YuunagiBou
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Silent Hill 2
2001
I have a more sympathetic view of James than I think most people do.
At the very least, I believe that my understanding of the game is less emphatic on his flaws and failings than an awful lot of the interpretations I’ve seen others form in fifteen-plus years of playing, thinking about and growing into Silent Hill 2. I also think a lot of these interpretations scrub out a lot of Mary’s worst traits and have a very one-dimensional view of the two’s marriage and relationship, especially given the all-too-great extent to which I can find myself in James’ shoes and understand just what being in the sorts of situations he’s been thrust into can do to you. This isn’t to say that I think Mary is outright an antagonistic figure, that she was necessarily an abusive partner, or that James’ reaction to that pressure coming to a head was justified, nor do I think James is necessarily an innocent or pure soul. I mean, let’s face it, Silent Hill 2 is a 12-hour manifesto about just how much James Sunderland sucks, but… Mary sucks, too. So does Angela. So does Eddie. So does Maria. So do I, and so do you. Don’t we all?
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
In spite of Silent Hill 2’s unapologetic and uncompromising portrayal of the rot within the souls of its cast, we’re never given reason to believe that these people necessarily have to be defined by their pain and the maladaptive manners in which it manifests. Not the banality of Americana left to decay nor a grindhouse of grisly guts-and-gore undercut the beating heart within each one of these individuals’ chests; if anything the desolate atmosphere and steady throughline of sorrow amplify the moments of kindness and connection even more.
James, for all of his single-minded spaciness and passive suicidal ideation, routinely makes an effort to treat the people he encounters with dignity and respect, and that effort is often reciprocated if not paid forward in its entirety — though Angela’s concern for James is largely rooted in bouts of self-depreciation and self-loathing, there is still a consistent pattern of the two wishing one another well as they part ways. Even Eddie, who seems to go out of his way to alienate everybody he meets so that he can be truly alone and therefore exempt from judgment, makes a point of awkwardly telling James to take care of himself after their first meeting. While Laura appears to be little more than a menace for much of the story’s runtime, even she pays James’ concern for her safety forward once it becomes clear that they have a common goal in the Lakeview Hotel.
Each of these people are suffering in their own way, and have convinced themselves for one reason or another that they must carry their burdens alone — even James, for all of his tendencies to try and support others where he can, insists on marching upon his chosen path in solitude where he can help it. But even then they appear to acknowledge that perhaps it’s better to be united through suffering, even temporarily and even through acts as evidently-insignificant as acknowledging one another’s hardship. Misery loves company, and even in the midst of a corporeal Hell each and every one of these people are willing to let their innate tendencies towards decency and understanding shine through even as they teeter upon the precipice of their own individual downward spirals. Their best traits and worst traits exist not as compartmentalized aspects that function in dichotomy to one another, but as two parts of a greater whole. They are human. They are people. Silent Hill 2 concerns itself more than perhaps anything else with this duality that exists in all people, the eternal conflict warring within between our best impulses and our worst impulses.
It’s only fitting, then, that each of these people have already let their worst traits win once, before the story even started. Angela, Eddie and most infamously James have all already taken a life before fleeing to Silent Hill, the darkness within them exacerbated and pushed to an irreconcilable breaking point by circumstances largely outside their control. Angela and Eddie are largely victims who were burdened with their worst traits by a lifetime of abuse at the hands of their family and peers respectively, whereas James’ more general negative personality traits and failings were ingrained by systemic prejudice and toxic ideals of manhood and men’s role in a relationship being strained by a marriage slowly falling apart over the course of three years. It isn’t their fault that they have these negative aspects, nobody is born bad (Laura perhaps represents this more than anybody; as a child she is inherently innocent and sees Silent Hill as a normal town for she has no darkness to exploit), but as unfair as the responsibility of keeping these traits in check might be it is a responsibility nonetheless.
As much as I think Angela’s family and (to a lesser extent) Eddie’s bullies had it coming — I am a full-faced proponent of victims’ right to revenge — I think most people would agree that you aren’t allowed to hurt the innocent people around you just because you have been hurt in turn, and that self-destruction often leaves little but a smoldering crater where a person once stood. Angela’s hostility towards James’ attempts at extending a hand (while understandable and outright justified considering James’ own sins and views of women) does little but dig her further into the hole that she was kicked down into as a little girl, and Eddie’s slow descent into serial murder makes him even more of a sinner than the bullies who pushed him to the brink to begin with. Both of these people are given chances to take steps to right their personal wrongs and make an effort to let their best traits emerge victorious, but eventually choose to spiral out and allow themselves to be consumed by their pain, sorrow and trauma. The story frames them with nothing but a level of empathy and respect still largely unseen in game narratives even to this day, and yet it remains frank and up-front about the simple truth of the matter: you cannot heal if you don’t choose to do so.
Where does that leave James, then? What is his role in Silent Hill 2’s portrayal of the eternal struggle between the good in us and the bad in us? His fate is in your hands. As in, you, the player’s.
You see, James is in a unique position compared to the rest of the cast. While he has a backstory, personality traits, characterization and dialogue that is wholly independent of player input, at the end of the day the choices he makes and the ways in which he carries forward in the face of despair are wholly up to the player. Silent Hill 2 actually isn’t a game about killing monsters and surviving in an environment born and bred for hostility. Konami’s been lying to you this entire time, the guns aren’t actually guns. Silent Hill 2 is a game about a man navigating the tightrope path to recovery and trying to make use of the resources presented to him to accept himself, heal, and let go. Will he make it to the other side, shaken and scarred but still breathing, or will he let himself fall and be sent into the depths below?
It’s all up to you.
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
You often see people talk about how Silent Hill 2 is actually a pretty easy game all things considered, more or less nixing the “survival” element of “survival horror” wholesale, and I’ve seen a lot of people make a connection between this and James’ apparent need to be coddled and supported unconditionally. I get where they’re coming from there, but I think that Silent Hill 2’s abundance of resources and player agency as far as minute-to-minute gameplay decisions serves a greater narrative purpose. I don’t mean to sound like an “it was all in his head” ass creepypasta dude here, but work with me: weapons and ammo aren’t actually weapons and ammo, health packs aren’t actually health packs, monsters aren’t actually monsters. These are manifestations of James’ ability to fend off negative impulses and the bad parts of himself rearing their head. These are manifestations of his ability to take care of himself and know how to healthily cope when he eventually falters and stumbles on the road to recovery and normality. These are dark thoughts and self-destructive ideations raising up from our subconscious to haunt us, always lurking in the shadows and ready to strike if we aren’t careful. Even Maria’s role as a literal sexual temptress, while certainly representing James’ idea of an ideal, perfect Mary and his desire for gratification battling with his need for catharsis and honesty with himself, embodies the idea that temptation and indulgence in negative thoughts and habits are a means by which we lose touch with the greater picture as far as our mental health goes.
After a point of stumbling around in the dark and eventually making use of whatever resources you can — medication, therapy, the support of friends and loved ones — you begin to get a feel for your own psyche and learn to know yourself, and you also know how to deal with problems when they come up. This is what Silent Hill 2’s gameplay loop is ultimately about, and why James’ minute-to-minute gameplay decisions influence the way his story ends up rather than compartmentalized routes or story choices like most games that play with the idea of multiple endings. If James fails to take care of himself and makes a point of letting his worst traits get the best of him over and over again, then it’s no surprise that his story ends with him viewing redemption as only coming through his own death. If he gives in to temptation and focuses on the wrong things to try and fill the void left by his trauma, he’ll end up stuck in the same situation and look for the wrong way out, repeating the cycle over and over again until something changes.
But — if James is smart, and careful, and puts in the work and effort to take care of himself and fight all of the rot inside him by using the resources and good habits he’s picked up along the way — he might not be able to really ever get better, but he can live with it. He can start to define himself by his best traits again. He can heal. He can look at all the pain that’s got him to where he is now, turn his back, and leave it all behind.
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
The greater Silent Hill fandom has found itself locked in arguments for years over which ending of Silent Hill 2 is canon, the “true” ending, or the one that the developers had in mind when crafting the rest of the story. I understand why — and I understand why people find the framing of Silent Hill 2 as a cautionary tale with the In Water ending compelling — but I think to view it all as a series of compartmentalized possibilities and not as individual parts of the same greater statement is cynical and dehumanizing at absolute best. Silent Hill 2 isn’t about one specific outcome of the duality within us all, but exploring the duality itself and how different people might struggle with it in different ways. At its barest core, it isn’t a game about healing, succumbing, or being trapped in self-perpetuating cycles — it is a game about the very act of struggling and the multitudes that this act encompasses. It understands what it means to grieve, to fear, to hurt, to hate, to decay. It understands what it means to relish, to rejoice, to love, to grow, to live. And it understands more than just about anything else in the world the spaces in the margins where these things meet, intersect, clash and struggle for power.
Myself, though, I have my preferences as far as how I like to view the story ending. I find myself in James’ shoes more and more often these days. It’s been a really rough eighteen months or so, man. It just keeps getting worse. Some of it is through circumstances out of my control, some of it is my own doing, but all of it is mine to deal with and mine to choose what to learn from. I’ve lived the selfish, petulant parts of James who doesn’t want anything more than to be loved unconditionally without concern for the people doing the loving. I’ve lived the same experiences as the James who puts his neck out for the people around him only to get bitten and drained dry in turn. I’ve done much the same as James when he lashes out and hurts people around him to try and make sense of his own pain. I’ve been in the same position of James where I have to let people take advantage of me by letting them hurt me and then acting as their solid rock of support immediately after. More often than not these days I’m the James that we see at the very beginning of his descent into Silent Hill: glass-eyed and empty of the spirit, moving on auto pilot as if not quite sure he’s really here to begin with.
But I don’t want to feel this way forever. I don’t think anybody does. Silent Hill 2 understands that, and it understands that getting better isn’t as easy as it might sound on paper. But I’m trying, man, I really am. I want to let the best parts of me prosper and emerge victorious over all of the worst parts of me. I want to return to the point where better days seem like they’re on the horizon and not twenty miles behind me.
And I want to one day be able to look at all of this that I’m experiencing, turn my back on it, and leave.
At the very least, I believe that my understanding of the game is less emphatic on his flaws and failings than an awful lot of the interpretations I’ve seen others form in fifteen-plus years of playing, thinking about and growing into Silent Hill 2. I also think a lot of these interpretations scrub out a lot of Mary’s worst traits and have a very one-dimensional view of the two’s marriage and relationship, especially given the all-too-great extent to which I can find myself in James’ shoes and understand just what being in the sorts of situations he’s been thrust into can do to you. This isn’t to say that I think Mary is outright an antagonistic figure, that she was necessarily an abusive partner, or that James’ reaction to that pressure coming to a head was justified, nor do I think James is necessarily an innocent or pure soul. I mean, let’s face it, Silent Hill 2 is a 12-hour manifesto about just how much James Sunderland sucks, but… Mary sucks, too. So does Angela. So does Eddie. So does Maria. So do I, and so do you. Don’t we all?
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
In spite of Silent Hill 2’s unapologetic and uncompromising portrayal of the rot within the souls of its cast, we’re never given reason to believe that these people necessarily have to be defined by their pain and the maladaptive manners in which it manifests. Not the banality of Americana left to decay nor a grindhouse of grisly guts-and-gore undercut the beating heart within each one of these individuals’ chests; if anything the desolate atmosphere and steady throughline of sorrow amplify the moments of kindness and connection even more.
James, for all of his single-minded spaciness and passive suicidal ideation, routinely makes an effort to treat the people he encounters with dignity and respect, and that effort is often reciprocated if not paid forward in its entirety — though Angela’s concern for James is largely rooted in bouts of self-depreciation and self-loathing, there is still a consistent pattern of the two wishing one another well as they part ways. Even Eddie, who seems to go out of his way to alienate everybody he meets so that he can be truly alone and therefore exempt from judgment, makes a point of awkwardly telling James to take care of himself after their first meeting. While Laura appears to be little more than a menace for much of the story’s runtime, even she pays James’ concern for her safety forward once it becomes clear that they have a common goal in the Lakeview Hotel.
Each of these people are suffering in their own way, and have convinced themselves for one reason or another that they must carry their burdens alone — even James, for all of his tendencies to try and support others where he can, insists on marching upon his chosen path in solitude where he can help it. But even then they appear to acknowledge that perhaps it’s better to be united through suffering, even temporarily and even through acts as evidently-insignificant as acknowledging one another’s hardship. Misery loves company, and even in the midst of a corporeal Hell each and every one of these people are willing to let their innate tendencies towards decency and understanding shine through even as they teeter upon the precipice of their own individual downward spirals. Their best traits and worst traits exist not as compartmentalized aspects that function in dichotomy to one another, but as two parts of a greater whole. They are human. They are people. Silent Hill 2 concerns itself more than perhaps anything else with this duality that exists in all people, the eternal conflict warring within between our best impulses and our worst impulses.
It’s only fitting, then, that each of these people have already let their worst traits win once, before the story even started. Angela, Eddie and most infamously James have all already taken a life before fleeing to Silent Hill, the darkness within them exacerbated and pushed to an irreconcilable breaking point by circumstances largely outside their control. Angela and Eddie are largely victims who were burdened with their worst traits by a lifetime of abuse at the hands of their family and peers respectively, whereas James’ more general negative personality traits and failings were ingrained by systemic prejudice and toxic ideals of manhood and men’s role in a relationship being strained by a marriage slowly falling apart over the course of three years. It isn’t their fault that they have these negative aspects, nobody is born bad (Laura perhaps represents this more than anybody; as a child she is inherently innocent and sees Silent Hill as a normal town for she has no darkness to exploit), but as unfair as the responsibility of keeping these traits in check might be it is a responsibility nonetheless.
As much as I think Angela’s family and (to a lesser extent) Eddie’s bullies had it coming — I am a full-faced proponent of victims’ right to revenge — I think most people would agree that you aren’t allowed to hurt the innocent people around you just because you have been hurt in turn, and that self-destruction often leaves little but a smoldering crater where a person once stood. Angela’s hostility towards James’ attempts at extending a hand (while understandable and outright justified considering James’ own sins and views of women) does little but dig her further into the hole that she was kicked down into as a little girl, and Eddie’s slow descent into serial murder makes him even more of a sinner than the bullies who pushed him to the brink to begin with. Both of these people are given chances to take steps to right their personal wrongs and make an effort to let their best traits emerge victorious, but eventually choose to spiral out and allow themselves to be consumed by their pain, sorrow and trauma. The story frames them with nothing but a level of empathy and respect still largely unseen in game narratives even to this day, and yet it remains frank and up-front about the simple truth of the matter: you cannot heal if you don’t choose to do so.
Where does that leave James, then? What is his role in Silent Hill 2’s portrayal of the eternal struggle between the good in us and the bad in us? His fate is in your hands. As in, you, the player’s.
You see, James is in a unique position compared to the rest of the cast. While he has a backstory, personality traits, characterization and dialogue that is wholly independent of player input, at the end of the day the choices he makes and the ways in which he carries forward in the face of despair are wholly up to the player. Silent Hill 2 actually isn’t a game about killing monsters and surviving in an environment born and bred for hostility. Konami’s been lying to you this entire time, the guns aren’t actually guns. Silent Hill 2 is a game about a man navigating the tightrope path to recovery and trying to make use of the resources presented to him to accept himself, heal, and let go. Will he make it to the other side, shaken and scarred but still breathing, or will he let himself fall and be sent into the depths below?
It’s all up to you.
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
You often see people talk about how Silent Hill 2 is actually a pretty easy game all things considered, more or less nixing the “survival” element of “survival horror” wholesale, and I’ve seen a lot of people make a connection between this and James’ apparent need to be coddled and supported unconditionally. I get where they’re coming from there, but I think that Silent Hill 2’s abundance of resources and player agency as far as minute-to-minute gameplay decisions serves a greater narrative purpose. I don’t mean to sound like an “it was all in his head” ass creepypasta dude here, but work with me: weapons and ammo aren’t actually weapons and ammo, health packs aren’t actually health packs, monsters aren’t actually monsters. These are manifestations of James’ ability to fend off negative impulses and the bad parts of himself rearing their head. These are manifestations of his ability to take care of himself and know how to healthily cope when he eventually falters and stumbles on the road to recovery and normality. These are dark thoughts and self-destructive ideations raising up from our subconscious to haunt us, always lurking in the shadows and ready to strike if we aren’t careful. Even Maria’s role as a literal sexual temptress, while certainly representing James’ idea of an ideal, perfect Mary and his desire for gratification battling with his need for catharsis and honesty with himself, embodies the idea that temptation and indulgence in negative thoughts and habits are a means by which we lose touch with the greater picture as far as our mental health goes.
