Ok, so I’ve heard a lot about these Trails games. For years, annoying Redditors have written whole dissertations talking about how good the series was. They would post annoying weblinks to annoying video essays by annoying YouTubers. And, despite seeing how clearly annoying these people were, I have to admit, I was curious. I love JRPGs and I have more free time than I need; I should probably have an informed opinion on these things. So in 2018, I picked up Trails of Cold Steel for the PS Vita and tried to figure out what all the fuss was about. Then, in the year of 2025, I finally finished the fourth Trails of Cold Steel title. And while these are long games, there’s no reason to have taken seven years to finish just four games. So what was the holdup? Well, as you can probably tell, it wasn’t exactly a smooth transition from one title to another. But it did give me a story to tell. And, for better or worse, I do, in fact, have a more informed opinion on these things.
So let’s set the scene for this franchise. It’s a little bit trickier to explain than something like a Final Fantasy, but I believe in us; we can get through this. In 1989, Nihon Falcom developed and launched an RPG called Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes. The game must have done well enough because they kept making them. They’re plugging away until 2004, when they release a title called The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. We’re getting closer. See, this game really propels the series into public consciousness. It’s a hit over in Japan, and from that point on, every game in the franchise has Trails in its title, to the point where people generally just say “Trails games” when talking about this series. Then, in 2013, they finally do it: they release The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. And bam, we’re here. So Cold Steel is a sort of sub-entry in a sub-entry to a main franchise. There’s a connection to the other games in the series, but I had no knowledge of that beforehand, and the stories of the Cold Steel games work well enough in isolation. I mean, at least at first, but no need to get ahead of ourselves. Initially, I was told the Cold Steel entries are a good enough jumping-on point for newcomers to the franchise. And having looked at the state of the series today, I have to agree. For better and worse, if you’re down for these games, then you’re pretty much ready for anything the series throws at you leading forward. But hey! Enough of all this boring shit, talk about the games, nerd! All this context is putting me to sleep! Also, fuck you! I understand your sentiments, and I agree. With the stage set, we can appropriately dive into what I consider to be both the most lopsided and yet oddly consistent series I’ve ever played through.
Trails of Cold Steel
The first game was the best 60-hour prologue that I ever played. It’s a pretty bog-standard premise for a JRPG: you play as Rean, a stock shonen protagonist, newly enrolled in Thors Military Academy. You start off with small tasks like killing five snakes for a shopkeeper while the scale gradually builds and, whoops, you end up fighting God at the end. You learn to fight well, develop bonds with your classmates, and be put off by the classmate who snaps pictures of girls’ underwear. It’s essentially a Persona title with a military bend. And as long as you’re not afraid of attracting weirdo fans, we’ve seen that the Persona formula is a winning one. So Cold Steel is pretty compelling, despite its simplicity. A lot of the appeal comes from its cast of classmates. Although seeming at first glance to be bog-standard anime stereotypes, the cast of characters develop a surprising amount of depth throughout the story. These characters stick around for the remainder of the Cold Steel series, and they’re served well by the slow, methodical pace of the games. You end up spending an ungodly amount of time getting to know these little dweebs and I found myself endeared to each and every one by the end of the first game. Really, the Cold Steel games run the whole gamut of emotions for character interactions, and its writing is one the greatest strengths of the series.
As it was my first introduction to the series, I was really taken in by how much care and detail went into the worldbuilding. I’ve played hundreds of JRPGs, and explored thousands of their little towns, but I never played a title that put so much effort into the day-to-day lives of its residents. Cold Steel gave random NPCs new dialogue after almost every single story beat. Most of the new dialogue is throwaway, but every so often, someone will talk about current events around the world. It made the world of Cold Steel feel lived in. A lot of games give NPCs dialogue that always relates to either the quest you’re on or you specifically. It oftentimes feels like the world is actually a stage play with everything revolving around you. But in Cold Steel, no matter how big of an impact you make on the world, there’s still so much more going on that it swallows your accomplishments whole. Stopped some giant railway guns from firing on a neighboring country? That’s neat, good job, anyway, I wonder how I’m going to make it through this week running my bakery with food rations in place. These incidental conversations help illustrate the impact that not only your actions, but your entire ideology has on the world. In other games, it’s usually pretty easy to just get lost transitioning from one place to the other, chasing a maguffin or fighting a bad guy. The Cold Steel games take a different approach, oftentimes slowing your pace down and forcing you to take in the ramifications of your actions. The games force you to sit down and understand each location you visit, to really get a feel for its people. What you do is going to change their lives in some way; are you OK with that? It’s really compelling stuff, and it kept me invested in the drama of the plot.
