The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

While losing out on the occasional reference, Cold Steel I should be perfectly enjoyable for newcomers to the series as well thanks to its stand-alone plot – just keep in mind that this isn’t the case for the later Cold Steel games as well.

Fortunately, it changes enough each time that the mechanics keep it somewhat fresh.

But this game, the characters, the relationships, and the combat sucked me in and I wasn't able to stop until I finished it.

The Chibi art style of the previous five games was sorely missed and was more timeless.

The soundtrack is one of the strongest aspects and consistently supports both atmosphere and battles very well.

The gameplay is solid enough; it's very cheese-able, but the character customization system was a pleasure to play around with and succeeded in adding more depth, not by a huge amount, but just enough to make it enjoyable and not a total slog.