After a point of stumbling around in the dark and eventually making use of whatever resources you can — medication, therapy, the support of friends and loved ones — you begin to get a feel for your own psyche and learn to know yourself, and you also know how to deal with problems when they come up. This is what Silent Hill 2’s gameplay loop is ultimately about, and why James’ minute-to-minute gameplay decisions influence the way his story ends up rather than compartmentalized routes or story choices like most games that play with the idea of multiple endings. If James fails to take care of himself and makes a point of letting his worst traits get the best of him over and over again, then it’s no surprise that his story ends with him viewing redemption as only coming through his own death. If he gives in to temptation and focuses on the wrong things to try and fill the void left by his trauma, he’ll end up stuck in the same situation and look for the wrong way out, repeating the cycle over and over again until something changes.
But — if James is smart, and careful, and puts in the work and effort to take care of himself and fight all of the rot inside him by using the resources and good habits he’s picked up along the way — he might not be able to really ever get better, but he can live with it. He can start to define himself by his best traits again. He can heal. He can look at all the pain that’s got him to where he is now, turn his back, and leave it all behind.
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
The greater Silent Hill fandom has found itself locked in arguments for years over which ending of Silent Hill 2 is canon, the “true” ending, or the one that the developers had in mind when crafting the rest of the story. I understand why — and I understand why people find the framing of Silent Hill 2 as a cautionary tale with the In Water ending compelling — but I think to view it all as a series of compartmentalized possibilities and not as individual parts of the same greater statement is cynical and dehumanizing at absolute best. Silent Hill 2 isn’t about one specific outcome of the duality within us all, but exploring the duality itself and how different people might struggle with it in different ways. At its barest core, it isn’t a game about healing, succumbing, or being trapped in self-perpetuating cycles — it is a game about the very act of struggling and the multitudes that this act encompasses. It understands what it means to grieve, to fear, to hurt, to hate, to decay. It understands what it means to relish, to rejoice, to love, to grow, to live. And it understands more than just about anything else in the world the spaces in the margins where these things meet, intersect, clash and struggle for power.
Myself, though, I have my preferences as far as how I like to view the story ending. I find myself in James’ shoes more and more often these days. It’s been a really rough eighteen months or so, man. It just keeps getting worse. Some of it is through circumstances out of my control, some of it is my own doing, but all of it is mine to deal with and mine to choose what to learn from. I’ve lived the selfish, petulant parts of James who doesn’t want anything more than to be loved unconditionally without concern for the people doing the loving. I’ve lived the same experiences as the James who puts his neck out for the people around him only to get bitten and drained dry in turn. I’ve done much the same as James when he lashes out and hurts people around him to try and make sense of his own pain. I’ve been in the same position of James where I have to let people take advantage of me by letting them hurt me and then acting as their solid rock of support immediately after. More often than not these days I’m the James that we see at the very beginning of his descent into Silent Hill: glass-eyed and empty of the spirit, moving on auto pilot as if not quite sure he’s really here to begin with.
But I don’t want to feel this way forever. I don’t think anybody does. Silent Hill 2 understands that, and it understands that getting better isn’t as easy as it might sound on paper. But I’m trying, man, I really am. I want to let the best parts of me prosper and emerge victorious over all of the worst parts of me. I want to return to the point where better days seem like they’re on the horizon and not twenty miles behind me.
And I want to one day be able to look at all of this that I’m experiencing, turn my back on it, and leave.
Persona 3 Reload
2024
I'm not gonna use this review to express my thoughts on Persona 3 in general, as I think that should be rather evident but instead I wanna talk about everything this remake does both right and wrong for me in comparison to FES.
More than anything, I really miss the ludonarrative harmony FES was indeed more often than not rather infamous for.
There's a lot of it gone that's probably for the best - like automatic romance links and the jealousy system that came with it, but man do I miss Tactics being the way they were before P4. I get that they didn't want to spend too much time implementing those in P4 and P5 (essentially making it a hassle to use because of how barebones it was) but it was such a ridiculously layered system with surprising amounts of personality that I'm genuinely sad to see it being nigh unusable in a Persona 3 remake.
Right off the bat, it's the exact same as it was in every game since P4; all tactics are unlocked from the start and they're not a lot. We've got Act Freely, Full Assault, Conserve SP, Heal/Support and ofcourse Direct Commands. And that's it.
Persona 3 placed great importance on portraying the other SEES members as seperate entities, going as far as making the tactics unlock over time the longer the group spent together and I don't know man, that stuff was genuinely magical to me.
It set P3 apart in such an unconventional way, and I get that it wasn't for everyone but once you got the hang of it I genuinely thought that system was fantastic. All of its quirks, like Yukari being programmed to be more selfish with her healing if necessary and what not really made them feel like their own characters.
Persona 3 and FES gave the player additional tactics after the second, fourth and fifth Full Moon - Knock Down, Same Target and Attack Fallen.
And Knock Down in my opinion, is the major loss here. Early on, I did my best to do what I could with the Tactics system as it is now but found myself having to use Minato's (I'm an oldhead and that character unironically saved my life so I'm not calling him anything else, bear with me here) SP far more often than I should. Junpei would trial-and-error a fire weakness, get it right, see the exact same enemy standing right next to the one he downed and just slash that same enemy again instead. It's not great, and it's definitely something that made me have to look for other things to appreciate in this game.
Of course, that's not all bad - especially for a game with as many revisions as Persona 3, I think it's good that each of them stands out in their own way.
In a way, I'm really glad to have that feeling of "Man, I wanna go back to FES and experience it like that again someday".
I just wish it wasn't through the game incentivizing me as to how I SHOULD be playing by making my preferred option far, far worse. I imagine they're completely incapable of shifting and using Theurgies as well - so yeah, that just further proves my point.
I've gotten quite used to the trend of Tactics being a husk of its former self, but I was certainly hoping that wouldn't be the case in a Persona 3 remake when that's the one game where it was purposefully designed around it, and that was done so well. It's a damn shame.
My other major gripe is the Rewind mechanic - because yes, I am gonna be that guy that says it goes entirely against its themes (because it does!).
In reality, it's not as ridiculous as it seems, because it is essentially just making autosaves of previous days anytime you save but like.. there's such a dichotomy between adding quality of life changes and actively popping up Hey Your Actions Have No Consequences By The Way in a game that literally starts up with Memento Mori.
They could've added this to the game as is without actively needing to tell you about it, and anyone who'd need to make use of it would still find it while people that wouldn't still think as hard about how they should spend their time as they should. Even if simply saving before any choice is always a possibility, popping up a feature like that genuinely makes a massive difference on your mentality approaching choices like that, in my opinion - and it certainly shouldn't have a place in Persona 3 of all things.
Apart from that, my issues are pretty nitpicky; I miss having a narrator for what is now inner dialogue. I liked not being able to read Minato's thoughts, as it set him further apart as his own character (which he absolutely is) and I think having that layer of seperation from him was good. It made moments like "Yesterday was a terrible tragedy.. however, you must still go to school today." all the more shocking in my opinion because even before you witnessed everything about him in December you had those clear signs that there's certainly something wrong about how apathetic he is to all of it. I feel like not hearing it from himself added to that, but again, nothing too major. Still a really nice detail that set him apart, though.
FeMC also isn't included in this which I personally don't care for but I can see why that'd disappoint people. I feel like the Portable remaster was basically their attempt at making up for the fact that they didn't want to make such a major overhaul to both routes but instead decided to focus more on the original P3 experience which is fair, honestly.
Especially after playing through the game you realize how much effort that took, and despite the fanbase she has it would've set the game's release date back a pretty major amount. (And I figure it wouldn't be too enticing from a business perspective either, we all know how scummy they get with day 1 DLC already so I think hell would freeze over before we could expect that much content from them in a single game)
All of this lines up pretty well what I expected from the game honestly - Tactics being fully implemented again would've been fantastic, but considering how it's been treated ever since FES I figured it wouldn't be the case.
So, all that's left is hoping it makes up for it. Like I said earlier, I had to look for other reasons to appreciate this game with most of the ludonarrative harmony that made FES so magical to me gone - and I'm really glad to say those definitely exist!
Because oh man, the new content sure is good.
I LOVE what they've done with Tartarus. Twilight Fragments, a new resource gained through Tartarus itself and ranking up Social Links are used to fully heal your party's HP and SP in Tartarus for a price of 8 fragments, something I was a bit disappointed to see pre-release - but it's actually a surprisingly fantastic system due to it having multiple uses - the other being Twilight Fragment chests, at the cost of 1-3 fragments with said cost deciding how good the reward from its chest is. And what's in these chests is easily the best rewards you'll find in Tartarus.
That decisionmaking, combined with the fact that it's yet another way of incentivizing maxing out Social Links and making the most of the limited time you've got is SO good. It's a fantastic high-risk/high-reward decision that has made me appreciate climbing the Tower of Demise even more.
Theurgies are a welcome sight aswell - although a bit overtuned in terms of damage numbers, it's great to have a system that switches up the monotomy of Persona's combat, especially in long boss battles.
With the fact that it charges faster in different personalized ways for each character, it really guides you to making the most of your party's strengths, and what a reward for doing that right it is.
Incredibly cool animations and an attack (or utility!) that makes a massive difference anytime you use it. They feel SO good to use.
These also combine with the new activities at the dorm - because if you do one of the two activities each character is assigned to 3 times with them, they'll unlock (or upgrade) a new passive skill unique to them alongside their Theurgy. And these make a massive difference too! Really potent stuff that sets each SEES member further apart from eachother and really has you think about which ones you like bringing with you most.
The dorm activities writing-wise are a pleasant surprise as well; I figured it'd make the SEES dynamic a bit too chummy early-on or feel too lighthearted after heavier events, but they nailed it.
Early-on, it's very much a give-and-take thing especially with studying, where characters are generally like "Oh this benefits us both, so yeah sure" and after events like 4/10 you can't escape the gravity of the situation in these either.
Pleasantly surprised at how a studying event with Akihiko and Mitsuru a few days after for example actively had them being too distracted to focus on studying and Minato being the one to attempt to shake them out of that slump. It was really bittersweet.
What I mostly appreciate in this game though, is the Link Events that kind of make up for the fact that the male party members didn't get any Social Links outside of FeMC's route in Portable.
Because oh man, even as someone who generally likes their Social Links there (we don't talk about Ken's one, though) these are easily the best content these characters have gotten since the original game. It's all so incredibly good.
I really hope these are the future ideal for party member links because they work so well - they don't have to stick to a 10-part structure that sets up some alternative arc for the character outside of the story, you simply get to see more of their perspective and how they're dealing with the current problems at hand.
They're all written so incredibly well and immediately stopped me from worrying about whether they'd get the character writing right after how dirty some of these have been done in spin-offs.
Not only that, they understand Minato really well too; showing off just how kind and selfless he is, but also addressing how much of an issue it can be if he continues to be such a yesman and gives him more room to make choices for himself aswell. It's.. just some genuinely perfect stuff honestly, exactly what I was hoping to see from them and then some. I didn't think it was possible to make me like Persona 3's cast even more but holy shit, they sure pulled that off.
So yeah, despite my gripes with it I think this game is absolutely fantastic.
It doesn't hit me in quite the same ways FES did, and due to that I think FES specifically will always be my favorite game because nothing quite clicks for me in gameplay and story integration like that game does - but I'm really glad this game manages to stand on its own two feet despite what it lacks in comparison by more than making up for it.
If you're a sceptical Persona 3 fan who wasn't sure Atlus could ever reach those heights again like I was, rest assured - it's still an absolutely incredible experience. Just in its own, fantastic way!
More than anything, I really miss the ludonarrative harmony FES was indeed more often than not rather infamous for.
There's a lot of it gone that's probably for the best - like automatic romance links and the jealousy system that came with it, but man do I miss Tactics being the way they were before P4. I get that they didn't want to spend too much time implementing those in P4 and P5 (essentially making it a hassle to use because of how barebones it was) but it was such a ridiculously layered system with surprising amounts of personality that I'm genuinely sad to see it being nigh unusable in a Persona 3 remake.
Right off the bat, it's the exact same as it was in every game since P4; all tactics are unlocked from the start and they're not a lot. We've got Act Freely, Full Assault, Conserve SP, Heal/Support and ofcourse Direct Commands. And that's it.
Persona 3 placed great importance on portraying the other SEES members as seperate entities, going as far as making the tactics unlock over time the longer the group spent together and I don't know man, that stuff was genuinely magical to me.
It set P3 apart in such an unconventional way, and I get that it wasn't for everyone but once you got the hang of it I genuinely thought that system was fantastic. All of its quirks, like Yukari being programmed to be more selfish with her healing if necessary and what not really made them feel like their own characters.
Persona 3 and FES gave the player additional tactics after the second, fourth and fifth Full Moon - Knock Down, Same Target and Attack Fallen.
And Knock Down in my opinion, is the major loss here. Early on, I did my best to do what I could with the Tactics system as it is now but found myself having to use Minato's (I'm an oldhead and that character unironically saved my life so I'm not calling him anything else, bear with me here) SP far more often than I should. Junpei would trial-and-error a fire weakness, get it right, see the exact same enemy standing right next to the one he downed and just slash that same enemy again instead. It's not great, and it's definitely something that made me have to look for other things to appreciate in this game.
Of course, that's not all bad - especially for a game with as many revisions as Persona 3, I think it's good that each of them stands out in their own way.
In a way, I'm really glad to have that feeling of "Man, I wanna go back to FES and experience it like that again someday".
I just wish it wasn't through the game incentivizing me as to how I SHOULD be playing by making my preferred option far, far worse. I imagine they're completely incapable of shifting and using Theurgies as well - so yeah, that just further proves my point.
I've gotten quite used to the trend of Tactics being a husk of its former self, but I was certainly hoping that wouldn't be the case in a Persona 3 remake when that's the one game where it was purposefully designed around it, and that was done so well. It's a damn shame.
My other major gripe is the Rewind mechanic - because yes, I am gonna be that guy that says it goes entirely against its themes (because it does!).
In reality, it's not as ridiculous as it seems, because it is essentially just making autosaves of previous days anytime you save but like.. there's such a dichotomy between adding quality of life changes and actively popping up Hey Your Actions Have No Consequences By The Way in a game that literally starts up with Memento Mori.
They could've added this to the game as is without actively needing to tell you about it, and anyone who'd need to make use of it would still find it while people that wouldn't still think as hard about how they should spend their time as they should. Even if simply saving before any choice is always a possibility, popping up a feature like that genuinely makes a massive difference on your mentality approaching choices like that, in my opinion - and it certainly shouldn't have a place in Persona 3 of all things.
Apart from that, my issues are pretty nitpicky; I miss having a narrator for what is now inner dialogue. I liked not being able to read Minato's thoughts, as it set him further apart as his own character (which he absolutely is) and I think having that layer of seperation from him was good. It made moments like "Yesterday was a terrible tragedy.. however, you must still go to school today." all the more shocking in my opinion because even before you witnessed everything about him in December you had those clear signs that there's certainly something wrong about how apathetic he is to all of it. I feel like not hearing it from himself added to that, but again, nothing too major. Still a really nice detail that set him apart, though.
FeMC also isn't included in this which I personally don't care for but I can see why that'd disappoint people. I feel like the Portable remaster was basically their attempt at making up for the fact that they didn't want to make such a major overhaul to both routes but instead decided to focus more on the original P3 experience which is fair, honestly.
Especially after playing through the game you realize how much effort that took, and despite the fanbase she has it would've set the game's release date back a pretty major amount. (And I figure it wouldn't be too enticing from a business perspective either, we all know how scummy they get with day 1 DLC already so I think hell would freeze over before we could expect that much content from them in a single game)
All of this lines up pretty well what I expected from the game honestly - Tactics being fully implemented again would've been fantastic, but considering how it's been treated ever since FES I figured it wouldn't be the case.
So, all that's left is hoping it makes up for it. Like I said earlier, I had to look for other reasons to appreciate this game with most of the ludonarrative harmony that made FES so magical to me gone - and I'm really glad to say those definitely exist!
