"The idea of forcing someone to play through an 80+ hour-long RPG twice in order to experience critical lore is such a stupid decision." FE Three Houses fans: *quivering in their boots*
See, Three Houses gets a pass from me because the entire point of the game is to experience the story from multiple perspectives, so I don't have any issues there. With Cold Steel 2 and the Black Records, there's no difference of perspective to be had - you're basically playing through the same game twice, collecting The Black Records on the way (which can be missed, of course) and your reward for doing so is one short extra cutscene near the end of the game. It would've been SO MUCH BETTER if that quest was just incorporated into the main game from the start - forcing you to access it from a replay was completely unnecessary.
I find it so fascinating that everyone's ranking I've seen of these games is so wildly different. Even my own ranking changes every time I think about the series as a whole. I have Cold Steel III way higher than most probably do at time of writing despite the other Cold Steel games all being in the bottom half, but that could change the next time I replay them. What a magical series.
I would personally say 3rd is my favorite, and I think the dungeon crawling is what enables it to have such good and focused character writing. Being able to go for a 2-hour long diversion playing as a young sherazard works because you don't really have any immediate narrative pressure to move forward (Until the amazing ending chapters). Otherwise, these long diversions would be painful to sit through as you want to move the story forward. It's like you're moving through an anthology of short stories, and each one powers you up for the next combat challenge. Besides, going through Liberl for a 3rd time in a row would be pretty repetitive and tiring.
I personally like 3rd as well. Didn't have too much extra. Just a whole lot of story and combat. The doors were little lore treats rather than silly side quests.
Watching your breakdown is really making me look forward to the adventure I recently embarked on. I'm a somewhat recent convert to the wonderful world of Trails having finally played Sky FC not long ago and in Chapter 3 of SC right now. This series has been on my radar for a while as I did pick up Cold Steel 1-4 physically some time ago based on their reputation alone. Glad I did as just playing Sky FC made me fall in love to the point where I pre-ordered the collector's editions of Crossbell and Reverie. I'm now happily enjoying my adventure in Zemuria and am looking forward to seeing where this journey will take me.
The thing about the Trails series is that it’s “worst” is still a B-tier great game. The writing, lore, music, ever evolving gameplay mechanic, and overarching story is simply unmatched. I got into Trails through CS1 and 2, then played the Liberl Arc and Crossbell arcs. I was hooked instantly. I actually loved going back to FC1 after CS2.
Oh wow, my playthrough was similar. I got into Trails with Cold Steel and while I played, I checked out videos that explained some of the lore and the best way to play the series. I'm a console player so I thought I'd never get around to playing the Liberl Arc so at the time I went CS1, CS2, then Zero. But while playing Zero I was introduced to the Brights I decided to get a Steam Deck so I could play the games that started it all. I'm currently playing Sky SC and loving every minute. I'm honestly thinking of skipping Sky 3rd as I'm no fan of dungeon crawling. But I hear the game's foreshadowing is really good.
It's funny, a lot of the issues people have with Cold Steel 1 are what makes it work in my opinion. I get why it's a slow burn at the beginning, not only is it the start of a new arc but there are so many characters Rean is introduced to. To go along with the issue of there being so many characters, the game switches your group as you head out on field missions as it's another way to get to know them. Also let's not forget each of these characters are from different regions within the Empire thus you get to see things from their perspective, which is quite cool I think. As for the Persona-like bits, I think this works seeing as your 'home base' is a school. I think the bonding events along with some of the simple fetch quests were nice. For me, these things caused me to form an attachment to Thors in a way and made CS2's beginning and conclusion even more impactful. I've cleared only a few Trails games so far (CS1, CS2, Zero, and Sky1). I'm currently playing Sky SC and I'm just head over heels in love with this series. If I had to pick a favorite of those I've completed so far, I'd say Trails from Zero is probably my favorite.
Great video! I just finished Trails a month ago and I really liked your explanations and takes on the series! Huge agree that it is a journey worth embarking on!
