The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III

Quality of life improvements, graphical/atmospheric/character-design improvements. A nice start to the continuation of Class VII and Rean Schwarzer. The anime vibes are turned up to the n'th degree. I love these characters/new-students a lot more than the previous games from first glance, but maybe thats the improved graphics and design. Playing through 1 was a pain at times but paid off in the end. 2 was suuuuuper fun in the middle had a total blast with story and combat, but sorta slow at the beginning and the end was good but one of thee most drawn out prolonged endings I've ever witnessed (which almost ruined it tbh). I've always been drawn to this combat style for turn based and honestly can say it's the funnest style of turn based I've ever played. This series takes an aquired taste because the burn can be slow but once it catches you and picks up it's a very fun ride. EDIT after 42 hours: As much as I liked the concept of watching characters grow up and live on in a changing world, but man does this game do all the same poor decisions as 1 and 2. Super intense beginning of the game and then for middle of the game it feels really slow, repetitive, and nothing really happens that's exciting or gives a lot of tension, this game has no build up potential after awhile, it's all so predictable. I'll keep playing to finish but definitely would warn people about the bad stuff in this series. Like, random note, I get tired of all the name dropping of people and places, like I want to see things happen, not explain that in detail while character just moves their mouth. I thought when Juna was explaining her past while she was really sad and the new class VII stayed back, was so boring and I wished they would've just shown the experience and seeing Rean save her and realize like "oh yea this was from TOCS 2 when we went to crossbell.." but nope we just heard Juna in a very depressed tone explain it all. Also have not seen instructor Sara once at all and am very disappointed by that as she was my favorite character by far... There is a lot of pointless dialogue and a majority of the game feels like I'm watching and playing a filler arc/episodes until the end. The "hide" everything in mystery but its beyond predictable and we know who the masked guy is come on... They literally masked the same person in the first game and the "naruto/sasuke" relationship between MC/masked-guy is continuing but is prolonged and delayed for what seems like hours and hours. Very disappointed with how the hype of a series can ruin the experience, I'll be surprised if I can play through this.