Because oh man, the new content sure is good.
I LOVE what they've done with Tartarus. Twilight Fragments, a new resource gained through Tartarus itself and ranking up Social Links are used to fully heal your party's HP and SP in Tartarus for a price of 8 fragments, something I was a bit disappointed to see pre-release - but it's actually a surprisingly fantastic system due to it having multiple uses - the other being Twilight Fragment chests, at the cost of 1-3 fragments with said cost deciding how good the reward from its chest is. And what's in these chests is easily the best rewards you'll find in Tartarus.
That decisionmaking, combined with the fact that it's yet another way of incentivizing maxing out Social Links and making the most of the limited time you've got is SO good. It's a fantastic high-risk/high-reward decision that has made me appreciate climbing the Tower of Demise even more.
Theurgies are a welcome sight aswell - although a bit overtuned in terms of damage numbers, it's great to have a system that switches up the monotomy of Persona's combat, especially in long boss battles.
With the fact that it charges faster in different personalized ways for each character, it really guides you to making the most of your party's strengths, and what a reward for doing that right it is.
Incredibly cool animations and an attack (or utility!) that makes a massive difference anytime you use it. They feel SO good to use.
These also combine with the new activities at the dorm - because if you do one of the two activities each character is assigned to 3 times with them, they'll unlock (or upgrade) a new passive skill unique to them alongside their Theurgy. And these make a massive difference too! Really potent stuff that sets each SEES member further apart from eachother and really has you think about which ones you like bringing with you most.
The dorm activities writing-wise are a pleasant surprise as well; I figured it'd make the SEES dynamic a bit too chummy early-on or feel too lighthearted after heavier events, but they nailed it.
Early-on, it's very much a give-and-take thing especially with studying, where characters are generally like "Oh this benefits us both, so yeah sure" and after events like 4/10 you can't escape the gravity of the situation in these either.
Pleasantly surprised at how a studying event with Akihiko and Mitsuru a few days after for example actively had them being too distracted to focus on studying and Minato being the one to attempt to shake them out of that slump. It was really bittersweet.
What I mostly appreciate in this game though, is the Link Events that kind of make up for the fact that the male party members didn't get any Social Links outside of FeMC's route in Portable.
Because oh man, even as someone who generally likes their Social Links there (we don't talk about Ken's one, though) these are easily the best content these characters have gotten since the original game. It's all so incredibly good.
I really hope these are the future ideal for party member links because they work so well - they don't have to stick to a 10-part structure that sets up some alternative arc for the character outside of the story, you simply get to see more of their perspective and how they're dealing with the current problems at hand.
They're all written so incredibly well and immediately stopped me from worrying about whether they'd get the character writing right after how dirty some of these have been done in spin-offs.
Not only that, they understand Minato really well too; showing off just how kind and selfless he is, but also addressing how much of an issue it can be if he continues to be such a yesman and gives him more room to make choices for himself aswell. It's.. just some genuinely perfect stuff honestly, exactly what I was hoping to see from them and then some. I didn't think it was possible to make me like Persona 3's cast even more but holy shit, they sure pulled that off.
So yeah, despite my gripes with it I think this game is absolutely fantastic.
It doesn't hit me in quite the same ways FES did, and due to that I think FES specifically will always be my favorite game because nothing quite clicks for me in gameplay and story integration like that game does - but I'm really glad this game manages to stand on its own two feet despite what it lacks in comparison by more than making up for it.
If you're a sceptical Persona 3 fan who wasn't sure Atlus could ever reach those heights again like I was, rest assured - it's still an absolutely incredible experience. Just in its own, fantastic way!
The Legend of Xenogears: Trails of Cold Saga IV
(the game that broke my brain)
Where do I even start with this game? The lore is batshit insane (derogatory), everyone treats Rean like he's the second coming of Anime Jesus, the characters take literal days to rest in the middle of WW3 after doing a day or two of hiking, the vast majority of the returning cast is flanderized to hell and back TO THE POINT IT HAPPENS IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CUTSCENES IN THE GAME (thankfully Renne is at least spared such a tragic fate), they revive 3 separate characters (Toval, Olivier, and Victor) who died very much onscreen, in a very unambiguous way, to which the party's reactions were very apparent, because Falcum can't stand killing off their OCs (yes it's a spoiler and no I don't care), they revive Crow 3 times by taping his soul to Valimar or some shit, the curse only exists to make the party have 3 billion boss fights with the most rando characters imaginable (WHY AM I FIGHTING THE FUCKING MUSIC TEACHER FROM CS1 GET ME OFF THIS TRAINWRECK), Thomas fucks off for the 4th game in a row despite being built up to hell and back (hey remember when Dominions were actively involved in the plot and eventually became party members? well that sure is a thing of the past), TOWA ISN"T PLAYABLE YET AGAIN, Musse becomes a grand chessmaster or something idk, McBurn sure is a boss fight and mcburninates everyone and activates his inner Trogdor and gives you an item that unlocks the true ending (?????) and you can only get the true ending by completing all the quests in the game (????????????) and the last quest is beating up the dragon Holy Beast (???????????????????????????????????????), all the women party members, INCLUDING REAN"S FUCKING STUDENTS (INCLUDING FUCKING ALTINA) (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA), are romanceable (screaming internally) (I still can't get over the Laura cave scene and that's a whole other bucket of worms), TOWA ACTIVELY FORGIVES CROW ON SCREEN FOR BEING DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ACTIVELY AND QUITE POSSIBLY KNOWINGLY PUTTING HER LIFE IN DANGER IN CS1 (that shit should give her PTSD at least and that's not even getting into her very possible abandonment issues SET UP ONLY 1 GAME PRIOR), Alberich is there to be a bad guy who does evil bad guy things because that's what the evil bad guy do (on top of functionally being a really bad ripoff of Dmitri Yuriev which should be a war crime on its own), Kloe isn't playable yet again AND IS LITERALLY PUT IN A POSITION TO BE PLAYABLE but Falcum didn't want to animate her or something I guess (I don't think she even gets a Brave Order either when Schera of all people does which is extra retarded, especially with hindsight from Hajimari BECAUSE SCHERA IS PREGGERS AND IS IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ACTIVE WARZONE), the party fights Osborne and Arianrhod at the bottom of the Gnome BDSM factory hobbit hole thing (??????????????????????????????????) way before the end of the game which takes away what little crumbs of gravitas he had left (I don't think he even gets an Anti-Order WHICH YOU"D THINK HE WOULD SINCE HE APPARENTLY CAN SPREAD THE ANTI-ORDER VIRUS TO THE IRONBLOODS), the writing generally being barely passable at best and an absolute fustercluck at worst, the gameplay being the easiest it's ever been even on Nightmare and every enemy being walking bags of HP (I checked at least a few times per chapter if I didn't accidentally switch it to an easier difficulty even when I wasn't optimizing everyone), and a lot of other stuff that probably slipped my mind but I don't care because this game's plot is frighteningly worthless.
Before I start ranting about the game's comically lopsided reception compared to how it actually is, I want to say that there are a handful of things I did like about the game.
-I liked that Juna was basically the protagonist for the first chapter of the game (and honestly she should have just been the protag, or at least a deuteragonist, for the rest of the game). Alisa entirely dropped being the deuteragonist during CS2 and it would have been nice to have someone fill in that role, especially since it would give a chance to split the cast to focus on other parts of Erebonia with Class 7 focusing on one part and Class 7 2 focusing on another part (why in the shiny fuck we didn't get to go to Jurai or North Ambria instead of farting around for the entirety of Chapter 2 I will never fathom). But anyway, Juna protag I very much appreciated for the short time it happened, since she's easily the only one left with any amount of tangible reason to want to stop Daddy Osborne from being a big ol' meanie (and NO, Crow no longer counts).
-There were a handful of bonding events I liked, despite easily being the worst handled aspect of the arc. I liked the one with Altina where she tried to help liberate Ymir from Imperial soldiers, the one where Emma tried to purge Ishmelga from Rean at great personal risk to herself (even though, let's face it, the only reason they did it was to have a reason for Emma to be naked), and the one with Musse showing Rean her suicide gun. There were a few problems with the setup for each of them (and frankly for Emma's it really should have just been a plot scene instead of Insert Epic Anime Fight #236754762354) but the fact that I really like the ideas for them more than makes up for their shortcomings.
And now for the rant.
If it isn't obvious, this is one of the worst games I've ever played, and not just because it's such a massive blueball for longtime fans who want something more substantial than having shiny objects dangling in front of them. And it really stinks because the plot can be summed up as "Xenogears meets Highlander during WW3" which sounds fucking awesome, but somehow Falcum made it the most boring, mind-numbing, tedious waste of time ever. Falcum has been building up Osborne since FUCKING SKY THE THIRD and his scene in Ao where he was openly threatening Dieter in a room full of dignitaries from other countries was easily one of the best scenes in the entire series, and in this arc he's been nothing but an absolute tin can of a person. I legitimately can't even tell if it's one of those "iT wAs JuSt iShMeLgA aLL aLoNg" plotpoints or if Osborne was completely in control the entire time because the way the writers explain the mind-melding whatever the hell was going on with him and Alberich is extremely confused and misleading. To be fair I completely clocked out by that point in the game, but I actively tried to look it up and ask other people what was happening with that, and either method didn't help me to understand much better beyond "Ishmelga and Osborne were doing stuff together". To put it in perspective, one of my favorite game series is Xenosaga. There is a very delicately woven, intricate plot of subterfuge, corporate spying, fucky experimentation, and intrigue all centered around an event that took place 14 in-game years ago. There are many different factions with different interests either trying to vie for control or to oppose the factions that would disturb the peace. To say that the player needs to almost take notes at some points while playing the games would not be an understatement. And those games are much easier to follow than most of anything in this game and Cold Steel because the writers had a goal they wanted to accomplish and actively articulated what everyone was doing when they were doing it, and the player can easily see what was happening and can make reasonable guesses as to what could happen next, and has many twists and turns to keep it interesting that don't come out of the same nowhere that Ishmelga showed up from. With this game, that sense is very much absent, at least for me. And Takahashi's plans got derailed partway through making the series; he had to cut down from 6 games to 3 games, with some supplementary content to fill in necessary gaps that couldn't make it into the games proper. What Takahashi accomplished in just 3 games, a VN and a phone game was monumental; what this game accomplished with all the buildup, time to develop and money that Falcum could muster was a tragedy. And for the final nail in the coffin, the entire Xenosaga series can be 100% completed in roughly the same time someone would 100% complete CS1.
And I'm not here trying to say everyone who likes this game is bad or anything, but I genuinely envy the people who can just turn their brains off and enjoy this shit. Superficially, longtime favorite characters make appearances and generally do things that they might do in this situation, so the immersion isn't ruined. There's a lot of pretty crazy stuff happening after Rean makes a comeback which amps up the stakes for the latter half of the game, and Cassius comes out of retirement to teach Rean a pretty cool and (relatively speaking) mechanically interesting S-craft that, admittedly, is one of my favorites in the series and can reasonably compete with all-time greats like Sakura Morning Moon.
All that being said, the amount of praise this game gets despite how much of a shitshow it is at a glance deeper than cursory always baffled me. There's people who either love this game to pieces or there's people who absolutely hate it with every fiber of their being, which is really unfortunate because the writers (might) still have an amount of passion for the series but to have it fail on this scale, especially with a relatively decent track record, says to me they need to slow production of this series down and let the series breathe a bit and have them think through everything properly. With the few things that I liked, even when it's an unfortunately very small part of the runtime it's genuinely up there with some of the other games I really enjoy. And to top it all off, I don't think Trails is even recoverable after this game; Hajimari did a decent job of trying to retcon a lot of the really dumb nonsense that was set up in this game and is basically just CS4 2: The Search for More Hanging Plot Threads, but Falcum's braindead insistence on having characters futz around on screen until the plot happens has finally caught up to them, and the plot is no longer something I can take seriously in any capacity.
Anyway, Cold Steel in general is an arc that I suggest people skip (the amount of stuff the player needs to know from it to get into Kuro can literally be summed up in a paragraph) but especially skip this one. The only parts of it that I think are worth watching are up on Youtube so just search around there.
(the game that broke my brain)
Where do I even start with this game? The lore is batshit insane (derogatory), everyone treats Rean like he's the second coming of Anime Jesus, the characters take literal days to rest in the middle of WW3 after doing a day or two of hiking, the vast majority of the returning cast is flanderized to hell and back TO THE POINT IT HAPPENS IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CUTSCENES IN THE GAME (thankfully Renne is at least spared such a tragic fate), they revive 3 separate characters (Toval, Olivier, and Victor) who died very much onscreen, in a very unambiguous way, to which the party's reactions were very apparent, because Falcum can't stand killing off their OCs (yes it's a spoiler and no I don't care), they revive Crow 3 times by taping his soul to Valimar or some shit, the curse only exists to make the party have 3 billion boss fights with the most rando characters imaginable (WHY AM I FIGHTING THE FUCKING MUSIC TEACHER FROM CS1 GET ME OFF THIS TRAINWRECK), Thomas fucks off for the 4th game in a row despite being built up to hell and back (hey remember when Dominions were actively involved in the plot and eventually became party members? well that sure is a thing of the past), TOWA ISN"T PLAYABLE YET AGAIN, Musse becomes a grand chessmaster or something idk, McBurn sure is a boss fight and mcburninates everyone and activates his inner Trogdor and gives you an item that unlocks the true ending (?????) and you can only get the true ending by completing all the quests in the game (????????????) and the last quest is beating up the dragon Holy Beast (???????????????????????????????????????), all the women party members, INCLUDING REAN"S FUCKING STUDENTS (INCLUDING FUCKING ALTINA) (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA), are romanceable (screaming internally) (I still can't get over the Laura cave scene and that's a whole other bucket of worms), TOWA ACTIVELY FORGIVES CROW ON SCREEN FOR BEING DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ACTIVELY AND QUITE POSSIBLY KNOWINGLY PUTTING HER LIFE IN DANGER IN CS1 (that shit should give her PTSD at least and that's not even getting into her very possible abandonment issues SET UP ONLY 1 GAME PRIOR), Alberich is there to be a bad guy who does evil bad guy things because that's what the evil bad guy do (on top of functionally being a really bad ripoff of Dmitri Yuriev which should be a war crime on its own), Kloe isn't playable yet again AND IS LITERALLY PUT IN A POSITION TO BE PLAYABLE but Falcum didn't want to animate her or something I guess (I don't think she even gets a Brave Order either when Schera of all people does which is extra retarded, especially with hindsight from Hajimari BECAUSE SCHERA IS PREGGERS AND IS IN THE MIDDLE OF AN ACTIVE WARZONE), the party fights Osborne and Arianrhod at the bottom of the Gnome BDSM factory hobbit hole thing (??????????????????????????????????) way before the end of the game which takes away what little crumbs of gravitas he had left (I don't think he even gets an Anti-Order WHICH YOU"D THINK HE WOULD SINCE HE APPARENTLY CAN SPREAD THE ANTI-ORDER VIRUS TO THE IRONBLOODS), the writing generally being barely passable at best and an absolute fustercluck at worst, the gameplay being the easiest it's ever been even on Nightmare and every enemy being walking bags of HP (I checked at least a few times per chapter if I didn't accidentally switch it to an easier difficulty even when I wasn't optimizing everyone), and a lot of other stuff that probably slipped my mind but I don't care because this game's plot is frighteningly worthless.
Before I start ranting about the game's comically lopsided reception compared to how it actually is, I want to say that there are a handful of things I did like about the game.
-I liked that Juna was basically the protagonist for the first chapter of the game (and honestly she should have just been the protag, or at least a deuteragonist, for the rest of the game). Alisa entirely dropped being the deuteragonist during CS2 and it would have been nice to have someone fill in that role, especially since it would give a chance to split the cast to focus on other parts of Erebonia with Class 7 focusing on one part and Class 7 2 focusing on another part (why in the shiny fuck we didn't get to go to Jurai or North Ambria instead of farting around for the entirety of Chapter 2 I will never fathom). But anyway, Juna protag I very much appreciated for the short time it happened, since she's easily the only one left with any amount of tangible reason to want to stop Daddy Osborne from being a big ol' meanie (and NO, Crow no longer counts).
