The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV Review (Shiza)
Never mind the low playtime. I beat the game somewhere else.
This is a 70+ hour game but it should have been 20-30 tops. The pacing is absolutely horrendous. Act 1 is ok but drags on for too long, while Act 2 is all filler aside from one mission. There is no need for so much buildup. Were 3 (or 8) games not enough?
There are barely any new towns or areas to explore other than dungeons here. After Act 1 you’ve seen everything this game has to offer, so you’ll spend the following acts revisiting places you already saw in this game AND in previous games. The game takes place within an absurdly short time frame that nothing makes sense anymore. CS1 made the empire seem massive. Now your characters will walk from one town to the other with no issue, or fly from one corner of the empire to the other multiple times all in the same day.
The story is by far the worst part but I won’t spoil it here. I’ll just say that this does not feel like the fourth game of a series. The stakes are low for most of the game; so many bosses aren’t even your enemies, but are just “testing” if you’re worthy or some other bullshit. Actually, I will spoil one thing: One of the major antagonists (that you've fought for three games) literally goes “Sorry for the trouble, lol” after you defeat him and leaves, and it’s played for laughs. It’s hard to take it seriously most of the time, and it’s jarring that this is from the same company that made Sky and Zero. Even Cold Steel 1 had more impactful moments. What the hell happened?
The battle system is just as good as it was in CS3, and the finale wasn’t bad (gameplay-wise). However, I can’t bring myself to give a thumbs up to a game that’s bad 75% of the time. If you’ve come this far, you'll probably play this one too, but it will make you question why you like the series.
Vantage Masters is sick, tho.