I also remember being shockingly bad at the game. For those of you not in the know, the Cold Steel series is not difficult. It allows you to lower the difficulty for fights that you lose and doesn’t punish you in any way for failure. The systems aren’t even that complicated, letting you use regular attacks, special moves known as “Arts,” magic, and items. The turn order is laid out in the corner of the screen ala Final Fantasy X, so you know exactly when everyone is taking their swing. And normal enemies are not anything special. But I just remember dying so often. I don’t think I even got through one boss battle without wiping out. Sometimes I would just send my high schoolers in to die quickly, just to get the option to lower the difficulty for my first “real” attempt. I was a mess. As the games went on, I started to get the hang of things and was able to wipe my ass without training wheels, but I think a lot of that came from meeting the game on its terms. The Cold Steel games require a lot of customization and menuing before you get into any battles. This is a series where you’ll spend maybe 30% of your playtime refining builds instead of actually “playing” the game. And after getting through four of these titles, I’ve learned to enjoy the journey, so to speak. I started my journey just wanting to get through battles and hit the next story beat, but once you slow down, you learn that these games are incredibly easy to break without even that much experimentation. Simply engaging with the systems handed to you has the potential to trivialize every encounter you come across. So yeah, the gameplay is fun. It’s not the deepest combat in the world, but it usually makes you think a little bit and doesn’t require you to do any grinding. Thumbs up.
If there’s one thing that these games can do, it’s leave a good sequel hook. The first game ends with a collection of scenes and fights that completely change the tone of what you were just playing. Actually, fuck it, I’m getting into spoilers, no one who’s reading this is trying to stay clean. Your own classmate orchestrates a political assassination, with different factions moving in to claim territory and incite civil war. And you get a mecha robot, with an entirely new combat system. And you get to do two whole fights with your new mecha robot, just to tease you. And then, as if knowing how the player will feel, while opposing forces are coming down on the school, Rean is yanked out of the situation, away from his friends, and whatever cool fights he could have been a part of. Against his will, he flies away in his new robot and cries out to his comrades as they fade into the distance. Then, credits. Are you kidding me? I need to see what comes next. I’m so hyped off what just happened, the thought of moving onto a different game never even occurred to me. So I ordered the sequel off Amazon and waited. But of course, I opted for next-day delivery, so I didn’t wait too long.
Trails of Cold Steel II
Once Cold Steel II came in, I tore into it, hungry for whatever this series had in store for me. I saw through the events directly after that intense cliffhanger, and then I kept playing. Eventually, you meet up with all your old friends, get an airship, and it’s all pretty neat. But I also ran into what I consider a problem with the series as a whole going forward: the slow middle. Going into Cold Steel II, I was intensely curious what happened directly after the ending of the first title. Then I found out. And it was cool. However, once the game had settled back down and tried introducing some more nuanced plot for us to follow, it felt like an adrenaline dump. I can easily see this long-term form of storytelling working well for others, but it sort of misses the mark for me. I’m personally not great at watching TV series; the constant need to skyrocket the drama and then reset the process over again doesn’t appeal to me. I’m more of a movie guy; give me a well-told story that I can sit through in one go, and you have my full attention. So long story short, I ended up bouncing off Cold Steel II about twenty or so hours in. I saw my cool robot do cool robot things. I got to sit down and talk with the antagonists I had grown to know. I was good. So I went off and did other things. That was 2018. I wouldn’t touch the series again until 2025.
So 2025 comes rolling around. Life was a little crazy, and I needed an escape. Something to really sink into. I worked through a few titles and a few emulated classics from my backlog, but I’ve still got a few games in the back of my mind that I can’t shake. Throughout my life, there have been games that end up sticking with me specifically because I didn’t finish them. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter, but just the fact that they remain unfinished nags at me. And every so often, these games poke my brain with pitchforks, just reminding me that they’re out there. Also, at this low in my life, I had also recently gotten into discount key sellers for Steam games. Boy how, some of these prices are so low, they should be illegal! And in some cases, they actually are! Combine these two, and my sick, sick mind ended up finding its way to a back alley website, perusing dirt-cheap copies of Trials of Cold Steel II. I figured, why not, my life is already a fuck. So I purchased a copy, threw it onto my Steam Deck, and I was back in the race. With an open mind and the desire to just inhabit anything that wasn’t my own body, I started up this game for a second time. But with all that drama out of the way, we should probably talk about the actual game.