-There were a handful of bonding events I liked, despite easily being the worst handled aspect of the arc. I liked the one with Altina where she tried to help liberate Ymir from Imperial soldiers, the one where Emma tried to purge Ishmelga from Rean at great personal risk to herself (even though, let's face it, the only reason they did it was to have a reason for Emma to be naked), and the one with Musse showing Rean her suicide gun. There were a few problems with the setup for each of them (and frankly for Emma's it really should have just been a plot scene instead of Insert Epic Anime Fight #236754762354) but the fact that I really like the ideas for them more than makes up for their shortcomings.
And now for the rant.
If it isn't obvious, this is one of the worst games I've ever played, and not just because it's such a massive blueball for longtime fans who want something more substantial than having shiny objects dangling in front of them. And it really stinks because the plot can be summed up as "Xenogears meets Highlander during WW3" which sounds fucking awesome, but somehow Falcum made it the most boring, mind-numbing, tedious waste of time ever. Falcum has been building up Osborne since FUCKING SKY THE THIRD and his scene in Ao where he was openly threatening Dieter in a room full of dignitaries from other countries was easily one of the best scenes in the entire series, and in this arc he's been nothing but an absolute tin can of a person. I legitimately can't even tell if it's one of those "iT wAs JuSt iShMeLgA aLL aLoNg" plotpoints or if Osborne was completely in control the entire time because the way the writers explain the mind-melding whatever the hell was going on with him and Alberich is extremely confused and misleading. To be fair I completely clocked out by that point in the game, but I actively tried to look it up and ask other people what was happening with that, and either method didn't help me to understand much better beyond "Ishmelga and Osborne were doing stuff together". To put it in perspective, one of my favorite game series is Xenosaga. There is a very delicately woven, intricate plot of subterfuge, corporate spying, fucky experimentation, and intrigue all centered around an event that took place 14 in-game years ago. There are many different factions with different interests either trying to vie for control or to oppose the factions that would disturb the peace. To say that the player needs to almost take notes at some points while playing the games would not be an understatement. And those games are much easier to follow than most of anything in this game and Cold Steel because the writers had a goal they wanted to accomplish and actively articulated what everyone was doing when they were doing it, and the player can easily see what was happening and can make reasonable guesses as to what could happen next, and has many twists and turns to keep it interesting that don't come out of the same nowhere that Ishmelga showed up from. With this game, that sense is very much absent, at least for me. And Takahashi's plans got derailed partway through making the series; he had to cut down from 6 games to 3 games, with some supplementary content to fill in necessary gaps that couldn't make it into the games proper. What Takahashi accomplished in just 3 games, a VN and a phone game was monumental; what this game accomplished with all the buildup, time to develop and money that Falcum could muster was a tragedy. And for the final nail in the coffin, the entire Xenosaga series can be 100% completed in roughly the same time someone would 100% complete CS1.
And I'm not here trying to say everyone who likes this game is bad or anything, but I genuinely envy the people who can just turn their brains off and enjoy this shit. Superficially, longtime favorite characters make appearances and generally do things that they might do in this situation, so the immersion isn't ruined. There's a lot of pretty crazy stuff happening after Rean makes a comeback which amps up the stakes for the latter half of the game, and Cassius comes out of retirement to teach Rean a pretty cool and (relatively speaking) mechanically interesting S-craft that, admittedly, is one of my favorites in the series and can reasonably compete with all-time greats like Sakura Morning Moon.
All that being said, the amount of praise this game gets despite how much of a shitshow it is at a glance deeper than cursory always baffled me. There's people who either love this game to pieces or there's people who absolutely hate it with every fiber of their being, which is really unfortunate because the writers (might) still have an amount of passion for the series but to have it fail on this scale, especially with a relatively decent track record, says to me they need to slow production of this series down and let the series breathe a bit and have them think through everything properly. With the few things that I liked, even when it's an unfortunately very small part of the runtime it's genuinely up there with some of the other games I really enjoy. And to top it all off, I don't think Trails is even recoverable after this game; Hajimari did a decent job of trying to retcon a lot of the really dumb nonsense that was set up in this game and is basically just CS4 2: The Search for More Hanging Plot Threads, but Falcum's braindead insistence on having characters futz around on screen until the plot happens has finally caught up to them, and the plot is no longer something I can take seriously in any capacity.
Anyway, Cold Steel in general is an arc that I suggest people skip (the amount of stuff the player needs to know from it to get into Kuro can literally be summed up in a paragraph) but especially skip this one. The only parts of it that I think are worth watching are up on Youtube so just search around there.
Trails of Cold Steel, the sixth entry of the Trails series and the start of a brand new arc taking place in the nation of Erebonia.
Originally on PS Vita, Cold Steel represents a leap for the series, going full 3D for the first time. While that leap to 3D is impressive, we'll focus on the smaller tweaks to the Trails formula first before diving into the bigger stuff.
First up the battle system builds off what's come before. Instead of using a grid based system for range of movement, we now have movement range limited to a circumference which is more natural for the full 3D environments. The new ARCUS battle orbments now allow two characters to be linked in battle which means characters are able to provide follow up attacks and earn Brave Points. Brave Points can be accumulated to allow for more powerful follow up attacks with 3 points allowing a Rush attack where the two linked party members can rush an enemy for a few hits and 5 points allow a burst attack which has moved from the Crossbell games as a bonus action on a turn to here. Burst attacks basically see your party go ham on the enemies doing a good amount of damage and great for tackling larger groups of mobs. Your links can also be levelled up for even more abilities, like at level two a finishing blow unlocks meaning if you use a link attack on an enemy and bring their health down low enough, your link partner will follow up and finish off the enemy. Other abilities include stuff like Auto-Tear and Cover and overall I think it's a fantastic addition on top of Trails already fun combat. It gives you more options to work with and helps speed up the flow of regular battles which is great.
Moving onto the Orbment changes, we're mostly building off Azure here with Master Quartz returning but other elements have been simplified. Quartz now comes with Arts variants that include an art or three on them so instead of building your arts by using the right elemental combinations in your orbment, now you just need to find the quartz with the art you want and hey ho, you can use Tear. With the larger cast this game has, I can understand why the system has been simplified. Constantly trying to remember set ups for arts you want would be a pain when you're swapping between 9+ characters so I can see why you'd alleviate that by just making quartz hold spells. I did miss the fun in experimenting with quartz layouts and seeing what arts I could get but again, I can understand why the change was made.
Another gameplay tweak that I greatly appreciated is that every area now has a map for it. It was always a weird thing in the previous games for me where most dungeons didn’t have maps for some reason but thankfully Cold Steel changes that. There’s also a whole new type of battle introduced at the end of the game that I am very excited to see more of in future games but shall hold off going into here and spoiling it. I’ll just say it very much appealed to my tastes.
The core gameplay loop is very much still Trails at its heart, exploring towns, doing quests, etc to progress the story but the choice of setting this time changes up the cycle a bit this time. The Empire of Erebonia is so much larger than either Liberl or Crossbell that we’ve explored previously and the decision made was to pick one core area to keep returning to as we explore different areas. That core area? A military academy - school. Now I know most people will roll their eyes at Persona comparisons but when it feels like the inspiration for the choice of setting and when Persona and Fire Emblem: Three Houses are my core references for school settings in videogames, I think being able to use them to explain what I feel this game does right and wrong with its setting is valuable. Now Thors Military Academy being, well a military academy means this feels closer to Three Houses than Persona for me. The students here are being taught with the expectation that most of them will end up joining the military someday so for the most part the setting works. Managing to find a third way to implement the Trails rank system where you gain more points for doing more sidequests by making it a graded study report is very cool, props to them for that.
Of courses, taking inspiration from Persona means we have a calendar system introduced here. Worry not, you won’t be playing every single day of a month, instead you’ll be playing a select few days in every month. The first day takes place at school and is mostly just story stuff before moving into the second day which is your free day. Free days are split into afternoon and evening sections where you’ll get your traditional Trails sidequests to do but also Bonding Points to spend. Every month you’ll get 3 or 4 bonding points to spend on having bonding events with your classmates where you’ll get to know them better. They’re kind of inspired by Persona’s Social Links but you’re not ranking them up and continuing a narrative through them, more just seeing an extra event with that character for that month that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. It does tie into your romantic partner of choice at the end of the game which changes up the final cutscene a little and who you can dance with at the school festival but otherwise, they feel very minimal and offer a little more insight to characters.
Your important quest for every free day is to visit the old school building. The old school building is a mysterious building that acts like a dungeon and every month adds a new floor to explore. Think Temple of the Ocean King from Zelda: Phantom Hourglass but without having to go through the whole thing every month, just the new floor. It mostly feels like something added to have a traditional dungeon experience for the school portions of the game and there’s very little given to the mystery to keep your interest in it outside of the fourth floor before the eventual payoff in the final chapter. It does make for a nice change of pace during the school portions and it’s also the only area for the bulk of the game where you have full control of your choice of party set up which is much appreciated.
Completing the old school building task each month transitions the day to evening and gives you one extra bonding point to spend before you return to the dorms for the day. The next day is always your Practical Exam. Basically here you’ll be given a battle to fight and often have side objectives to meet, like not letting anyone die or not using arts. These are fine and are mostly used to let characters who have tension with each other to blow off some steam and settle grievances while also building up bonds.
Finally after that you’re giving your field study destination for the month which acts as your more traditional Trails experience for the month. The class is split into two groups and sent off to different destinations to get a feel for what’s happening in Erebonia, meet the people who live in these places and help them out in a very Bracer like fashion by completing tasks. The field studies are where the more interesting story elements happen as the characters get to witness first hand the tensions between Erebonia’s Noble Faction and Reformist Faction as the flames of Civil War begin to build in the background of all the school bonding trips. The class will witness first hand the actions of the terrorist group The Imperial Liberation Front and will end up having to put a stop to them. It makes for an exciting end to each month but unfortunately because of the school system and the gameplay loop they choose to stick to so closely, rather than being able to escalate and build off these events, you’re immediately dragged back to Thors before you get to see or feel any of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on these areas and it completely takes the wind out of the plot. It’s a similar problem to what Three Houses suffer from in the first half of its game where things start to feel repetitive and the school portions start to drag on more and more as the game goes on and you want the plot to build up to something a bit more meaningful and longer lasting. It does eventually get there in the final chapter but having to go through around 60 hours of game before that point does take its toll. I think another issue comes from this game's story taking place from around late game Trails from Zero through to late game Trails to Azure. Basically throughout the game you’ll constantly be getting updates from what’s happening in Crossbell (and seeing this from the Erebonian perspective is greatly appreciated, especially with how its newspaper distorts facts to make Chancellor Osborne sound much more important to going ons in Crossbell than he actually was and dismissing the declaration of independence as a fools dream) but the issue is everything that’s happening in Crossbell sounds (and if you’ve played Zero/Azure it IS) so much more interesting than what you’re getting to see in Erebonia. So much of the political tension in Erebonia feels like it takes place off screen because these school kids are a bit too far detached from it. Sure there’s characters who have relatives who are very much involved with the quarrelling factions but they all feel like they’re kept at arm's length and are unable to give much insight to what’s happening themselves. Compare that to Elie from Zero, whose grandfather is Mayor of Crossbell and she herself has enough of an interest in politics to be able to explain to Lloyd and the player and the whole political situation of Crossbell, then it’s clear to see that we were missing someone like that in Cold Steel.
Let’s get into the cast itself then. The protagonist for this game is Rean, a young lad whose background gives him a balanced view between nobility and commoner. He ends up going to Thors Military Academy where a brand new class is being set up for a select group of students - Class VII. This class takes people from all sorts of different backgrounds and puts them together in an attempt to help people understand each other from different societal classes and try to bridge the gap between them. Including Rean the class features a total of 9 classmates to begin with which is a lot of characters to introduce at once and start building with.
We have Alisa who hides her second name and wants to take on everything herself while also looking out for everyone else. Elliot who is much more into his music than his military training. Laura, who is a noble incredibly dedicated to her training with the sword. Jusis, another noble who starts off more like the lone wolf of the group. Machias who absolutely detests nobles and wants nothing to do with them. Fie who despite being the youngest of the group, is so much more combat ready than anyone else. Emma who is the class president, top of the class but also has a mysterious air about her. And finally Gaius, a foreigner from the allied nation of Nord. On top of this we have our homeroom teacher Sara who very much opts for doing things unconventionally and loves a wee drink here and there. That’s just the opening group for the game and it’s a lot of people to manage and develop. The game does do well in trying to manage this by splitting the group up for field studies, allowing you to focus on 3 or 4 characters as well as forcing characters into groups where they’ll have to address their issues with each other (like Machias and Jusis or Fie and Laura). On top of that the field studies tend to take place in a character's hometown or somewhere where they have family connections which is great for their personal character growth. Despite the bloated cast, I did end up loving most of the characters with Alisa, Emma, and Jusis being my standouts while Gaius and Elliot unfortunately didn’t do much for me compared to the rest.
But wait there’s even more important characters! A group of second years becomes close to the group introducing us to the smartass Crow, student council president Towa, engineer George and way over the top aggressively lesbian Angelica. For the most part they’re a great bunch, I absolutely loved Crow and his dynamic with Rean though Angelica has some issues and leans way too hard into uncomfortable tropes that are yeah…. Just an overall bad representation of a lesbian character.
And hold up, there’s even more important characters like Elise - Rean’s sister, Patrick, a noble who has that noble superiority complex, Olivert and his brother and sister, more academy professors…..
Oh and we can’t forget our antagonistic group, the Imperial Liberation Front whose members like to call themselves the first letter of their name - G, S, V and the mysterious leader C who wears a black suit and mask like he’s some sort of Power Ranger fanboy (it’s cool though and he has plenty of charisma). For the bulk of the game this group really doesn't feel like much. They show up, get their asses beat off school kids and run away pretending like it was all part of the plan (which granted I’ll give C credit for his long game planning because he definitely threw me off his competency with those earlier operations)
Basically, if this feels like a lot, it’s because it is and it contributes to Cold Steel’s biggest issue - bloat. There is way too much here in terms of characters and locations to set up and in traditional Trails fashion, it’s done slowly and meticulously to make sure they truly build a world that feels alive and credit where it’s due, they do manage to accomplish that but at the same time it takes 60+ hours to do that. 60+ hours of world and character building is something that starts to drag on. I was craving for something of excitement and importance to happen because as much as I can appreciate taking your time to craft a world with great detail, I also need something to get me invested in the plot at large. I think part of the issue is the school sections take up a big chunk of play time and knock the wind out of the larger plot and bloat up the whole game while also killing the pacing. Like they are important for the camaraderie between Class VII but they do alter the balance of the traditional Trails experience in a way that I feel overall hinders the pacing. As someone who has played Three Houses the most apt comparison I can make is - imagine the academy phase of that game stretched out to 60+ hours and just as the war phase is about to begin the game ends and that’s going to be covered in the next game.
The finale of Cold Steel is fantastic, I loved the last portion of the game and everything that went down, it just took way too long meandering to that point. Take Trails in the Sky FC for example. That game is also very much focused on the slow burn of world building for the majority of the game but it does so through a much more manageable cast, with a strong focus on Estelle and Joshua at its centre as everything else is built around them and it’s last quarter gets into the exciting plot developments to make journey more memorable and it’s all done in around 40 hours. Cold Steel is juggling way too many characters without focusing on any one or two characters as its central focus and as a result everything takes so much longer to get going.
Jumping back to that transition to 3D, I will say the game does a fantastic job at bringing the scale of Erebonia to life. Cities are massive with the capital Heimdallr split into multiple districts full of massive buildings. Roer feels like Zeiss from Liberl reimagined into the full scale city it represented. The Nord Highlands bring a massive open area traversable via horse which is incredible for what is at its core a Vita game though I could’ve done with some fast travel points in that area as traversing constantly between the village and the military base to accomplish the quests in that area felt dragged out with how large it is. Ultimately though they did a fantastic job at making Erebonia feel like the massive Empire it is compared to Crossbell and Liberl. Each destination is only reachable via train as well further driving home just how massive this nation is. Some of the road areas have exits that are outside the field study boundary but signposts point out where those roads lead to which could be interesting for future games in this arc if travelling isn’t limited to trains later on.
All that to say is the world design in this game is well done and on top of that the dungeons are fun to traverse with their gimmicks like flipping switches to activate and deactivate bridges and stuff like that. The gameplay side of things really helps to keep the game being fun as it drags its heels with its narrative and for me that was greatly appreciated when my frustrations were building.
