This review contains spoilers
kind of a long review
So cold steel is certainly a set of games I have feelings for. Not too many positive ones, but certainly feelings for sure! I wanna go through my thoughts of the first two games in this one review, despite this one is mainly for CS2. So my friends do not like the CS games compared to the rest of the series, so I was bracing myself for funny shenanigans. I held no bias going into the series since I want to see for myself why its not so well received compared to the rest.
Instead of doing the cringe story summary and go through my thoughts from there, I wanna break down my categories for the two games I played between the following: Setting, music, gameplay, even more gameplay, the over arching story, my likes, my dislikes. Ill probably have a tandem here and there or a brief saying on something miniscule, but overall this is how I want to break down my experiences.
So the CS games takes place in Erobonia, this land has been heavily talked about in the previous games and is pretty much a big deal in regards to their status as a major power. According to the map, this area is fuckin HUGE. Largest place so far. So with CS taking the span of four games, its no wonder the country is massive. A bit intimidating, but something surely cool to look forward to. Experiencing new areas is always a fun thing to do in each countries starting game…shame CS1 kind of fucked it up imo.
Music is great in CS1 and 2. I have like 2 or 3 songs I can strongly remember for how great they are. Love hearing badass soundtracks played at the right moments. My top 3 are the boss theme from CS1, the true final boss theme of CS1 and the true final boss theme of CS2. Crazy how the boss themes are the most memorable. Weird even. The other music isn’t offensive or bad nor boring, I found them quite nice and relating to the previous games also. So it was still fine to listen to. Weird moment where the Sky main theme played during certain characters scenes despite them having no relation at all to anything to Sky, but ill let that slide still.
So the gameplay still follows the same formula that I know of, only major difference is the switch to 3D, so the placements for attack areas is a bit easier to see. There are still Arts, Crafts, Items, etc.. Nothings changed as far as the formula goes. As a matter of fact, certain gimmicks from previous games make a return as a permanent feature in addition to the system we already have. Adding all out attacks to be triggered any time you crit is insane to me. You had to wait for a certain turn to pop up before in previous games to launch this kind of attack. Yes you had to build up bravery meter for this, but building that up is trivial. Adding ontop of that in CS2 is the Overdrive system. From Ao, this system made certain fights very fuckin easy, catch is, its not available every time unless you are in a story heavy fight or literally the final dungeon. CS2 just made this available from the get-go. Its limited to 2 people per proc for 3 of their turns, but the catch from this one is: Its very easy to build up and this allows you to trivialize fights. I don’t want to use this term lightly for this specific circumstance, so let me rephrase or reword to the best of my ability.
Overdrive in Cold Steel 2 makes the game playing on Hard feel like im playing on Very Easy.
Ive been told multiple times that Hard in the kiseki games is just easy and that Nightmare+ is if you want the game to be actually hard. Should of listened bc good lord, game was wayyy to easy for me.
So the main cast is your average rag tag of students who all are either very important or have very important family members. Theres people like Elliot whose literally just there..i cannot for the life of me remember what he even does. All I know is that his dad is someone big. Gaius, who is also just there (and talks about wind or something), his dad is a tribe leader who can cut down major entities or something, no big deal. Alisa is there as the almost forced main girl of your entourage, her mom is the CEO of the major manufacturing for Erobonia, no big deal. Jusis is the son of one of the big 4 heads of the aristrocratic family in all of erobonia, no big deal. Machias is the son of a governor of the capitol of erobonia, no big deal. Emma is another one of the almost if not borderline forced girls the make you bring to almost every big story event, shes a witch of a long forgotten clan who has very big ties to rean and his destiny as an awakener, no big deal. Fie is the daughter of the jeager king, one of the two most powerful jeagers of their time, no big deal. Lauras dad is fucking on par if not more powerful than the benchmark that is cassius bright, no big fucking deal there. Millium (bless her heart) is a test tube baby who works for the chancellor who is a very important big deal, regardless, no big deal there. Crow is the head of a liberation front who also serves as another awakener with his own mech, no big deal. And Rean. Where to start….I don’t know, I don’t know whether to start with the fact that he knows of the 8 style blade doohickey..the likes that very few people know..like Cassisus, Arios and Richard. Or lets not forget that he is an awakener with his very own fucking mech. OH lets also not forget that he has ties and relations to the most powerful people on the planet, like Dominion #2 of the septian church and almost all of the Ironbloods. Hrmm what else. Oh ya his dad is the chancellor. No big deal.
