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.

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

"Thank you so much, for allowing me to grow to the point where I can feel this way about myself."

The Trails series, on the whole, has always exceeded other JRPGs for me in terms of its character writing. Crimson Sin puts its characters to the forefront so that the overarching narrative from the previous games can take a break, and Falcom knocked it out of the park.

I was already a really big fan of the Solutions Office after Kuro 1, but they just ramped up my love of these guys. Falcom finally fucking remembered that a bigger cast like this needs attention to their relationships and development so that's what Crimson Sin sets out to do. So many characters get scenes where they can just be themselves. I'm still really confused as to why connect events are still limited. I'd highly recommend save scumming and seeing all of them because they are fantastic. I felt a lot of the "lesser" members gained so much through the events of this game as well. Quatre felt like he needed to be elaborated on and the wait most definitely paid off. His struggle to come to terms with his past and his "identity" was extremely mature given the genre's track record with these types of things. Swin and Nadia were two unexpected additions that honestly rounded the cast off super nicely. Nadia gets a lot of time to shine and is especially fantastic with Swin to play off of. While their portion of the story ends up leading to the weakest part of the game (Act 3), their character arcs come to an extremely satisfying conclusion after their introduction in Reverie.

As previously mentioned, Act 3 is the weakest part of the game. It's bloated (still not as bad as Cold Steel) and some of those routes could have been condensed. It may ultimately feel pointless while playing through it, but ends up serving an interesting purpose. This leads to the finale which has THE best boss fight in the series thus far. I hope they can execute something similar to this in the future because it was awesome.

OST is peak as usual, but some tracks feel a bit too similar to the last game. I guess this is to be expected when you're getting the same people to compose tracks for a lot of the same locations, but I feel like they could have mixed it up more. They stepped it up in terms of the placement of some tracks because MAN the first time they played this... shit hit.

I don't give a shit if it doesn't contribute to the overarching narrative. I WANT TO SEE VAN ARKRIDE GUIDE THESE YOUNG PEOPLE THROUGH LIFE WHILE BUILDING CONNECTIONS AND BETTERING HIMSELF BECAUSE THAT IS HIS STYLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

"Thank you, Van... For completing my 4spg."

After having sat on this game for a few months I can safely say my issue with it is that it feels like a DLC expansion to Kuro 1 (a la Like A Dragon: Gaiden, I assume) that got padded out into it's own game. That in itself isn't a huge problem to me, but the fact that it's a whole ass JRPG length game is. I spent 75-ish hours here and really feel like the whole story of this game could have been told effectively in half the time--maybe even less.

That being said, there is still a lot about this game I like. When the story is allowed to happen uninterrupted, it's (usually) pretty good. Kuro 2 does a great job of fleshing out a number of aspects of the world further. Even if this game does not do much to move the needle further in the overall story of the series, the general worldbuilding of the Zemurian continent has been one of my favorite aspects of the series since the moment I hopped on Sky FC and I'm glad to see the writing team still has this much attention to detail to the land they've created. In the character department, I think there is much work to be done regarding the overall cast and the group dynamic the Solutions Office faces, but individually several of my more liked characters had a ton of good stuff. There weren't many bonding events in this game but whenever there were they were definitely quite the treat; it makes me more confident of the future of the series in that regard as it's always been one of the series' greatest strengths. I'd like to give special shoutouts to Quatre, Renne, and one of my underrated faves Shizuna. With Renne in particular, Kuro 2 feels like a natural conclusion to her series long character arc. I obvs know she'll be back for future titles but her arc has been so damn good this whole time and I really appreciate what they've done with her here. I can't say the same to every character however. There was a lot of nothing done with a number of the cast. Elaine especially is an egregious example of this. Kuro 1 made her into my favorite character in the series just like that, and it disappointed me to see how little she was utilized here, especially with how much she was marketed in the months leading up to the release, and even with how the game's prologue went! One of my gripes with this series is characters just being used as static set pieces sometimes and overuse of that was definitely a knock on the overall quality of the story. The way a number of characters were utilized just frustrates me in general. To compensate for the story it's clear Kuro 2 tried very hard to be Reverie 2 in a number of ways but just couldn't land the way that did. It just doesn't work nearly as well with what they were doing.