On the soundtrack side of things it’s another great offering. The upbeat sounds of school life, the atmospheric dungeon music, the heavy battle music - it’s all here to elevate the experience and help bring this world to life. The opening song is really catchy and the title screen music fits the mood of the adventure. Speaking of the title screen, I loved the neat touch of adding more characters alongside Rean on the train as the game progresses. It’s one of those little things that just make the experience a bit more special. And another little thing I think worth mentioning is this Cold Steel’s book collection Red Moon Rose - a thrilling tale of a vampire hunter and her encounter with a vampire who has been sucking the blood dry out of people during the night and I absolutely loved it. Again it’s one of those extra things that makes Trails such a great series and I love how much effort is put into those novels. On the disappointing side of things though, we do lose our funny little chest messages in this game which is a real shame.
Trails of Cold Steel is unfortunately overall, a step back from what came before it. Overly ambitious and bloated by its large cast and choice of setting, it takes way too long setting up things and not enough time paying off that build up. The finale is a great start to paying off the build up but that’s all it is - a start. Hopefully with this build up out of the way Cold Steel II can hit the ground running like the other follow up games have done in this series. The great cast of characters and fantastic gameplay makes Cold Steel still an overall enjoyable experience despite its flaws, just one that falls a bit short of what this series has managed to do before it.
Originally on PS Vita, Cold Steel represents a leap for the series, going full 3D for the first time. While that leap to 3D is impressive, we'll focus on the smaller tweaks to the Trails formula first before diving into the bigger stuff.
First up the battle system builds off what's come before. Instead of using a grid based system for range of movement, we now have movement range limited to a circumference which is more natural for the full 3D environments. The new ARCUS battle orbments now allow two characters to be linked in battle which means characters are able to provide follow up attacks and earn Brave Points. Brave Points can be accumulated to allow for more powerful follow up attacks with 3 points allowing a Rush attack where the two linked party members can rush an enemy for a few hits and 5 points allow a burst attack which has moved from the Crossbell games as a bonus action on a turn to here. Burst attacks basically see your party go ham on the enemies doing a good amount of damage and great for tackling larger groups of mobs. Your links can also be levelled up for even more abilities, like at level two a finishing blow unlocks meaning if you use a link attack on an enemy and bring their health down low enough, your link partner will follow up and finish off the enemy. Other abilities include stuff like Auto-Tear and Cover and overall I think it's a fantastic addition on top of Trails already fun combat. It gives you more options to work with and helps speed up the flow of regular battles which is great.
Moving onto the Orbment changes, we're mostly building off Azure here with Master Quartz returning but other elements have been simplified. Quartz now comes with Arts variants that include an art or three on them so instead of building your arts by using the right elemental combinations in your orbment, now you just need to find the quartz with the art you want and hey ho, you can use Tear. With the larger cast this game has, I can understand why the system has been simplified. Constantly trying to remember set ups for arts you want would be a pain when you're swapping between 9+ characters so I can see why you'd alleviate that by just making quartz hold spells. I did miss the fun in experimenting with quartz layouts and seeing what arts I could get but again, I can understand why the change was made.
Another gameplay tweak that I greatly appreciated is that every area now has a map for it. It was always a weird thing in the previous games for me where most dungeons didn’t have maps for some reason but thankfully Cold Steel changes that. There’s also a whole new type of battle introduced at the end of the game that I am very excited to see more of in future games but shall hold off going into here and spoiling it. I’ll just say it very much appealed to my tastes.
The core gameplay loop is very much still Trails at its heart, exploring towns, doing quests, etc to progress the story but the choice of setting this time changes up the cycle a bit this time. The Empire of Erebonia is so much larger than either Liberl or Crossbell that we’ve explored previously and the decision made was to pick one core area to keep returning to as we explore different areas. That core area? A military academy - school. Now I know most people will roll their eyes at Persona comparisons but when it feels like the inspiration for the choice of setting and when Persona and Fire Emblem: Three Houses are my core references for school settings in videogames, I think being able to use them to explain what I feel this game does right and wrong with its setting is valuable. Now Thors Military Academy being, well a military academy means this feels closer to Three Houses than Persona for me. The students here are being taught with the expectation that most of them will end up joining the military someday so for the most part the setting works. Managing to find a third way to implement the Trails rank system where you gain more points for doing more sidequests by making it a graded study report is very cool, props to them for that.
Of courses, taking inspiration from Persona means we have a calendar system introduced here. Worry not, you won’t be playing every single day of a month, instead you’ll be playing a select few days in every month. The first day takes place at school and is mostly just story stuff before moving into the second day which is your free day. Free days are split into afternoon and evening sections where you’ll get your traditional Trails sidequests to do but also Bonding Points to spend. Every month you’ll get 3 or 4 bonding points to spend on having bonding events with your classmates where you’ll get to know them better. They’re kind of inspired by Persona’s Social Links but you’re not ranking them up and continuing a narrative through them, more just seeing an extra event with that character for that month that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. It does tie into your romantic partner of choice at the end of the game which changes up the final cutscene a little and who you can dance with at the school festival but otherwise, they feel very minimal and offer a little more insight to characters.
Your important quest for every free day is to visit the old school building. The old school building is a mysterious building that acts like a dungeon and every month adds a new floor to explore. Think Temple of the Ocean King from Zelda: Phantom Hourglass but without having to go through the whole thing every month, just the new floor. It mostly feels like something added to have a traditional dungeon experience for the school portions of the game and there’s very little given to the mystery to keep your interest in it outside of the fourth floor before the eventual payoff in the final chapter. It does make for a nice change of pace during the school portions and it’s also the only area for the bulk of the game where you have full control of your choice of party set up which is much appreciated.
Completing the old school building task each month transitions the day to evening and gives you one extra bonding point to spend before you return to the dorms for the day. The next day is always your Practical Exam. Basically here you’ll be given a battle to fight and often have side objectives to meet, like not letting anyone die or not using arts. These are fine and are mostly used to let characters who have tension with each other to blow off some steam and settle grievances while also building up bonds.
Finally after that you’re giving your field study destination for the month which acts as your more traditional Trails experience for the month. The class is split into two groups and sent off to different destinations to get a feel for what’s happening in Erebonia, meet the people who live in these places and help them out in a very Bracer like fashion by completing tasks. The field studies are where the more interesting story elements happen as the characters get to witness first hand the tensions between Erebonia’s Noble Faction and Reformist Faction as the flames of Civil War begin to build in the background of all the school bonding trips. The class will witness first hand the actions of the terrorist group The Imperial Liberation Front and will end up having to put a stop to them. It makes for an exciting end to each month but unfortunately because of the school system and the gameplay loop they choose to stick to so closely, rather than being able to escalate and build off these events, you’re immediately dragged back to Thors before you get to see or feel any of the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on these areas and it completely takes the wind out of the plot. It’s a similar problem to what Three Houses suffer from in the first half of its game where things start to feel repetitive and the school portions start to drag on more and more as the game goes on and you want the plot to build up to something a bit more meaningful and longer lasting. It does eventually get there in the final chapter but having to go through around 60 hours of game before that point does take its toll. I think another issue comes from this game's story taking place from around late game Trails from Zero through to late game Trails to Azure. Basically throughout the game you’ll constantly be getting updates from what’s happening in Crossbell (and seeing this from the Erebonian perspective is greatly appreciated, especially with how its newspaper distorts facts to make Chancellor Osborne sound much more important to going ons in Crossbell than he actually was and dismissing the declaration of independence as a fools dream) but the issue is everything that’s happening in Crossbell sounds (and if you’ve played Zero/Azure it IS) so much more interesting than what you’re getting to see in Erebonia. So much of the political tension in Erebonia feels like it takes place off screen because these school kids are a bit too far detached from it. Sure there’s characters who have relatives who are very much involved with the quarrelling factions but they all feel like they’re kept at arm's length and are unable to give much insight to what’s happening themselves. Compare that to Elie from Zero, whose grandfather is Mayor of Crossbell and she herself has enough of an interest in politics to be able to explain to Lloyd and the player and the whole political situation of Crossbell, then it’s clear to see that we were missing someone like that in Cold Steel.
Let’s get into the cast itself then. The protagonist for this game is Rean, a young lad whose background gives him a balanced view between nobility and commoner. He ends up going to Thors Military Academy where a brand new class is being set up for a select group of students - Class VII. This class takes people from all sorts of different backgrounds and puts them together in an attempt to help people understand each other from different societal classes and try to bridge the gap between them. Including Rean the class features a total of 9 classmates to begin with which is a lot of characters to introduce at once and start building with.
We have Alisa who hides her second name and wants to take on everything herself while also looking out for everyone else. Elliot who is much more into his music than his military training. Laura, who is a noble incredibly dedicated to her training with the sword. Jusis, another noble who starts off more like the lone wolf of the group. Machias who absolutely detests nobles and wants nothing to do with them. Fie who despite being the youngest of the group, is so much more combat ready than anyone else. Emma who is the class president, top of the class but also has a mysterious air about her. And finally Gaius, a foreigner from the allied nation of Nord. On top of this we have our homeroom teacher Sara who very much opts for doing things unconventionally and loves a wee drink here and there. That’s just the opening group for the game and it’s a lot of people to manage and develop. The game does do well in trying to manage this by splitting the group up for field studies, allowing you to focus on 3 or 4 characters as well as forcing characters into groups where they’ll have to address their issues with each other (like Machias and Jusis or Fie and Laura). On top of that the field studies tend to take place in a character's hometown or somewhere where they have family connections which is great for their personal character growth. Despite the bloated cast, I did end up loving most of the characters with Alisa, Emma, and Jusis being my standouts while Gaius and Elliot unfortunately didn’t do much for me compared to the rest.
But wait there’s even more important characters! A group of second years becomes close to the group introducing us to the smartass Crow, student council president Towa, engineer George and way over the top aggressively lesbian Angelica. For the most part they’re a great bunch, I absolutely loved Crow and his dynamic with Rean though Angelica has some issues and leans way too hard into uncomfortable tropes that are yeah…. Just an overall bad representation of a lesbian character.
And hold up, there’s even more important characters like Elise - Rean’s sister, Patrick, a noble who has that noble superiority complex, Olivert and his brother and sister, more academy professors…..
Oh and we can’t forget our antagonistic group, the Imperial Liberation Front whose members like to call themselves the first letter of their name - G, S, V and the mysterious leader C who wears a black suit and mask like he’s some sort of Power Ranger fanboy (it’s cool though and he has plenty of charisma). For the bulk of the game this group really doesn't feel like much. They show up, get their asses beat off school kids and run away pretending like it was all part of the plan (which granted I’ll give C credit for his long game planning because he definitely threw me off his competency with those earlier operations)
Basically, if this feels like a lot, it’s because it is and it contributes to Cold Steel’s biggest issue - bloat. There is way too much here in terms of characters and locations to set up and in traditional Trails fashion, it’s done slowly and meticulously to make sure they truly build a world that feels alive and credit where it’s due, they do manage to accomplish that but at the same time it takes 60+ hours to do that. 60+ hours of world and character building is something that starts to drag on. I was craving for something of excitement and importance to happen because as much as I can appreciate taking your time to craft a world with great detail, I also need something to get me invested in the plot at large. I think part of the issue is the school sections take up a big chunk of play time and knock the wind out of the larger plot and bloat up the whole game while also killing the pacing. Like they are important for the camaraderie between Class VII but they do alter the balance of the traditional Trails experience in a way that I feel overall hinders the pacing. As someone who has played Three Houses the most apt comparison I can make is - imagine the academy phase of that game stretched out to 60+ hours and just as the war phase is about to begin the game ends and that’s going to be covered in the next game.
The finale of Cold Steel is fantastic, I loved the last portion of the game and everything that went down, it just took way too long meandering to that point. Take Trails in the Sky FC for example. That game is also very much focused on the slow burn of world building for the majority of the game but it does so through a much more manageable cast, with a strong focus on Estelle and Joshua at its centre as everything else is built around them and it’s last quarter gets into the exciting plot developments to make journey more memorable and it’s all done in around 40 hours. Cold Steel is juggling way too many characters without focusing on any one or two characters as its central focus and as a result everything takes so much longer to get going.
Jumping back to that transition to 3D, I will say the game does a fantastic job at bringing the scale of Erebonia to life. Cities are massive with the capital Heimdallr split into multiple districts full of massive buildings. Roer feels like Zeiss from Liberl reimagined into the full scale city it represented. The Nord Highlands bring a massive open area traversable via horse which is incredible for what is at its core a Vita game though I could’ve done with some fast travel points in that area as traversing constantly between the village and the military base to accomplish the quests in that area felt dragged out with how large it is. Ultimately though they did a fantastic job at making Erebonia feel like the massive Empire it is compared to Crossbell and Liberl. Each destination is only reachable via train as well further driving home just how massive this nation is. Some of the road areas have exits that are outside the field study boundary but signposts point out where those roads lead to which could be interesting for future games in this arc if travelling isn’t limited to trains later on.
All that to say is the world design in this game is well done and on top of that the dungeons are fun to traverse with their gimmicks like flipping switches to activate and deactivate bridges and stuff like that. The gameplay side of things really helps to keep the game being fun as it drags its heels with its narrative and for me that was greatly appreciated when my frustrations were building.
On the soundtrack side of things it’s another great offering. The upbeat sounds of school life, the atmospheric dungeon music, the heavy battle music - it’s all here to elevate the experience and help bring this world to life. The opening song is really catchy and the title screen music fits the mood of the adventure. Speaking of the title screen, I loved the neat touch of adding more characters alongside Rean on the train as the game progresses. It’s one of those little things that just make the experience a bit more special. And another little thing I think worth mentioning is this Cold Steel’s book collection Red Moon Rose - a thrilling tale of a vampire hunter and her encounter with a vampire who has been sucking the blood dry out of people during the night and I absolutely loved it. Again it’s one of those extra things that makes Trails such a great series and I love how much effort is put into those novels. On the disappointing side of things though, we do lose our funny little chest messages in this game which is a real shame.
Trails of Cold Steel is unfortunately overall, a step back from what came before it. Overly ambitious and bloated by its large cast and choice of setting, it takes way too long setting up things and not enough time paying off that build up. The finale is a great start to paying off the build up but that’s all it is - a start. Hopefully with this build up out of the way Cold Steel II can hit the ground running like the other follow up games have done in this series. The great cast of characters and fantastic gameplay makes Cold Steel still an overall enjoyable experience despite its flaws, just one that falls a bit short of what this series has managed to do before it.
BioShock 2
2010
BIOSHOCK 2: THE FIRST - AND BEST - SAD DAD GAME
I think about .hack//SIGN fairly frequently.
It’s one of my favorite anime and in my opinion the unmatched highlight of the series that it all but kickstarted, and could from a certain perspective be viewed as a witting deconstruction of the isekai genre that has come to dominate the landscape of modern anime (and light novels, from which most of said anime are spawned). Protagonist Tsukasa is an unlikeable loser like most Isekai main characters, only him being a gloomy, awkward and extremely callous person actively drives people away rather than them remaining glued to his side just for being there. The real-world problems that lead him to spend much of his time playing an MMO to begin with manifest in on-screen battles with mental illness and post-traumatic stress, often resulting in him breaking down or panicking on-screen with nobody around to help him. While Tsukasa’s character is extremely powerful, rather than being admired or fawned over he’s viewed as a cheater and all but exiled by the community around the game at large - which is just fine, as Tsukasa’s only power fantasy is being able to hurt the people who harass him just like he’s been hurt before. Beyond that he’s content to sit in isolation and be alone, completely rejecting the usual isekai wish-fulfillment standards such as power, valor and greatness. Hell, his eventual release from the game isn’t even won in some grand battle or accomplished of his own accord: a hacker forces the game to crash in a largely pragmatic act that just happens to release Tsukasa as a happily accidental side effect.
However, the problem with reading .hack//SIGN as a willing deconstruction is that it aired in 2002: roughly a decade before the isekai boom began in modern anime, when modern-day staples like Sword Art Online had only just begun being published and many modern classics of the genre were little more than fledgling ideas in their creators’ minds.