Picking up right after the ending of the first title, Cold Steel II starts with a pretty strong premise. You’ve lost everything. Rean is guilt-stricken, and the Thors Military Academy is lost. As a fugitive, Rean sculks about the world, seeing what’s become of previous locations and learning about the massive shift in power under a new governing administration. From this low, it’s now time to pick yourself up, gather all your scattered classmates, and take down the baddies. And then you spend the rest of the game doing exactly that, with very little deviation from the main goal. I’m going to be completely honest, this isn’t my favorite game in the series. It might be my least favorite. But it’s probably the most important one for setting the tone for what makes these games special. Cold Steel II slows things down drastically and devotes a lot more time to its world and slow-burn character development. Characters get a lot more time to talk about their feelings and insecurities. And if you’re into world-building, this is absolutely the game for you. But for me, the games that stick out in my mind as having great characters and settings mix those moments of contemplation with the plot. Final Fantasy X is one of my favorite games of all time. It has a depth to its world and character motivations that still has people talking decades after its release. But sitting through the exposition and character beats in that game doesn’t feel arduous because the plot also has constant forward momentum. In Cold Steel II, it can feel like your objective is so simple and plodding that the only fun thing to do is go through a few character backstories. And while I mentioned the game has a great opening section, it slows down dramatically once all the old party members are back together.
Let’s talk about that slow middle. As I said before, all the games have this issue. And it’s not unique to the Cold Steel games, but it is a much larger problem here. All four of the Cold Steel games are about 60 to 80-hour titles, with more time being plopped in if you want to go for 100% completion. All of these games open with great hooks and close with big twists. But the absolutely must-play content is only about ten hours’ worth of game, with lots of padding in between. After the first title, each game follows a pretty similar pattern. You just go around collecting things. Whether that’s other students, pieces of ore, or maguffin key pieces for a Gnome prison break, a lot of your time in these titles is dedicated to going around, retrieving an object, and then going to the next one. Cold Steel II is especially egregious because there is so much asset reuse in this title. You go to many of the exact same places you just got done exploring in the last game, fighting the same bosses. There are different pieces of dialogue and scenarios, but that doesn’t change how Cold Steel II just feels like a retread for a good amount of its runtime. Sometimes, the window dressing around these revisits is interesting, and you’ll meet a new character or something, but you can only put so much lipstick on a pig without it becoming sad. And there isn’t enough lipstick in the world to make going to fucking Celdic for the seventeenth time fun. So I unfortunately fell prey to that old enemy of long-as-hell games: getting bored halfway through. These games are not for the faint of heart nor those lacking of free time.
Getting back to terms with the game after such a long time away wasn’t too tough. I watched a story recap of the first game to brush up on a few details. Those beginning hours ended up being a lot of fun as I got to replay old memories. I even ended up finding my footing with the combat and figured out the game breaks if you just throw Fie with counterattack at everything. Taking a long break between the games also helped the asset re-use feel less grating. It was less like redoing a game I had just played a week ago and more like revisiting some old stomping grounds. I even slowed down a little bit and did more of the sidequests, picking up more tasty character moments. This go-around was way more fun than my first try, even if Cold Steel II still isn’t my favorite game of all time. But I did end up still chaffing against one of the main gripes I had with the series thus far: its protagonist. It’s appropriate that these games are so goddamn long because Rean is definitely a grower and not a shower.
I used to really hate Rean as a character. And like every self-important opinion-haver on the internet, I thought my stance was really nuanced and worth listening to. Because I get Rean. Like, I understand what they were trying to communicate with his character, and it’s pretty clear right off the bat. He’s the idealized hero, plucked straight out of every other JRPG. But in Cold Steel, that role is questioned. Rean constantly puts other people’s needs above his own, suppressing his own wants and desires for the greater good. In any other game, he would unquestionably be the truest hero there ever was. But here, those traits end up making him prone to self-sacrifice and incredibly low self-esteem. He’s a pressure cooker of a character who hurts himself constantly by being the bigger person. And I get it. Like, it’s a really cool idea for a character. I’m super into breaking down genre staples and questioning their veracity. But Rean suffers from one thing: he’s a character in a Trails of Cold Steel game. Characters in these games do go through changes, but because of the long-form storytelling, where one game rolls into the next, those changes can take literal games to manifest. The reason I hated Rean was that I was stuck in the first few games. These games, where, in the context of the story, he was only a handful of months removed from his introduction. I couldn’t stand him having to sit through yet another “You always put all of us ahead of your needs, Rean. You need to take better care of yourself” speech. As a reminder, these games take about 60 hours each! That means that for 120 hours, we’ve got essentially the same character in the same mental state! But once I got into Cold Steel III, things changed. Not only is there a timeskip where this character has gone through events that directly tie into his character progression, but he’s also matured a bit more as a person. He’s still not perfect, but every time someone is about to give him a speech, he can usually tell what’s coming instead of getting caught off guard every time. From III on, Rean becomes a much better character. And the frustrating part that I need to admit is that I don’t think I would really appreciate his character if I didn’t have to sit through literal weeks of him being a whiny little Elmer’s-eater.
