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The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel
PlayStation Vita
Released On: Dec 22, 2015
77
8.5
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 20 Critic Reviews
77
60% Positive
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
40% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 20 Critic Reviews
77
60% Positive
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
40% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is a godsend for Vita fans. At a time when support for the little handheld seems to be rapidly dwindling, here comes a role-playing masterpiece with all the right stuff: XSeed’s superior localization, which bypasses anime cliches in favor of real depth; an addictive set of life-sim mechanics, from bonding with the lovable cast to cooking a bevy of dishes; and a combat system that rewards customization and cooperation between party members.
Trails of Cold Steel may not turn the genre on its head, but it does almost everything well. It is the first game in a trilogy, and Xseed has already confirmed the next game is coming to North America. After this delightful entry, I'm on board to see the next move.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 159 User Ratings
8.5
84% Positive
133 Ratings
133 Ratings
8% Mixed
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
8% Negative
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 159 User Ratings
8.5
84% Positive
133 Ratings
133 Ratings
8% Mixed
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
8% Negative
13 Ratings
13 Ratings
This game is a must play, but you'll have to complete this game on the 2nd game where this particular story of Class 7 will climax, no need to play 3 or 4 but if you do enjoy the game and series, you have more to play.
Every single scenario plays out as episodes. Mystery is involved, you are sent out across with locations and towns random classmates, where the story will proceed, mystery will unfold, then a big boss battle, come back to Thor academy, rinse repeat for 5-7 "episodes". Also there's a dungeon to explore that changes by itself in a mystery tower.
Won't spoil the game, it's best to play.
The 2nd one is the best of this 2 part game.
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PlayStation Vita
The Greatest RPG in my life since ff7 and after having played this Beauty **** I became more and more irritated The whole Collection of trails games were not on my platform of choice the playstation. the game's "back-end" play akind to Final Fantasy's materia system except instead of the quartz/materia leveling up on their own, you have to do change them out on your own. It's not a beginner's game however, but highly enjoyable. The main story is hide in the background however and searching for it takes your attention outside of gameplay. THIS IS MY PERSONAL FAVOURITE ****. Technical, filled with backstory, and rich in depth to it's world. Warning: This game FEELS alive!
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PlayStation Vita
The story moves slowly, and can take a while to get through, and while not much about it feels new, it does a good job of taking already established elements and making them into something fun.
Although it has several technical and graphical disappointments , it offers a very dense and precise combat system. With new elements such as cross-save between PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, it manages to bring a classic gameplay with somehow decent visuals.
An ashamedly old school role-player that nevertheless does its best to attract new players and entertain existing fans.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is a decent game - it has a few flaws that make it hard to recommend to everyone (especially regarding the story), but if you're a fan of the series or genre then it's certainly worth a look.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel had my attention and lost it.
The game seems to me somewhat underrated. Its nothing special, music ok, graphics are great, story is god, it play well... additionally you can cook and fish. Well, while non of the game features are super special the add up nicely to one of the best (mobile) games I have ever played. It play well on the vita... if only the battery would last any longer...
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PlayStation Vita
Такая современная классическая JRPG.
Первые часов 20 было интересно, но потом надоело.
С одной стороны, многие неудобства, характерные для жанра устранены, - графика приличная (хотя и не более того), удобная карта с фаст-трэвелом, сохранения в любой момент, все враги видимы и случайных боев нет, нет гринда, исследования и бои можно ускорить и т. д и т. п. Боевая система сложная и разнообразная, особенно на высоких уровнях сложности.
С другой стороны, все более глубокие минусы жанра JRPG тут тоже на месте. Сюжет - про подростков и для подростков, место действия - школа. Скучного, бессодержательного текста не просто много, а ОЧЕНЬ много.
Сайдквесты очень скучные (вроде "найти пропавшего котенка" и "вкрути лампочку в фонарь", серьезно). Персонажи одномерные и архетипичные, попытки добавить 14-15-16 летним подросткам глубины за счет "скелетов в шкафу" - комичны. Забавно смотрится девочка 14 лет, которая внезапно оказывается опытным наемником.
Отдельно про мир хочется сказать. Он вроде и хорошо проработан, и продуман, и нарисован. Но слишком похож на наш современный мир XX века, поэтому скучноват. Причем видно, что дергали из разных десятилетий XX века - что-то напоминает европейские города начала века, технология дошла до дирижаблей, но в академии у школьников уже есть компьютеры.
Но за первые 20 часов игре спасибо, конечно, было довольно интересно.
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PlayStation Vita
This is a good game if you dont mind doing the same set of events over and over. The characters for the most part are very uninteresting and the story feels like any other typical jrpg. That being said the combat is really fun and rarely feels tedious like other turn based rpgs. Id recommend if this game was ever 20 dollars or less but wouldnt recommend for anything more than that
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PlayStation Vita
As a huge fan of the series and of most of Falcom's games in general, I have to say that Trails of Cold Steel is one of the most disappointing games I've played in recent memory. It's not a terrible game; in fact, I'd put it just above average. It still has the garnish that made the series great, such as an intense attention to detail in worldbuilding and fleshed-out NPCs with their own lives and stories that advance alongside the main plot, but it drops the ball in crucial ways.