About a decade after .hack//SIGN’s original run the Western gaming sphere started to undergo a shift in and of itself, largely born from the heavier emphasis on cinematic storytelling introduced in the last few years of the 2000s in the West: in a phenomenon that was at the time colloquialized as the dadification of gaming, many of the at-the-time golden children of the yearly release cycles prominently featured a middle-aged man as its protagonist, who is then thrust into an unwitting or unwilling role as a father figure to a child or young teen. The Last Of Us, God of War (2018), Telltale’s The Walking Dead, LISA: The Painful, Heavy Rain, and even the directly-relevant-to-this-conversation BioShock Infinite are some of the most famous examples of the (often-pejoratively nicknamed) sad dad game, a microgenre treasured by some and loathed by increasingly more as the years go on.
You can see, then, why I thought about .hack//SIGN so often while I was replaying BioShock 2. BioShock 2 appears to willingly interrogate and analyze the very foundation of the “sad dad game,” or rather it would if not for the fact that it was released in February of 2010 - which was before any of the other games I mentioned earlier. I’d go as far as to wager that BioShock 2 may very well be the first game of its kind.
At the most core level “sad dad games,” by and large, aren’t actually about parenting. The burden of caring for a child is more often than not just that, a burden for the protagonist to endure, overcome, and eventually accept. With this the focus is not on the child but on the ubiquitous manpain of the protagonist, rife with dead wives, dead children and the grizzled worldviews that often result from the trauma of the protagonists the games focus on. Players are guided down a linear tract of story beads where their failure to “parent well” more often results in the death of their child, the usually-stern manner in which they guide the child (usually little more than an NPC for a 15-hour escort mission) otherwise presented with little question beyond the occasional gray morality or hints at a more unfortunate reality beneath the surface of the parent-child relationship.
BioShock 2, meanwhile, fundamentally understands that parenting is not simply taking care of a helpless child and that best intentions a good parent does not make. Delta, the protagonist of BioShock 2, is similar to the archetypical “sad dad” in that he did not necessarily want his daughter Eleanor nor was he in control of the circumstances that led to the establishment of their bond. The point that Delta (and his story) proves is that regardless of one’s efforts to be a good parent - or lack thereof - we impact our children and mold who they are simply by existing, even if we erect barriers to hide our children from the horrifying humanity of their idols or make a conscious effort to sever that tie wherever possible. Delta is obligated to action by Eleanor’s pleas for his assistance, but his actions are otherwise independent of her influence… but, inversely, Eleanor is not unaffected by Delta’s choices and their own influence.
One more innovation of modern gaming - particularly in the roleplaying sector that had its own boom in the mid-to-late 2000s, of which both BioShock games can be considered a part - is the morality system, in which choices are purported to make a genuine impact on the world around them and be able to play any way they want. While fine enough in theory, the morality system has earned something of a reputation as a joke within the greater audiences of the games that employ them: typically there is precious little room for nuance or gray areas in the options available to the player and the subsequent characterization of its protagonist, with the two tracts of ethics usually presenting a hard swerve between “angelic paragon of virtue” and “second coming of every historical despot”. Worst of all, most of the time playing a morally good character often means abstaining entirely from a solid chunk of the game at hand’s mechanics (usually some of the more fun and inventive ones, particularly in games that seek to paint acts of violence as an indiscriminate and non-negotiable evil), thus meaning that the player cannot reconcile their desired playstyle with the type of character they wish to play. There is potential for these limitations to be meaningfully integrated and result in ludonarrative harmony, but such potential often goes unexplored or underdeveloped and in the end the game is saddled by excess that provides little more than excess baggage that would better be left by the wayside.
Consider me surprised, then, that BioShock 2 not only has one of the most robust and complex takes on a morality system in a modern game (if not the most robust and complex) but that it almost almost completely leaves the game unfettered by its presence: there are marginal mechanical benefits to certain moral choices, but those are equally matched by mechanical benefits on the opposing side of the moral divide. The choices that Delta makes thereby become displays of his character at the player’s whim more than pragmatic decisions made so that one can have fun in the way that they choose while also roleplaying Delta in a way that befits the narrative they choose to tell. Moreover, certain conventionally-evil actions do not exclude Delta from erring on the side of good, nor do occasional acts of altruism necessarily negate any other wrongdoing he might knowingly cause on his journey through Rapture.
Of course, BioShock 2’s morality system is not wholly excluded from the storytelling, nor does it deserve commendation off the basis of an apparent lack of investment in making Delta’s morals factor into anything more than the plot itself. Remember: Delta is a father, and parents inevitably and unavoidably mold their children in their image regardless of intent, desire or forethought.
Eleanor, in essence, is BioShock 2’s morality system: while Delta will be relatively unaffected by his own choices short of certain practical benefits (namely in the amount of supplies and resources available at his disposal, or more accurately which supplies and resources) Eleanor is watching his each and every move, learning from him, and drawing her own conclusions and lessons from the whole that is synthesized out of Delta’s actions, choices, and the throughlines (or lack thereof) therein. Delta is but one man, and while he is a mere drop in the veritable ocean of opposing forces, ideologies and ethics in Rapture there is nobody more important in the world to Eleanor than Delta. Much like other games of the period Delta’s choices fail to make a meaningful impact on the world at large or the specifics of his story, but then they don’t really need to. To the one and only person to whom he is absolutely everything, Delta’s path is the word of God and the example that must be followed under any and all circumstances.
Our children inherit most facets of our being not only without regard for if we intend to pass ourselves on, but whether or not they intend to be molded so intensely by us, even in our absence. Some grow up idolizing their parents and embodying the cliche of wanting to be just like Dad, while others end up haunted by their childhood experiences long after the fact in spite of putting every possible barrier between themselves and their predecessors. Regardless, all must eventually face the reality that their parents were people with complexities, idiosyncrasies, and contradictions much like their own, and that the inherent isolation of bearing a conscious mind means that they will eventually have to accept they may never have answers to the questions they have about their parents and the upbringing they gave them.
Eleanor is no different: the archetypal sad dad game ends with tentative understanding and unconditional acceptance between the father and child, but what lessons Delta leaves Eleanor with in the wake of his death are for her understanding and her understanding only. Though Delta does not speak and his choices are entirely at the whims of the player, he is given characterization and definition through Eleanor’s understanding of their time together and the conclusions she came to about things left unsaid and questions left unanswered, dependent not on a single variable but on the specific interplay of the many different variables at play as Eleanor looks upon Delta’s legacy in retrospect. She may consider Delta to be an unconditionally kind soul who believed in forgiveness and redemption for all who were willing to change, she may consider Delta to be a protector of the meek and innocent who brought righteous vengeance down upon the wicked, she may see Delta’s cutthroat survival tactics as a necessary evil in a cruel world, or she may take the brunt of Delta’s malevolence and seek to perpetuate the cycle of violence that he was unable to break or escape. She may even find herself confused and conflicted by the contradictory manner in which Delta lived, unable to find clarity or answers in his absence and left wondering for the rest of her days.
Most remarkable to me is the ending in which Delta exhibited sin and virtue alike in equal measure and is given a final choice at the game’s conclusion: to save himself by allowing Eleanor to harvest his essence and let him live through her, or to deny her the opportunity and let himself die a true, final death rather than let an individual such as himself carry on through the world. Should Delta choose the latter Eleanor will interpret his actions as an acknowledgement of his own role in perpetuating the cycle and willingly breaking it with his own death, choosing to give Eleanor a chance to begin anew and redeem herself by living in the way that he never could. The amount of nuance in the conclusions that Eleanor can come to depending on the life Delta lived is frankly unprecedented even today, and not only do I find other “sad dad” narratives even more unfulfilling in the wake of BioShock 2 but I also question why morality systems in games continue to only have two or three options by which a player’s ethics and morals might be defined or framed.
Regardless of whether he meets a final end atop the lighthouse or if his consciousness lives on as a part of Eleanor’s, Delta’s spirit continues to linger even in his death: in the best of outcomes Eleanor declares that Delta is her conscience, always whispering over her shoulder even in his absence, and in the worst of outcomes Eleanor resigns herself to the fact that Delta never wanted her but he defined her nonetheless… even if only in his apathy and the misanthropy he was willing to show the world around him, including his own daughter. We cannot escape the ways in which we were raised and the ways in which we were not raised, nor can we ever have full control over the ways in which we impact our own children. BioShock 2 understands that better than practically all of its contemporaries as perhaps the first and only “sad dad game” that is actually about being a parent.
Naturally, BioShock 2 is not content to simply ruminate on the nature of parenting with relation to the introspective elements of its writing: while it’s true that BioShock 2 is far more of a character-driven story than its predecessor, I think it’s disingenuous-at-best to write it off as inferior off the basis of less focus being put on its political writing… namely because I think the political writing in BioShock 2 not only builds upon the original game’s messaging but elevates it into being one part of a greater whole, recontextualizing the overarching narrative about the manner in which extremist ideologies dehumanize those who live under their standards, regardless of the direction in which the political ideals themselves swing.
With this in mind an elephant in the room must be addressed before proceeding any further: BioShock’s politics are often notoriously misguided in intent even if the result ends up transcending the vision of the writers at hand. BioShock is a satire of libertarianism written by a libertarian, and BioShock 2’s attempt at critiquing socialism is rooted in a desire to espouse an act of divine centrism: have we considered that both sides are bad?
As with the Persona series however, these misguided-at-best intentions couple with a specific form of illiteracy in the topics they cover to create largely-accidental but nonetheless-astute takeaways that reach far beyond the original intent. In the specific case of BioShock 2, Andrew Ryan’s objectivist ideals are contrasted against his diametric opposite in Sofia Lamb and her collectivist vision of a united Rapture: Ryan held deep-seated convictions that every man should live for himself and himself alone, every man to be thought of as little more than obstacles to be overturned on one’s own path to greatness or exploited for one’s own profit.
Considering that capitalism is in and of itself a cult developed to the glorification and surrender of all values to the pursuit of feeding the beast (masquerading as worship of one’s own id), one might find it perplexing that the far-left opposite of Ryan’s beliefs are framed as a cult. However, I believe that the parallel works in the context of demonstrating the commonality between these two otherwise-incompatible belief systems: systematic dehumanization and clinical adherence to one’s ideals over the practical effects on the people who live under these ideologies. Lamb maintains a belief that the value of the individual self should be all but exterminated, so that one may throw themselves away in their entirety to the perceived benefit of their community. In The Rapture Family individual people are denied personhood and significance as anything more than droplets in the great ocean, viewed as worthless and worthy of being snuffed out if they maintain any semblance of identity or individual desire beyond mindless submission.
With this in mind I believe that BioShock 2 in turn contextualizes the duology’s overarching message as one that stresses the importance of compassion and goodwill, regardless of the ideology one believes in or the practices by which they go about making it a reality. Be it in a libertarian hellscape or an oppressive authoritarian dystopia, the means by which one can remove themselves from the systems entirely is to not only care about your fellow man but care about yourself enough to break the chains that bind you and lead the people around you to do the same. This is not to say that BioShock has any delusions of pacifism or grand anti-violence messages (after all, it is still a series of games about shooting people and violent pushback against one’s destined fate), however one sentiment rings truer than anything else with the entirety of the duology in mind: while compassion alone will not break the cycle of violence nor dismantle the power structures that perpetuate them, compassion is the foundation upon which the new world will be built. If one should take up arms and raise hell upon the world around them, let it be in hopes that their successors will never have to do so themselves.
Thus Eleanor once again re-asserts herself as the centerpiece upon which BioShock 2 is built: she is not only Delta’s living legacy, but a representation of the generation that follows our own and carries forth our ideals, hopes, dreams, and inherits the world we leave for them. Lamb needn’t have erected the perfect utopia that she dreamed of by turning her daughter into a vessel for all of Rapture’s thoughts, dreams and memories - she could have just as easily done her part to lay the foundation of her utopia by connecting with her daughter and personally instilling her ideals of compassion and benevolence into her. Perhaps Lamb’s self-flagellating guilt over her own perceived flaws and selfishness caused her to sever any emotional ties to her daughter and use her as the sacrificial lamb (pun wholly intended) needed to bring about an unconditionally-unified society, but then that distance caused more damage than her daughter viewing her as the human being she was ever could.
It’s a bitterly, depressingly vivid portrayal of an all-too-common conundrum that many children face in their relationship with their parents: for one reason or another, parents will go to indescribable and unexplainable lengths to avoid connecting with their children and opening themselves up to the risk of doing it “wrong.” Again: our children inherit our traumas, flaws and unsightly quirks regardless of whether we intend for them to do so or not, and attempting to avoid that reality only causes more damage than the horrifying ordeal of being known ever possibly could. In the majority of the endings Eleanor comes to see Delta as the person he is, warts and all, and grows all the better for it: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all the endings in which Delta denies Eleanor his love and compassion are the ones where she is content to perpetuate the cycle and take Rapture’s industrialized violence global, both of her parents having caused more damage in their absence than they could have possibly imagined they would have with their presence.
Now, we all know that BioShock 2 appears to have been purpose-built to analyze and pick apart a microgenre that it preceded in almost its entirety and still remains the best sad dad game in spite of likely being the very first one, and we know about the uniquely complex manner in which the player’s choices intersect with the narrative and its messages on parenthood and compassion… but how does it play? Not in terms of decision-making or ludonarrative, but the whole “shooting people” thing you do for the vast majority of the game’s ~25-hour runtime.
In a word? It’s perfect.
I disagree with the common assessment that BioShock 2 has “better gameplay but a worse story” than the original in its entirety, but honestly BioShock 1’s writing is pretty one-note and paper-thin outside of its political satire to begin with. The strength of the writing in BioShock 2 combined with the extent to which it perfected BioShock 1’s gameplay loop and ironed out every single kink is such a step up in every single direction that I’m surprised BioShock 2 isn’t the one often-lauded as one of the all-time greatest games and subject to constant scrutiny and scholarly analysis.
When I replayed BioShock I found the ideas at play charming, but a bit unrefined and one-note by current-day standards: for as many tools as you have at your disposal you’re still basically running around narrow corridors and wide-open arenas shooting at people. When playing 2, it’s amazing what making a few changes and trimming a bit of the fat can do: being able to wield a weapon and a Plasmid at the same time does wonders for finding combinations that synergize and changing strategies on the fly, while mechanics like the hacking system being simultaneously streamlined via a new minigame and expanded by means of the hack gun, the “bonus hack” mechanic and additions to the hacked-turret system are a much-needed second wind to systems that felt like cumbersome but necessary evils in the original game. The selection of weapons is well-rounded with each-one feeling fantastic and having a multitude of distinct situational strengths, as well as reinforcing one of the ultimate draws of BioShock 2’s combat: you feel like a Big Daddy, with weapons like the drill (and especially the drill dash technique) and minigun being a perfect measure of the distance between Delta and Jack (the protagonist of BioShock 1): Jack swung a wrench and wielded a tommy gun, whereas Delta carries the same drill used against the player in the previous game and holds a full-sized minigun with one hand.
All of these traits are given ample opportunity to shine with the game’s level designs, which feel far more tight-knit, detailed and full of chances to explore than the previous games… and with good reason, too: rather than constantly being on the offense as in the original BioShock, the Little Sister adoption system (and the recurring miniboss of the Big Sister that comes along with it) offers a welcome change in pace a few times per level where the tables turn and Delta is put on the defense, with some of the underutilized defensive elements of the original game (such as the Cyclone Trap plasmid, or the electric trap bolts used by the crossbow and harpoon gun). An element of strategy is introduced as the player is made to case their surroundings and lay traps, erect defensive measures such as turrets and tripwires, and ensure that all their bases are covered with regards to potential exits and entrances for the enemy mob to enter… not to mention the frantic scramble to find an optimal defensive position once the Big Sister’s shrieks announce her imminent presence. It’s another example of the aforementioned feeling of being a Big Daddy: not only is Delta an impossibly-strong manmade monstrosity, he is first and foremost a protector. Hell hath no fury like a large man with a large drill when his daughter cries for help.
In other words, it’s as remarkable of an achievement in terms of mechanics as it is narrative and ludonarrative. I still can’t comprehend why this is viewed as the ugly duckling of the trilogy when I view it to be the only truly great game out of the bunch, much less one of the greatest games I’ve ever played.
