Board 8 > Finished Cold Steel 2. My thoughts on whole series ITT. *spoilers for series*

(+) Yeah! (+)

So I just finished Cold Steel 2, and figured I'd make a topic discussing my thoughts on the CS games and maybe a bit of Sky as well, cuz why not.

A bit of backstory on my history with the Trails franchise- waaay back when Sky FC came out on PSP in English, I got it and played like the prologue plus a bit of chapter 1, but then some other games came out and I shelved the game and didn't get back to it. Years later at this point, about a year and a half ago or maybe a bit more now, a friend convinced me to pick the series up again, but I had a hard time getting through the parts I already played of FC because I wasn't that into the game and it ended up taking me months to get through the first two chapters of the game. However, once I got to about the Jenis Academy bit I ended up marathoning the rest of the game in a couple days and really enjoyed it.

Picked up SC relatively shortly after (couple months) but unfortunately that was about when the 2017 rain of games started and it ended up meeting a similar fate to FC for almost the same amount of time. Finally picked it up again in early December and played through all of it in a couple weeks... which more or less made me fall in love with the series and I marathoned the entirety of 3rd immediately after in the same month. Cold Steel 1 soon followed, and after a couple months break to wait for the PC version of CS2, I just recently played through it.

So its been an interest ride for me. From being not that interested in FC and shelving it for years to it becoming kind of my latest obsession.

Anyway, onto my thoughts of Cold Steel.

I think probably the complaint most people have about Cold Steel compared to the rest of the series I see most often is that the characters aren't as well written as Sky's (and Crossbell's but I haven't played those yet- I'm waiting on the editing for the fan patch), and I agree. Except I still like the majority of the Cold Steel characters better. It's sort of weird, but between say, Schera and Sara who are fairly similar characters, I would absolutely say that Schera has more depth to her... but I still like Sara better. I just feel like the Cold Steel characters are just generally more... like-able. That's not universally the case, though, I would still say no one in CS comes close to Estelle, Joshua, Renne, Anelace, Olivier, or Tita for me. But on the whole, average to average, I would say I prefer the CS cast by a long shot. Though by the end of CS2 I would say that Jusis and Fie are getting up to the Sky standard of character development at the very least, and Rean shows shades of it as well.

Speaking of better developed, holy crap is Erebonia as a setting just WAY more interesting than Liberl. Not that Liberl was necessarily bad, but its legitimately incredibly interesting just to see things happen in Erebonia. I love what they did with the Ironbloods and the Imperial Liberation Front in particular, because you're kind of predisposed to knowing that Gilliath Osborne is a piece of shit (and he is), but for basically the entirety of both games you're directly working against the people that want to take him down and its 100% reasonable the whole time... but you can still very easily see where the ILF are coming from even if they are pretty objectively bad people. Which, especially come CS2, makes the whole Crow story work incredibly well. This fact alone is what I would say pushes me towards never recommending someone start with Cold Steel over Sky- having the context you have from late SC + 3rd on Erebonia's politics just made early and mid game CS1 SO much more interesting to me.

And endgame CS1 delivered as well with a cliffhanger on par or maybe even better than Sky FC's ending.

Gameplay wise I played CS1 on hard at someone elses recommendation and I'm glad I did, because the game was pretty easy aside from a couple bosses toward the end. But it was a good evolution of Sky's battle system generally, and while it wasn't actively hard it did enough to keep me engaged in most fights even if I did beat almost everything on my first try. I did actively avoid abusing delay, however, because I don't find it fun to break games to make them easy.

I started up CS2 on hard as well, but I honestly wish I chose nightmare. My GOD was CS2 easy. I actively had to stop myself from using S-Crafts on most boss fights to make them at all interesting because S-Crafts are just insanely OP in that game. You shouldn't be able to nuke down almost every boss in the game from 100 > 0 in 3 attacks. But even after I stopped doing that, the fights were still usually a cake walk, unlike CS1 where even thought they tended to be easy they weren't trivial. There's only a couple bosses toward the end I had any trouble with at all and it was usually just because I forgot 'oh woops boss S-Crafts exist huh' and got one shot or something. It wasn't necessarily boring, but it bordered on it at some points.

That said, story wise I actually preferred CS2 on the whole to CS1. CS2 was perhaps a bit more annoyingly formulaic in its progression than CS1 was (though both were pretty formulaic), but it wasn't bad enough to make it worse. The only thing about the story I didn't really like was they not only brought my least favorite thing from Sky SC back but then also decided to reuse it so many times it got stupid, that being the 'fight a boss, beat them, BUT THAT WASN'T THEIR TRUE POWER' and then someone shows up and saves you. That got REALLY REALLY OLD, REALLY REALLY FAST and yet they still insisted on using it through the entire game up to the second to last boss in the finale chapter dungeon! Who on the writing team thought this was a good idea???

Those gripes aside, however, I thought Act 1 was consistently great. Act 2 kind of dragged on a bit too long but was also pretty enjoyable, albeit maybe a bit less so than Act 1. The bit inbetween those two Acts on board the Pantagreul is perhaps my favorite part of the whole game. I really enjoyed just sitting down and having nice chats with the antagonists, which brings me to another thing I really enjoy about the series as a whole- the majority of the antagonists in the series are genuinely very like-able people that if they weren't trying to do something opposite of your characters goals and have somewhat warped morals, would make pretty good friends with the protagonists. It makes them feel genuinely more human than a lot of other series make their antagonists, even sympathetic ones, because sympathetic antagonists usually end up being sympathetic for very larger-than-life reasons and are still overtly evil. That isn't really the case, in this series, at least not for a lot of them.

The finale chapter was also great though a bit soured by the aforementioned need to have people constantly save Class VII for no real good reason (except maybe against McBurn- I could have given that one a pass if it was the only instance of it in the Castle). The Crow/Vita fight and them ending up helping you against the Vermillion Apocalpyse was all super hype and great, felt really Super Robot-y of an ending which I loved. Then everything with Gilliath coming back from the dead and being Rean's father, Crow dying, the Rufus Ironblood reveal, etc happened basically all at once and was amazing.

I imagine the Lloyd/Rixia bit would have been a lot cooler if I'd have played the Crossbell games beforehand, but it still more or less made sense aside from the vague references to the events of those games and it worked in general with the Rean/Altina boss fight to see just how much of an effect everything had on Rean, story wise. It was a surprise cool down period after the rollercoaster of emotions that was before it, but I feel like it worked on giving the events and how everything worked out a melancholic feel with Rean becoming the Ashen Chaliever and such.

Unfortunately, about there is where the ending stopped working. If it would have cut out the last two days and faded into a Rean-narration as he walked back to Trista explaining that everyone had decided to go their separate ways at the end of the year, and then cut to the final post-final-dungeon scene (maybe with the 'break down crying' bit from the post final boss put in here instead), I'd have said it was an amazing ending. But the final free day quests and the INCREDIBLY pointless final dungeon (that they even OUTRIGHT SAY has no point!) just completely killed all the momentum the ending had going for and by the end of it I just didn't feel invested anymore.

So, all together, I feel that CS2 had a lot of problems... but for everything it did wrong, it also did a lot right. I don't know which of the two Cold Steel games I prefer for that reason. Cold Steel 1 was more consistent and had better gameplay, but Cold Steel 2 I feel had higher highs and lower lows.

Either way, I'm incredibly hyped for both Cold Steel 3 and the Crossbell games. The Trails series, despite its rocky history with my playing it at the beginning, has within the last few months become one of my favorite ongoing stories of all time.

I'll probably do a character ranking/discussion thing later on, but I'll just put this up for now.

Tag for when I get home.

At a glance I think our opinions are pretty similar other than that there is no mention to be seen of best girl Vivi.
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pyresword posted...

Tag for when I get home.

At a glance I think our opinions are pretty similar other than that there is no mention to be seen of best girl Vivi.

I said in Mac's topic that Vivi is my favorite NPC!

