The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV (PlayStation 4) Review
Release Date:
Publisher/Developer: NIS America/Falcom
Platform:PlayStation 4 (Reviewed), Nintendo Switch
Price: $59.99 regular, $79.99 Digital Deluxe
I feel like the best way to sum up what I feel about Trails of Cold Steel IV is to start with a story: a few years back my wife and I, regularly keeping up with the Marvel movies, rented Ant-Man and the Wasp. Knowing that the first one was pretty standalone, and kind of a palate-cleanser, we thought it fine to invite our kids to watch it with us. They were growing up, it was time to introduce them to the coolness of the Summer Blockbuster. All was well and good, till that end credits sequence. Our hero had delved into the Quantum Realm for some general routine stuff. Suddenly, he lost contact with his team still in the normal realm. The camera cuts to where they stood, wisps of dust floating away in the breeze. My wife and I’s jaws hit the floor. The kids, however, were puzzled. They wanted to know what evoked such a reaction from us.
Well, you see, there’s this guy….Thanos….and he, well….he…. Thinking back all I could see was more “why?” that led all the way back to “I am Iron Man.” So we started at the beginning, watching DVDs, streaming, renting, borrowing, and wrapped up Infinity War the weekend before Endgame. Needless to say, the hype was real, and worth every minute rewatching those movies to share that moment with the boys. Meanwhile, imagine that all didn’t happen, and I just said “hey guys, let’s go to the movies” and took them to Endgame. While you might consider it a great summer flick, maybe even enjoyed your watch of it, you’d wonder who the characters were, why they were there, and why we should care if it weren’t for eleven years worth of plot building.
This attitude is what makes me feel like there are two sides to reviewing The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV. The Legend of Heroes series has been around since the 80’s, and I’m learning as I go with this one that simply playing Trails of Cold Steel 1-3, each 100 hour epics in their own right, don’t get all the nuances, as I’m told characters from Trails in the Sky and even the Crossbell arc, a story that never even got an English release, are here. Trails of Cold Steel IV is the culmination of all of this, and other reviews discuss characters who have never even been polygonal showing up for the finale. In terms of fanservice, story closure, and overall awesomeness, there’s no way to not give Trails of Cold Steel IV a perfect 5/5. However, there are two other viewpoints to consider: from a newcomer who just wants to try a new game, and from the overall standalone attitude of “is this a fun game”.
Honestly, newbies won’t stand a chance. Trails of Cold Steel is not like Final Fantasy, where you can jump right in on a numbered title and be as fresh as everyone else. This isn’t inherently a bad thing: there’s a place in the world for huge, epic story arcs. Luckily every single one of the previous games is currently available for PS4 (and thereby PS5). 3 and 4 are on Switch with 1 and 2 being ported over this summer. At the beginning of the title you are overwhelmed with characters you may have never met or simply don’t remember if it’s been a while since your last playthrough of the series. It makes it hard to care for the environment and those that inhabit it if you’re thrown in headfirst. The game tries it’s best to wrap up everything by having the characters conveniently forget things for their friends to remind them of, or openly discuss the Big Obvious Thing as a recap, but the series has it’s own language, from enemy types to military grades, and names run the gamut of naming types (regular human names, strange sounding unique names, big Titles that Make No Sense) that it’s very difficult to follow along.
So then, we come to the meat of the review: by and large, are we having fun yet? I can say yes, but it took a while. When my in—game clock read 2 ½ hours, I had been through one dungeon, maybe had five battles total….and seen two different full-on anime intro videos. Two prologues, one dungeon, and a whole lot of people talking about teaming up to save the world. Like I said, diehards are going to be going crazy as all their favorite people show up. Others might wonder why in THIS cutscene, one character is fully voiced whilst the others have text boxes, but in THIS cutscene we can read while they talk and skip if we want, or in THIS cutscene that looks JUST like the last cutscene in terms of presentation we are forced to listen and watch every single bit. It’s those parts that detract the most from the gameplay to me. I am ready and willing to go through this epic storyline, but can’t determine when the game finds someone or something more important. I had entire sessions where I sat to play, only to really sit and read or watch cutscenes.
That being said, the gameplay loop is fun, though it can be overwhelming. As the series has progressed, it has fallen somewhere between “here’s new things to add to the dynamic” and “you played with this last time, you should know how it works” and “remember that terminology we used before?” to the point that it, again, could be simpler to start from the beginning. The gameplay loop is exactly what you expect it to be, because you’ve seen it in Trails of Cold Steel 1-3. It may be simpler to start at the beginning and learn the new additions right along with the team instead of jumping in right now.
I feel that NIS America has a masterpiece on their hands, much like Disney does with Avengers: Endgame, for diehard fans. They did a great job of putting summary stories in the menus of the series as it ballooned in size, but nothing will replace completing these games first hand. At the absolute very least, play 3 first. 2 wrapped up fairly well in comparison, letting 3 start pretty fresh (it was the first made dedicated to the PS4 instead of linking with the Vita), and ends on one heck of a cliffhanger.
(I’m fully aware that this review is a bit situational, but truly a lot of the gameplay and story opinions really stretch between all the games. If you truly want to get a feel for how this game plays without looking at the rest of the series, feel free to read my reviews of the first, second, and third games in the series, or check out the time Matt got to review the first one as well.)
Pros:
-What a way to finish the series!
-Brings in characters from everywhere to give closure
-Everything from previous games is polished to a fine sheen, perfection of the gameplay loop and engine
Cons:
-Never played these before? You’ll be lost!
-If you start from the beginning this may be on sale before you get to it….
-Unbalanced weight to story bits, very heavy on exposition at the start
Special thanks to NIS America/Falcom for providing a code for review!