BioShock 2 makes a few missteps on the way there - some of the moral choices are a tad underdeveloped and over-reliant on verbal exposition rather than the environmental storytelling and non-linear piecing-together of the pieces that the Shock metaseries has always excelled at, and some might not be able to reconcile the writers’ political intents with what they inadvertently say (as well as BioShock 2 following the “sad dad trend” of condemning mother figures while focusing father figures) - but it never strays from its own path, nor is the journey or the destination any less exhilarating, thought-provoking, or remarkable of a work of art nor any less groundbreaking an achievement some thirteen years on. While it had been my favorite out of the entire series since its release, I was only 11-12 years old during my first playthrough and wasn’t expecting nor prepared to find so much depth and finesse in the manner in which it conveys its ideas upon a replay.
In sum: BioShock 2 is one of the greatest games ever made, very definitely the best game to come out of the era of the first-person shooter’s dominance in the seventh console generation, the best -shock game, and the best - and the first - sad dad game. It isn’t every day that you see one of the first (or indeed the first) example of a burgeoning genre outmatch all of its successors… and it was all done without the influence of Ken Levine too, thus proving once and for all that he’s a hack who has never and will never know what the fuck he’s talking about.
I think about .hack//SIGN fairly frequently.
It’s one of my favorite anime and in my opinion the unmatched highlight of the series that it all but kickstarted, and could from a certain perspective be viewed as a witting deconstruction of the isekai genre that has come to dominate the landscape of modern anime (and light novels, from which most of said anime are spawned). Protagonist Tsukasa is an unlikeable loser like most Isekai main characters, only him being a gloomy, awkward and extremely callous person actively drives people away rather than them remaining glued to his side just for being there. The real-world problems that lead him to spend much of his time playing an MMO to begin with manifest in on-screen battles with mental illness and post-traumatic stress, often resulting in him breaking down or panicking on-screen with nobody around to help him. While Tsukasa’s character is extremely powerful, rather than being admired or fawned over he’s viewed as a cheater and all but exiled by the community around the game at large - which is just fine, as Tsukasa’s only power fantasy is being able to hurt the people who harass him just like he’s been hurt before. Beyond that he’s content to sit in isolation and be alone, completely rejecting the usual isekai wish-fulfillment standards such as power, valor and greatness. Hell, his eventual release from the game isn’t even won in some grand battle or accomplished of his own accord: a hacker forces the game to crash in a largely pragmatic act that just happens to release Tsukasa as a happily accidental side effect.
However, the problem with reading .hack//SIGN as a willing deconstruction is that it aired in 2002: roughly a decade before the isekai boom began in modern anime, when modern-day staples like Sword Art Online had only just begun being published and many modern classics of the genre were little more than fledgling ideas in their creators’ minds.
About a decade after .hack//SIGN’s original run the Western gaming sphere started to undergo a shift in and of itself, largely born from the heavier emphasis on cinematic storytelling introduced in the last few years of the 2000s in the West: in a phenomenon that was at the time colloquialized as the dadification of gaming, many of the at-the-time golden children of the yearly release cycles prominently featured a middle-aged man as its protagonist, who is then thrust into an unwitting or unwilling role as a father figure to a child or young teen. The Last Of Us, God of War (2018), Telltale’s The Walking Dead, LISA: The Painful, Heavy Rain, and even the directly-relevant-to-this-conversation BioShock Infinite are some of the most famous examples of the (often-pejoratively nicknamed) sad dad game, a microgenre treasured by some and loathed by increasingly more as the years go on.
You can see, then, why I thought about .hack//SIGN so often while I was replaying BioShock 2. BioShock 2 appears to willingly interrogate and analyze the very foundation of the “sad dad game,” or rather it would if not for the fact that it was released in February of 2010 - which was before any of the other games I mentioned earlier. I’d go as far as to wager that BioShock 2 may very well be the first game of its kind.
At the most core level “sad dad games,” by and large, aren’t actually about parenting. The burden of caring for a child is more often than not just that, a burden for the protagonist to endure, overcome, and eventually accept. With this the focus is not on the child but on the ubiquitous manpain of the protagonist, rife with dead wives, dead children and the grizzled worldviews that often result from the trauma of the protagonists the games focus on. Players are guided down a linear tract of story beads where their failure to “parent well” more often results in the death of their child, the usually-stern manner in which they guide the child (usually little more than an NPC for a 15-hour escort mission) otherwise presented with little question beyond the occasional gray morality or hints at a more unfortunate reality beneath the surface of the parent-child relationship.
BioShock 2, meanwhile, fundamentally understands that parenting is not simply taking care of a helpless child and that best intentions a good parent does not make. Delta, the protagonist of BioShock 2, is similar to the archetypical “sad dad” in that he did not necessarily want his daughter Eleanor nor was he in control of the circumstances that led to the establishment of their bond. The point that Delta (and his story) proves is that regardless of one’s efforts to be a good parent - or lack thereof - we impact our children and mold who they are simply by existing, even if we erect barriers to hide our children from the horrifying humanity of their idols or make a conscious effort to sever that tie wherever possible. Delta is obligated to action by Eleanor’s pleas for his assistance, but his actions are otherwise independent of her influence… but, inversely, Eleanor is not unaffected by Delta’s choices and their own influence.
One more innovation of modern gaming - particularly in the roleplaying sector that had its own boom in the mid-to-late 2000s, of which both BioShock games can be considered a part - is the morality system, in which choices are purported to make a genuine impact on the world around them and be able to play any way they want. While fine enough in theory, the morality system has earned something of a reputation as a joke within the greater audiences of the games that employ them: typically there is precious little room for nuance or gray areas in the options available to the player and the subsequent characterization of its protagonist, with the two tracts of ethics usually presenting a hard swerve between “angelic paragon of virtue” and “second coming of every historical despot”. Worst of all, most of the time playing a morally good character often means abstaining entirely from a solid chunk of the game at hand’s mechanics (usually some of the more fun and inventive ones, particularly in games that seek to paint acts of violence as an indiscriminate and non-negotiable evil), thus meaning that the player cannot reconcile their desired playstyle with the type of character they wish to play. There is potential for these limitations to be meaningfully integrated and result in ludonarrative harmony, but such potential often goes unexplored or underdeveloped and in the end the game is saddled by excess that provides little more than excess baggage that would better be left by the wayside.
Consider me surprised, then, that BioShock 2 not only has one of the most robust and complex takes on a morality system in a modern game (if not the most robust and complex) but that it almost almost completely leaves the game unfettered by its presence: there are marginal mechanical benefits to certain moral choices, but those are equally matched by mechanical benefits on the opposing side of the moral divide. The choices that Delta makes thereby become displays of his character at the player’s whim more than pragmatic decisions made so that one can have fun in the way that they choose while also roleplaying Delta in a way that befits the narrative they choose to tell. Moreover, certain conventionally-evil actions do not exclude Delta from erring on the side of good, nor do occasional acts of altruism necessarily negate any other wrongdoing he might knowingly cause on his journey through Rapture.
Of course, BioShock 2’s morality system is not wholly excluded from the storytelling, nor does it deserve commendation off the basis of an apparent lack of investment in making Delta’s morals factor into anything more than the plot itself. Remember: Delta is a father, and parents inevitably and unavoidably mold their children in their image regardless of intent, desire or forethought.
Eleanor, in essence, is BioShock 2’s morality system: while Delta will be relatively unaffected by his own choices short of certain practical benefits (namely in the amount of supplies and resources available at his disposal, or more accurately which supplies and resources) Eleanor is watching his each and every move, learning from him, and drawing her own conclusions and lessons from the whole that is synthesized out of Delta’s actions, choices, and the throughlines (or lack thereof) therein. Delta is but one man, and while he is a mere drop in the veritable ocean of opposing forces, ideologies and ethics in Rapture there is nobody more important in the world to Eleanor than Delta. Much like other games of the period Delta’s choices fail to make a meaningful impact on the world at large or the specifics of his story, but then they don’t really need to. To the one and only person to whom he is absolutely everything, Delta’s path is the word of God and the example that must be followed under any and all circumstances.
Our children inherit most facets of our being not only without regard for if we intend to pass ourselves on, but whether or not they intend to be molded so intensely by us, even in our absence. Some grow up idolizing their parents and embodying the cliche of wanting to be just like Dad, while others end up haunted by their childhood experiences long after the fact in spite of putting every possible barrier between themselves and their predecessors. Regardless, all must eventually face the reality that their parents were people with complexities, idiosyncrasies, and contradictions much like their own, and that the inherent isolation of bearing a conscious mind means that they will eventually have to accept they may never have answers to the questions they have about their parents and the upbringing they gave them.
Eleanor is no different: the archetypal sad dad game ends with tentative understanding and unconditional acceptance between the father and child, but what lessons Delta leaves Eleanor with in the wake of his death are for her understanding and her understanding only. Though Delta does not speak and his choices are entirely at the whims of the player, he is given characterization and definition through Eleanor’s understanding of their time together and the conclusions she came to about things left unsaid and questions left unanswered, dependent not on a single variable but on the specific interplay of the many different variables at play as Eleanor looks upon Delta’s legacy in retrospect. She may consider Delta to be an unconditionally kind soul who believed in forgiveness and redemption for all who were willing to change, she may consider Delta to be a protector of the meek and innocent who brought righteous vengeance down upon the wicked, she may see Delta’s cutthroat survival tactics as a necessary evil in a cruel world, or she may take the brunt of Delta’s malevolence and seek to perpetuate the cycle of violence that he was unable to break or escape. She may even find herself confused and conflicted by the contradictory manner in which Delta lived, unable to find clarity or answers in his absence and left wondering for the rest of her days.
Most remarkable to me is the ending in which Delta exhibited sin and virtue alike in equal measure and is given a final choice at the game’s conclusion: to save himself by allowing Eleanor to harvest his essence and let him live through her, or to deny her the opportunity and let himself die a true, final death rather than let an individual such as himself carry on through the world. Should Delta choose the latter Eleanor will interpret his actions as an acknowledgement of his own role in perpetuating the cycle and willingly breaking it with his own death, choosing to give Eleanor a chance to begin anew and redeem herself by living in the way that he never could. The amount of nuance in the conclusions that Eleanor can come to depending on the life Delta lived is frankly unprecedented even today, and not only do I find other “sad dad” narratives even more unfulfilling in the wake of BioShock 2 but I also question why morality systems in games continue to only have two or three options by which a player’s ethics and morals might be defined or framed.
Regardless of whether he meets a final end atop the lighthouse or if his consciousness lives on as a part of Eleanor’s, Delta’s spirit continues to linger even in his death: in the best of outcomes Eleanor declares that Delta is her conscience, always whispering over her shoulder even in his absence, and in the worst of outcomes Eleanor resigns herself to the fact that Delta never wanted her but he defined her nonetheless… even if only in his apathy and the misanthropy he was willing to show the world around him, including his own daughter. We cannot escape the ways in which we were raised and the ways in which we were not raised, nor can we ever have full control over the ways in which we impact our own children. BioShock 2 understands that better than practically all of its contemporaries as perhaps the first and only “sad dad game” that is actually about being a parent.
Naturally, BioShock 2 is not content to simply ruminate on the nature of parenting with relation to the introspective elements of its writing: while it’s true that BioShock 2 is far more of a character-driven story than its predecessor, I think it’s disingenuous-at-best to write it off as inferior off the basis of less focus being put on its political writing… namely because I think the political writing in BioShock 2 not only builds upon the original game’s messaging but elevates it into being one part of a greater whole, recontextualizing the overarching narrative about the manner in which extremist ideologies dehumanize those who live under their standards, regardless of the direction in which the political ideals themselves swing.
With this in mind an elephant in the room must be addressed before proceeding any further: BioShock’s politics are often notoriously misguided in intent even if the result ends up transcending the vision of the writers at hand. BioShock is a satire of libertarianism written by a libertarian, and BioShock 2’s attempt at critiquing socialism is rooted in a desire to espouse an act of divine centrism: have we considered that both sides are bad?
As with the Persona series however, these misguided-at-best intentions couple with a specific form of illiteracy in the topics they cover to create largely-accidental but nonetheless-astute takeaways that reach far beyond the original intent. In the specific case of BioShock 2, Andrew Ryan’s objectivist ideals are contrasted against his diametric opposite in Sofia Lamb and her collectivist vision of a united Rapture: Ryan held deep-seated convictions that every man should live for himself and himself alone, every man to be thought of as little more than obstacles to be overturned on one’s own path to greatness or exploited for one’s own profit.
Considering that capitalism is in and of itself a cult developed to the glorification and surrender of all values to the pursuit of feeding the beast (masquerading as worship of one’s own id), one might find it perplexing that the far-left opposite of Ryan’s beliefs are framed as a cult. However, I believe that the parallel works in the context of demonstrating the commonality between these two otherwise-incompatible belief systems: systematic dehumanization and clinical adherence to one’s ideals over the practical effects on the people who live under these ideologies. Lamb maintains a belief that the value of the individual self should be all but exterminated, so that one may throw themselves away in their entirety to the perceived benefit of their community. In The Rapture Family individual people are denied personhood and significance as anything more than droplets in the great ocean, viewed as worthless and worthy of being snuffed out if they maintain any semblance of identity or individual desire beyond mindless submission.
With this in mind I believe that BioShock 2 in turn contextualizes the duology’s overarching message as one that stresses the importance of compassion and goodwill, regardless of the ideology one believes in or the practices by which they go about making it a reality. Be it in a libertarian hellscape or an oppressive authoritarian dystopia, the means by which one can remove themselves from the systems entirely is to not only care about your fellow man but care about yourself enough to break the chains that bind you and lead the people around you to do the same. This is not to say that BioShock has any delusions of pacifism or grand anti-violence messages (after all, it is still a series of games about shooting people and violent pushback against one’s destined fate), however one sentiment rings truer than anything else with the entirety of the duology in mind: while compassion alone will not break the cycle of violence nor dismantle the power structures that perpetuate them, compassion is the foundation upon which the new world will be built. If one should take up arms and raise hell upon the world around them, let it be in hopes that their successors will never have to do so themselves.
Thus Eleanor once again re-asserts herself as the centerpiece upon which BioShock 2 is built: she is not only Delta’s living legacy, but a representation of the generation that follows our own and carries forth our ideals, hopes, dreams, and inherits the world we leave for them. Lamb needn’t have erected the perfect utopia that she dreamed of by turning her daughter into a vessel for all of Rapture’s thoughts, dreams and memories - she could have just as easily done her part to lay the foundation of her utopia by connecting with her daughter and personally instilling her ideals of compassion and benevolence into her. Perhaps Lamb’s self-flagellating guilt over her own perceived flaws and selfishness caused her to sever any emotional ties to her daughter and use her as the sacrificial lamb (pun wholly intended) needed to bring about an unconditionally-unified society, but then that distance caused more damage than her daughter viewing her as the human being she was ever could.
It’s a bitterly, depressingly vivid portrayal of an all-too-common conundrum that many children face in their relationship with their parents: for one reason or another, parents will go to indescribable and unexplainable lengths to avoid connecting with their children and opening themselves up to the risk of doing it “wrong.” Again: our children inherit our traumas, flaws and unsightly quirks regardless of whether we intend for them to do so or not, and attempting to avoid that reality only causes more damage than the horrifying ordeal of being known ever possibly could. In the majority of the endings Eleanor comes to see Delta as the person he is, warts and all, and grows all the better for it: I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all the endings in which Delta denies Eleanor his love and compassion are the ones where she is content to perpetuate the cycle and take Rapture’s industrialized violence global, both of her parents having caused more damage in their absence than they could have possibly imagined they would have with their presence.
Now, we all know that BioShock 2 appears to have been purpose-built to analyze and pick apart a microgenre that it preceded in almost its entirety and still remains the best sad dad game in spite of likely being the very first one, and we know about the uniquely complex manner in which the player’s choices intersect with the narrative and its messages on parenthood and compassion… but how does it play? Not in terms of decision-making or ludonarrative, but the whole “shooting people” thing you do for the vast majority of the game’s ~25-hour runtime.
In a word? It’s perfect.
I disagree with the common assessment that BioShock 2 has “better gameplay but a worse story” than the original in its entirety, but honestly BioShock 1’s writing is pretty one-note and paper-thin outside of its political satire to begin with. The strength of the writing in BioShock 2 combined with the extent to which it perfected BioShock 1’s gameplay loop and ironed out every single kink is such a step up in every single direction that I’m surprised BioShock 2 isn’t the one often-lauded as one of the all-time greatest games and subject to constant scrutiny and scholarly analysis.