But yes I'll restate it here, Vivi is my favorite NPC in the series.

I'll talk more about the Cold Steel NPCs (especially the Thors students + staff) in general when I get around to doing the character ranking probably.

EDIT: And I also really want to talk about Rean because I feel like Rean gets a bad rap from a lot of people and its not 100% deserved. I think he has a lot more depth than most people give him credit for, its just that most of it isn't stuff that is outright said and more a 'read between the lines' kind of thing.

I've always thought a lot of the Rean hate came from people who have only played CS1 or who had already made up their minds about the characters by the end of CS1. (That is just a feeling, but I do think CS2 is when he starts showing more depth)

Also even forgetting the NPC disclaimer for a minute I think Vivi is legitimately a top 10 character in the Cold Steel games for me. I really love her role in CS2.
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bump

Ok I finally have time to respond.

--I don't really agree with your use of Schera/Sara as a comparison, mostly because I think Sara is one of the better Cold Steel characters whereas Schera is among the weakest TitS major characters. Of course, to me though that ends up with them nearly equal in quality (probably Sara slightly higher). I do think the TitS characters are much better overall though. (Then again the Erebonia arc is also unfinished, so maybe that changes by the end. Plus CS3 has quite a few new characters who could shake things up)

--I already talked about this in Mac's topic a bit, but yeah Erebonia > Liberl for basically the reasons you said.

--Yeah CS2 is kind of a joke, difficulty-wise. Did you ever figure out how broken the Tauros master quartz was? (sounds like yes, but I figured I'd specifically ask) Tauros MQ+Domination quartz+max strength buffs and quartzes, and Laura's S-Craft was literally capable of one-shotting boss fights. (On normal, with a crit) Of course, there's enough broken mechanics and ways to set up failsafes that it doesn't even matter and the game is broken anyways, but I still just think that setup is hilarious.

tcaz2 posted...

the majority of the antagonists in the series are genuinely very like-able people that if they weren't trying to do something opposite of your characters goals and have somewhat warped morals, would make pretty good friends with the protagonists.

Yessss. This is something I really like about Cold Steel in particular. And also I like what this implies, which is that all the antagonists have well-established and believable reasons why they are against the main party, and it's never just "oh they're evil because" (looking at you Weissman >.>). I really love the way the villains are handled in this game.

tcaz2 posted...

Cold Steel 2 I feel had higher highs and lower lows.

This is pretty much what I think also. Intermission and the finale are both top tier Trails sequences, but a lot of the rest of the game dragged pretty hard for me, particularly in Act 2. Still a fantastic JRPG overall, but I do think it's (barely) the weakest of the series I've played so far.

tcaz2 posted...

because you're kind of predisposed to knowing that Gilliath Osborne is a piece of shit (and he is), but for basically the entirety of both games you're directly working against the people that want to take him down and its 100% reasonable the whole time

Yeah I kind of like this aspect also. Also if the way this game ends is any indication, I think Cold Steel 3 is going to double down on this. (though slanted more towards the tone of "Rean is making bad choices by doing this) My headcanon for CS3 is that it's going to develop into class VII-without-Rean teaming up with Vita to try and take down Osborne, and that Rean is going to be trying to stop them. Probably it's not actually going to play out that way, but I think it's a really neat idea. Also I just really like Vita and want her to do something like that.

Anyways I think that's it. Glad you're liking the series though. This series is a lot more ambitious in terms of scope then...well...any other JRPG series I know of, and so I think if the story does end up working for you than you get sucked in hard.
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pyresword posted...

--I don't really agree with your use of Schera/Sara as a comparison, mostly because I think Sara is one of the better Cold Steel characters whereas Schera is among the weakest TitS major characters. Of course, to me though that ends up with them nearly equal in quality (probably Sara slightly higher). I do think the TitS characters are much better overall though. (Then again the Erebonia arc is also unfinished, so maybe that changes by the end. Plus CS3 has quite a few new characters who could shake things up)

I mean, Schera has a LOT more to her character than Sara. Sara barely even gets a hint of backstory until about 2/3rds of the way through CS2. It basically takes until the Bareahard liberation for anything concrete aside from 'my past is mysterious'. And even once you learn she's a former Northern Jaeger that had to struggle to survive due to the North Ambrian disaster, its not really expanded on at all in any way. It's just kind of dropped on you and then left hanging. I like Sara a lot and think she has one of the best personalities of the cast in Cold Steel, but she is absolutely one of the poorest in terms of depth.