It's fun to see how opiniens differ so much from fan to fan. I kinda gave up caring about the overarching story after Cold Steel 4, to me it's easily worst game in the series closely followed by CS1 and CS2. The ammount of cop outs, now we are frenemies moments and writing decisions that absolutely killed my investment into the story are honestly too much to count. Nobody is actually evil, everyone get's their redemption etc etc. And the one thing that I loved, because it had some fantastic delivery was the bad ending of CS4, which could have some awesome ramifications for the future of the story, instead we get more cookie cutter Saturday Morning Cartoon stuff
My brother in Aidios, I feel you. I tried to keep an open mind with CS4, because theoretically it could have pulled through and tied the arc together in a neat little satisfying bow. Suffice it to say it didn't. It _did_ manage to improve the previous games, but only because in hindsight those hadn't gone full Carebears yet.
Dont play reverie then haha its at its peak with the ridiculousness. Cold steel really ruined things for the series but im gonna stick till the end now after like what 10 games haha. Luckily its fun and packed full of content but these games are way too long now and overstay their welcome
nice ranking! personally my favorite is Reverie, it just had everything I wanted from a trails game, getting to play all my favorite characters across the series and seeing them interact with eachother 🥰 finalizing the character development of Rean and giving us an amazingly fun party in C route plus the best combat of the series yet!
Nice explanations. I personally have Reverie as my favorite. To be honest though, I found it the opposite, the story was short. I've seen other people share my opinion on that. The reverie corridor postgame extends the content but the actual story comparatively ends fast. CS IV is definitely up there too entirely because of the infinity war/endgame like moments.
The only issue I have with these games is it feels like I "need" a guide to get through them. There's already a lot of reading in game itself, but there is so much you can permanently miss if you don't go back and forth between the game and a guide.
Honestly I feel the same. I'm glad that by Cold Steel, the games were good at marking a lot of the hidden stuff on your minimap. The hidden quests from the Sky Trilogy were so annoying - most of them were so arcane that I don't believe anyone actually found them without a guide.
I started my Trails journey in may last year. I instantly fell in love with Estelle and Joshua and enjoyed every game since. I am currently playing Cold Steel 3 and loving every second! Great series
CS1 has one notable thing i think few people give it credit for: the transition from isometric sprite based art to full 3D. There were very few growing pains.
Far more than just 1, in my opinion (general Trails spoilers from Sky FC through CS2 below): CS1 rarely gets credit for going the extra mile not to spoil the games that preceded it by doing things such as referring to the orbal shutdown as "the crisis in Liberl", or the white Aion as "an unknown weapon". Meanwhile, it has to fight an uphill battle regarding its own narrative because, what is its reward for being so thoughtful? Azure stomps all over it, not only by it coming first in release order, but also by spoiling one of the biggest twists of CS1 and spitting in the face of CS2's ending for good measure despite the divulging of Erebonia's goings-on having minimal narrative impact on Azure's finale. Maybe CS1 and 2 would have been better if they'd been one game and they cut out the parts that don't move the plot forward, but CS1 starts at a massive narrative disadvantage that no Trails game (and hardly any game in general) before or since had to overcome. I personally loved the game and would absolutely have it in the top half of Trails games I've played myself, but it was also the very first Trails game I'd ever played and I know for certain that the ending wouldn't have blown my mind in the way that it did if I'd played in order.
It's interesting, I think how people rank Trails games really speaks to what their priorities are as a gamer. Trails is such a big series and such a consistently quality series that different people can have drastically different parts that they like. I'm currently playing CS3, so I don't know how I'll end up ranking the final three games of the series, but if I had to rank the series thus far, I'd probably go: Azure >= SkyFC > Sky3rd > SkySC > Zero = CS2 > CS1. I personally value challenging gameplay, characterization, and tight pacing as my highest values for Trails, while being less interested in the interconnected top-level plot. But I totally respect your rankings and I'm excited to see how the rest of the games play out.
I'm surprised you fond reverie long overall it's one of the shortest in the entire of the trails series taking an average of 40 hours to beat the main story. While playing it I found things went by very quickly
I agree so much with Cold Steel IV being my favorite as well (My top three is also Sky SC, Azure, and CSIV). I know people have issues, but my god I've never felt more personally rewarded or emotionally invested in a game like this before. Playing the games starting with Sky FC all the through, including Kuro 1 and 2, it's still my favorite and I don't think anything will be able to top it until a potential series finale arc.
I honestly disagree with all of your list 🤣🤣🤣 But i think that's the Magic of trails, even the chapters i don't like are greatest for some people... and in the end we all can argue and keep this series alive over the years.