I'll start with the most glaring and obvious flaw: the technical details. The most noticable thing about the game right off the bat is the loading time. I spent most of my time playing the Vita version where it was more noticable, but it's still a major issue on PS3. Load times were occasionally quite short (three seconds or so), but most of the time, I would be waiting a good five to ten seconds for a load screen, which really starts to add up when you get one every time you enter a new screen or start a battle/cutscene. On top of this, the 3D models and animations are simply awful looking and a poor replacement for the 2D portraits and well-animated 3D rendered sprites of previous games.
To start, the gameplay is simply a step down from every other game in the series after Trails in the Sky FC. In short, it's pathetically easy. Even on hard mode, fights end with almost no effort whatsoever. I normally wouldn't be one to knock a game for being too easy, especially a turn-based RPG, but when combat starts to feel like nothing more than a boring chore, it gets in the way of enjoying the game. While you could break previous games in the series with the right setups and party compositions, it did take some effort. It takes almost none to break Sen over your knee. I can count the number of battles on one hand where a boss got more than three turns before dying, and several of those were because I waited to fulfill a special condition on the battle. Perhaps it's different on nightmare mode, but I have my doubts. As it stands, even on hard mode, the gameplay in Cold Steel was less enjoyable than Trails in the Sky SC in spite of the many technical improvements made since then, to say nothing of comparisons to the rest of the series.
Arguably one of the best aspects of this series are its strong, detailed characters, and Cold Steel simply drops the ball on that front completely. I won't go too in-depth to avoid spoilers, but in short, several of the characters are so poorly written that I actually put the game down and avoided playing it for a while after seeing their "development" in action. This might be forgivable if the rest of the cast were as well-executed as previous games in the series, but that's not the case here. Rean feels like a typical dime-a-dozen light novel protagonist, even having a poorly explained supernatural power (which remains poorly explained even in the sequel). Gaius and Elliot are completely irrelevant characters who serve no role in the story whatsoever aside from guiding the party around their hometowns (and coincidentally, Gaius' hometown is host to the most boring chapter in the series, and Elliot passes the guide role on to Machias quite quickly in his chapter), to the point where you question why they're even in the game. Machias and Jusis are both good enough characters, and though Machias is a bit too exaggerated I found their antics to be the most redeeming parts of the early game. Laura has no character beyond her obsession with her swordsmanship. Emma could have been interesting, but they don't answer any questions about her throughout almost all of the first game, so she simply remains the class president type throughout. Alisa is a grating, obnoxious character who is completely unlikable for no reason other than having some overinflated mommy issues. Fie's personality clashes so much with her backstory that I went from finding her cute and somewhat endearing to seeing her as everything wrong with the lazy character writing in the game. I'm astounded that the same company who wrote Renne, Randy, and various other similar characters produced a character as poor as Fie. In spite of all that, the supporting cast, especially the NPCs, are all quite excellent. Sara is exactly what I'd expect from a Trails character. Crow is very endearing while still breaking free of his archetype. I found myself playing just to advance the story of the various NPCs as well.
The plot wasn't botched nearly as much as the characters, but it still feels like it's mostly filler. Each chapter drags on a lot longer than it really needs to and Chapter 1 feels like it was completely irrelevant in the long run. Nothing much is accomplished throughout the game and the only time something is is during the ending, when the game suddenly stops with a "to be continued."
Overall, Trails of Cold Steel is an average game and a disappointment to fans of the series. If you're a fan of the previous games, prepare for disappointment.
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PlayStation Vita
I was convinced to buy this game since it's apparently one of the more highly revered JRPG's on a system that's well known for mostly being a JRPG machine. From what I gathered, this is apparently the 9th entry to "The Legend of Heroes" series. I've heard that while it's better to play these games in order, it's ultimately not legally possible to play them all in English. I was also convinced by other reviewers that it wouldn't be THAT confusing to use the newer, easier to access titles as an entry point... This was inaccurate. Another reason I was initially interested in jumping into a new-to-me Japanese series was that I was under the impression, due to the raving reviews users have given it, that these games lacked "anime tropes" that several Japanese-heavy influenced games have. I jumped into the prologue with high but cautious expectations, for them to basically be immediately ****. One of the very first things that happened was the protagonist had a "tripping & falling" moment with a blonde girl, where your face ends up nestled between her breasts. Other than that, every single character introduced is the most absolute cringey animoo stereotype that you could possibly think of. This is coming from a big anime & JRPG fan. Most of the dialogue was very boring exposition, the combat was fine I suppose, but nothing a turn based battle system hasn't done before. Perhaps I will return to this review to update it & I'll admit how wrong I was. In fact, I hope that happens. But all I can say is don't always trust other peoples opinions, sometimes you just gotta see for yourself if you like something.
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PlayStation Vita
Summary At the elite Thors Military Academy, Erebonias best and brightest learn everything from the art of war to the liberal arts. Rean Schwarzer, a new student, learns that hes been selected as a member of the newly-minted Class VII, made up of students from both noble and commoner backgrounds. Class VII has no shortage of issues to overcom...
Rated T
for Teen
Platforms:
- Nintendo Switch
- PlayStation 3
- PlayStation Vita
- PC
- PlayStation 4
Initial Release Date: Dec 22, 2015
Developer:
- Falcom
Publisher: XSEED Games
Genres:
