I found an old rant I wrote on Google Docs that I drafted like earlier this year or something, in response to something I heard on 8-4 or something that triggered me about Falcom of recent years having become "more anime" or suffered in terms of quality of writing compared to their earlier years. Having completed SC, CSII and reflected on Zero in quick succession this past year, and being able to sit down on it more, I'm more convinced of it than ever so I might as well just air out my laundry rant. Updated with some CSII stuff.
I, broadly disagree with the notion that Falcom has deteriorated in terms of overall storytelling.
If you ask me how I feel about the quality of the world-building between all 3 Trails arcs, I would put all of them as equal, with Crossbell edging it out a little due to the deeper focus on the setting being a single city-state instead of a larger nation.
If you ask me how I feel about the overall quality of all the characters & character writing between all 3 Trails arcs, I would put all of them
as equal as well. Yes, if you dive down the the difference of quality of the protagonist and individual characters, I would put Estelle/Lloyd above Rean, but if you were to ask me to compare the slate of all the primary characters, side-characters, etc side-by-side, each game has their ups and downs, but in general theyre very competitive with one another.
If you ask me how I feel about the overall quality of the story arcs, plot beats and the pacing of the storys moment-to-moment, I would agree that Cold Steel has its flaws more apparent, and is perhaps not as strong as parts of Sky/Zero. However, when I look at the sum of its parts, its not as if Zero/Sky didnt have its low points, or Cold Steel didnt have its high points. And I feel that the variance between the story arcs, high or low, dont exceed 20%.
And the thing that I feel most of us subconsciously perceive when it comes to assessment of stories, is the inherent bias of the material type. A story set around a school setting that borrows heavily from the Japanese storytelling cliches and tropes of its era is going to be seen with a far, far more skeptic light than a story set around a law enforcement setting that borrows itself from less tapped storytelling cliches of detective, police, mob and yakuza stories. Its still inherently very Japanese and you wont find any Godfathers or Infernal Affairs here, but people are more likely to praise a mediocre story from that setting than say a mediocre school setting story, that is seen with a lot more distaste.
And that, is my view on the whole component of Trails.
I strongly feel that Falcom as a whole, is a writing team that strives to deliver what they feel are strong stories within the confines of what they choose to pursue for respective arcs. But at the same time, theyre not writers that are always able to overcome their self-imposed story limitations.
If Erebonia arc was about Olivier, then I strongly believe whatever story was written about that part of the story would appeal a whole lot more to the broader fans. But that is not the story of Erebonia. The story of Erebonia is about Class VII and the disparage rag-tag group of schoolmates that come together in a time of civil strife, and are ultimately not ready to be part of the level that Olivier and Osborne are fighting at.
And because that is the story they put themselves that limitation of, they self-impose the rationale of having to tell the story of students and justify their position and involvement in the grand scheme of a civil war. The nature of students and a classroom meant that there needed to be a bare minimum of more than 6 characters in your core party else it made for a poor excuse of a class. Exploring the school setting also meant a large part of the story and moment-to-moment had to involve a supporting cast that felt appropriate to a school setting, as well as pivoting developments relative to elements that empowered students to be a key factor in a civil war more often than not. Thus we have things like pssst West Erebonia is level 150-200+ whereas East Erebonia caps off at Level 120 to justify the disonnance of scale that wants to make it look like the characters of the core story are both in over their heads but still able to contribute to the story in some relevant form.
Is it perfect? Hell no. If anything, they tumble more so than not in their progress there. But to me, its the same notion as with Trail in the Skys chapter with Jenis Academy. Had Jenis Academy arc been a whole game, I highly suspect the overall quality of storytelling would be the same as Cold Steels. The difference is that they didnt make a whole game out of that setting, but just one piece of the pie.
Zero was excellent because it chose two key priorities in its overall storytelling, which is laser-focus on just 4 characters as the primer for the main plot, and that its storytelling revolves around law enforcement and detective work, which ties the storyline with richer elements like mobsters and militia. Few of the story arcs employed in Zero were stories that could easily be transplanted over to Sky or Cold Steel, because they were written with the foundation in mind.