Back on track, though, I finished up Cold Steel II. Its ending is a revelation that tints the world in a completely different way and has ramifications going forward. But it’s not, you know, really cool. It’s nothing like the first game, where I practically ran to the Amazon Warehouse myself to grab the next game and continue the story. Going forward, I had no idea what to expect from the series. Looking online and seeing that there were only two games left in this miniseries, I decided to go ahead anyway and commit to finishing what I started. Back to the key site, one PayPal purchase later, and I was ready to head into my next entry.
Trails of Cold Steel III
Moving onto Cold Steel III, this title is a kind of soft reset of sorts. Taking place a year or two after the last game, we’re introduced to a whole bunch of new characters and Rean is back in a school setting, this time as a teacher. Like I mentioned before, the ending of Cold Steel II just tinted all your actions in a different light. The structure of the world changed from those actions, but much of the drama ends up bubbling in the background. This lets the story reset more organically. There are a few members of the cast who aren’t familiar with the changes that happened during the timeskip, so you get to learn about the new world along with them. It’s kind of an obvious spot for the game to shove in exposition, but, hey, they need to tell the player somehow. Getting back to characters, the students under your watch grow to be pretty interesting themselves, some with ties to previous titles, and one of them is literally from the second game. It really does get back to the magic of Cold Steel 1, where the stakes, at least early on, are more personal and smaller scale. The old gang is around, too. It’s a treat to see them pop up every so often with their new designs, living their lives after graduation. The game also has a welcome update to the combat system, adding new systems to play around with. And Cold Steel III looks a lot better too. You can tell it’s the same engine, but the characters don’t look like early-stage PS2 models anymore. All in all, Cold Steel III was a very welcome breath of fresh air when I started it. And after finishing all of the games, I think this might be my favorite one. But that doesn’t mean it’s not without fault.
Unfortunately, this is the game that really shows the cracks in the localization schedule they had going on for the Trails series. There was a little tease at the end of Cold Steel II, but series callbacks get laid on thick in the third title. Main characters from (then) Japan-exclusive games feature prominently, and are introduced with a sort of wink-and-nudge to the audience, like you’re supposed to know who they are. The game does a good enough job of trying to get you up to speed if you’re not familiar, but it also throws a lot of characters at you all at once. If these games weren’t 70ish hours long, I would say it’s overwhelming. But I did learn most of them before the curtains closed. Most of them. I still have no idea who Rixia Mao is, but I guess her sword is really big, so that’s cool. The real issue is the fact that everyone’s character development already happened in past games. So we meet new people, but they’re essentially “complete” characters who don’t really have any internal struggles. It makes them pretty boring in the Cold Steel games. I’m sure someone shat their pants when Randy showed up as your teacher coworker, but for me, he’s just a dude bro who barely does anything or changes in any way for two whole games.
Dialogue is so strange in this series. I like to imagine that there are two wolves inside every Cold Steel writer’s head. One is a thoughtful and empathetic creature, able to express the human condition through nuance and subtlety. And the other is just a weeb who can only communicate through anime quotes. I am so glad I don’t live in this universe. Because every time someone says, “Hm,” or takes a pause in the conversation, every other person around immediately clocks them and starts grilling them for their real feelings. There is real drama and real artistry to be found in these games, but you have to be able to put up with a lot of chuff. Characters essentially repeat each other’s sentiments with different words, like someone is trying to hit the word count. You’ll have to listen to the same “Class VII” speech from Rean countless times throughout all the games. But afterwards, you’ll get beauty. And it’ll make you forget all the annoyances. There’s a certain amount of suspension of disbelief you need to have when going into any JRPG. You have to be ready to smooth over some of the edges, meet the writers and translators in the middle. And for the most part, this isn’t an issue. But there is one aspect that overwhelmingly shadows the entire Cold Steel series. And for me, it was probably my biggest hurdle.
