The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III Reviews
It's not clear why a new fan should start their journey from the third chapter of the series, but Trials of Cold Steel III and IV are still enjoyable and a must play nonetheless.
Review in Italian | Read full review
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3 is not a perfect game, marred by its pacing, spontaneous voiceovers, and heavy-handed use of anime tropes along the way. That aside, the additions of game speed increase on top of more strategic options in combat and intriguing characters make this entry of the franchise a rewarding one, presenting wonderful payoffs for those invested in the journey. Even still, newcomers receive enough organic context and subtext along the way to still feel fulfilled as the journey progresses. Few RPG franchises, especially ones this lengthy, can provide a starting point in the middle of the series, and Cold Steel 3 finds a way.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3 is still an exceptional RPG after all these years, even if its PS5 port doesn't offer many enhancements.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III is difficult to recommend for Trails newcomers, though there are in-game resources to help bridge that gap. If you liked Cold Steel I and II, then there’s a very solid chance you’ll enjoy III, though plenty of scenes or lines probably still go over your head if that’s all you’ve seen. With that said, Cold Steel III is incomplete by itself. Despite its excesses, its narrative builds slowly into something that isn’t fully resolved until the next game, and it has shortcomings of its own. I still find Cold Steel III to be the best game of the four narratively overall, but it’s also held back by significant pitfalls in combat. Nonetheless, I still got a decent amount of enjoyment out of the game thanks to the better aspects of the story and the core fundamentals of the Trails battle system. It’s a high-maintenance game to get the most out of, with rough edges, but I still found it enjoyable more often than not.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III successfully shows Rean Schwarzer's growth and new adventure to reveal the true darkness surrounding Erebonian Empire. But Fans of "Trails of Cold Steel Series", who already met shocking endings two times at former works, would face a third impact. The series was believed to finish as a trilogy, but fans should do watch up to the fourth episode.
Review in Korean | Read full review
The long lasting story of the Empire within the Trails of Cold Steel series is passing the midpoint and hastily advancing towards the climax. In this game, there are various plot thickening events that may seem unfamiliar unless you’ve played the prequel. The game’s story is well known to commonly have tables flipping, plot twisting events so for the new players, it may be difficult to adjust to the pace of the main storyline. If you want to purely enjoy the gameplay, this iteration of the game has one of the best Falcom style JRPG user interface, thus you won’t have any issues with clearing the encounters you’ll face long the way. Lot’s of content to discover and various minigames will keep you seated until the end.
Review in Korean | Read full review
When a decent combat system has undergone adjustments and refinements over decades, one would expect an easy victory for a third entry. Indeed, Trails II had it made; a turn-based JRPG style of combat that was host to a wealth of tactical options, with multiple types of attack, intelligent enemy AI and cross-party link skills. Trails III doesn’t simply phone it in as there are a few extra elements to dig into.
Trails of Cold Steel III was a very fun RPG, containing all the good parts from II which I loved, with better pacing thanks to the Turbo Mode, and a story that sets up the next entry rather well. The story’s the main draw for returning fans, and newcomers are better off starting from Cold Steel I, but if you can only join in on this entry due to the Switch exclusivity, then you will still be able to get tons of fun from this game. Just be absolute sure to beat this before starting Cold Steel IV, as that’s definitely not a game to make your first under any circumstance, recaps be dammed. Thankfully, Cold Steel III is well worth a full playthrough, even if it’ll take you quite a bit to do so.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III is overall a great game and a good port.
Trail of Cold Steel III brings its classic JRPG hijinks to the portable confines of the Switch for folks who like to have their cake and eat it on the go, too. Visuals on the TV are not as crisp as the PS4 version and performance also has some occasional hiccups at times. If the thought of getting your Cold Steel fix anytime and anywhere sounds appealing, however, then this is the version for you.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III drops JRPGo fans into the middle of a massive story arc and then has a tendency to meander. However, it provides more than enough thrills and compelling moments to make this an adventure worth taking.
Overall, an enjoyable port of a great game.
Overall, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III brings us a very solid game and a clear improvement in the franchise. With a wide variety of personalization of our characters, both in equipment and combat sets, it gives a feeling of a game with a healthy amount of game time to experience everything we have at our disposal. It will certainly be a game for any fan of JRPGs if you have played your predecessors, but if that is not the case it can be difficult to fit in, such is the dimension and complexity of the story presented. Even so, the producer did a great job of bringing a title of this dimension to Switch, for the port presents solid features and performance.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Trails of Cold Steel III it's another great port to add to Nintendo Switch's library, but if you haven't played the previous two games (not available on Switch), you can miss important story details. If that's not the case, be ready for a long adventure that will leave you wanting more... and in the middle of an interesting cliffhanger.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
There’s very little to complain about with The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III on the Switch, it’s an incredible port of a fantastic game. If you don’t mind the odd fuzzy visuals due to a lower-than-native resolution of the display it’s being played on, the Switch port is the perfect place to play this fascinating JRPG, a game which will easily occupy you for over 100 hours if you’re going for a full 100% completion and around 50 if you just care for the story. Despite having no switch-specific features or extras, you do get a bunch of cosmetic DLCs to dress up all the protagonists – making the cutscenes much more entertaining and surreal.
A huge positive about the game is it only takes up 7.1 GB digitally on your Switch or micro SD card. This is pretty incredible for a game of this size and magnitude. There are so many games coming to the Switch that are clocking in over 40 GB. It’s welcoming to see developers take into account file sizes. Trails of Cold Steel III is an adventure well worth taking if you’re a fan of RPGs or just anime in general. It’s bursting with content and when I was actually playing the game I was not disappointed. For me the story became a bit much in places. Far too many dialogue sections interrupted the fun game play. This may suit some but I prefer to play a video game more than watch or read it. Despite this it’s hard to ignore that Trial of Cold Steel III is a great RPG and well worth going back to school to experience.
Trials of Cold Steel III is another excellent addition to a franchise that gains so much of what makes it absorbing from the huge amount of background detail and world-building that's been achieved in earlier entries in the series. Newcomers should be aware that taking the time out to play Trials of Cold Steel I and II is advised to get the absolute maximum amount of enjoyment out of this one but, even if you're jumping in fresh, there's still plenty to love here once you find your feet. With a massive cast of well-written characters and tons of excellent combat and exploration spread across its epic running time, this is a top-notch addition to the Switch's library of JRPGs.
As the first major “Trails” release on Nintendo consoles, Trails of Cold Steel III offers little to excite players entering the series for the first time.
In an age when developers often compete with each other on who can provide the darkest timeline, or those that put the heroes through what could often be considered torture, it’s a breath of fresh air to play a game as truly wholesome as Trails of Cold Steel 3. The complexity of the story leaves you hanging on every word, and each line of dialogue feels authentic and meaningful.
Trails of Cold Steel III is a fantastic RPG with deep gameplay mechanics and a dense world to explore, but not one I’d feel comfortable recommending to those unfamiliar with the series.