The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV

One of the best JRPGs of our generation. Truly an honor to be able to play and complete this game. Do yourselves a favor and play it as soon as possible. Now onto Reverie!

A truly epic game in the Trails series. Granted, it took 3 games at over 100 hours each to reach this epic blend of storytelling, action, intrigue and resolution in the Cold Steel arc, and it has left me thoroughly exhausted, and close to burn out. Some of the criticisms are valid in that the series has gone into a total feel-good, no consequences route. You can hit someone with a lightning bolt, follow that up with a nuclear detonation, drop a mountain on them and then rip a meteor out of the heavens to strike your foe, and after all that, everyone stands up, banter like old friends, and the storyline determines the winner. That, ultimately, there are no consequences for any action. It's made me take a long pause after spending over a thousand hours, and hundreds of dollars to get to this point in the grand Trails multi-arc saga. The series has graduated to cupcakes and tea parties, but very little red meat. Hopefully that will change with the later titles in the Trails series. So why a positive review if it seems that its just turned into a Mickey Mousekateer convention? The story is good, the characters highly memorable who bring real chuckles and tears, and we finally get rewarded with actual resolutions to the many tangled webs. It's the best in the series, and probably the best game in the whole Trails saga up to this point. Just took four very long, very expensive games to finally get to the only one that really matters. IMO only, your mileage may vary. For me though, even though I have about 5 more games to play in the Trails series, after the Cold Steel arc, I need to backburner it and play something with a bit more meat and a LOT less sugar.

It's just ok but youre still gona play it cause youre 9 games in and you can't stop now

Cold steel is by far the worst part of the trails series and I'm glad with this it's finally over. Too many characters makes it so you don't give a damn about any of them. Half the cutscenes are skippable because they are some form or another of "I believe in the bonds of class 7". Somehow it made a fantastic and unique JRPG series into the most generic anime crap you could possibly immagine. And this game is by far the worst of them all. Bringing back all the characters you actually care about, but giving them barely any dialogue to let their personality shine through. It's a fascimile of what the series once was. And if the trails through daybreak series doesn't improve on this front I'm afraid the series may as well be dead and gone.

A Saga That Collapsed Under Its Own Weight 🎬 Story – A Narrative Lost in the Fog Cold Steel IV is supposed to be the grand finale — the emotional payoff to years of build-up. Instead, it's like watching five anime shows play at the same time, none of them finishing a single episode before switching. The main plot? Constantly shoved aside. Just as things get interesting — like Rean breaking out of the Black Workshop — the game slams the brakes and forces you to go flower-picking or help some NPC you haven’t seen since Cold Steel II. Meanwhile, the world’s supposedly ending. The pacing is a disaster. You’ll go from major story events to three dungeons and 12 bonding scenes for side characters you barely remember. It's exhausting. You're juggling 500 characters, all with subplots, flashbacks, and dramatic speeches that don’t lead anywhere. The bloat would be tolerable if it was optional — but the game pushes it like it's mandatory. 🧍‍♂️ Characters – Everyone Is a Trope There are just too many. Most fall into classic anime archetypes: Stoic swordsman Perky airhead Shy magic girl Mysterious guy with glasses And they all want Rean. Even characters who barely interacted with him before are suddenly dropping love confessions or pinning him to walls. It’s not romance — it’s a fan club disguised as a war story. With 30+ characters in the mix, no one gets real development. Just recycled catchphrases and overdone dramatic moments. 💬 Dialogue – Padding the Padding The writing is weak and repetitive. Characters spend whole scenes reacting with “…” or restating the same info three different ways. Conversations often go nowhere and feel like they’re stalling for time. Then there’s the voice acting: one line voiced, next five not. Dramatic yell, then silence. It feels half-finished, like they ran out of budget mid-cutscene. ⚔️ Combat – Still Solid (But Drags) Combat’s still good — strategic, customizable, satisfying. But the game abuses it. You'll get thrown into long dungeons just to delay story progress. Bosses can last 30–40 minutes, and some have one-shot moves that force you to restart from scratch. It goes from fun to fatiguing real fast. 🧭 Pacing & Side Content – A Forced Marathon Reaching a big story moment? Too bad — now you’re doing three bonding events, a fetch quest, and maybe fishing. Skip side content, and you miss upgrades and important dialogue. Do it all, and you burn out before anything meaningful happens. The game treats every side activity like it’s as important as the main story — and it kills the momentum completely. 📉 Final Thoughts Cold Steel IV could’ve been incredible. But it lost focus and drowned in its own side content. The main story is buried under hours of filler. Characters are thin, the pacing is painful, and the payoff rarely feels earned. If you’re into bonding scenes, waifus, and checking in on every NPC from the last decade? This game’s for you. But if you’re here for pacing, momentum, and a satisfying end to the saga? You’ll be stuck wondering how a story this big managed to feel so empty.