This series is one of the most polarizing series I’ve ever played. Never before have I felt such effort go into the writing for a game. For such attention given to the world-building, the grey and the nuance of people’s decisions and alliances. And then for it all to be saddled with the worst genre tropes I’ve ever seen. Yup, for those of you familiar with the series, we’re finally getting to the elephant in the room. For my part, I’m not a huge hater of tropes universally. The “bad boy with a heart of gold” character is a favorite of mine, and Ash more than fills the edgy quota. But I swear to god, I’m going to lose it if I need to climb through a vent duct one more time while listening to the girls in the party be like, “Oh, I hope no one looks up my skirt! Moving through this vent is so difficult while my massive tits swing boobily!” I’m only getting to it now, but this is present consistently through every single one of these games. The Cold Steel games hit on every fan service trope you can think of. Yes, you will comically fall down and land face-first in a woman’s cleavage. Yes, you will find head pats to have an almost aphrodisiac quality in this world. Yes, there is a stepsister who wants to grind your pelvis into the dirt. And yes, there are lots and lots of bath scenes. By the end of the series, Rean has an honest-to-god harem that he’s juggling in between saving the world, with some choice options being his former homeroom teacher as well as his current students. I also don’t know whose idea it was to make every lesbian character a sexual predator, but it does make one ponder. In order to get on board with these games, you’ll need to engage with this content. And to be completely honest, I was not on board. Oftentimes, I would have to take weeks- or months-long breaks in between sessions just to get the taste out of my mouth. It became more annoying to me than anything and diminished my drive to finish the series. Cards on the table; if I wasn’t already feeling the sunk-cost amount of time I put into them, I probably would have stopped playing these games somewhere in the third title, with these constant softcore needlings being a large reason why. I’m not a prude by any means, but there is such a thing as “cringe horny,” and I think the Cold Steel series manages to hit that mark. Your mileage will vary, but I think there are more fun ways of having tropes in these types of games without it becoming sleezy.
Cold Steel III ends in a pretty bombastic way, probably my favorite cliffhanger out of the four games I played. Funnily enough, it’s pretty similar to the ending of the first title. The edgy member of your party does a political assassination, Rean loses control and ends up separated from the rest of the party, and everything is generally at a low. The time you’ve spent with all these characters really heightens the drama and it’s pretty easy to get sucked in. I was as satisfied and drawn in as I could be with franchise fatigue hanging over me. So, with only one title left, I buckled up and dove into my final Cold Steel game.
Trails of Cold Steel IV
Cold Steel IV definitely feels like the biggest title out of the four. The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been, and the heroes have to build back after a devastating loss. We pick up our story with Rean imprisoned by the bad guys, delirious with rage over the events of the last game. He’s barely a sentient person at this point, so he’s out of the picture. We start the game off playing as his students and previous classmates. The goal ahead of you: figure out where Rean is and save him. Then afterwards, unfuck everything that got fucked in the ending of the last game. Sidelining the main character at the end of your series is a bold choice, but I actually really like it. It gives other characters moments to shine without Rean stealing the spotlight. Then, once Rean is eventually returned to the fold, the characters have already proven themselves. They’re able to be full people even out from under Rean’s wings. It’s a pretty good way to tell some more personal stories and is a strong start to a series finale.
This game is like the Avengers: Endgame of JRPGs. Almost every protagonist and substantial character from previous games shows up in this game to lend support. I said it a few times before, but I’ve only ever played the Cold Steel games. Most of these characters are completely new to me. As a virgin player, you’re not going to understand a lot of the nuances of why these characters are the way they are. But to the game’s credit, it’s easier to roll with new characters than you might think. I dunno why Mariabell and Elie are beefing, but hey, I get it, they have some kinda history, let’s go, I’m on board. As long as you keep your eyes on the main overall plot prize and can work off vibes, it’s a perfectly serviceable story. Cold Steel IV also goes out of its way to give everyone their own badass moments, which communicates to even new players that hey, don’t worry, these new guys? They’re cool. It doesn’t feel like their presence takes away from Rean and the gang’s story either, so that’s nice. There are a few quirks of the story as a result of all these new faces, though. Even without knowing anything about them, I could feel how hard the story needed to stretch to get some of these characters in. Oh, this series has a little baby seven-year-old Triad member? Barely remember why you were in this bitch, but hey, glad to have you on board for all ten minutes of screentime you got. All in all, the fan service doesn’t get in the way of telling a compelling conclusion for the newer fans, so I’ve got no real complaints.
