The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel IV

amazon The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel IV reviews

Trails of Cold Steel IV – Japan is a famous country in the game industry, if not the “cradle” of modern video games.

Therefore, in Japan, there are many large and small game studios, over 10 years old – these studios mostly belong to a larger studio, even a large corporation, after the development process and economic ups and downs.

Only a few of them still maintain their independent status after all these years in the industry, and while not the most famous, Nihon Falcom is a name that stands for these studios.

Referring to Nihon Falcom, perhaps people will immediately think of YS, the legendary action role-playing game series that to this day is still rare for any competitor to compete.

However, it is also impossible to ignore the Trails series – one of the JRPG masterpieces that can compete with other immortal monuments of this game genre such as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest.

Originally “fragments” of a “game universe” called The Legend of Heroes – the Trails series can be roughly divided into three main segments: “Trails in the Sky”, “Trails of Cold Steel” and “Trails to Zero“, however, the Zero part was never released in the West.

Having a more “mature” and more “drama” storyline, the Trails of Cold Steel series has attracted a lot of attention and love from fans around the world.

And Trails of Cold Steel IV released in 2018 (on PS4) closed the epic of a legendary series as a well-deserved goodbye!

On April 9, 2021, the “people” of the Switch country experienced this masterpiece, although it was 2-3 years later than other systems, it was indeed “better than nothing”.

Trails of Cold Steel IV worthy of the role of ending the long journey of more than 8 years of heroes on the continent of Zemuria?

In terms of gameplay, Trails of Cold Steel IV retains everything from Trails of Cold Steel III with almost no changes.

This is not a bad thing when the gameplay of the Trails series itself has been very complete with its charm.

Most of the time the player will move around in the city – dungeons, as well as military battlefields, depending on the missions.

A massive amount of NPCs, a huge inventory of main and side quests, and a lot of dialogue with very strong connections will ensure players are always busy and have no boring silence.

Referring to a JRPG game that omits the battle system array is a huge omission because it is almost the “soul” to make players remember the game.

And about this, Trails of Cold Steel IV in particular or the Trails series in general, have never disappointed players!

Battles in Trails of Cold Steel IV are turn-based, with the turn order between the character and the enemy displayed on a turn indicator.

Turn speed depends on the character’s Speed stat, as well as their previous actions – for example, using “huge” Arts will make the character slower to turn.

This order can also be disturbed by skill effects such as slows, stuns, etc.

The interesting point of Trails of Cold Steel IV is that the player not only has to choose the command, press the button, and then sit and watch the character “dance” – but before giving the order, the player can also move the character freely.

This allows the player to optimize the damage and range of the moves, and most importantly, to be able to “dodge” deadly moves from the enemy.

The combination of moving position selection, launching attacks or Art, and paying attention to the waiting time between turns … creates a very high tactical character, making every battle in Trails of Cold Steel IV attractive and dramatic.

First of all, it should be mentioned that, unlike the YS series, the Trails series has a very long storyline and has a very strong connection, accompanied by an extremely rich and dense cast of main and supporting characters.

This is a good thing because the plot and the progressions are very tight and fast, not interrupted or irrationally cut as is the case with many other post-game titles.

However, this is only true if the player is a “hard fan” of the Trails series, that is, has experienced the previous versions (at least played through Trails of Cold Steel I, II, and III).

Because without this “introduction” condition, the player will certainly not understand the plot of part IV, or even the large and strange cast of characters in it.

Trails of Cold Steel IV “throws” players straight into the sequel two weeks after the end of Trails of Cold Steel III, at the heart of the tense, simmering atmosphere of a large-scale battle about to explode out.

where can you get a The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel IV online

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV – Frontline Edition – PlayStation 4: Buy it now

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV Frontline Edition (Nintendo Switch): Buy it now

Instead of a gentle beginner’s guide, it took players more than 30 minutes to follow the transitions and dialogue with “terrible” information – something the writer has played through the previous versions, but due to the long gap, it takes “six brains” to sequence the events as well as the characters, to temporarily understand 70%.

Thus, it can be easily understood that Trails of Cold Steel IV has built a “customers only” fence because new players spend $ 59.99 to buy the game and are immediately “bombed” by a ” tons” of information, it is rare for anyone to stay and continue playing.

Trails of Cold Steel IV itself is not a product in its own right – because it reuses up to 70% of the resources of the Trails of Cold Steel III version, from the context, graphics, models, and pictures… to NPCs and “cameos”.

So except for the continuing storyline that leads to the climax and becomes the end of an entire four-part series, Trails of Cold Steel IV is more like Trails of Cold Steel… 3.5!

The special feature that separates the Trails of Cold Steel series from other versions is the extremely “sweet” plot, revolving around bloody wars, malicious political intrigues and inhuman experiments, and countless other dark sides of society.

The problem is that with Trails of Cold Steel IV in particular or Trails of Cold Steel in general, these details are made quite half-heartedly.

For example, in other entertainment products, the boundary between “good” and “evil” is often very clear, most of which upholds the principle of “evil retribution” – the villains/villains will sooner or later die will be destroyed by the “hero” faction.

However, in the world of Trails of Cold Steel, that is not the case. He killed countless people, created a series of pointless wars, and did all kinds of evil… in the end, at best, he was also played by the heroes who played “intelligence tactics”… teaching one time is the same!

In Trails of Cold Steel, we can’t sympathize with or hate the villains, because the motives and consequences they have to endure are too indifferent and fuzzy.

Next, the quality of the graphics array is quite out of phase.

If the character models are shown in detail and beautifully, clearly showing the charisma, expressions as well as the eye-catching battle phases – in contrast, the background, environment, and world in Trails of Cold Steel IV are very “cubes”, making them feel like they are “low-poly” 3D blocks (few polygons) that are covered with artificial surface textures, not “molded” for them to the destination.

As mentioned above, the reuse of many contexts and environments from Trails of Cold Steel III makes players feel that the game team is very “lazy”, leading to the value of money spent buying. The game just to experience more about the plot suddenly became very disappointing and uncomfortable.

Finally, there is an issue of “emotional” nature – that is, the writer himself feels that Trails of Cold Steel IV was made too “hurried”, lacking in thoroughness in terms of plot connection and character building.

There are many characters in the previous versions that are repeated as “cameos”, but their plots and personalities are very blurred, inconsistent, and sometimes contradictory to the previous versions.

In a word, the entire Trails of Cold Steel sequence could have been wrapped up in three or even two parts of the game – instead of stretching out to four parts, like the way Nihon Falcom did.

This makes the main plot and the supporting elements unnecessarily stretched, and the developer is forced to cram in more redundant, sometimes grotesque “drama” plots – to allow everything seems less “diluted”.

After skillfully hiding these tricks in the previous three games, leading to Trails of Cold Steel IV because there is too little land to continue “tricks”, these details are revealed. It’s so obvious that it’s hard to hide.