Somewhat of a subnote, but the Calvard games have had the best gameplay in the series as well, these games play sooooo fine and I think that's one of the reasons I'll give some of the nonsense in this (and Kuro 1 too as I much as I love that game to death I can't pretend it's infallible) a semi pass. It really feels like as of this story arc Falcom has perfected the gameplay for the series, its so great seeing the progression of the formula of the series and I only think it's gotten better over time. After starting good too!! I'd really say that Kuro/Kuro 2 has a case to be made for being the best combat system ever put in a JRPG. That combined with how much I love the setting made this a much more easy to go down experience and I have nothing but high hopes for how the rest of this series goes in this department.

*Sub-subnote: ah shit this was supposed to be a quick thought and ended up a whole paragraph

Would I call this game bad? I don't know how to answer that if I'm being entirely honest. Kuro 2 is undeniably the definition of a hot mess; it has a lot of great, fantastic even, aspects about it, but at the same time sinks to lows the series has maybe never seen before. This game was very clearly rushed, it could have been so much more had Falcom given it the proper time to cook. I haven't even mentioned the poorly implemented time travel mechanic (if you could really call it a mechanic). There was a lot of good concepts introduced here but never really had the chance to develop them properly. I really wonder how we'll view this game in the future, especially with Kai no Kiseki coming later this year. If the series goes further downhill this game will be chastised to no end, but if Kai ends up being goated I hope we'll just look at this as an intermission of sorts; maybe just a recharching/cooldown period in a string of banger games.

I'm definitely anticipating Kai very heavily, and it's probably safe to say it's the game I'm most looking forward to releasing currently. I'd definitely optimistic about how it'll be, cautiously so, but I know Falcom's writing team has it in them to create something amazing with what they've done, even if I still think this was a very shaky experience. With Cold Steel 4, Reverie, and Kuro 1 being as good as they were, I am very willing to let a sub par game slide as a bump in the road if Kai is a return to form. I know the writing team has that dawg in them still. The extra year given to work on it is the main fuel for my optimism.

Van Arkride...you've rocked my world time and time again. Get it done Spriggan, I know you've got it in you.

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 dont really get the act 3 hate apart from like 1 scene) 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.

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.

Despite some things in Act 3, I totally love this game. While I don't think it's as good as Kuro no Kiseki, It's still a great sequel, and I love the greater focus on characters. The Kuro Cast was already one of my favorites, but with this game, the characters grew even more on me. 
The gameplay was also fantastic, and I really liked the additions to the battle system.
Overall, I can say that while Kuro no Kiseki II isn't perfect, I still really love this game, and I think the good parts definitely outweigh the bad parts of the game. The Calvard Arc is certainly my favorite Kiseki/Trails Arc, and I'm eagerly excited to see how it continues. 

a very unique Trails game compared with the other games. Kuro arc keeps pulling bold move after bold move and i am seated for it i think this game was very great and very overhated not for everyone but definitely for me

i think people complain about the wrong issues in this game. while there are some cons here and there the pros outshine the cons by a mile i enjoyed this thoroughly and i liked what they did with the whole routes thing

the coolest final fight in the whole series so clear of everything before it. new tweaks to the new combat system making it even better than the near-perfect one we already had. completely new form of storytelling
as a whole, this was a wonderful game

Went into this one with more tempered expectations especially because a lot of fans of the first Kuro no Kiseki agreed that this one had REAL issues. And 65 hours later, I can say I am pleasantly surprised with Kuro 2! It's definitely an unfortunate victim of Falcom's annual release schedule and some parts of the game are a little ??? because of it, but for the most part I'd say for what it is it's a great game. The gameplay is definitively the best in the series (even if I miss brave orders) and I could play it for hours. In terms of the story, it's not focused on being a grand follow-up to the first game but rather a sort of "Kuro no Kiseki 1.5", giving even more time to its characters and setting up even more mysteries for the arc's finale in Kai. Act 3 is definitely the weakest part of the game and I think that's where you can really feel the fact that this game didn't have enough time to have a properly paced story, but it's like a 6/10 segment of a game that otherwise has generational peaks. I think Kuro 2 is not that far behind the first game and comfortably top 5 in my series ranking.