Waiting for this game for a year has certainly been a terrible despair for us...

Disclaimer notes:
I finished this game twice: On PS4 at release and on Steam.
This review will contain mild to moderate spoilers so read at your own discretion.

Additional notes: This game should NOT be played prior to playing the previous prequels in the series, that is to mean all of Cold Steel games, obviously. But highly recommended to play the other prequels Sky and Crossbell sagas to gain the most out of this experience. And trust me, playing this game after playing the prequels IS an unforgettable experience!

Where do I even begin with this game... It's everything I wanted and much more.
It is fittingly the end of the 'Trails Of Cold Steel' saga and it is done so in a phenomenal way.


The epic conclusion to the Trails Of Cold Steel quadrilogy begins as Erebonia is in preparations to amass and conscript citizens and soldiers alike for their war against the Republic of Calvard, under the pretense of the assassination of Emperor Eugent. Though it is but a feint from the Government using Ash's implants by the curse and accusing him of being a Calvard spy to create justifications for them to invade Calvard. Soldiers, Citizens and new subjects of the recently annexed provinces are forced to join forces together to fight against the Republic. What will be foreseen as the biggest conflict to have ever occurred in the continent of Zemuria.

Meanwhile the heroes trying to locate our noble 'Ashen Chevalier' location and try to rescue him from his captors. While along the way amassing information about the current state of events and discovering more about the curse itself: How was it created? Does it have a will? Which brings us to them confronting the two operations with their own operation, to solve the incident, while saving as many lives as they can.

Thus bornt 3 operations:
Operation Jormungandr that will devour the world with its curse and subject all of humanity under its thumb.
Operation Mille Mirage which will counter Jormungandr but will cause possibly millions to lose their lives.
Operation Shining Steel amassed with the hopes of all the protagonists and their allies to negate both operations and limit the damage done by both operations to the lowest extent.

If you've played Cold Steel III you'll feel right at home. Trails games are known to use their prequels assets. Gameplay is much of a familiarity to Cold Steel 3 as one would expect, but there are a few changes, and all of them are an improvement. Also Rean is BROKEN AF! Brave Points increased from 5 to 7 furthering strategic elements and usage of BP.
Orders have been nerfed and you can no longer abuse Juna's Order with Kurt's (Context written below), but there're methods to increase their practicality: Trial chests. Similarly to Cold Steel II..
New crafts also has been appended to characters although not as many as I would've liked and to be frank; the new S-Crafts come much later in the game which is disappointing. Also Rean is BROKEN AF!

Game is generally much harder than Cold Steel III, enemies SPD stat in particular seems bizarrely high for some reasons which also negates some of the breaking methods used in Cold Steel III, which leads to some bosses having 10 turns before the player I ♥♥♥♥ YOU NOT! Which frankly aggravated me.
On the positive side: If you were annoyed by the mechanic that bosses constantly healing BS in Cold Steel III, rejoice and be aware that it's been nerfed in Cold Steel IV.

Divine Knights battles are harder and are a lot more interesting, as the Rivalries proceed your units keeps getting stronger and getting new abilities which was very pleasing to me as a mech fan, I couldn't ask for more!

If you're a fan of Falcom games and you've played their games, you should be plainly aware that these games are made under a low budget, thus Graphics are minimal. Honestly I don't care about graphics in these games, but I would estimate according to my opinion this game has the graphics of a game made at the minimum 6-7 years ago. But then again it's Irrelevant for me and I'm sure most of Falcom fans who are playing these games don't put much significance towards the graphics.


Compared to Cold Steel III which was a slight disappointment to me in terms of its OST-Badassery, I was very content with CSIV's OST. It is simply stellar. It has 69 tracks and I would say I love more than 50 of them, while the rest are also relaxing and chilling to listen to. Which leads me to acknowledge it as the best Trails game in terms of OST. That is not easy feat to accomplish, considering that this series is known for providing some of the best music in games and frankly anything.

Overall; decent performance. I had 1 crash in a cutscene.. that's all. Sometimes the FPS would slightly drop but it was negligent and not worthy of giving it a high notes. Even if you have low spec PC you should be fine with this game, and then again, if not, just reduce the settings and then you'd be A-OKAY.

The only complaints about this game is the excessive amount of rush battles occurring consecutively without an option to save after each.. I mean come on Falcom, Imagine beating 4 consecutive bosses and then BOOM power outage has unfortunately struck!... *Breaks PC*
Also can we PLEASE have more consequences in these games? Someones dies.. LET THEM STAY DEAD PLEASE! by bringing them back, you're only undoing yourselves and ruin the dramatic of their deaths and the severity of consequences! This really is mind-boggling at times! Someone performs a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ action, Make them pay for that! This a serious complaint for the series in general not just this game.

These complaints aside; I can say without a doubt that this is the best Trails game I've played (I played all 9 games in the series in total). It has all the credentials to make it to the very top: Badass OST, epic scenes, best gameplay mechanics, events unfolding and plot twists untangled. I'm tremendously happy to have most of my questions and speculations about the lore that has been before this game, REVEALED in this game.
I'm very excited to see what comes next in Hajimari.
The only Trails game I would compare alongside my top 2 games ever: Witcher 3 and Persona 5 to make it now a top 3!

Pros:
• Best gameplay produced thus far in the series!
  
• Resolved and answered many questions that we were very curious to!
  
• Greatest Trails OST game right there!
  
• Numerous epic cutscenes!
  
• Juna has turned from being one of the more annoying characters to one of its greatest for me!
  
• Tons of references and characters appearing from previous games!
  
• Vantage Masters has been significantly improved!
  
• Not a middle finger ending like the previous game!
  
• Rean is BROKEN AF!
  
  
  Cons:
• Bosses occurring consecutively with no option to save in between
  
• Pom-Pom-Party is unnecessarily difficult
  
• Supplement of enemies SPD results in them having many turns before the player during some boss-battles!
  
• Bosses still heal *Sigh*
  
• Can we please have more actions consequences in this game and in the series in general!?

Though I have complaints about the series in its lack of consequences and overall the series would benefit from being a little darker in general, I think by removing these from the equations, this game as a current Trails formula game is just perfect!

We want Hajimari!!!!!