The plot is centered around Rean Schwarzer and his time with the students of "Class VII" at Thors Military Academy. The class spends a year conducting field studies that take them to various cities and areas across Erebonia. In the background, tensions increase between four aristocratic Families and a group of Reformists over private armies and the centralization of power.
The complete story is told over the course of four full games, with the first Trails of Cold Steel game acting as an introduction to the world of Erebonia, so you'll need to be invested for the long haul. The narrative focus is squarely on the cast's relationships with each other as they learn about the country and its various internal problems alongside the player. Class VII was constructed as a mixed bag of people from different places and social backgrounds, and given how much of the content is centered around people, lore, and world building, I was genuinely surprised by how shallow the individual character arcs were (highlight to read):
- Rean is the leader because everyone loves him and he is good at getting everyone to cooperate. He is secretly related to important people (in more ways than one), uses a coveted fighting style, and has a horrible flaw that is really not a flaw at all (super saiyan stuff). Too much of a Mary Sue for my tastes.
- Elliot's family forces him to do something he dislikes, until he learns to follow his heart.
- Gaius is just kinda there. You could probably remove him from the game and it wouldn't effect much.
- Laura is an honorable warrior-noble who hates mercenaries because she views the profession as being a dishonorable one. She hates Fie, but it isn't clear through the character's actions alone why she does. The game has to outright tell the player, "Laura hasn't liked Fie since we learned she was a merc". This one felt the most out of nowhere, with the two eventually working together in a scene that is poorly set up and resolved as quickly as it started.
- Jusis and Machias have a noble vs commoner rivalry. This arc happens twice - once for Jusis and Mack, and again with Rean and Mack. These two could have easily been combined into a single "not all nobles are bad" arc.
- Emma is the reclusive smart girl. She is secretly a witch, which felt out of place in the technology heavy world of Erebonia.
- Alisa is the rich kid who never got attention from her parents, but learns they only want the best for her.
- Crow is setup as the secret big bad for seemingly no reason. He acts fishy on more than one occasion, and the "hidden" villain is known only as "C" for most of the game.
There are the two child soldiers, Millium (13?) and Fie (15?). I know its typical anime stuff to have kids for this kind of thing, but Millium can't stay quiet or idle for more than five seconds. How is she a soldier? War can mess people up for life and they acknowledge that being a child soldier isn't any fun with Fie, but then they have Millium acting like its all fun and games. My tolerance for this sort of thing is really low.
If I had to pick a favorite character it would be Margarita - the overweight underdog I can't help but root for. Margarita's biggest role is in a side quest where she meets and gets rejected by her crush who assumed she would be a slender, pretty girl. Margarita doesn't let that get her down though, and if the exam results are anything to go by, Margarita's got more book smarts than Rean.
The cast is not awful per se. Most of the expectations placed upon them by their heritage or upbringing ties into the story's overarching themes, but for a game so centered around its characters and their place in the world it was disappointing to have so many arcs with obvious resolutions or contradictions. Machias for example, comes to realize that one's social standing doesn't reflect on how good or bad of a person you are. However, you meet dozens of nobles throughout the game that justify Machias' initial attitude towards them. He only really seems to have respect for Rean and Laura, who are marked as being atypical for most nobles. Trails of Cold Steel also has a tendency to overuse dialogue and exposition to tell its story, particularly during school lectures and train rides that regurgitate lore about a place before setting the player loose in the area they just talked about. Then there are the problems that arise between characters, leading to disharmony in combat, usually link breaks. Instead of letting the player learn why this is happening organically through the gameplay or narrative, someone will outright explain the situation to the player.
Side note: ToCS has its share of JRPG anime sex gags. They're common enough with these types of games, but I grew increasingly annoyed with them the longer ToCS went on. My tolerance for this sort of thing is very low. They ignore moral issues and are used purely for fan-service, not as a juxtaposition to real life or to say something about the characters who experience them:
• The opening moments have Rean face-plant on Alisa's chest.
• The princess and Elise (Rean's younger sister) are both in love with Rean, often talking about marrying him. No one seemingly disapproves, possibly because Rean is adopted so it wouldn't "technically" be incest (still inappropriate IMO). Rean was also about 5 when he was adopted and Elise was about 3 at that time. That's got to be long enough for the Westermarck Effect to kick in.
• Multiple jokes about Emma's chest size.
• Sara and Sharon, two adults in a position of power and authority, hit on Rean despite him being a student.
• Rean petting Alisa, Elise, and Towa like dogs despite them telling him not to do it.
• Gwen Reinford as the gross old man trope.
The gameplay follows a repeating structure:
• Free day + Old schoolhouse (dungeon)
• Pratical Exam
• Field study
On free days Rean can wander the academy campus and the neighboring town of Trista. There are shops to peruse in town or bonding events with classmates that will increase their Combat Link. As an unofficial member of the Student Council, Rean can also help students in need of assistance; optional side quests essentially. At the conclusion of the free day, Rean enters the Old schoolhouse, which acts as a multi-level dungeon used for leveling up Class VII.
The way the game coerces the player into learning the finer details of Erebonia's lore is done in the most boring way possible - literal book studying and tests. These are coupled with Practical Exams, tactical tests that require the player to meet certain combat conditions in order to pass. Practical Exams are then followed up with a Field study. Field studies split Class VII into two teams, each going to a different region of the Erebonian Empire via train.
Paper exams challenge the player's knowledge of lore and practical exams test the players understanding of combat mechanics.
The teams then have to perform a variety of optional and mandatory tasks over the next couple of days. Field studies are meant to convey each region's ideologies and conflicts by giving the player a chance to see the region and meet important political figures, companies, and factions associated with that part of Erebonia. However, not enough time was spent developing these regions or the activities within them. The majority of field study tasks consisted of mundane things that told me very little about the region, such as herding sheep in the the Nord Highlands or testing out new shoes in the city of Heimdallr. Other tasks were straight up generic quests, completely unrelated to a specific region, like finding a lost kitten, changing light bulbs or fighting a monster on the road. They were uninteresting and uninformative filler.
Near the end of a Field study something will happen that forces Class VII into a monster infested dungeon. While only four characters can participate in battle, they can be swapped out for a reserve at any time. The turn-based combat consists of standard attacks, spells (Arts), and advanced attacks (Crafts) unique to each character. At some point in the story each student will learn an especially devastating "S-Craft" that can be triggered at any time. It's an elegantly simple combat system.
Members of Class VII also have special access to ARCUS units, cell phone-like devices with slots for quartz (magical orbs) that grant access to additional Arts, abilities, and buffs. The ARCUS units enable "combat links", a tether between two characters that allows for follow-up "link" attacks with the tether partner. A successful link attack will earn a single "Bravery Point". Three Bravery Points can be used to perform a "Link Rush" with a single partner, or "Link Burst" with the entire party.
Trails of Cold Steel is basically a social essay about a fictional country, one that takes far too long to introduce Erebonia to the player. There are seven chapters in total, but it isn't until chapter 4 that all the major players have assembled and the story starts to move forward. At its core the plot is probably only 15 to 20 hours long, padded out into a 60 to 80 hour game. It's a slow burn. I have heard that the Trails in the Sky and Crossbell series setup the world better, but I really shouldn't have to invest 60+ hours in six different games from two series to understand the lore of Trails of Cold Steel, itself a four parter.
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