This has to be the most powercrept cast in kiseki so far. And I didn’t even touch the guest characters we have from here and there. Remember when we just played as a cop? Or met a jackass bracer who was just rank B or C or something (agate), or when one of our party members was just a military member straight from the corps (noel). Now I wont downplay that each of the games have their own big dick party members as well like randy, son of the war god jeager or olivert lmao. But when your entire playable cast has this much on their plate…well then fuck me man you cant beat those folks.
So speaking of big dick cast members, lets talk big dick gameplay now. I touched how the game still is true to its core in terms of how everything functions. This wont stop CS2 from being overly trivial for what else you pull off. Remember how overdrive made the game into very easy mode? Well, let me touch how I beat one of the last few bosses of the games in this way. On our turn, everyone goes before the boss. Have rean activate anime good boy powers for 100cp, immidiantly overdrive and use the last craft for big dick damage. Oh crit chance? Cool, all out attack. Oh my designated caster with the quartz that doubles the damange of my first magic attack goes on a 0 EP cost turn? Sol Magna, one of the lost arts that does like damage in the 200ks or something, and that’s not even me touching its full potential. Oh a crit turn? Let me use Millium with the dominion quartz to double the damage I do with her full 200cp s craft. Oh I have one more turn with rean? Let me use the once per fight mecha segment to negate any damage and deal twice if not thrice depending on my cp. By the way the boss was dead about like 10 turns ago. Nutty. Its nutty the amount of big dick tools they give you for every instance you have in the way of offense. The best crafts are nutty. The best arts are nutty. The best accessories are nutty. The zemurian ore wepaons are nutty. Bonkers even.
Now as far as stories go? CS1 fucking sucks. How the hell do you fuck up world building in a game where the previous entries did their world building arcs phenomenally. For like 4 chapters during in CS1 I was taken to places for field studies…and nothing happened. There was very very little to no over arching build up to the plot of CS during those segments. The characters had their own little mini arcs where they became less sufferable. Speaking of, CS1 laura has to be the worst character to ever do it bc good lord they wrote her very fucking petty and entitled. Back on topic, there was a chapter where I found out that someone was smuggling good or something. Nothing happened. Another where a port town had spookies or something. Nothing happened. Another where one of my party members was locked up accidentally and never talked about again after the events happened. Nothing also happened btw. One of my most frustrated parts though was chapter 6. You see, in the previous chapter, SOMETHING HAPPENED!!! WOW GOOD LORD HOLY SMOKES FISH PASTE. And then chapater 6 happened and we were back to the same formula where nothing happenes in this hick ass town but we went there bc…..ya cold steel 1 fucking sucks in terms of its world building. Crazy though how the finale shit was actually great. Like I wont go into detail describing what happened bc ima assume u know all im talking about since this is a spoiler heavy review, but ya the finale was great.
CS2 on the opposite spectrum of CS1, was great as well! I had a fun time with it! Shit actually meant something like 90% of the time I went somewhere! Bonding events suck. Not gonna lie. They just do. Also very sucks that very important story relevant circumstances depending on which ones you watch and which final bonding event you chose. Like look, I think Fie is cute. Does she have a character? No, not really. But shes cute and I chose her for the final bonding event for CS1, apparently that was a big mistake bc I should have taken the gay route with crow bc he provides a very good scene for the final event for cs1. Damn, hate the see it. Crazy how they lock important scenes behind characters you wouldn’t pick instead of ur wiafu or something. Trying to tell me something here falcom? CS2 final bonding event I chose millium, she cute and crazy strong. Good thing her final event also was very nice to see that fitted very well with the story. I had a blast with cs2 compared to cs1 for a majority of the story.
