, though, and I actually think that this episode is not only worth remembering, but it’s kinda another key episode! I know, you probably have your doubts, but hear me out. Maybe by the end of today’s blog post, you’ll at least see where I’m coming from.

Episode: 17 Robin: No Writer: Martin Pasko Director: Dan Riba Animator: Dong Yang Airdate: February 24, 1993 Grade: A Where do I begin with See No Evil… Talking about an episode like this is weird, because knowing that I can praise an episode you don’t see praised as often as, say, Heart Of Ice puts more pressure on me to say what I feel I need to say. With Two-Face I didn’t really need to worry about getting my points about how great it is through. Everyone already knows. I was preaching to the choir. But this episode doesn’t have the flashy villain. It also doesn’t have the landmark status. Hell, its airing number was 56. By that point, this episode wasn’t special at all. The series was more than halfway over. The airing order wasn’t all bad, I mean, let’s bring up Heart Of Ice again. It’s a wonderful episode, but imagine if it aired more than halfway through the series. We’d probably be looking at it at least a little differently. I believe that See No Evil got swept into the cracks. No real harm done, don’t take this as me saying that losing this episode like that was a travesty. I still wouldn’t put it on a top 10 list or anything (at least, I don’t think I would). But I want to shine the spotlight on it, even if it’s just through this post. Give it a little bit of love, and hopefully at least get a few to acknowledge it as an achievement within Batman the Animated Series, despite it often being seen as a standard.

(“Hey! Who locked the bathroom?!” Try knocking, asshole!)

What’s funny is that the first few minutes are more engaging and have better atmosphere than the entire climax of our last episode. And that had explosions and fires galore! This is essentially just a little kid talking to a seemingly supernatural being! Wait. A little kid? In a Batman TAS episode? I know you’re going, “I thought you said this episode was good.” As I said. Hear. Me. Out. Now there’s something that creeps me out about things such as dolls coming to life, whether they’re actually sentient, or some creepy invisible thing is manipulating them. Especially when intentions are clearly malicious to everyone except for the naive child. It’s that creepy manipulation aspect. You ever see a horror movie where the mom asks their kid who they’re talking to, and at that moment you know that it’s not just their imaginary friend? That something sinister is lurking around? Hell, when I was a little kid I used to partially wake up in the middle of the night and see things in the dark. Apparently one time I asked my mom over and over if she could see/hear the lady with the guitar wandering through the house. If I were my mom, I woulda packed my bags and moved out until I could get ahold of the god damn Ghostbusters (by the way, Ghostbusters 3, what the actual fu-).

(Char thought this scenery was really spooky. I’d have to agree!)

But anyway, getting back on topic… Now, we later of course find out that this “ghost” is just a regular dude, and is in fact the girl’s father. But, despite concerns, that doesn’t remove the tension from the episode at all. There’s a horror movie called Hush which I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I was going to. But one minor nitpick is that, although it helps alleviate the cliché, when the killer removes his mask and we start to slowly see them as more human than blank, creepy slate, the scariness takes a hard hit. I hear a similar complaint with how some of the modern Halloween movies make Michael too human, and although it can often create a stronger character, that doesn’t exactly help improve the Halloween movies. Michael Myers is scary because of how mysterious and inhuman he is. My point is that relatability alone cannot always take the place of that haunting alien quality. And our villain, Lloyd Ventrix, goes through a similar transformation as we learn more about him. But here, it doesn’t hurt the episode, it only makes it more interesting. I’m usually all about sympathetic villains on this show, but it would have been so easy to turn this into a typical emotion-driven story about a dad who misses his daughter and uses his invisibility to see her sometimes. Granted, this story could have worked. It worked in Spider-Man 3 with the Sandman (I actually like that movie, despite having some major problems with it). But instead we go for a different route where somehow our character gets scarier when we find out who he is and what he wants. The best way I can put it is that we found out what he wants without finding out what he wants after he gets what he wants. Whatever it is, though, it’s likely not good. Something is so off about Ventrix. And it’s actually explained why. The chemicals in his invisibility suit are basically making him go crazy. He’s not going crazy in a cartoonish way, it’s a legitimate mentally ill way.

(Look at that fixated glare. <Shudders>)

He stalks. He steals. And despite the super villain element, there’s a realness to it all that puts the real accounts of child kidnapping and stalking at the back of your mind. Enough to get a slight case of the willies. We find out from the mother that Ventrix has basically no redeeming qualities at all, but she doesn’t know much more about his motivations than we do. Even his daughter. She has no idea who he is when he reveals his face to her. Add in the fact that he ignores his restraining order at one point in the episode to try and show his ex wife that he’s a changed man because he has money now, and it makes you real glad that Batman exists in this world to protect the more innocent.

