The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III

I'd rate Trails of Cold Steel III an 8 out of 10. First the pros. The fishing mini game has been revamped again and it is a lot more engaging than previous iterations in the cold steel arc. Fishing bait is easier to come by, the meter relies on timing rather than button mashing, and fishing for the first time in a spot will allow you to catch the unique fish of that area without having to spend a great deal of time hoping for a chance encounter based on appearance rates. I also like how the master quartz system has been reworked to allow the use of two for each character. It allows for both interesting combinations of passive abilities and arts as well as the ability to level up multiple quartz at the same time. This can allow you to min-max characters more easily and give you a lot more options to how you approach encounters although this can cause combat to become more trivial than previous trails games. The story continues to be good with several interesting twists. The game finds a way to allow characters from the first two games to join your party periodically so you won't have to miss them too much like I was expecting as they graduated before Rean. On the mixed end Mira seems more plentiful in this game and you can be drowning in quartz and powerful items without trying too hard. Also on the mixed end is how maps now display markers indicating most hidden quests and events. To some degree this is good for players who don't want to have to talk to every character to find hidden items and objectives but it is a departure for the series which prides itself on creating an identity for almost all of the minor NPCs. On the negative end of things I felt the translation on this one had a few small issues here and there. I also felt some of the writing was a little more repetitive than other iterations in the series although part of that may be an attempt to make it easier for people to remember everything that is going on across the series and this game in particular as it seemed longer than some of the others. Finally I would have liked combat to be a bit more challenging. I normally play these games on hard instead of nightmare on the first playthrough as new game plus is often expected for nightmare. This time I think I could have gotten away with nightmare right off the bat. I like the new orders system but the addition of this along with some of the other changes like the master quartz and items made combat generally too easy. If you have been playing these games for a while you can probably bump the difficulty up one notch above where you usually default too. Overall I like the game and I like most of the changes but think some of the advantages given out should be toned down to maintain a challenge.