VAN ARKRIDE AND RENNE BRIGHT I KNEEEEEEEL.
I love pretty much every character here except for Elaine and Rene I'm still neutral on both, maybe the third game is where I'll like them haha... Story is great all throughout (I do not get the act 3 hate at all) and the ending I adore, the battle system is the best It's been and was genuinely balanced/difficult early-mid game but then the game gives you cetus phantasma and you just get to carpet bomb the whole game with renne/agnes from that point onwards.
Music is the same as kuro 1 fine with some bangers.

I think a lot of people aren't as satisfied with this game because it doesn't advance the overall Zemuria plotline which is fine by me cause I think some of the best games in the series (Sky 3rd, Zero, Kuro 1) don't or barely do at all anyways. This game feels like more of a Kuro 1.5. Spends time fleshing out characters that needed more screen time in previous games, a little more backstory on Van and teasing about his relationship with Elaine which is pretty nice. Kuro NPCs continue to be PEAK and the sidequests were also consistently great. The gameplay has seen a couple balancing changes which made the game WAY more fun than the first to me.

It's a mess at times especially with it's awful act 3 that should honestly make it lose more points but I had such a good time with it that I don't mind.

If Backloggd had a better scoring system I'd give it like an 8.8 or so but I'm giving it 4.5 stars cause putting it next to Hajimari feels wrong.

So, I was initially going to wait for a Japanese PC release, but the fact that it is nowhere in sight combined with me desperately wanting to see what happens next in the Trails series made me play this earlier than I expected. At least I got the latest update of the translation, and it reads fine.

The gameplay in this is the peak of the series, obviously, best JRPG combat ever. I'm curious as to why they nerfed S-Crafts even further by adding a cooldown though, they already nerfed them with S-Boosts in Kuro 1, so what gives? I like the addition of Quick Arts. The music is amazing in this, badass electric guitars all around.

My GOAT Renne shines here (as per usual), however her actual substantial scenes and contributions amount to about 30 minutes, otherwise she's a pure supporting character. You can see this as a conclusion of sorts to her series-long arc, though, which is cool.

The characters and plot are all over the place for me here. The plot, as you've probably heard from other reviews, does nothing to progress the overall Zemurian storyline (not inherently a problem, 3rd was, until this point, the most irrelevant game to the series as a whole and yet it was amazing), with the society doing jack shit in this, but it also doesn't do all that much to progress the remaining mysteries of Kuro 1. It does finish some loose ends, but for the most part it feels like a side quest before the actual sequel. I think Van being "too complete of a character", in a manner of speaking, contributes to this. His arc was, a couple mysteries aside, very conclusive in Kuro 1, so this one retreads old ground at times. It's honestly hard to describe... it just feels like shit happens in this sometimes, and that's it? Not something you often see in Trails. Maybe rushed is the right word?

The final boss is amazing gameplay wise, but after the novelty wears off for that and the story part of it, the ending is extremely underwhelming. Probably my least favourite ending in the series.

One thing I will give this game though, it really does help flesh out a lot of characters, they just aren't Van or Agnes. The pacing and structure for how these subplots are approached is another question entirely. You may have heard about how chapter 3 is one of the least liked chapters, that's definitely part of it.

I'll be waiting for Kai no Kiseki, but to be honest, I'm in no rush right now. Maybe I'll 100% Reverie or something (which would be a first for a non-VN game for me, I just liked it that much). Kuro 2 is not a bad game by any means, but the best way to describe it is that it's a mish-mash, a first mess of this kind since CS2 and CS4. It reminds me of those games the most.

i finished this game a few days ago and now that I've truly let it marinate, i can say for sure this is my favorite game in the series thus far, tied with it's predecessor but honestly if you made me choose I'd pick kuro 2.

it really wasn't what i was expecting at all. even after reading many negative backloggd and reddit reviews, i still found the complaints most people made to be big non-issues.

10 games of the same formula, finally broken by the calvard arc, isn't that great! i think its a great change of pace and considering how much i love the ASO, this was the best game to bring about this new meta of focusing way more on characters rather than the story in the sequel of a game.

i'm not the best at writing reviews so i won't get too deep but i just know this game was very fun, interesting and took just the right amount of ambition to not completely rewrite being a trails game. Act 3 is peak btw don't listen to the haters

P.S, SHIZUNA I LOVE YOU SOO MUCH UWAHAHHHHHAHHAAA SAVE ME IN KAI NO KISEKI