(“Goth Mart”. Love it. This store would eventually become Hot Topic.)

I legitimately feel like his daughter would have been in danger if she would have gotten into that car. Ugh. Yeah. That’s another thing. Ventrix trying to get his daughter into his car (when she has no idea who he is, they likely haven’t communicated face to face since before she can even remember), and her saying that her mom told her to not talk to strangers. Ahhhhhh! Scary! And she sees his face and gets creeped out that he’s a grown-ass man she’s never seen before. Like, am I the only one so disturbed by this guy? In a world that unfortunately contains child-molestors and killers, can you blame me?

(I really love this little girl’s character model. Beautiful eyes!)

Now, if you’ve never seen this episode (go watch the series, dude!), you’re probably a little surprised about this being an episode of Batman the Animated Series. But they don’t play everything quite so scary. In fact, there was a decent amount of comic relief, and it was genuinely funny. There was one moment where Batman jumps onto our villain’s invisible car as it starts racing through the city. At first, this looked stupidly campy. I was thinking of the Invisible Boatmobile. And also, since we can’t see the car, we just see what appears to be Batman flying around in an incredibly static position at 90 mph. But the show was smart. Martin Pasko knew that this would look stupid. So they embrace it. We see a civilian who notices Batman speeding by, and he goes, “I didn’t know he could fly too!” in a pretty funny voice. Char and I both laughed out loud. It was very well played.

Speaking of funny voices, by the way, holy hell, the voice work in this episode was incredible. Every character’s voice had so much…well…character! My favorite voice performance in the episode was actually that one scientist (Sam Giddell was his name) that Batman talked to about the invisibility plastic. He was kinda funny sounding, but not in a cartoony way. He sounded exactly how he should, a nerdy, dedicated, hard-working researcher. He was no Seymour the scientist (anyone who gets that reference gets a bat-cookie. Or maybe a lava cookie…), that’s for sure. Y’know who another surprisingly great voice came from? Batman. You’re probably thinking, “This is Kevin Conroy, Collin. His Batman voice is always great.” You’d be right…kinda. Watch The Cat and the Claw, and then go watch the Superman TAS episode World’s Finest. One is really good. One is great, and the Batman voice we’ve come to know and love from Conroy. I think that See No Evil is our first episode with the definitive Kevin Conroy Batman voice. Especially when compared to The Cat and the Claw where everyone was barely talking above a whisper (I still don’t know what that was about, honestly). Really, The Cat and the Claw coming right before this episode just highlights why this episode is a key episode even more. The Red Claw ended up being a little bit more gimmicky and stock than I would have liked. And she was a little bit too…exaggerated? Think back to that attack on the train. See No Evil indeed has a villain with a gimmick, don’t get me wrong. But this gimmick is one that provides a lot of plot-points that don't feel empty. It’s how he manages to frequently talk to his daughter. It’s how he managed to kidnap her. It’s how he committed so many of his crimes. It’s how he gave Batman so much damn trouble. Compare this to the level of meat that Red Claw provided for that story. Miles apart.

Underneath this gimmick, which essentially is a way of giving someone in this show a super power, we have a regular guy (well…kinda) without even a supervillian name. Bruce Timm and co from the beginning wanted the show to focus on good stories rather than freaks of the day. They made it clear that sometimes this would involve regular mobsters or, maybe people like Ventrix. We’ve already done similar with It’s Never Too Late, but I think that this episode is even better in some aspects.

It isn’t perfect, though. The scene with Batman on top of the car, yeah, the joke was funny, but it goes on a little too long for me. Also, the bit where Ventrix pulled that robbery of the jewelry at the beginning I had mixed thoughts on. Like, dude. You’re invisible. You manage to quietly sneak an item into your pocket, but then decide to throw the idea of stealth completely out the window by ripping jewelry out of people’s hands, shoving people around, and dumping out displays right in front of people? Oh, good job, now you alerted Batman, you moron.

(An in-costume Ventrix, visible.)

At the same time, though, we do establish later on that this guy isn’t mentally there, so maybe that’s a decent enough reason. Either way, these are nitpicks through and through, and calling them anything but would be doing an injustice. This episode is awesome. I haven’t even talked about the step up in action scenes yet. This is probably the best the series has been so far with action. Except for when Mr. Freeze rode that fire hydrant into a building. That was amazing. Batman gets the shit beat out of him in this episode. I think that maybe they could get away with more because the villain was invisible for most of the hits or something, but the way that they were animated still makes them look just as painful as any hits from a completely visible person would have.

(Caption this?)

(Or this.)

(Or this.)

(Or even this.)