I can list a few things I liked about cs1. I liked how it at least makes you feel like youre apart of the school spirit, this really comes together in cs2 when after you reunite with everyone, u feel happy that it all worked out. The finale to epilogue for cs2 is actually amazing. Aside from the “that wont be necessary” moments the finale dungeon had, was pretty great for the last segments. The twists it showed alongside fighting along crow with ur mech, was pretty awesome. The segment between finale and epilogue when ur playing as Lloyd? Would EASILY be my fav segment if it wasn’t for the forced rixia party member and banter they had. I really don’t like rixia. Idc if it was fitting that she was a spy and that entire segment was her forte, they had all the reason to pick anyone else. It would have easily just have worked with literally anyone else from the crossbell party. Other than that, fantastic segment. Also epilogue? That was actually a great sendoff to the first half of cold steel. Gathering literally all your party members from the games PLUS a few more? It felt like a mini Sky 3rd moment. I actually enjoyed it plenty ngl. The icing on that cake though was the true final boss in its entirety. I had one gripe in that it’s a copy paste of the original final boss from cs1 with added stats, but that didn’t take away from class VIIs last victory lap. It actually ended very nice. I may have not liked the cast that much, but they sure did send them off very well. And for the folks who didn’t like this segment bc it added nothing or whatever, go back and play persona you fucking has-been washed off knock off brandless mediocre self sustaining biased conformist jigaloo riding hacks. Overall, I didn’t like CS1 but CS2 was a huge step up for me. Taking a slight break before I continue to CS3.
oh ya and the phantasmal blaze plan explanation is one of the stupidest things ive ever read
So cold steel is certainly a set of games I have feelings for. Not too many positive ones, but certainly feelings for sure! I wanna go through my thoughts of the first two games in this one review, despite this one is mainly for CS2. So my friends do not like the CS games compared to the rest of the series, so I was bracing myself for funny shenanigans. I held no bias going into the series since I want to see for myself why its not so well received compared to the rest.
Instead of doing the cringe story summary and go through my thoughts from there, I wanna break down my categories for the two games I played between the following: Setting, music, gameplay, even more gameplay, the over arching story, my likes, my dislikes. Ill probably have a tandem here and there or a brief saying on something miniscule, but overall this is how I want to break down my experiences.
So the CS games takes place in Erobonia, this land has been heavily talked about in the previous games and is pretty much a big deal in regards to their status as a major power. According to the map, this area is fuckin HUGE. Largest place so far. So with CS taking the span of four games, its no wonder the country is massive. A bit intimidating, but something surely cool to look forward to. Experiencing new areas is always a fun thing to do in each countries starting game…shame CS1 kind of fucked it up imo.
Music is great in CS1 and 2. I have like 2 or 3 songs I can strongly remember for how great they are. Love hearing badass soundtracks played at the right moments. My top 3 are the boss theme from CS1, the true final boss theme of CS1 and the true final boss theme of CS2. Crazy how the boss themes are the most memorable. Weird even. The other music isn’t offensive or bad nor boring, I found them quite nice and relating to the previous games also. So it was still fine to listen to. Weird moment where the Sky main theme played during certain characters scenes despite them having no relation at all to anything to Sky, but ill let that slide still.
