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TLDR:

Trails of Cold Steel III (ToCS3/CS3) is the eighth game of the Legend of Heroes (Trails) series. You should NOT jump into the series from this game; at least start from Trails of Cold Steel 1 or from the beginning in Trails in the Sky FC! You encounter major characters that appeared in previous Trails arcs (Trails in the Sky trilogy and Trails from Zero/to Azure duology) and would be missing out on major plot implications without having played previous titles.
CS3 is the start of the second half of the Erebonia arc of Cold Steel following the duology of Cold Steel 1 and 2. The graphics and gameplay have been improved across the board, the new cast of students has a fun dynamic about them, the game has a great soundtrack, and there is even a fun card-game minigame to partake in. The story is largely a "set-up" for CS4 and can feel like it is proceeding pretty sluggishly (in Trails fashion), but all these events build and climax into something that feels profound and grand on an amazing scale.

GENRE:

Turn-based, story-driven JRPG

GAMEPLAY:

CS3 largely retains the combat system of other Trails games but makes the battle controls more streamlined and button-input focused, replacing the wheel of input navigation in more recent games. For example, now instead of scrolling the wheel until you get to Crafts, you can just press (PS4 face button) Triangle, or if you want to use items, you can just press (D-pad) Left. Other new additions include the brave order system, which allows you to deploy orders to your team during combat that buff certain stats (e.g. lower turn speed delay or STR+ & ATS+ for three turns) using BP which is accumulated whenever you unbalance an enemy. The break system is also introduced which gives all enemies a secondary bar that can be broken by hitting their weaknesses, and when the bar is broken the enemy's turn will be delayed and they will take increased damage until they recover.
All characters can now equip a sub-quartz alongside their master quartz, but the only caveat is that they will only gain some a few from the quartz as opposed to all of them.
The rest of combat is pretty standard, unchanged Trails combat: turn order manipulation, enemy turn delaying, S-crafts, Crafts, arts, ailments, follow-up attacks, divine knight battles, etc. largely remain the same.
In terms of general gameplay, you will find yourself doing more of the same as previous Trails games: complete given quests before proceeding with main story, do a main story encounter, get some kind of free day of downtime/small story bits, and repeat. Besides that, you can be prompted to play the optional card game "Vantage Masters" with named/random NPC's to earn new cards/card masters, and eventually obtain a new master quartz if you win all encounters.

GRAPHICS/PERFORMANCE:

CS3 runs on a new and improved engine from CS1&2 and thus is probably more demanding than those games. I first played it on my old PC before upgrading (AMD FX 6300 & RX 480 8GB) on Highest Settings with no issue. Of course, YMMV based on your own specs. The game looks much better than CS1&2 with higher quality character models, better animations, detailed environments, and improved menu/combat UI.
REVIEWER'S PC SPECS


CPU
Ryzen 5 5600


GPU
RX 6800 XT 16 GB


RAM
16 GB 3200 CL16



STORY:

CS3 takes place about two years after the events of CS2. You retain the role of the protagonist, Rean Schwarzer, who has now graduated from Thors Military Academy and is about to start his new job as an instructor at Thors Military Academy's new Branch Campus. While learning to guide his new students, you will encounter familiar faces, both allies and foes alike. Ouroboros, the mysterious society that constantly rears its head for no discernible reason, is active again performing strange experiments while people that appear to have died also suddenly emerge from out of the blue. It is up to Rean to fulfill his promise to his old Class VII friends, and new Class VII allies, to fight back against these mysterious forces and save Erebonia.

STRENGTHS:

•CS3 looks great across the board compared to CS1&2. 1&2 character models/chat heads often looked a little blocky and low polygon, while characters in 3 look more lifelike and detailed.
•New Class VII is a smaller, but more focused and developed version of old Class VII. They all have unique personalities that mesh well with each other and you see them grow alongside one another throughout the entire game compared to in CS1&2 when the large number of classmates was always shuffled around for every chapter. Shoutout to Ash's VA, Austin Lee Matthews, who absolutely kills it in his English voiceover.
•The continued Trails worldbuilding helps develop Erebonia's large-scale even further by allowing you to visit cities and towns that weren't seen in CS1&2 like Leeves, Saint-Ark, and Ordis, while also allowing you to return to previously visited places like Crossbell (hell yeah!) and Heimdallr.
•CS3 has a great soundtrack. Some of my favorites are: Start Line, Brave Steel, Proud Grudge, and of course, the best Final Dungeon theme of all time: Spiral of Erebos. If I had to rank the OST, it would be: Zero/Azure > CS1 > CS3.
•Rean's growth as a protagonist is nice to see as he is now older, more mature, and more experienced. He still retains his characteristics of self-doubt and feeling lesser than others, but he has a stronger sense of responsibility when it comes to his new job and his new students.
•Character builds are varied and experimental. You can kit anyone out to be strong as a physical or magical DPS, tank, or evader, but obviously some characters are more built for those roles than others based on natural stats. That being said, just stacking Fie or Ash with 100% evade and critical chance is always a fun time.
•Vantage Masters is a fun distraction from main story activities.

WEAKNESSES:

•The combat is pretty abusable if you take advantage of break bars and turn delay reductions using Kurt and Juna's orders. Choosing to use this strategy basically trivializes the game if that is your goal.
•If you despise slow-burn games like CS1, CS3 is basically more of the same. Like CS1 is the setup for CS2's payoff, CS3 establishes the foundation for CS4's payoff. The plot proceeds slowly as you travel to other cities for your field exercises, fight enemy forces, and they just disappear while leaving crumbs of hints for you to pick up on every time.
•The game expects you to know the backstories/plots surrounding the returning cast characters of previous Trails games. Playing CS3 without having played (or at least watched story summaries of) the Liberl/Crossbell arcs is all-around a bad idea if you are invested in the Trails lore.
•The story always loops around to a particularly similar event whenever Rean is in trouble and is about to call Valimar for help. Sure, it reintroduces characters, but 3 or 4 times in a row of the same thing is kind of meh.
•The worst Japanese-game tropes remain the worst tropes, as in Angelica is still just a thirsty demon lusting after all women regardless of age, and Shirley still sexually harasses other women by groping them because well, Japan.

NUMERIC SCORE (if you care):

8.5/10
Solid JRPG, solid Trails game
Checkbox reviews are lazy copy & paste bullsh*t. ASCII art reviews tell you nothing. "Let's be honest, I only wrote this review for awards" is a waste of everyone's time. If you are interested in genuine & detailed game reviews, feel free to check out my others here (or don't, I don't tell you what to do).