Yo, it's been a while! Glad youtube served this one to me, lol. Interesting that you picked CS4 for the tops. For me, it has some of the highest highs but also some of the lowest lows. And that to me cancels each other out to be a middle of the pack game. (I'd have it 6th.) The 2nd act is almost entirely filler that I can only understand as existing so that more bonding events can happen with Rean. And some of the story choices have shaken my ability to take seriously the stakes the writers are wanting to pretend they have, something I still haven't been able to recover from to this day as much as I wish I could. (Avoiding spoilers here.) That said, almost every bit of your other rankings I would agree with, to roughly within a single placement of difference. The biggest changes are FC at the bottom, CS4 to the middle, and Sky 3rd to 3rd place.
I find it interesting, on PC, I think Reverie is the best port. Is the most professional port NIS gave us from the series and it's the best done one even if compared to the XSEED ports. I can choose between five types of buttons, the button prompts for the PS4 and XBOX are actually modern and do not use old style buttons like they did on CS3 and 4, and most of the game is stable and I can adjust stuff on the fly. After Azure, Reverie is the game with the most bug-fixes and updates so far on PC, while Cold Steel III and IV still have text issues, button prompts issues, and configurations issues, and in CS3 and 4 arts animations missing or being flipped the wrong way, and in CS3, S-crafts missing textures once in ten times you use it. That's why I prefer to play Cold Steel III and IV on PS4 instead, since I find their ports on PC lacking, and I doubt NISA would ever fix them. CSI and II are... well, frankly bad ports too, but they are better on PC than they are on console that's for sure. The rest of the series I always play on PC, CSIII and IV are the only ones I play on original hardware. I do find Reverie the most fun to battle, but I think of the entire series, the one I enjoy the most is Cold Steel III. Sky SC is fighting with it for top 1 for me constantly xD. Trails from Zero is also a high contender in my list. That being said: I think that of all ports, technically speaking, Reverie is the best on PC, and because of that, the most fun of them for me on PC. I really find it annoying how the little details killed the UI on the previous two games on PC and how they made insanely hard to mod the things I find good on the original releases back into the PC versions. XD
just letting you know you have Durante and his port company PH3 GmbH to thank for all of NISA's PC ports, his team does fantastic work, NISA themselves have nothing to do with the PC ports themselves just the localization
i think it's interesting how much the opinions can vary with this series. even in my least favorites in the series (cold steel 1 and 4) there is still plenty i enjoy within them so someone else liking them more is still understandable. and never did i ever regret playing through the series, even in its low points
CS2 is still probably my favourite gameplay wise, it’s the most fun to be able to explore the map at leisure and overdrive was a fun but broken mechanic 😂
Great video. Well thought out opinions and a good ranking. My list is pretty similar. Though I haven't played Reverie yet. With having to play Zero/Azure finally this spring combined with a busy summer, sickness and wanting to replay CS4 now with the full picture I haven't managed to get to it yet. The only differences on my list are: 1) No Reverie. 2) Sky 3rd is last. I agree with basically everything you've said. I always have an internal argument with myself over 3rd because It is simultaneously the best and worst of trails at times. Kevin's story is so good that it pains me to rank it last, but it just feels like it was missing out on major Trails qualities that make trails games Trails games. 3) I place CS4 all the way below Sky FC on your list. It's another one where it does so much good. But it's one of the few I actually agree have pacing issues and the only title I felt had some actual story writing mistakes. But I'm hopeful that Reverie will clear things up.
from what little ive played in trails, Sky FC is my peak comfort rpg, also the ending? masterpiece. i like Sky SC a lot too but hoo boy the last dungeon was really stretching my patience. as for what ive played of cold steel, CS1 is a perfectly fine jrpg.i even like it but the school setting does do it any favors.
I didn't love the last dungeon of Sky SC either. The character interactions were great but holy fuck the actual dungeoun itself was annoying as all hell.