Meanwhile Schera gets her whole connection with Luciola and Aina, as well as her circus background and hints of romance with Olivier that get expanded on over the course of most of SC and 3rd. I don't necessarily disagree that Schera is one of the weakest Sky characters backstory wise, but that's exactly my point- even one of the weakest Sky characters has much more than most Cold Steel characters.

Anyway I'll probably do a CS character ranking tomorrow

Oh ya go my rean
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Okay so I got distracted yesterday by IRL stuff, but here we go.

First off, I'ma talk about the non-major NPCs. I'm not going to rank them (no not even Vivi, sorry pyre) simply because there are too many of them and I don't have a lot to say about most of them. However, I want to talk about a few that stood out to me anyway.

Thors Students

First up is Becky. I don't think I've ever seen a character in a medium with writing, ESPECIALLY with no voice acting, that has a Scottish accent. That fact alone made her kind of interesting to me, but she actually had some pretty fun dialogue with Hugo. She isn't super interesting otherwise, but being one of the few Thors students you actually meet the family of makes her a little bit more endearing, and really helped the Celdic attack have an emotional punch to it.

Vincent and Ferris are next- they both are kind of the same stereotype of being nobles who don't really live up to their status as nobles (at first, anyway) but are pompous anyway. As such, they kind of tended to serve as butt monkeys in Cold Steel 1. Ferris sort of outgrows that after she stops trying to be outright antagonistic to Alisa, though. Vincent, unfortunately for him, doesn't. I'd say he's fated to be the Anton of Cold Steel if Anton wasn't already in Cold Steel. Enjoy your life with Margarita, Vincent. Anyway, while the whole Thors reclamation bit was sort of an anti-climax in some ways, it was still kind of neat that they got a chance to show they're not just there to be comic relief foils, and them helping out on the ground during the finale was appreciated.

A somewhat similar but more prominent character to them is of course Patrick. He has a pretty straightforward character arc of being the douche rich boy rival that learns to be slightly less stuck up as the story goes on. He's not bad at it, and I appreciate that even before he really underwent any character development it was shown he's not an absolute dick when he helped Rean save Elise in Chapter 4 of CS1, even if he didn't actually do anything there. Mostly what I'm looking forward to with him in future games though is that, I assume we're going to be traipsing around Western Erebonia, and that means direct interactions with him and the Hyarms family in the Sutherland province. That might prove interesting. Also, stay away from Elise, imoutos are for onii-chans only!!

Mint is sort of the ditzy comic relief character, but she's quite good at it. Her escapades with trying to play cupid for Makarov and Mary were really fun. I don't really have a lot to say about her other than that she pretty consistently put a smile on my face when I talked to her, which is enough for me.

Rosine might be the second most endearing character of the Thors students after Vivi, but for an ENTIRELY different reason. She's probably the most quintessential nice girl in the whole school, and the few scenes you get focusing on her in both games are quite fun. I really enjoy the Septian Church portrayal in Trails in general as being one of the few non-corrupt religions in JRPGs, and having a character arc about someone joining it was immediately interesting to me. I can see why Kay had a crush on her, honestly.

And then we come to Vivi and Linde. As I said in Mac's topic, they are sort of a package deal for me, as while Vivi is really fun on her own, I don't think she would work nearly as well without Linde. Vivi's pranks and the twin swaps are always fun, but they're actually not what I am going to talk about. What I'm actually going to praise the most about Vivi is her story in Cold Steel 2, and what it did to help contextualize the whole thing. Vivi was the first NPC to really drive home just how personal the war was when she was basically an emotional wreck without Linde. It made me really feel to see my favorite NPC in CS1 go through that, and I wanted to help her a lot. So thanks Vivi and Linde for being not only really entertaining, but being emotional anchors for the story as well!

