The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III

 PC
User Score
8.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 39 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 30 out of 39
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 39
  3. Negative: 3 out of 39

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  1. Sholva
    Mar 9, 2021
    10
    The Legends of Heroes series of games always do at least one very important thing that some other JRPGs or even regular RPGs don’t get right: a story that spans and connects among different sagas, yet being able to tell us the origin stories of so many characters in every single of those sagas, while doing it correctly, and more importantly, consistently.

    With the Cold Steel saga, being    The Legends of Heroes series of games always do at least one very important thing that some other JRPGs or even regular RPGs don’t get right: a story that spans and connects among different sagas, yet being able to tell us the origin stories of so many characters in every single of those sagas, while doing it correctly, and more importantly, consistently.

    With the Cold Steel saga, being composed of 4 games, things started a bit slow in the first game, it was the introduction of these so many important characters, with little references to the previous material we knew, which was the Trails in the Sky saga. A very good game still, with one of the most famous cliffhangers in the series, and overall it felt quite epic really.

    Cold Steel II was a big improvement in many fronts especially when it comes to character development and connection with other games in the franchise, you could feel things were starting to truly connect everywhere, also a really amazing game.

    And then here we are in Cold Steel III: this is yet another great evolution of the saga, and the series overall. The characters of older games are more mature now, and the new characters introduced have some of the most well written and complete developments in the series, in my opinion, for being just done in a single game.

    This is Nihon Falcom’s strength, story, character development and world building, and we get to care about every single one of these characters, even some of the casual NPCs we can find around, or interact and learn about their lives in secondary quests. It is Falcom’s seal of quality for these games, and we have tons of that in Cold Steel III.

    This game is probably the longest so far in the saga, maybe IV will be longer, it seems everything points towards that, which I’m happy about, there’s a lot to cover.

    I don’t do spoiler reviews but…yeah, I really enjoyed CS III’s story overall and that ending...I was expecting something like that, since this is Falcom we’re talking about, they had to set the stakes even higher for the last game in this saga, and they did.

    This is also a game that provides great legit good fan service moments, not just the cheap kind of fan service, but the one directed to fans of the series as a whole, not just Cold Steel fans. And those moments, some subtle, some more prominent, are all great and very well done.

    On the technical side of things, being used to the top notch quality level standards that the PC ports for CS I and II set, Durante and his team at PH3 Games set the bar even higher once more for CS III’s port: it is simply amazing and it really spoils the hell out of me having such high quality PC versions of these games, because then I go and play other PC ports from other games and the experience isn’t that great on the PC settings front in other games, haha :P

    I first played this game when it came out for PC on a R5 3600 and GTX 1070, and it ran pretty nice with everything maxed. Controls are nice, and the option to use either keyboard prompts or PS4/Xbox buttons is always welcome. There are a plethora of graphical settings to choose from, as usual, in the launcher, so you can expect to run being able to run this game in a wide range of PCs too.

    Now that the PC version of CS IV has a release date for April 9th, 2021, it is a good time to revisit these games once more, and as usual, keep on dreaming for what’s to come.

    Cold Steel III is a great game in the series, overall, which improves a lot on the new full 3D style this saga introduced, and that Falcom seems to have completely embraced in future games.

    I also want to give a big shout-out to the incredible job and performance of the English voice actors in this game, and the whole CS saga so far: without their great skills some of the characters wouldn't feel the way they do, I know they sound great in Japanese as well, but this English localization team did a very good job, there's a lot of incredible talent here and hopefully they continue using most of them in future games, they deserve it. The translation to English is also really good, kudos to the team them as well.

    Finally, reviewing a Falcom game not mentioning the soundtrack is absolutely epic and badass seems like sacrilege to me, and yeah in this game we get some very nice tracks worthy of the best Falcom games, I love listening to them even after playing their games, quite often in fact. Some tracks, especially for the break / slice of life segments in the game remind me a lot of another great Falcom game: Tokyo Xanadu, obviously since it's the same team making music for all these games, but it's so cool, really, I love their soundtracks.

