This review contains spoilers
I'm sure there are people smarter than me with more interesting things to say about CS4, but I put my 90 hours in and I'm going to talk about them
This game is incredibly mid for Kiseki standards. That's not to say it's bad, or that it doesn't have some incredibly good scenes, but the amount of things I had to play through to get there wasn't worth it. This game does not respect your time; that's not new to this series, but it feels especially prevalent with this game.
Let's start with the magic stuff. The Trails series has always had a common theme of political intrigue weaving itself with fantasy elements, all the way back to FC. I think this is what makes The Curse so disappointing; the series has shown that it's capable of writing this combination in fascinating ways without diminishing from either side, but CS4 drops the ball so hard despite The Curse being fairly interesting on a conceptual level. CS4's plot, in theory, centers heavily around an imminent, massive war. Better yet, the war is taking place across most of Zemuria, so it's touching a bunch of locations that 10 games have been getting us attached to. This is a perfect recipe for some high emotional stakes for your finale. The magic side of the plot cancels a lot of this out; the plot isn't actually about the war, it's about the rivalries. For every good sidequest about someone coming to terms with the war, there are two or three about The Curse causing a problem for you to solve.
Unlike the rest of the series, the party is now well aware of magic. No more secret clan of witches, no more mystery behind the schemes the villains are making. You start the game in Eryn Village and the party's motivation lies not in politically based action but in magically based action. For me, this makes it a lot harder to be invested, because frankly, the realm of magic is the realm of bullshit. Writers can make whatever the fuck they want happen with magic, and the worldbuilding around the magic isn't really strong enough for it to feel like something I can study or make predictions about. This isn't something that really bothered me in the past because magic was always a background thing, but in this game it's at the forefront and therefore causes a significant tonal shift from "story about people trying to get through political events" to "story about people doing whatever the magic makes them do". This is an exaggeration, but it's still a noticeable change that I dislike.
Let's talk about villains. Osborne, who I love for being an amazing villain, got a lot out of the ending. I think "guy who became the world's greatest enemy with the specific goal of bringing the evil into himself and sacrificing himself to destroy it" is raw as fuck. I kneel. It's especially cool when you start bringing in Rean foils with his own self sacrifice. The other villains in the game are kinda just there. This goes into my 2nd big complaint with the game; the writers are terrified of making characters evil. Almost everyone here is an apologist, or has a secret agenda, or is being controlled by the curse. THIS IS A STORY ABOUT WAR. I'm not saying there are no exceptions to this, but a vast majority of the people you fight are portrayed as if they aren't even villains. Act 2 is especially awful for this, with a majority of its fights being against people who are either only testing you or are just feeling so guilty about it uwu you should feel bad for them. (fuck claire) On a more civilian level, the game can't even handle making evil minor NPCs. Anyone who says something slightly too patriotic, does something just a little too evil, the party has to lament about how this is the curse. This is literally just not realistic. If you want to write an anti-war story, you are making yourself look outright childish if you refuse to portray how all of the people committing evil, inhumane acts are just as human as the rest of us. As is, CS4 refuses to hold the anyone responsible for the war. Even at the end, the only person arrested is Rufus Albarea, who voluntarily did so for political reasons as if taking the punishment for your crimes is some selfless act. This is maybe the most cowardly thing you could do when writing a story about war. I'm truly impressed.
Let's talk about the video game. CS4 combat is well and truly broken. CS3 was actually balanced on nightmare mode, like it felt like the game was encouraging you to break it just so that you could survive. CS4 gives up. I was able to break this game in half, and I was doing the bare minimum in party equipment/orbment management. I would be fighting Arianrhod, a character in this series renowned for her strength, and she melts like butter against my evasion tank. Also, having 20+ party members is a daunting task, but it didn't bother me that much cause I just focused on a small cast of the chars that I like.
In summary, this game feels like a perfect summary of the Cold Steel arc. Awful pacing, broken combat, questionable romance, and a few excellent moments and characters that make it hard to completely disparage the experience.