So the gameplay still follows the same formula that I know of, only major difference is the switch to 3D, so the placements for attack areas is a bit easier to see. There are still Arts, Crafts, Items, etc.. Nothings changed as far as the formula goes. As a matter of fact, certain gimmicks from previous games make a return as a permanent feature in addition to the system we already have. Adding all out attacks to be triggered any time you crit is insane to me. You had to wait for a certain turn to pop up before in previous games to launch this kind of attack. Yes you had to build up bravery meter for this, but building that up is trivial. Adding ontop of that in CS2 is the Overdrive system. From Ao, this system made certain fights very fuckin easy, catch is, its not available every time unless you are in a story heavy fight or literally the final dungeon. CS2 just made this available from the get-go. Its limited to 2 people per proc for 3 of their turns, but the catch from this one is: Its very easy to build up and this allows you to trivialize fights. I don’t want to use this term lightly for this specific circumstance, so let me rephrase or reword to the best of my ability.
Overdrive in Cold Steel 2 makes the game playing on Hard feel like im playing on Very Easy.
Ive been told multiple times that Hard in the kiseki games is just easy and that Nightmare+ is if you want the game to be actually hard. Should of listened bc good lord, game was wayyy to easy for me.
So the main cast is your average rag tag of students who all are either very important or have very important family members. Theres people like Elliot whose literally just there..i cannot for the life of me remember what he even does. All I know is that his dad is someone big. Gaius, who is also just there (and talks about wind or something), his dad is a tribe leader who can cut down major entities or something, no big deal. Alisa is there as the almost forced main girl of your entourage, her mom is the CEO of the major manufacturing for Erobonia, no big deal. Jusis is the son of one of the big 4 heads of the aristrocratic family in all of erobonia, no big deal. Machias is the son of a governor of the capitol of erobonia, no big deal. Emma is another one of the almost if not borderline forced girls the make you bring to almost every big story event, shes a witch of a long forgotten clan who has very big ties to rean and his destiny as an awakener, no big deal. Fie is the daughter of the jeager king, one of the two most powerful jeagers of their time, no big deal. Lauras dad is fucking on par if not more powerful than the benchmark that is cassius bright, no big fucking deal there. Millium (bless her heart) is a test tube baby who works for the chancellor who is a very important big deal, regardless, no big deal there. Crow is the head of a liberation front who also serves as another awakener with his own mech, no big deal. And Rean. Where to start….I don’t know, I don’t know whether to start with the fact that he knows of the 8 style blade doohickey..the likes that very few people know..like Cassisus, Arios and Richard. Or lets not forget that he is an awakener with his very own fucking mech. OH lets also not forget that he has ties and relations to the most powerful people on the planet, like Dominion #2 of the septian church and almost all of the Ironbloods. Hrmm what else. Oh ya his dad is the chancellor. No big deal.
This has to be the most powercrept cast in kiseki so far. And I didn’t even touch the guest characters we have from here and there. Remember when we just played as a cop? Or met a jackass bracer who was just rank B or C or something (agate), or when one of our party members was just a military member straight from the corps (noel). Now I wont downplay that each of the games have their own big dick party members as well like randy, son of the war god jeager or olivert lmao. But when your entire playable cast has this much on their plate…well then fuck me man you cant beat those folks.
So speaking of big dick cast members, lets talk big dick gameplay now. I touched how the game still is true to its core in terms of how everything functions. This wont stop CS2 from being overly trivial for what else you pull off. Remember how overdrive made the game into very easy mode? Well, let me touch how I beat one of the last few bosses of the games in this way. On our turn, everyone goes before the boss. Have rean activate anime good boy powers for 100cp, immidiantly overdrive and use the last craft for big dick damage. Oh crit chance? Cool, all out attack. Oh my designated caster with the quartz that doubles the damange of my first magic attack goes on a 0 EP cost turn? Sol Magna, one of the lost arts that does like damage in the 200ks or something, and that’s not even me touching its full potential. Oh a crit turn? Let me use Millium with the dominion quartz to double the damage I do with her full 200cp s craft. Oh I have one more turn with rean? Let me use the once per fight mecha segment to negate any damage and deal twice if not thrice depending on my cp. By the way the boss was dead about like 10 turns ago. Nutty. Its nutty the amount of big dick tools they give you for every instance you have in the way of offense. The best crafts are nutty. The best arts are nutty. The best accessories are nutty. The zemurian ore wepaons are nutty. Bonkers even.