    Playing these games just...makes me smile a lot, I feel so happy despite so many heart-wrenching moments too in these games, and I can only hope this continues to be the case in future games and sagas, and I can't wait.    … Expand
  2. death12123
    Apr 11, 2020
    9
    I thought this series couldn't be more amazing but it just is.
    - Some of the best soundtrack in RPGs (and on PC if you don't like it, it's moddable)
    - An amazing part of the story that left me wanting more. - A great balance of gameplay, difficulty and story (although the story part is somewhat complicated if you haven't played the past games) - Some of the best characters I enjoyed -    I thought this series couldn't be more amazing but it just is.
    - Some of the best soundtrack in RPGs (and on PC if you don't like it, it's moddable)
    - An amazing part of the story that left me wanting more.
    - A great balance of gameplay, difficulty and story (although the story part is somewhat complicated if you haven't played the past games)
    - Some of the best characters I enjoyed
    - Great choice of voice actors (English)
    and many more things.

    This is probably one of the top RPGs I played and I can't wait for the 4th game in the franchise to be localized. I would put this as one of my favorite RPG franchises and top games I played this year and of all time.

    A couple of minor nitpicks keep me from giving a perfect score but it's so close to it I wish I could give a 9.5 or 9.6.    … Expand
  3. Hasu20
    Mar 28, 2020
    10
    With its solid gameplay mechanics, excellent world-building and character development, The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Of Cold Steel III is an excellent Japanese role-playing and a more than worthy new entry in the long-running series. Some small flaws like slow pacing do not impact the experience as much as the lack of knowledge about the entire series do, which lessens the impact of severalWith its solid gameplay mechanics, excellent world-building and character development, The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Of Cold Steel III is an excellent Japanese role-playing and a more than worthy new entry in the long-running series. Some small flaws like slow pacing do not impact the experience as much as the lack of knowledge about the entire series do, which lessens the impact of several events and plot development. This makes Trails of Cold Steel III a game that must be played only after the previous two entries in the series have been completed.… Expand
  4. Luigichief
    Feb 18, 2021
    9
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Trails of Cold Steel is not a quadrology, it is two duologies. And when you analyze the climax of each chapter you notice that this game is different, having fewer chapters and less 'climaxes' favored the game and its pace. What made this Trails more dynamic and full of action for the whole franchise.