I haven’t played any of the trails games other than trails of cold steel 1,2 and now i am playing the 3rd game.I wanna play the rest to tho, i really enjoyed cs(cold steel)
The fact that all the trails rankings are always so different from one person to another just shows that the games are all of high quality then it just depends what you appreciate in a game, earlier games have more consistent character building (usually thanks to a smaller cast) while later games have improved gameplay and brings the different characters and plot points together, it's not always well executed but as I said it all depends how important it is in the balance for you. Any of those games could be your n°1 and it wouldn't be weird. Now some people should chill a bit because I see so much hate on the cold steel series and don't get me wrong it's totally fine to be critical and we should all be ! But it seems for some people cold steel is like an insult to the holy trails series, it has flaws indeed but it is still a really high quality rpg.
They are huge - there's no way around that. But - and most everyone here will agree with me on this - the time investment is absolutely worth it. As for starting with Zero, the only reason why I'd caution against that is because there's a subplot carried over from the Sky games (involving Estelle, Joshua and Renne) that will be nowhere near as impactful if you don't play the Sky games first. But wherever you decide to start, I hope you decide to give them a try!
Humm, I have to say, I thought this was a spoiler free listing, but you have referred and showed several things that can be considered spoilers, you show Laura in a saldot/divine knight, and you mention altina from cold steel 2 being a part of class 7, the later one is definitely something you should not spoil!
I'm just now starting sky. It's my first trails game ever. The more I hear about cold steel, I feel like I might want to just skip it, but I also hear reverie is amazing
I would say don't judge it, just experience it for yourself. To me Cold Steel is my least favorite arc, but it's also not as bad as a lot of people go on about. A lot of the best parts of Cold Steel is pay offs from the older games in ways that are excellent, particularly in terms of lore and world building. And moreover, whether you have gripes about this or that trope, every game is just fun.
Cold Steel 1 was also my least favorite and "first" game I ever played in the series. Yet even still the worldbuilding and promise of all that seemed to be being built up in the story made Trails my favorite RPG series. I do prefer the faster pace of Cold Steel II and IV over the build up and introduction games of I And III, but none of the games fall below an 8/10 in my eyes.
FC & SC are at the top for me (SC is imho one of the best JRPGs ever made but a big part of that is due to the work done in FC to set it up), closely followed by Zero & Azure, then CS2. CS1 imho was mid, 3 & 4 were poor, and i hate pure dungeon crawlers so 3rd and Reverie are my bottom of the barrel picks. Also on the subject of Reverie, the character bloat is too much, Falcom were already taking piss with Cold Steel 4 and having to gear 15+ characters.
Lol dude definitely more my fault for watching the video even with the spoiler-free preface, but seeing some of that footage of crossbell not doing so good from azure as someone who’s playing through zero as my first trails game is such a massive spoiler 😅
Played six games so far and Sky 3rd was the only one I didn't like at all. If I had known that it was sooo much dungeon crawling I just would have watched the content of the doors and a story summary on RU-vid.
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I would put Sky FC closer to the top lover the banter and world building. I would also put Cold Steel 2 at the bottom, the pacing and epilogue was not great. The only reason I enjoyed Cold steel 2 was the mech battles.
I've 100%ed every game on PSN, and will eventually 100% game on Steam. In essence, I cannot rank SC and 3rd yet. The rest I can and I experienced Kuro in 100% full. So, my tentative rankings list. Might add more later... Worst to Best: From Zero CS 3 Sky FC CS 1 Nayuta Into Reverie Azure CS 4 CS 2 Kuro/Through Daybreak. If I also have to nix Daybreak, CS 2 wins it.
