this game is ass
in all seriousness it had incredibly high potential with a really good setup from the previous game, but it just fumbled. the "war" has what, 2 on screen casualties? despite multiple important NPCs and party members being directly involved in it. it also feels like the main party has a strange lack of agency, in that everything they do is pretty much at the behest of the imperial army (ur neutral tho). Also the amount of filler is appalling, I know SC had some too but the amount of unnecessarily long dungeons, or even dungeons that didn't need to exist at all, in this game is insane, especially when you get into side quests.
The cast is getting very bloated and few characters have really good moments in this game that don't feel like a forced "ah shit we gotta put ___ in the limelight once before the game ends" type deal. Crow and the soundtrack are the only real reasons this game isn't a 1

crow ;_;
so that epilogue was great actually for me to give me time to gather my thoughts because if i had written this review at the time of watching the first set of credits then i would not have had my shit together. not at all

that was. an experience! i have a very very long and wordy note that ive been updating with the good and bad stuff as i played because oh boy did i have a lot to say about both over the course of the game. some of the high points and low points were consistent with 1 but not all. the combat was still enjoyable and hasnt gotten stale yet.. the delay system is really fun to work around and the expanded list of master quartzes meant that build options were great to play around with. cant really complain about slot upgrades since it seems to be a series staple having played one of the older ones. free access to spirit unification and valimar AND overdrive felt like a bit much, so i went the majority of the game not using them, but i appreciate the gameplay/ story integration of the first 2 and the options provided by overdrive. the other thing that id compare to 1 is the soundtrack and i definitely think the majority of the new tracks were a lot weaker. blue destination goes hard but the use of it seemed cheaper as it was used more than necessary (should have been v crow and v testarossa w/ ordine only, very disappointed to see it and not inevitable struggle for the v rean and altina in the divertissement :( crossbell innit), and my second favorite track was probably transcend beat, the trial shrine bgm or the new highway theme.

re: characters, it was nice to see rean's arc getting somewhat resolved with him getting over himself (heard this is reversed in 3, not holding my breath), some of the others had good moments (jusis and his father was good stuff) in the story, some of the other others had great bonding events (machias celdic, millium, laura roer, jusis again, etc), some of the OTHER other others were just... there. the sheer size of the reverie corridor party is character bloat if ive ever seen it, worst offenders being gaius and elliot who had so little impact on the plot that i wholeheartedly believe you could cut them from cold steel 2 and nobody would notice. however the new characters were excellent. so great. 10/10 i like duvalie and altina and mcburn a normal amount (lie).. actually all of the villains were great this time round, the pantagruel intermission was a high point of the story and kind of forced me forward through the sluggish pacing of the first half(?) of the game because my god was it really in need of a hype moment. just one. the high points of most of the game were fairly medium, which i dont think worked as well coming out of 1 seeing as that one had a lot more and the cs formula works best with them (especially as this time youre at war wtf guys), but the ones towards the end? chef kiss. the victor v mcburn fight was awesome capital a and the vermillion apocalypse? so cool. AND THEN THE END with crow dying and the osborne reveal. rent free in my brain. i feel so bad for rean.

another thing that was cool was the courageous. complaints about pacing aside there is nothing in a jrpg like the feeling of the world map opening out to you and oh boy did erebonia feel open. all highways connected up- you could get from one place to another in tons of ways, and travelling from town to town after being taken around them by the plot in 1 felt very refreshing. the horses and orbal bike were neat additions too! i liked flying around and helping people and building the crew up with thors students you collected. though on the topic of field studies in 1, i vastly preferred having set teams there because it meant that party building was a puzzle to solve, not just a "be tempted to pick your favs no matter how unbalanced" type of thing (especially with up to 3 locked characters at some points).

that's pretty much everything from the note i can link together into a cohesive review, some other points i couldn't really fit in go here i guess;
-left some interesting things open ended (more knights, zephyr guy, black records, rufus and xbell etc)
-backwards difficulty curve
-certain parts didnt generate as much intrigue because the plot witch was there to explain stuff
-infernal castle was boring and way too long
-shitty romance integration
-is it just me or does it feel like something MAJOR was changed about rean (or the protag at least) in development. hmm
-lloydo