As I ramp up to end all this writing business, I’ll just shoot out a few points that I thought of and couldn’t fit anywhere else organically. Some of it relates to Cold Steel IV, and some of it is just a reflection of the series as a whole. So, let’s go.
- Although I liked the way the latter two entries looked, character design is kind of a let-down. Or, is it? I really don’t know how to judge this aspect. To be charitable, it does seem pretty in line with the genre and the type of game that we’re dealing with. I’ll just say that for me, once I picked up on the fact that almost every character has the same face with just different hair and accessories, it was hard for me to shake. I think whether or not this is an issue for you really depends on where you are on the weeb spectrum.
- Something that I don’t know how I overlooked up until this point is the music. Every one of these entries bangs hard. Falcom games are sort of renowned in the industry for having great scores, and the Cold Steel games happily carry on that tradition. There are shared tracks and motifs across all four games, but these songs are all great, with very, very few exceptions. There are many composers that added their sensibilities to the sound of Cold Steel, but for midi JRPG soundtracks, this stuff is peak. I’ll probably have the track for the Nord Highlands in my head until I die.
- Please, Japan, please stop with the unrequited stepsister love subplots. I take it all back. You can keep as many panty shots in your games as you want. Just please get rid of this trope. As a favor to me.
- The translation in these games is, in general, really, really good. And with the amount of text that they needed to work on, this is a very impressive task for the team. That being said, they did also give me two of the best-worst names I’ve ever seen in a piece of media. One is an immensely powerful flame warrior named McBurn. So, already, a very strong piece of camp. But that is then one-upped by the introduction of a character named Georg, pronounced “gay-org.” Both of these things are played entirely straight (haha) and are never commented on by others in the story. So, I’ve got nothing more to add, really. Just. Just thank you, Nihon Falcom.
Just as Cold Steel II ended up feeling like the conclusion to 1, Cold Steel IV wraps up all the strands left by the third entry. Practically every character that was ever mentioned gets a moment in this finale. There are even two endings, one being the true canon, depending on whether or not you completed certain quests before the end of the game. And while the regular ending is pretty bittersweet, I felt it had a certain catharsis. I enjoy stakes in my stories, so having a few main characters die to snuff out the big bad felt right. The true ending, on the other hand, goes in the complete opposite direction. It’s almost too saccharine. There, everything is fixed, the bad guy is beaten without any sacrifice, plus a few doomed characters are essentially brought back to life. Also, all the bad guys were just misunderstood or possessed, with most of them just being hauled off to prison afterwards. It just smacks of the writers being too precious with their toys and letting that get in the way of storytelling. Do I think it’s a great ending? No. But after playing through four of these games, I have to admit, it is kinda nice to see these characters get a happy ending and be able to relax without thinking about what’s next. And above all, it just feels good to play one of these fucking games that doesn’t end in a cliffhanger.
At the end of my time with the Cold Steel series, I was spent. These were great games, with lots of redeeming qualities and standout moments for the genre as a whole. But I also was weighed down with the memories of tropey writing or plodding pacing. All in all, I think I enjoyed my time with these games. But I wasn’t in any rush to play the other titles in the franchise. As of writing, it’s been a bit under a year since I put the final stamp on Cold Steel IV, and I still don’t feel that itch to try out any of the newer games. I’m satisfied with the resolution that I got. These characters and their world gave me lots of joy, I’m ok with leaving it at that. But who knows? I took a seven-year gap between these games before. Time heals all wounds, and perhaps the good memories will outweigh the bad. That’s the magic about this series. The thing that kept me coming back. Whenever I would get fed up and put the game down for months at a time, I would remember that there was still the possibility of gold when I returned. I would remember staggering pieces of character work or world-building and come back for another session. So maybe one day, when I’m looking through my collection again, searching for a dose of JRPG goodness, I’ll think of the Trails series again. And maybe I’ll get sucked in one more time.
If you want to refuse every boozy advance your teacher makes on you, the Cold Steel games are available for virtually every modern system as well as PC. Besides playing through 1 on my Vita, every other game was played through Steam on a Steam Deck. And there were no issues with my ports. These aren’t technically demanding games, so I’m sure whatever you pick it up for will be just fine.