    That 'post-prologue' wings Cold Steel I found a lot more or less. As for the prologue itself, I really liked it, it leaves some mysteries in the air and introduces everything in a very natural way. Chapter 1 starts very slowly, but then Ouroboros invades the base on the first night of the field trip, I didn't see this coming. What I found really bad was Rean sending the kids to school and calling true class VII to solve the problem. And finally we see Hamel for the first time, very exciting, the final climax is very good too and develops the characters a little thanks to the consequences of Rean leaving class VII behind. Other than that chapter 1 has several mysteries, they are all great and leave you stuck and involved in the story wanting more. Some of them are the past of Musse and Ash, what exactly happened to Rean in the war in North Ambria, who is that girl who just appeared to him, what are Ouroboros plans, how did they control that giant Mecha, like Jaeger God is alive, what his goal is and how he has a divine knight.
    Chapter 2 starts showing the daily life of Alisa and a little of Emma, ​​I thought it was good. The field trip was at Crossbell, I didn't expect to be back there anytime soon but it makes sense to be in Juna's hometown as the first was in Kurt's. The part in the Crossbell tower was very good. I didn't like the way the script 'organized' Juna's development, they cut the scene and then lost weight for me, it had to be just one shot. But the climax of the chapter was very, even the number of mysteries just increasing. And the outcome is exciting, in addition to some other moments scattered throughout the chapter. Too good indeed.
    The introduction of chapter 3 was much better than the previous one and gave a forshadowing monster. The letters that Rean receives from the master and the father are both very good and impactful. The first day of the field trip is cool, but the second much more. Not to mention the nights of the two days, on the first we have the past of Sara and Claire, both very good and exciting and on the second a focus on Ash and Musse, with emphasis on Rean talking about the students' influences on each other and all scene with Musse, seriously, who is she? On the third day some of this was revealed. But my god, this third day starts tense and goes until the end, controlling both classes at the same time was very interesting and as the script tied everything up it was very good, although a little anti-climatic on Zephyr's part, they were totally left out . And I hardly expected that Director Aurelia would be canonically stronger than Arianrhod. That 'epilogue' that generated George's twist, goddamn it, that was hard to predict but the 'dwarf boss' at the time I realized it was Professor Lughman.
    Chapter 4 starts well, but seeing that scene of Crow's tomb knowing that he was alive was very flamboyant, I totally disagree with bringing him back, now it seems that nobody will ever die and thanks to the Cold Steel arc the series will take this bad reputation. The meeting of true / old class VII was very good, closing the day very well, but I wanted a little more fan service. The mission of day 2 of the 100% ultra protective Rean in relation to the sister was very good. Final bonding events in general are very good, but some are not so good. The end of the chapter is phenomenal, several things happen and the dialogues between Rean and Osborne and the Emperor are very interesting. That whole curse theme that manipulated a lot of people in the country including Ash, I found it really cool and very impactful (despite having a certain fear about how they dealt with it in the future).
    The Final Chapter begins with Heimdarll open and we see the consequences of the declaration of war against Calvard. But here comes the scene in the church and a whole good **** lore is revealed, in addition to resolved mysteries we discover that all organizations have joined and are against us. And man, Alisa's story has improved even more, that Professor Lughman was Alberith I already knew, but that he was also Alisa's father, far from her. If Falcom had made Alisa the main canonical heroine, the final climax would have a lot more weight as you would go against her father. Anyway, the final climax is very impressive and the writers were brilliant, made the heroes lose (like Avengers only that was done before), in addition to having 'supposed' deaths of the main cast of the series, Cold Steel 2 had something slightly similar, the heroes have completed all their goals and overcame adversity, only to discover that they have been manipulated. But here it was a total failure.    … Expand
  5. Abdazar03
    Nov 19, 2020
    10
    A masterpiece, didn't experience these emotions unless with big anime like naruto. Guys, play the first 2 games before this one and you will be attenting one of the best storytelling games of all time
  6. Wondux
    Jan 3, 2022
    8
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Although this is the third game of the Erabonia arc, it acted as the first game of the Erebonia arc's second part that shows Rean as an older person. I loved seeing Rean become a teacher, and I also loved the new characters. Absolutely loved all of them. As the first game of adult Rean's arc, this game was also very slow, but it was very fun with the new graphics and combat mechanics. I loved the world-building again and again. I loved seeing places mentioned in the previous games. I also loved how there are characters from the other arcs in "The Legend of Heroes".
    However, it became really annoying how the game keeps killing people and bringing them back "with a plot twist". It stops being a twist when it happens a million times. Now, whenever a character dies in the series I biologically can't get sad, because I know that they will come back later again. This really weakens the storytelling, everything becomes very predictable.    … Expand
  7. BiancoBoii
    Oct 13, 2021
    9
    This is easily one of the best entries in the whole series. They expand the combat to make It more 'spicy' with the guard mechanic and honestly its one of my favorite battle system mechanics. The pacing is almost a 10/10 where they leave the first 10 hours of the game pretty boring, it get better but it takes a while for things to really kick off. Overall a must if you like JPRGs
  8. Xitomz
    Jun 7, 2022
    10
    10/10 a strong contender for the best Kiseki game. Incredible new cast of characters, better pace, more important stuff going on, several plots unfolding at the same time, one of the best endings of the franchise... I'm out of words.

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  1. The Overpowered Noobs
    May 13, 2020
    70
    I’ve yet to meet a Trails game I didn’t like, and this is no exception.
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