The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III (Extracurricular Edition) (Nintendo Switch)

Well, if you like the series, it's an awesome game!!

Another enjoyable falcom jrpg gem worth checking out.

As a fan of the first two Trails of Cold Steel games (played on Vita), I eagerly pre-ordered this. I have to confess to some disappointment, although this remains a solid game that many will enjoy. The Switch port is good, but it does not look much better than 1 and 2 did on the gorgeous OLED Vita screen.While there was progression in design between 1 and 2 (e.g. more open world exploration, greater focus on mechs), there is not much here that moves us forward. There is a new 'break' mechanic in combat (new at least to the series), but little else. Indeed the linearity of the game erases the changes made in Cold Steel 2.For newcomers, this is a JRPG which combines visual novel story-telling with Persona-style school sim elements combined with quest driven dungeon exploration (probably a 75/25 split). It is an engaging mix and one that Falcom could mine for years. These games feel like PS2 era JRPGs and there aren't many direct competitors on current consoles.But I have to confess - I am 44 hours in and not even half way through. The game is extremely bloated. It is full of flashbacks to previous games (this may be confusing for newcomers) as well as flashbacks to ebents from Cold Steel 3 itself (is our memory so bad!?) and has dozens of characters, all of whom are obliged to speak whenever they are on screen (I have come to dread crowd scenes). The plot and dialogue lacks some of the charm of the earlier games. I find myself skipping cut scenes and dialogue and I haven't done that in a Trails game before. The writers seem unsure about whether to write for new or returning players and so every scene seems to play out twice, once for newcomers (lots of exposition) and again for veterans (nods to previous games). This makes the game feel repetitive, slow and patronising.To me, this feels like the difference between Persona 3, 4 and Persona 5. Trails is like P5 - it has all the elements of the earlier games, but it is twice the length, in love with the sound of its own voice and lacks a bit of the personality and magic. If you have 90 hours to spare and expect to spend over half of it in cut scenes, you may enjoy this more than me.

working well