This game is incredibly mid for Kiseki standards. That's not to say it's bad, or that it doesn't have some incredibly good scenes, but the amount of things I had to play through to get there wasn't worth it. This game does not respect your time; that's not new to this series, but it feels especially prevalent with this game.
Let's start with the magic stuff. The Trails series has always had a common theme of political intrigue weaving itself with fantasy elements, all the way back to FC. I think this is what makes The Curse so disappointing; the series has shown that it's capable of writing this combination in fascinating ways without diminishing from either side, but CS4 drops the ball so hard despite The Curse being fairly interesting on a conceptual level. CS4's plot, in theory, centers heavily around an imminent, massive war. Better yet, the war is taking place across most of Zemuria, so it's touching a bunch of locations that 10 games have been getting us attached to. This is a perfect recipe for some high emotional stakes for your finale. The magic side of the plot cancels a lot of this out; the plot isn't actually about the war, it's about the rivalries. For every good sidequest about someone coming to terms with the war, there are two or three about The Curse causing a problem for you to solve.
Unlike the rest of the series, the party is now well aware of magic. No more secret clan of witches, no more mystery behind the schemes the villains are making. You start the game in Eryn Village and the party's motivation lies not in politically based action but in magically based action. For me, this makes it a lot harder to be invested, because frankly, the realm of magic is the realm of bullshit. Writers can make whatever the fuck they want happen with magic, and the worldbuilding around the magic isn't really strong enough for it to feel like something I can study or make predictions about. This isn't something that really bothered me in the past because magic was always a background thing, but in this game it's at the forefront and therefore causes a significant tonal shift from "story about people trying to get through political events" to "story about people doing whatever the magic makes them do". This is an exaggeration, but it's still a noticeable change that I dislike.
Let's talk about villains. Osborne, who I love for being an amazing villain, got a lot out of the ending. I think "guy who became the world's greatest enemy with the specific goal of bringing the evil into himself and sacrificing himself to destroy it" is raw as fuck. I kneel. It's especially cool when you start bringing in Rean foils with his own self sacrifice. The other villains in the game are kinda just there. This goes into my 2nd big complaint with the game; the writers are terrified of making characters evil. Almost everyone here is an apologist, or has a secret agenda, or is being controlled by the curse. THIS IS A STORY ABOUT WAR. I'm not saying there are no exceptions to this, but a vast majority of the people you fight are portrayed as if they aren't even villains. Act 2 is especially awful for this, with a majority of its fights being against people who are either only testing you or are just feeling so guilty about it uwu you should feel bad for them. (fuck claire) On a more civilian level, the game can't even handle making evil minor NPCs. Anyone who says something slightly too patriotic, does something just a little too evil, the party has to lament about how this is the curse. This is literally just not realistic. If you want to write an anti-war story, you are making yourself look outright childish if you refuse to portray how all of the people committing evil, inhumane acts are just as human as the rest of us. As is, CS4 refuses to hold the anyone responsible for the war. Even at the end, the only person arrested is Rufus Albarea, who voluntarily did so for political reasons as if taking the punishment for your crimes is some selfless act. This is maybe the most cowardly thing you could do when writing a story about war. I'm truly impressed.
Let's talk about the video game. CS4 combat is well and truly broken. CS3 was actually balanced on nightmare mode, like it felt like the game was encouraging you to break it just so that you could survive. CS4 gives up. I was able to break this game in half, and I was doing the bare minimum in party equipment/orbment management. I would be fighting Arianrhod, a character in this series renowned for her strength, and she melts like butter against my evasion tank. Also, having 20+ party members is a daunting task, but it didn't bother me that much cause I just focused on a small cast of the chars that I like.
In summary, this game feels like a perfect summary of the Cold Steel arc. Awful pacing, broken combat, questionable romance, and a few excellent moments and characters that make it hard to completely disparage the experience.