Lastly, Beryl. What the actual what??? Is she going to end up secretly being the Ouroboros Grand Master or something? Sorry Emma you have been dethroned as most mysterious Thors student.

Thors faculty will be the next post I do, and boy howdy is one of them going to get a bunch of text written about them *coughthomascough*!

To be totally fair, when I did my playthrough topic I also did a character ranking that did not include any minor NPC's (including Vivi), so I can't really complain here. Vivi still great though especially her role in CS2 like you said.

Although, I don't actually consider Patrick a minor NPC. He is a pretty standard character, but it's also a character archetype I tend to really like. I wish he had more of a role in Cold Steel 2, but I guess we can hopefully have the next two games for that.

tcaz2 posted...

Is she going to end up secretly being the Ouroboros Grand Master or something?

This is actually a theory. Not one I buy into personally, but she's probably like in the top 5 characters in the series most theorized to be the Grandmaster. Personally my theory for a long time was Dorothy from Trails in the Sky. Though, if I recall correctly, Kondo recently teased that there was a character in the series who was a top ranking bracer that we don't know as such, and if (a big if admittedly) Dorothy is secretly anyone important I think that's much more likely.

Also are you aware of the content in the game that is exclusive to NG+? It does a few things, but one of them is providing some additional context on a certain Thors faculty member.
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pyresword posted...

Also are you aware of the content in the game that is exclusive to NG+? It does a few things, but one of them is providing some additional context on a certain Thors faculty member.

Yep, that's part of the reason I'm going to talk about him. I watched it on youtube.

Ok haha. When I was playing through the game I had no idea about it even after I finished. But it was funny because literally the entire game I was making comments like "ok there's something up with this guy".
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Bump for when I'm feeling less lazy

Beryl almost feels too obvious to be the Grandmaster. Does feel like we're overdue for her to be revealed one way or another.

My hunch is that the Grandmaster is someone we've never seen before. My crackpot theory is that Towa is the Grandmaster and she's trying to recruit Rean to fill in one of the Enforcer positions.

(The fact that they pretty much had Towa in Tokyo Xanadu using the exact same name, design, and VA is suspicious. Too fishy for just a "mascot character" or homage)
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Of the theories I've seen, my favorite is Ein Selnate I think.

Most likely theory is probably Aidios=Grandmaster, which makes me nervous because that would have to be handled carefully in order to not be dumb. Though, I also think it's just as likely that it's no one we've seen yet, so we'll see.
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Yeah I was joking about Beryl, I don't actually think she's going to be the Grandmaster.

Err, slight walk back: Towa in TX has a different last name, not exactly the same.
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Towa is too adorable to be evil

tcaz2 posted...

Towa is too adorable to be evil

This.
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The Grandmaster didn't strike me as particularly evil in Sky the 3rd.
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I mean they might have good intentions overall (possibly, anyway) but its still someone who has no compunctions about setting in motion plans that upend society and cause death and mayhem, as well as they only employ people with 'darkness' in them for their Enforcers which includes people like Walter and McBurn who both genuinely enjoy killing things.

They're not a good person.

True enough. Dubious morality at best
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That's my secret

I'm always lazy

(no but seriously I have most of the Faculty + other NPCs write up done and the first couple character rankings, gonna post them tomorrow, too tired to finish them tonight)

One of my friends is going through Persona 5 and loves Ryuji. That's when I remember that tarot number VII is the Chariot.

Here's the description of the Chariot: https://www.biddytarot.com/tarot-card-meanings/major-arcana/chariot/

Combine that with Class VII, and I'm making the call: The Erebonia Arc ends with Rean becoming Enforcer No. VII of Ouroboros.
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That would actually be really freaking cool if that happened. I'm super down for that.

Also slap your friend for 'loving Ryuji'. The heck is wrong with him?

Can't explain it, he just does.

