For the first time, the Legend of Heroes franchise has made its way to the Nintendo Switch. We now know that Trails of Cold Steel IV will be coming to Switch in 2021, however, none of the previous games in the franchise were on the platform until now. For now, only Trails of Cold Steel III is available on Switch but this port is a great place to start, even if you haven’t played any of the previous games.

Before I dig into what Trails of Cold Steel III is all about, you should know that if you are entirely new to the franchise, there is a backstory option on the main menu that can get you up to speed. You should also know that all of the Trails of Cold Steel’s DLC is included in the Switch release. This is mostly cosmetic stuff but still, it is a great way to change up your characters’ looks.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III picks up a short while after Trails of Cold Steel II’s ending. Rean Schwarzer has now graduated Thors Military Academy, and the students of Class VII have vowed that a year after graduation they will meet up and hang out as a class once more. Rean becomes a teacher at the branch campus, a new campus affiliated with Thor’s Military Academy, and becomes in charge of a new Class VII.

While teaching his students and bonding with them, they uncover that the shadow organization Ouroboros and other organizations are plotting to cause more chaos. It is up to Rean and his classmates, old and new, to get to the bottom of it all.

Since this is a review for the Switch version, I’m going to assume that you haven’t played any of the previous Trails of Cold Steel games and dig into the mechanics from scratch. If you’ve played the previous games, this one isn’t very different in terms of combat, minus a few additions.

All of your characters have a specified damage type. Strike, slash, or piercing damage can be inflicted on enemies. Enemies have a specified weakness to one or more of these damage types, and if you hit them with their weakness, you can execute a critical strike. After a successful critical strike, you can do an assist move, which has your linked party member attacking for extra damage. I’ll discuss more about linking in a moment.

After accumulating Brave Points by doing successful assist attacks, you can do a multitude of things. One option is the new Order system, which allows you to use Brave Points to extend beneficial buffs across your entire party. These orders do not take your turn either, so you can use an order and then issue commands as normal.

You could also spend 3 or 5 Brave Points all at once, to execute stronger team-attacks after a successful critical hit. There are other uses for Brave Points, but those are the main ones you need to know about. Brave points also come into play during Panzer Soldat / Divine Knight battles, allowing you to execute powerful special attacks against other mechs you may be facing.

These battles play out somewhat like rock, paper, scissors, in that each part of the Panzer Soldat or Divine Knight you face has varying chances to be hit with a critical strike. By finding the weak point for your enemy through trial and error, you can knock their HP down and achieve a victory.

Circling back to regular battles though, each character has powerful skills known as Crafts. They take CP, which regenerates as you fight. These crafts can be offensive, defensive, or provide buffs, healing, and support to the party. Each character also has a powerful S-Craft move, similar to a Limit Break. These can only be used when you have 100 CP or more. However, if you save up to the max amount of CP before you use an S-Craft, it does extra damage to the enemy.

The Orbment system also returns from previous games. By slotting quartz into your Orbment system, you can utilize the effects of said quartz. Some quartz crystals provide spells, some provide passive bonuses, and higher quality quartz can actually do both. Each character also has a slot for a Master Quartz, which is a stronger form of Quartz that levels up over time, providing higher tier bonuses at higher levels.

At the start of the game, your characters can only have one Master Quartz equipped. However, later on in the game, you are able to equip a “Sub Quartz” which lets you get the passive bonus from another Master Quartz without getting the extra spells attached to it. Sub Quartz will also level up over time when you have one equipped.

With that in mind, an important tip is to equip a Master Quartz as a Sub Quartz that is either on a party member that isn’t in your party, or that isn’t equipped to a party member at all. This way, you’re leveling up all of your quartz evenly over time.

Regular quartz can be crafted using Sepith, which is gained in chests, in battles, and sometimes as quest rewards. There is a type of Sepith connected to each element, as well as Sepith Mass. Sepith Mass is basically junk Sepith that you exchange for currency in-game. You gain Sepith Mass from battles and there is no penalty for exchanging them, so doing so as often as possible is a great idea.

You can use Sepith to unlock slots in your Orbment, craft new quartz, or trade regular Sepith for money as well. I wouldn’t recommend trading normal Sepith for money though, as you’ll have plenty of places to use it early on.  Enemies also have elemental weaknesses, so it is important to balance your party with offensive and support spells in order to make sure you can overcome the toughest of enemies.

Of course, just like any other Trails game, you can also equip weapons, armor, and accessories to each of your party members. There are also cosmetic items that I previously mentioned that you can equip to give them a new look if you so choose.

Along with all of that, there is dungeon crawling, fishing, cooking, and all sorts of other mechanics that build up Trails of Cold Steel III as an immensely in-depth RPG. Like with all of Nihon Falcom’s creations, there is lore everywhere and plenty of vibrant, interesting characters to interact with.

As an instructor, Rean has lessons to do while on campus with his students. However, you also have free days, where you will undertake quests and side quests for the townspeople. When you take your students outside of the academy on field assignments, you will also get quests and side quests. Doing all the quests in a given chapter, as well as excelling at certain things in a chapter’s story will get you points that you can use to raise your instructor rank.

Your Instructor rank will give you varying rewards as it levels up and is a general metric of how well you are doing. It also encourages you to explore and do as many side quests and things as possible, since some of them are hidden in certain areas that you might not explore unless you’re actually looking around off the beaten path.

Trails of Cold Steel III isn’t an easy game, even on the easiest difficulty. However, it is full of content and has a lot of depth to it. If you’ve never played a game in the franchise before, this is a great franchise to get into. There are lots of tutorials and there is a journal that you can reference for help as well.

On top of that, the controls are solid and you can take it on the go if you’re playing the Nintendo Switch version. With all the standard things you’d expect from an RPG, along with lore and a lot of great story content, you can’t go wrong with Trails of Cold Steel III. This is also a great way to get started before Trails of Cold Steel IV hits PS4 later this year and Nintendo Switch in 2021.

I really hope this means they’ll port the first two games over to Switch as well so that people can enjoy the entire Trails of Cold Steel epic all on one system. Fans of the franchise are bound to enjoy this port, but it is great for newcomers too. Don’t sleep on this one, you won’t regret picking it up.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III was provided by NIS America for this review.

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The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III

$59.99

9.5

Score

9.5/10

Pros

• Beautiful Environments
• Fun Quests and Side Quests
• Fishing Mini-Game is Simple but Enjoyable
• Lots of Things to Do and See
• Excellent Replayability

Cons

• Orbment System Can be Confusing