Now as far as stories go? CS1 fucking sucks. How the hell do you fuck up world building in a game where the previous entries did their world building arcs phenomenally. For like 4 chapters during in CS1 I was taken to places for field studies…and nothing happened. There was very very little to no over arching build up to the plot of CS during those segments. The characters had their own little mini arcs where they became less sufferable. Speaking of, CS1 laura has to be the worst character to ever do it bc good lord they wrote her very fucking petty and entitled. Back on topic, there was a chapter where I found out that someone was smuggling good or something. Nothing happened. Another where a port town had spookies or something. Nothing happened. Another where one of my party members was locked up accidentally and never talked about again after the events happened. Nothing also happened btw. One of my most frustrated parts though was chapter 6. You see, in the previous chapter, SOMETHING HAPPENED!!! WOW GOOD LORD HOLY SMOKES FISH PASTE. And then chapater 6 happened and we were back to the same formula where nothing happenes in this hick ass town but we went there bc…..ya cold steel 1 fucking sucks in terms of its world building. Crazy though how the finale shit was actually great. Like I wont go into detail describing what happened bc ima assume u know all im talking about since this is a spoiler heavy review, but ya the finale was great.
CS2 on the opposite spectrum of CS1, was great as well! I had a fun time with it! Shit actually meant something like 90% of the time I went somewhere! Bonding events suck. Not gonna lie. They just do. Also very sucks that very important story relevant circumstances depending on which ones you watch and which final bonding event you chose. Like look, I think Fie is cute. Does she have a character? No, not really. But shes cute and I chose her for the final bonding event for CS1, apparently that was a big mistake bc I should have taken the gay route with crow bc he provides a very good scene for the final event for cs1. Damn, hate the see it. Crazy how they lock important scenes behind characters you wouldn’t pick instead of ur wiafu or something. Trying to tell me something here falcom? CS2 final bonding event I chose millium, she cute and crazy strong. Good thing her final event also was very nice to see that fitted very well with the story. I had a blast with cs2 compared to cs1 for a majority of the story.
I can list a few things I liked about cs1. I liked how it at least makes you feel like youre apart of the school spirit, this really comes together in cs2 when after you reunite with everyone, u feel happy that it all worked out. The finale to epilogue for cs2 is actually amazing. Aside from the “that wont be necessary” moments the finale dungeon had, was pretty great for the last segments. The twists it showed alongside fighting along crow with ur mech, was pretty awesome. The segment between finale and epilogue when ur playing as Lloyd? Would EASILY be my fav segment if it wasn’t for the forced rixia party member and banter they had. I really don’t like rixia. Idc if it was fitting that she was a spy and that entire segment was her forte, they had all the reason to pick anyone else. It would have easily just have worked with literally anyone else from the crossbell party. Other than that, fantastic segment. Also epilogue? That was actually a great sendoff to the first half of cold steel. Gathering literally all your party members from the games PLUS a few more? It felt like a mini Sky 3rd moment. I actually enjoyed it plenty ngl. The icing on that cake though was the true final boss in its entirety. I had one gripe in that it’s a copy paste of the original final boss from cs1 with added stats, but that didn’t take away from class VIIs last victory lap. It actually ended very nice. I may have not liked the cast that much, but they sure did send them off very well. And for the folks who didn’t like this segment bc it added nothing or whatever, go back and play persona you fucking has-been washed off knock off brandless mediocre self sustaining biased conformist jigaloo riding hacks. Overall, I didn’t like CS1 but CS2 was a huge step up for me. Taking a slight break before I continue to CS3.
oh ya and the phantasmal blaze plan explanation is one of the stupidest things ive ever read