Yeah, the animation here was done by Dong Yang. Y’know. The same ones who did Nothing to Fear and I’ve Got Batman In My Basement. Before I checked on who the animation studio was, I totally would have guessed TMS or Spectrum. It looks that great. A major step up from those two mentioned episodes. The only weird bit was that Batman’s face looked a tiny bit off occasionally, but it's barely noticeable. It’s mostly in his nose, and how it tends to hang down. Anyway, yeah. Lots of great action scenes. Probably one of the coolest was when water is raining down on the battlefield, and Batman uses that to keep an eye on Ventrix and take him out. Here, he is totally visible, but they don’t cut back on the damage being done by Batman’s fists and feet. But y’know what the main thing I noticed with this bit was? The live action Daredevil movie totally got the final fight scene from this episode. Coincidentally Ben Affleck is a common denominator.

There are lots of other little things I could say. There were a few more funny bits, a particular scene where Batman is rummaging through some files and tension skyrockets, and even the technical mumbo jumbo that surprisingly made a lot of sense and didn't seem to jump the shark much… It’s mostly all great. This is why production order is so important for this episode in particular. By the time episode 56 arrived, much of See No Evil’s achievements had already been seen! But watching it this way, we see a huge boost in good comic relief, a huge boost in action, a huge boost in tension/borderline horror elements, a huge boost in animation (at least for this particular studio), a huge boost in voice work, and a solid, entertaining story to go with all of it. I really liked this episode, as did Char, and this is why it gets a proud, sturdy A from me. Char mentioned to me that this villain felt like a one-shot, and I’m guessing she’s right (I can’t quite recall). I bet they could have done another interesting story with Ventrix, and maybe he found his way into some of the DCAU comics? Speaking of that…

I made a post earlier, but I wanted to reiterate! There are DCAU comics. There are actually a lot of them. Now, I have no idea which ones are technically still considered canon (or which ones ever were). But what I’d like to do is put in a little research and start including them in this blog! Unfortunately, these likely won’t align together as nicely as the episodes do. Because I’m watching Batman in production order, it’s kinda hard to then look at the comic dates and place them appropriately throughout. So I’m going to treat them more as a separate thing and check them out at my own pace. I don’t even own any right now, so it’s likely gonna be a while before I even get to them. I still don’t know if I want to do all of them, or just the confirmed canon ones? Any input? Lemme know! With that, I’ll see y’all next week, most likely, as we…um…head west…

Char’s grade: A

Next time: Beware Of the Grey Ghost Full episode list here!

[recentanimenews]

Trails of Cold Steel III Is a Thrilling Build to a Climactic Ending

The penultimate chapter of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series is upon us. A series that has already given enough twists and turns to fill 120 hours of your life provides another 60 hours of even more! The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III picks the story up a year and a half after the events of the second game, and things have certainly changed in that amount of time. A wide variety of new characters, improvements made to many systems, and some answers, but many more questions headline this game. Of course, with the knowledge that the finale game is still to come with the next game, how does Trails of Cold Steel III handle being a game where you won’t get a lot of the answers you’re hoping for? It’s also an interesting conundrum given that you could look at this game as a soft reboot of the series given that it was the first game on current consoles when it came to Japan, predating the ports of the first two games. That would give Nihon Falcom a chance to bring in a new audience that might not have played the previous games, but can also have an impact on pacing and story. So, how does the game handle all of these complex notions?

    Let’s clarify something before we move any further. Despite my phrasing of how this game is a “soft reboot”, this isn’t really a game you can come into as your first entry. There are significant text synopsis of the first two games, but this is also a game that expects you to know characters from the Trails in the Sky, Zero no Kiseki, and Ao no Kiseki games. You could go ahead and do a whole lot of reading before going into this, but you’d be missing out on a lot of the nuances about what has been happening. If you’re new, go back to the older games, but for those of you that aren’t, let’s continue.

  As the third game in the series, there’s not a whole lot of drastic changes that have occured between Trails of Cold Steel II and III when it comes to gameplay. There’s a new orders option when you’re in the midst of battle that can give your team different kinds of buffs related to attack, defense, speed, or magic. Outside of that, battles remain relatively the same as you’d remember them from the previous games. Which, considering the battle system was already pretty good, there’s no real reason to try and overhaul everything now when it’s not broken.

    Perhaps the biggest gameplay changes come to two of the mini-games the series had already produced. Fishing is now more involved with having you acquire upgrades for your fishing rod and is no longer a button mashing mini-game. The card game Blade has also been replaced entirely with a new card game, Vantage Masters. This plays more in line with a Magic: The Gathering and gives you plenty of customization as you can build decks that are suited for your playstyle. It’s certainly much more of a challenging game, but one I actually found quite rewarding and got heavily into, which honestly made me wish that they’d break this out into a mobile game.