Jesus Christ. Completing this journey was an honor. This is the end of the Trail of Cold Steel saga. And I am so glad I was able to make it to the end of it. ♥♥♥♥ got me left in tears and crying. It was so emotional, story-driven and just made my whole experience fully satisfied. This was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ peak. This is the ninth installment of the Legend of Heroes franchise, and I recommend for those who want to enter this game to follow the story in order: This is pretty much got some Marvel Endgame level of lore and characters that this review will contain huge spoilers. The following games are played in order Trail in the Sky FC, Trail in the Sky SC, Trail in the Sky the 3rd, Trails from Zero, Trails to Azure, Trails of Cold Steel 1, Trails of Cold Steel 2, Trails of Cold Steel 3. There is the anime called Northern war which explains the North Ambria War and Rean involvement. You can watch it before Trail of Cold Steel 3. However there is also a mention of two specific people who are only shown prior from the Zero manga and the Cold Steel 2 Steel Drama CD. You can read them both here: Manga: https://mangadex.org/title/7145da84-8be7-4a82-8d91-4b3d872ac9d1/eiyuu-densetsu-rei-no-kiseki-prestory-shinpan-no-yubiwa CD Drama: http://www.trailsofcoldsteel.com/cs2/memoirs2.html Now where do I start. If you reading this review, spoilers. Big spoilers. This story takes place after TOCS3, where Rean is captured within the Black Workshop. He is powerless and running amok due to his curse / power. After escaping the events of TOCS3. Juna, Kurt and Altina are tasked alongside old class 7 in finding their classmates and fellow new class 7 members while finding a way to rescue Rean. This game seeks to tackles a lot of emotions, fears, reunions and barriers which you have to face while going through the story. While going through the story you will meet and reunite with protagonist from Librel and Crossbell saga. [spoiler]Lloyd, Ellie, Tio, Randy, Kea returns to the stage alongside them are Estelle, Joshua, Agate, Scherazard, Josette to help finish off the finale of Trail of Cold Steel. As you will see them all reunite and interact with those in the Trail of Cold Steel series.[/spoiler] You can't get better than this, there are so much more including side characters from returning sagas who come back to bring this huge saga to a conclusion. This is probs my favourite legend of heroes game or on par with Trails to Azure. This story was so jam packed with heart wrenching, heartwarming and filled with satisfaction that you won't get from previous games. While also concluding some characters stories with full satisfaction. What a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game. The characters roaster for this game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ huge. If you really think and add it all together (You are playing about 40 different characters) like holy ♥♥♥♥. Some of them may have some dumb down crafts and all. But it's so good to get to play some of the returning characters again after so long. You get to use them quite a few times and some almost all the time and it's fulfilling. They brushed up on the Graphics this time around, the first time I haven't crashed so it's a big plus. You could spend hours just immersing not just the characters but also their lore they provide. While concluding their arc. Felt like a 5 star restaurant. I was eating well while hyping and crying my eyes out. The gameplay in this game go crazy. I do wish they brought the old burst mechanic from Trails to Azure back. But I can understand that is broken af lol. However that doesn't mean it wasnt good. IT WAS REALLY GOOD. Brave order this time around was diverse and absolutely fantastic. You pretty much form different strategies and builds to accommodate different ways of battle and this game goes all out. THERE IS NO SECONDARY MQ RESTRICTION TOO. What an insane change, that gave me full creativity over what to build on different characters. I haven't had this much fun with making op or dumb builds since Trails of Cold Steel 2. Although ♥♥♥♥ can get pretty busted later on and makes things annoying or easy. Which leads into nightmare difficulty being ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying. There are certain requirements in getting extra AP (Academic Points) that make fighting some bosses really horrible. Sometimes I want to take my time fighting the boss but I'm scared I will lose out on rewards. It wasn't too hard but I don't know what it would be like for a casual player tackling the hardest difficulty while trying to 100%. I manage to just think a bit and use strategies culminated from previous games to push through. But at a certain point: ♥♥♥♥ gets too easy lol. I did follow a guide so I suggest looking up one from Zoelius to go through if you need to 100% and understand some strats. Music as usual is bussin. It's not better than Crossbell