The bonus of Enforcer VII Rean is that it can cleanly deal with the multiple romance routes by making none of them possible long-term now that he's with Ouroboros.
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more like they all join too
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xp1337 posted...

more like they all join too

Nah I don't think most of them would

Besides, Gaius is going to become a Gralsritter.

Not all of Class VII! Just Rean's romance options!
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If you go by who isn't tied down to anything, that list narrows down to Fie and Emma. Maybe Laura if you make the case she goes all Way of the Sword and abandons Legram.
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I was joking, but if I were to play with this in theory...

Alisa - Pursues Sharon's past, gets roped in.
Laura - Duvalie vindicated. Laura wants to figure out the connection between the Eisenritter and Stahlritter/Lianne Sandlot.
Emma - Vita
Fie - Frustrated by her lack of progress of determining wtf Leo and Xeno meant by bringing their boss back, joins to learn and also because the goal sounds appealing.

I can't really jokingly get Sara or Elise there.

(Dark) Comedy Option: Alfin - Out for revenge for everything Osborne put her family and country through, joins the one organization likely to openly take action against him.

~~~

Serious take: While I think Rean ending up in Ouroboros could be really interesting, I doubt it goes that way unless we get a lot of insight on what they're up to and it turns out to be pretty sympathetic, to the point where they almost end up being the good-but-their-means-leave-a-lot-to-be-questioned guys. Which while a direction I actually kinda expect Ouroboros to end up going, I don't think the turn will be big enough to get someone like Rean onboard.
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xp1337 posted...

I doubt it goes that way unless we get a lot of insight on what they're up to and it turns out to be pretty sympathetic, to the point where they almost end up being the good-but-their-means-leave-a-lot-to-be-questioned guys. Which while a direction I actually kinda expect Ouroboros to end up going, I don't think the turn will be big enough to get someone like Rean

This pretty much matches my thoughts that I was trying to figure out how to put into words.

I do think they're doing something unexpected with Rean's character, but I don't think it will be this.
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On a lighter note: Anyone feel like the romantic chosen partner scenes were, uh, odd?

Maybe it was because I went Alisa, but maaaan was it way too talky. It did NOT feel like a natural progression of the Bareahard scene with Valimar at all. Did any of you run into that problem with the other girls?

Joshua/Estelle this certainly was not.
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defensively bumping this topic so I can read it after I actually beat the game this weekend
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I'm not technically done with the game but I read through this topic anyway. I'm in the Winter's End part and it seems like the plot has basically played itself out so I felt it was probably harmless.

Don't actually have much to say except that I really, really liked the Crow/Vita interaction. I was just waiting for Vita to cackle or something, but it never happened. I'll be really mad if they go back on that. I like it when stories show bad guys with positive relationships, since they're usually so defined by negative relationships instead.

Pretty happy with the game overall. Favorite Thors background NPC is Beryl, favorite party member is Fie.
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Aw yeah Vita/Crow the best.

I am so hyped for Vita in the future Cold Steel games you have no idea. I really like her for a lot of reasons.
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Tauros MQ + Domination + Double Noble Command into a 200 CP Roaring Lion.

OHKO, courtesy of Laura S. Arseid

(Only to be negated in the cutscene thanks to Duvalie no longer holding back)
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This is a balanced game.
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I did get a little unhappy about the balance. I played Cold Steel 1 on Hard and felt like there were some tough fights but it was ultimately fair, and I could approach battles with a normal strategy. I played Cold Steel 2 on Hard and felt like there were bosses who I couldn't ever beat if I let them get a turn. I think I died 5 times or so to Crow and Vita, and then won without taking any damage to them.

Part of that is because the game really hates you using Retry and will punish you mercilessly for no clear reason, but also because it's just kinda tough when enemies will bust through Crescent Mirror and wipe your party as well.

I actually came off with the opposite opinion from tcaz, which is that I chose Hard but should have chosen Normal so I could play the game the way I wanted.
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Also fun is Murakumo + Wrath Evade Tank Fie. Hilariously effective against certain cryptids.

Yeah, they could use some work on the game balance front.
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