Finally someone who follows the official English releases like I do. I love this series so damn much and aside from maybe 1 game none of them made me completely disappointed or made me mad at any point...aside from the fact that they finished lol Well, my rankings would go like: 1.) Cold Steel 4 2.) Cold Steel 3 3.) Reverie 4.) Cold Steel 2/Sky SC 5.) Cold Steel 6.) Azure 7.) Zero 8.) Sky the 3rd If Zero and Azure had an English Dub I would've put them up higher on the list, Zero with Cold Steel and Azure with Cold Steel 2 and Sky SC but sadly we don't live in a perfect world. Maybe if Falcom ever decided to remake them in the future(and the Sky games too) that'll happen but for now I'll just have to contend with no voice acting in Zero and Azure(cause the Japanese voice are too distracting to me and I just end up voicing the characters myself anyway lol)
I've heard some bad things about the way CS4 chooses to wrap up its story from a thematic and character writing standpoint, and also how because of how huge its cast is, almost none of the characters are very humanized beyond fanservice and gameplay utility, which is especially a problem in the Japanese version. This makes me a little skeptical of your take on it, but I haven't played it yet, so I guess we'll see. Its nice to have even one reasonably articulate voice hyping it up to me, at the very least. That said, for the ones I've played, I disagree with a few of your takes here. I totally agree about Azure and Sky SC, although I will say I found the final dungeon of Azure way more overlong and tiring than SC's which at least had a really cool layout as a vacant ancient city with still-functioning rail and elevator shortcuts. I also agree completely about FC, but I would rank it wayyy higher because I value what it has more. I love slow-paced slice of life fantasy, so my respect for FC choosing to be that for basically its entire runtime is absolutely boundless. What really makes it for me, though, is the characters: I love every single one of them, and watching them take small adventures through this fun little country is legitimately still one of the high points of the series for me. Personally, I would rank it higher than Azure. The actual disagreements come from Zero and Sky Third. I really don't like Zero, and would honestly argue that given how much time Azure also spends developing the characters and setting via leisurely slice-of-life antics (much more compellingly, even) I would honestly argue that Zero is borderline skippable. Lloyd is such a bland protagonist for me compared to Estelle, making the focus on him unearned and unlikeable, and even the characters that I came to like in Azure (like Elie, Wazy, and especially Randy) are given surprisingly little depth. The only SSS member I felt any attachment to in this game was Tio. For how cool a setting Crossbell is, I think its also fairly unfun to explore in this game, especially compared to how Azure, which adds a ton of extra areas and a previously absent sense of interconnectivity, handles the exact same setting. I feel like people forget that the majority of dungeons in this game are just different areas of the Geofront. Finally, although I think the mystery angle is cool (although it's not like Sky FC wasn't also a mystery story), the payoff and final section are genuinely trash. The cult narrative and evil drugs stuff is just so dumb, and its a miracle they were able to find anything in it to build off of for Azure's plot. The Ernest stuff is even worse, and Azure makes the smart decision to drop the plotline lol. Like, even Estelle and Joshua showing up at the end is not enough to save this game's final chapter. Meanwhile, I love Sky the Third, and it might actually be my favorite game in the entire series so far. You're totally right that the psychological angle is the main positive aspect and the limited scope of the dungeon crawling is somewhat negative. But I think you understate the good and overstate the bad. Kevin's personal narrative is easily some of the most compelling and emotionally mature writing I have ever encountered in a JRPG, period, and I think he might be one of my favorite characters in fiction in general. And while the dungeon crawling does take some getting used to, it works brilliantly to reinforce the narrative. The different dream areas you go through and weird creatures you face work to show Kevin's mental entrapment and guilt, and subvert the typical series motif of free roaming, interconnected regions as a metaphor for the synergistically organized yet unbounded territory of interpersonal community--here, instead, you get not a network of flowing connection, but a labyrinth of incoherent isolation. This design choice doesn't even have the downside of robbing you of the deep NPC dialog found in other games, either, because the side stories have such stellar writing and such amazingly explorable flashback areas that, if anything, the background depth is even better than usual. Also, even the gameplay-focused dungeon crawling has some awesome aspects: how many games out there can you play a huge party of characters at levels in the 130s who you've known for over 100 hours, and customize them with insane nuclear level skills to fight dream superbosses? I know the later CS and Reverie games do this, but Third did it first and I'm guessing it actually develops those characters far more humanistically than those games (shoutout to Renne's ending trauma breakdown just remaining...quite realistically...unresolved and uncomfortable). But yeah, Sky 3 is peak, zero kinda sucks, that's my 15 bucks in only pennies.
Hmm havent played cold steel yet but seems like its the worst of the 3 arcs lol and you only like steel4 because this arc was so long you were forced to like the characters while zero did that in 2 games instead of 4 and sky also with 2 games cause the 3rd doesnt matter but cold steel 1-2 both bad and only 3rd game is ok so weird for 4 to be the highest not sure if its filled with callbacks i thought reverie was that but you said reverie could have been dlc so im assuming cold steel 4 is the fan service game but the arc is still the weakest and worst right overall if its the only game from the 4 thats in the top 5/10 right?
