This review contains spoilers
IT'S PEAK COLD STEEL BAYBE OH YEAH SWAG!!! But yeah I think this game gets too much flack, yeah sure the game is too easy with how broken overdrive and certain master quartz are, even on nightmare I was oneshotting most bosses in the endgame combined with how OP S craft damage is in the first half of the Erebonia arc. (but even then CS's 3 and 4 are even more braindead with a certain new mechanic introduced)
But this game does so much otherwise I don't really care. I fucking war backdrop this game does, I doesn't fully realize it I'm aware (and TRUST me that only gets worse as the arc goes on) but I think it's an engaging escuse to revisit all these old areas under a new context, and seeing how Erebonia is affected by Crossbell's declaration on top of it's own Civil war that was alluded too in the Crossbell arc is really neat. The noble commoner conflict coming a big climax in this game was really satisfying to see (if only it wasn't totally forgotten about after this game).
The new characters like Mcburn, Altina, Duvalie (yes she's in azure but this game actually allows her to BE a character so I count her), Leo and Xeno are some of the best the arc has to offer. Class VII gets a bit more to do here and I love what they do with the ending but more on that later. Picking up all the students from Thors to help fight in the war after getting Class VII back is cheesy as hell but I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it, it gives the NPC's real stakes and got me attached to them a hell of a lot more, and another reason why I say Cold Steel does NPC's the best out of any arc so far. And expanding on Valimar and the Divine Knights is cool.
I think the ending gets way too much flack, I honesty really liked it as a deconstruction of the other arcs (even if the big twist is kinda ruined by Azure's ending out right telling you what happens). But after the Lloyd stuff (which is fine but nothing mind blowing other than seeing Lloyd in 3D and voiced in English) the epilogue is honestly the part that stuck with me more than anything else in the entire Cold Steel arc.
When Rean and Class VII finish the Reverie Corridor and directly told that it's not going to really accomplish anything class VII standing up not because it's some right thing to do but because they want to make as many memories as possible with each other. It reads to me as really tragic, like despite the lack of casualties in the civil in these kids got their entire high school life stolen from them by something totally out of their control and it's something they can't take back. The constant saying of Thors that the youth is the foundation of the world rings hollow when said youth isn't able to be themselves, it shows the inherent hypocrisy of the academy and Erebonia as a whole that Class VII vows to fix. But even with all those ideals we see that they're still kids, when all is said and done and they have to say goodbye they're sad about it even KNOWING they'll see each other again because they know it won't be the same, but that's what growing up is like. It's honestly a really powerful ending and one of my favorites in the series because of it.
But this game does so much otherwise I don't really care. I fucking war backdrop this game does, I doesn't fully realize it I'm aware (and TRUST me that only gets worse as the arc goes on) but I think it's an engaging escuse to revisit all these old areas under a new context, and seeing how Erebonia is affected by Crossbell's declaration on top of it's own Civil war that was alluded too in the Crossbell arc is really neat. The noble commoner conflict coming a big climax in this game was really satisfying to see (if only it wasn't totally forgotten about after this game).
The new characters like Mcburn, Altina, Duvalie (yes she's in azure but this game actually allows her to BE a character so I count her), Leo and Xeno are some of the best the arc has to offer. Class VII gets a bit more to do here and I love what they do with the ending but more on that later. Picking up all the students from Thors to help fight in the war after getting Class VII back is cheesy as hell but I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it, it gives the NPC's real stakes and got me attached to them a hell of a lot more, and another reason why I say Cold Steel does NPC's the best out of any arc so far. And expanding on Valimar and the Divine Knights is cool.
I think the ending gets way too much flack, I honesty really liked it as a deconstruction of the other arcs (even if the big twist is kinda ruined by Azure's ending out right telling you what happens). But after the Lloyd stuff (which is fine but nothing mind blowing other than seeing Lloyd in 3D and voiced in English) the epilogue is honestly the part that stuck with me more than anything else in the entire Cold Steel arc.
When Rean and Class VII finish the Reverie Corridor and directly told that it's not going to really accomplish anything class VII standing up not because it's some right thing to do but because they want to make as many memories as possible with each other. It reads to me as really tragic, like despite the lack of casualties in the civil in these kids got their entire high school life stolen from them by something totally out of their control and it's something they can't take back. The constant saying of Thors that the youth is the foundation of the world rings hollow when said youth isn't able to be themselves, it shows the inherent hypocrisy of the academy and Erebonia as a whole that Class VII vows to fix. But even with all those ideals we see that they're still kids, when all is said and done and they have to say goodbye they're sad about it even KNOWING they'll see each other again because they know it won't be the same, but that's what growing up is like. It's honestly a really powerful ending and one of my favorites in the series because of it.