saga but there are some music that just slaps. Like the overworld music is just an absolute banger. There are some battle themes and location themes that just really hit your soul at times. I just wanna fish and just chill while listening to some of them lol. You will eventually get returning music from previous saga although not the popular ones but the side themes that fit the environment you are going back to. Sidequest is VERY IMPORTANT. There are literally sidequests that conclude the story of specific characters like [spoiler]Renne and her real family, Ellie and her mother, Joshua and Ash[/spoiler]. While there are some that just make funny interactions or even combine characters from all 3 sagas in jam packed sidequests. You also have to do every side quest to unlock the TRUE ENDING OF THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ GAME. I almost missed one and thank god I didn't. There is the true ending and the post credit which is (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ IMPORTANT AS ♥♥♥♥ ALMOST IMPORTANT TO THE ENTIRE STORY). Idk why they are hiding it as you have to load an epilogue save after watching the true ending. Stupid and its important as ♥♥♥♥. True ending is unlocked once you have done the normal ending and have [spoiler]Gotten the quest called ??? from Toval via orbmail[/spoiler]. You just load the clear before state and the true ending is yours. The sidequests are so good and amazing that honestly, I'm glad I didn't miss one. It was worth it and got me ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ emotional. Some side quests even change the way your characters are feeling and some even get characters something new to wield or wear throughout their journey. Wooo collectibles. A lot of them as usual. There is actually a book series called Three & Nine. Which spoilers [spoiler]It's literally a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ true event from the next game Trails into Reverie, detailing how Swin and Nadia killed the emperor and escaped garden[/spoiler]. Absolutely wow. It is best that you collect gifts, photos, etc throughout your journey as they can get you some god level rewards later on. Some of them are also tied to special events and secret events that can be lore and nice to watch. It's annoying but if you do it, it will be worth it. I recommend this game because it's my favourite game so far. This is the end of the Trail of Cold Steel saga. I am sad as ♥♥♥♥ that it's over but I'm also happy that I got to experience it for the first time. This game answers a lot of lore so bare with the game.It's definitely a knowledge check of a game so make sure you are up to speed / date with every lore you can think of. Everyone came back and reunited. My three favourite protagonists interacting was just all I needed to say about this game. I have concluded Trail of Cold Steel but it isn't the end. There is still one final game before we reach Calvard Arc. I am so ready to play this game as I have been holding it off until Kuro no Kiseki comes this year. The game that will sum it all up. Everything has led me to this point. I am finally going to be up to date with the series for the first time ever. I will see you all over in the latest Legend of Heroes game: THE LEGEND OF HEROES: TRAILS TO REVERIEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the worst downgrade in writing quality I have ever seen in a series. 3 had me hopeful for what was to come. 4 crushed that hope with endless speeches and monologues about resolve and friendship for every single major fight in the game. All the time. Where every character gets to say something. This is not an exaggeration, it is literally every single time. Half of the games runtime is this and nothing else. They completely undermine all the stakes set at the end of 3, all the hopelessness, all the potential for character growth, by just resolving every single problem with asspull after asspull because these character's aren't allowed to overcome any adversity in any logical manner. Character agency is fully removed as a plot device is blamed for everything, further obliterating any chance for good character development, as well as giving a lazy excuse to redeem any antagonist. Also, they all love Rean very much because he is perfect in every single way and any flaw can be blamed on something else. Your favourite trails characters? They have heard of him and also think he's very cool and awesome and amazing. I refuse to believe that this is the same series as Azure and Sky. It is a fanfiction pretending to be an entry. Do not play 4. Just watch a summary somewhere, because that would be better than playing this frustrating waste of time.

entirety of cold steel is a pitiful shadow of the sky/crossbell games worst dialogue worst plot worst cast of characters worst soundtrack due to signa worst villains (there are none) nothing was gained nothing was lost nothing was learned