  One of the biggest improvements that the game is utilizing with its jump to the PS4 is the removal of pre-rendered battle backgrounds. Usually, and this is the case for a lot of JRPGs, battles will happen in the same place, no matter where you are in a specific area. Trails of Cold Steel III opts to have the fights take place exactly where you started them. So, if you’re next to a treasure chest, that chest will be right next to you in the battle. It’s a very surprising feature as I haven’t seen it utilized since I saw a Persona 3 prototype that had the same idea. Hopefully that’s something we see more of going forward in these kinds of games.

    Graphically, the series has never looked better. It’s not a huge leap in quality, but it’s enough that it shows constantly throughout. Character models look better and a lot of the smaller aspects of environments have a bit more quality than the previous entries, including the PS4 ports of those. They’ve also done good work in making the characters look older. Rean is only a year and a half older than he was in Trails of Cold Steel II, but you can easily tell that he’s grown and isn’t the same as he was previously. 

  The biggest thing you’re going to come to this game for is the story and you’re going to get A LOT of that. You’re looking at a minimum of 60 hours to get through this, which is about on par with the other games, but it’s packed full to the brim. One character specifically says in the game that what’s going on is “a tangled web of different plots” and that’s the perfect way to describe the overall stories. There are so many interwoven stories and characters that span not only this series, but date back to the Trails in the Sky series and the Crossbell games. If you’re familiar with those games, you’re going to be delighted to see so many different references scattered throughout, but Trails of Cold Steel III does a good enough job of getting you up to speed if you haven’t.

    I mentioned earlier that this can be seen as a “soft reboot” of the series and that applies mostly to the story as we get a new set of main characters that Rean teaches. There’s a new version of Class VII with Rean as the instructor, and each of these kids have good backstories and connections to what is happening overall with the plot. The old Class VII still shows up to provide guidance and help, but the new kids really get their time to shine and break out. It can make you feel skeptical knowing that the next game in a series is full of new characters, but Trails of Cold Steel III will make you by the end of the game, excited to see where each of them end up next.

  Thankfully, Trails of Cold Steel III doesn’t have the problem that the previous game had where it couldn’t figure out how to end. In fact, it’s pretty dang definitive with how it wants to end. Without diving into spoilers, which would probably just be me yelling “YO, CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS?!” and a bunch of expletives, the end of the final two chapters feature some very good cliffhangers that are just immediate cuts to black. It’s the kind of cinematic direction that in the moment makes you furious, because you want more of what’s happening, but in retrospect, it’s such a brilliant decision. 

    There’s certainly a lot of good to find in this game, but there are some caveats that come with it. Strangely, there are some sudden and bizarre framerate issues in the midst of chapters 3 and 4. The first area you get these performance issues is strange since the area looks similar to other places you’ve been previously, but there weren’t issues. In chapter 4, the framerate really gets bad and begins to stutter and get chunky when you’re coming out of battle, closing the map, or just running around in general. It seems to be more prominent when you’re in the high speed mode, but it’s noticeable in regular speed as well. 

  Rean’s characterization can be strange at times as well with him trying to figure out how much he should trust the new Class VII. That can be explained by the fact that he’s gone through some extremely rough times over the past year and a half within the story, but at the same time, it can feel weird since he’d gone through these same kind of problems in the previous two games. It’s certainly not a huge problem, but can seem like a retread of ideas, especially when this game can be seen in the same light as the first where it’s setting the table for wild things to happen in the sequel.

    The wait for the finale of the Trails of Cold Steel series is going to be long and arduous. However, Trails of Cold Steel III gives you plenty to keep you interested and engaged in the meantime with their subtle improvements and enhancements. This is a series where if you’re into it, you’re into it, and this game will not change that. If you’re still on the outside looking in, you’re best bet is to go back and check out the previous games in the series before tackling this one. It’ll be a lot of time you’ll have to put in, but it’ll be worth it. Then once you’re caught up here, you can go back and play Trails in the Sky to fully get all of the characters and references you might have missed. It’s a good time to be a fan of the entire The Legend of Heroes series, that’s for sure.

  REVIEW ROUNDUP

+ Story continues to be brillaint with numerous twists and turns

+ New graphical enhancements make the game look better than its predecessors

+ Fun new minigames and improvements to gameplay as a whole

+ New characters are well fleshed out and written

+ Keeps you on the edge of your seat in its closing hours

- Rough framerate issues in certain spots

- Not recommended to come to this as your first game in the series

  What were you most excited about going into this entry in the series? Do you expect the series to continue its streak of high quality games with the final game? Let us know down in the comments below!

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Jared Clemons is a writer and podcaster for Seasonal Anime Checkup where he can be found always wanting to talk about Love Live! Sunshine!! or whatever else he's into at the moment. He can be found on Twitter @ragbag.

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