When I replayed BioShock I found the ideas at play charming, but a bit unrefined and one-note by current-day standards: for as many tools as you have at your disposal you’re still basically running around narrow corridors and wide-open arenas shooting at people. When playing 2, it’s amazing what making a few changes and trimming a bit of the fat can do: being able to wield a weapon and a Plasmid at the same time does wonders for finding combinations that synergize and changing strategies on the fly, while mechanics like the hacking system being simultaneously streamlined via a new minigame and expanded by means of the hack gun, the “bonus hack” mechanic and additions to the hacked-turret system are a much-needed second wind to systems that felt like cumbersome but necessary evils in the original game. The selection of weapons is well-rounded with each-one feeling fantastic and having a multitude of distinct situational strengths, as well as reinforcing one of the ultimate draws of BioShock 2’s combat: you feel like a Big Daddy, with weapons like the drill (and especially the drill dash technique) and minigun being a perfect measure of the distance between Delta and Jack (the protagonist of BioShock 1): Jack swung a wrench and wielded a tommy gun, whereas Delta carries the same drill used against the player in the previous game and holds a full-sized minigun with one hand.
All of these traits are given ample opportunity to shine with the game’s level designs, which feel far more tight-knit, detailed and full of chances to explore than the previous games… and with good reason, too: rather than constantly being on the offense as in the original BioShock, the Little Sister adoption system (and the recurring miniboss of the Big Sister that comes along with it) offers a welcome change in pace a few times per level where the tables turn and Delta is put on the defense, with some of the underutilized defensive elements of the original game (such as the Cyclone Trap plasmid, or the electric trap bolts used by the crossbow and harpoon gun). An element of strategy is introduced as the player is made to case their surroundings and lay traps, erect defensive measures such as turrets and tripwires, and ensure that all their bases are covered with regards to potential exits and entrances for the enemy mob to enter… not to mention the frantic scramble to find an optimal defensive position once the Big Sister’s shrieks announce her imminent presence. It’s another example of the aforementioned feeling of being a Big Daddy: not only is Delta an impossibly-strong manmade monstrosity, he is first and foremost a protector. Hell hath no fury like a large man with a large drill when his daughter cries for help.
In other words, it’s as remarkable of an achievement in terms of mechanics as it is narrative and ludonarrative. I still can’t comprehend why this is viewed as the ugly duckling of the trilogy when I view it to be the only truly great game out of the bunch, much less one of the greatest games I’ve ever played.
BioShock 2 makes a few missteps on the way there - some of the moral choices are a tad underdeveloped and over-reliant on verbal exposition rather than the environmental storytelling and non-linear piecing-together of the pieces that the Shock metaseries has always excelled at, and some might not be able to reconcile the writers’ political intents with what they inadvertently say (as well as BioShock 2 following the “sad dad trend” of condemning mother figures while focusing father figures) - but it never strays from its own path, nor is the journey or the destination any less exhilarating, thought-provoking, or remarkable of a work of art nor any less groundbreaking an achievement some thirteen years on. While it had been my favorite out of the entire series since its release, I was only 11-12 years old during my first playthrough and wasn’t expecting nor prepared to find so much depth and finesse in the manner in which it conveys its ideas upon a replay.
In sum: BioShock 2 is one of the greatest games ever made, very definitely the best game to come out of the era of the first-person shooter’s dominance in the seventh console generation, the best -shock game, and the best - and the first - sad dad game. It isn’t every day that you see one of the first (or indeed the first) example of a burgeoning genre outmatch all of its successors… and it was all done without the influence of Ken Levine too, thus proving once and for all that he’s a hack who has never and will never know what the fuck he’s talking about.
Fate/Extra
2010
some of the tightest character writing since stay/night, though i think that the villain-of-the-week format of this holy grail war denies most of the cast the depth you'd expect (or desire) out of a successor to said story. unfortunately said format means the plot structure is pretty rote and repetitive without much in the way of divergence from its own linearity, which isn't easily overlooked considering the lackluster ending of the only character arc that really gets any room to breathe: the protagonist's.
also, probably the single worst combat system i've ever had to deal with in a jrpg. rng is always bad game design in my book, but basing your combat almost exclusively around it is pretty much unforgivable.
also, probably the single worst combat system i've ever had to deal with in a jrpg. rng is always bad game design in my book, but basing your combat almost exclusively around it is pretty much unforgivable.
Baldur's Gate 3
2020
This game genuinely feels like you just walked out of a session with one of the best DM's you've ever met.
The amount of options you have is incredible, and the creativity available to you with which you can approach combat situations (or avoid them entirely with a silver tongue!) just keeps blowing me away.
Act 2 is where this game really started to grow on me, where (if I recall correctly, atleast!) you can avoid literally every single optional boss through doing dialogue properly in some RIDICULOUSLY unique ways. It's so much fun, and it's the major reason it feels like such an authentic and fantastic DnD experience; it really just feels like a DM playing along with the astoundingly bizarre ways you're trying to dodge rough fights.
I could go on for hours about what I love about this game dude, oh my god. The world's gorgeous and ridiculously alive, the cast is FANTASTIC and the writing is, as a result, such a treat.
Gameplay's really solid and grounded; beautiful adaption of 5E in that regard, and the soundtrack is absolutely beautiful too.
I wanna go a bit more in depth about the cast especially because, god dude. They're so good. I love ALL these goobers. Some of em are definitely coarse at first, but once you peel back the layers you start to realize why they are the way they are - and how they develop from that by spending time away from the toxic environments they're used to is wonderful.
Autonomy is the major means of doing so, and I appreciate the way that's handled so much. Shadowheart's my favorite example of this; sometimes things will straight up get worse if you butt in too much and start guiding her in choices she has to make.
You gotta depend on your allies, trust them to do the right thing - and in doing so, you'll realize they've come a long, long way since the start of their journey. It's so fucking good. Genuinely so proud of their development, it's all really satisfying.
There's still some flaws here and there - Act 3 can definitely get a bit buggy at times, but with how ridiculously expansive this game is that's honestly to be expected, and with how ridiculously fun this game is it hardly impacted my enjoyment at all despite some surprisingly big ramifications on my playthrough.
I've heard critiques about how the ending is a bit slim, but if you've properly followed a character's arc through their personal quests and camp dialogue you've got more than enough of an idea of how they'll deal with the aftermath, so I didn't really feel like it had to be anything bombastic. It works just fine with everything you know at that point, IMO!
I'm already thinking of what I want to do in my second playthrough. There's SO much possible divergences from my first playthrough, and so many checks to hopefully not fail this time. And I don't think I'll be getting tired of it anytime soon!
The amount of options you have is incredible, and the creativity available to you with which you can approach combat situations (or avoid them entirely with a silver tongue!) just keeps blowing me away.
Act 2 is where this game really started to grow on me, where (if I recall correctly, atleast!) you can avoid literally every single optional boss through doing dialogue properly in some RIDICULOUSLY unique ways. It's so much fun, and it's the major reason it feels like such an authentic and fantastic DnD experience; it really just feels like a DM playing along with the astoundingly bizarre ways you're trying to dodge rough fights.
I could go on for hours about what I love about this game dude, oh my god. The world's gorgeous and ridiculously alive, the cast is FANTASTIC and the writing is, as a result, such a treat.
Gameplay's really solid and grounded; beautiful adaption of 5E in that regard, and the soundtrack is absolutely beautiful too.
I wanna go a bit more in depth about the cast especially because, god dude. They're so good. I love ALL these goobers. Some of em are definitely coarse at first, but once you peel back the layers you start to realize why they are the way they are - and how they develop from that by spending time away from the toxic environments they're used to is wonderful.
Autonomy is the major means of doing so, and I appreciate the way that's handled so much. Shadowheart's my favorite example of this; sometimes things will straight up get worse if you butt in too much and start guiding her in choices she has to make.
You gotta depend on your allies, trust them to do the right thing - and in doing so, you'll realize they've come a long, long way since the start of their journey. It's so fucking good. Genuinely so proud of their development, it's all really satisfying.
There's still some flaws here and there - Act 3 can definitely get a bit buggy at times, but with how ridiculously expansive this game is that's honestly to be expected, and with how ridiculously fun this game is it hardly impacted my enjoyment at all despite some surprisingly big ramifications on my playthrough.
I've heard critiques about how the ending is a bit slim, but if you've properly followed a character's arc through their personal quests and camp dialogue you've got more than enough of an idea of how they'll deal with the aftermath, so I didn't really feel like it had to be anything bombastic. It works just fine with everything you know at that point, IMO!
I'm already thinking of what I want to do in my second playthrough. There's SO much possible divergences from my first playthrough, and so many checks to hopefully not fail this time. And I don't think I'll be getting tired of it anytime soon!
Pikmin 4
2023
With the fourth mainline/numbered entry in the Pikmin series, Nintendo have chosen to do everything in their power to make this the most accessible and content rich game in the series. For those familiar with the Pikmin series, Pikmin 1 and 3 followed a gameplay loop that saw you exploring areas to collect ship parts/fruit to get off a planet before a deadline hit, causing a game over. Pikmin 2 saw you collecting treasure with no time limit and exploring caves as well as the overworld for that treasure. Pikmin 4 follows more closely to the formula of Pikmin 2 while adding plenty of its own new ideas into the mix.
So the core gameplay loop of Pikmin 4 sees you exploring areas and using your Pikmin to collect items lying around the world to collect its sparklium that can be converted into fuel for the characters spaceship that will allow them to explore other areas of the planet and eventually return back home. The story premise is that Olimar has yet again crash landed on a planet containing Pikmin and needs saving, however the Rescue Corps sent to save have also crash landed and it's up to you, a newbie Rescue Corps member to save not only Olimar but the missing Rescue Corps members too. Yes, for the first time in the series you play as a self insert character who you can customise with a limited set of options (which is nice, the character creator is nowhere near overwhelming) that can be changed at any point once you unlock the option in the game. So in addition to collecting treasure, you will also be finding Rescue Corps members to carry back and as the game progresses, random castaways that have gotten stuck on this mysterious planet too. What's cool about this is every character has a profile card detailing a little bit about themselves and what they came to the planet to do, whether it's to research the plant life or do a documentary, there's a varied bunch of characters to meet. They all help flesh out the Pikmin universe too as you meet characters from many different planets like Hocatate and PNF-404 and it shows the Pikmin universe is so much bigger than we realised. These characters once saved can all be found in the new hub area of this game where they will offer side missions to complete like make 300 Pikmin bloom or discover a certain amount of creatures. They're nice extra challenges that help make the smaller tasks you do while exploring a bit more valuable.
Right let's get onto the gameplay itself and all the tweaks Nintendo have made. When Pikmin came to Wii the pointer controls were such a natural fit for the series that it was hard to see an alternate way of playing that was just as good. The Deluxe port of Pikmin 3 on Switch tried to replicate this using gyro aiming but unfortunately the aiming would constantly need reset due to how quickly it would drift. With Pikmin 4 being designed for Switch, Nintendo have opted for a lock on cursor that works pretty well (aside from a few moments where multiple things are next to each other and it's hard to pinpoint what you want). Gyro aiming still comes into play but is only active when whistling or throwing Pikmin meaning you don't have to constantly reset it and you still get to quickly move your aim when needed. They've added a much more dynamic camera this time allowing you to get pretty close to the action on the ground as well as pulling out far enough to get a decent read of your surroundings and you've got shortcuts you can add to the d-pad for stuff like items and character switching which is really nice. While it's not quite at the same heights as the pointer controls during the Wii/Wii U era, Nintendo have managed to adapt the controls of Pikmin into something that is very suitable for both the TV and handheld playstyles of Switch with little compromise. The game also begins with a pretty heavy handed tutorial to help those new to the series and make sure that everything is explained in detail. It interrupts the game a little too often for me as someone who has played the series before but I can understand wanting to make sure people understand how everything works.
The biggest new addition to the gameplay this time around is Oatchi, your very own space dog companion! Oatchi can be used in a variety of ways. The main one I used was as a ride. Oatchi can carry your character and all your Pikmin on his back which is really handy and helps eliminate one of the main causes of lost Pikmin for me: the stragglers at the back being crushed or caught by enemies. Of course there's still enemies capable of knocking you and your Pikmin off causing chaos and leading to lost Pikmin but it is really handy being able to gather them all onto Oatchi's back to try and keep them safe. Oatchi is also able to complete many tasks that Pikmin can like carrying objects and defeating enemies and through upgrades he can become immune to various elements and carry heavier items. Thankfully he doesn't negate the need for Pikmin altogether, he's more of a handy helping hand for dividing up tasks or transporting Pikmin across water who normally couldn't.
We also have a couple of new Pikmin types with the Ice and Glow Pikmin. Ice Pikmin are impervious to being frozen, can withstand cold temperatures and freeze bodies of water if you have enough of them. They can also freeze enemies when used to attack them making fights a lot less riskier but when a frozen enemy is defeated they shatter and you don't get a body to carry back and grow your Pikmin population. It's a nice approach to risk/reward design that also helps make the game a bit easier if you choose to.
Glow Pikmin are mostly exclusive to the new night missions in the game but can also be used in caves. These Pikmin are impervious to all elemental weaknesses other Pikmin have but can still be killed by enemies. They can teleport to your character when they are done with their tasks and at the end of a night mission for every 10 surviving Glow Pikmin you have, you earn a glow seed that can be used to spawn Glow Pikmin in a cave. They're pretty handy if your Pikmin population is thinning out while in a cave and you can't find any more around.
Speaking of night missions, these are tower defence style missions where you are tasked with protecting a Luminol or two to collect a medicine for some of the castaways that are suffering a leafy transformation. These missions see you using Glow Pikmin to collect star bits to carry back to the Luminol to expand their numbers so they can defend against the oncoming onslaught of enemies throughout the night. As they can teleport to whoever you're controlling you can quickly switch between Oatchi and your character to manage defending multiple Luminol. It's a nice change of pace from the main missions and keeps the game feeling fresh. I do think it would've been cool if they had multiple captains like in Pikmin 3 so we could defend 3 or 4 Luminols because of how fluid the switching is with Glow Pikmin but otherwise it's a solid game mode and it's nice being able to explore at night.
The bulk of your game time is exploring the beautifully crafted environments and collecting the various treasures available. Nintendo have made a couple of tweaks to the traditional Pikmin formula. First is the limitation of just 3 Pikmin types at any one time which helps making sure each Pikmin type can have a chance to shine as areas are designed with this in mind and will offer recommended Pikmin types to bring along. There might be a couple of times where you'll want to swap out for another Pikmin type to accomplish a task but for the most part the game is extremely well designed around this, and in caves it is possible to find Pikmin types outwith the 3 you brought in allowing you to play with a larger variety at once for a bit. I think this limitation works well for preventing people from becoming overwhelmed by the amount of Pikmin types to choose from as well as making sure the player has to strategise with a limited amount of resources. Also different this time round is starting with a limit of only 20 Pikmin at once. This can be expanded by finding Farlic onions throughout levels, increasing the limit by 10 every time until you hit the traditional limit of 100. I assume this was done to ease newcomers into the series and not overwhelm them and I think it works well. It's another item to collect and it feels good watching your Pikmin limit expand, being able to accomplish more tasks and fight stronger enemies as your army grows. Another gameplay addition is the ability to rewind time to undo mistakes. It's a pretty comprehensive rewind allowing you to go back to specific points or even all the way back to the beginning of the day. As an optional tool it's great for accessibility and while I tried to avoid using it, it did come in handy during the final boss encounter after having my purple Pikmin wiped out from trying to figure out how best to hit the boss.
There's a very well done balance between overworld and cave exploration that helps keeps both feeling fun and fresh throughout. The overworld has all the usual Pikmin puzzles to solve, walls to break down, tunnels to dig, etc and caves can be found throughout these levels. Caves act much like they did in Pikmin 2, hiding treasure to collect and holding some of the more difficult enemy encounters. These areas have been tightly designed this time, offering very puzzle box like experiences as you work your way through them. They also tend to house the rarer Pikmin types allowing you to add new Pikmin to your army. The caves this time are often around the 5 levels mark so you don't spend as much time in them as you do in 2 allowing a better balance between the areas you're exploring. I loved the caves in this game as they were very fun and tightly designed areas that offer fun puzzles to figure out with your Pikmin.
I've covered so much already but wait, there's more! As well as being able to find caves through the levels, there are new Dandori challenges and battles that can be found too. Dandori, as explained in game, is the art of organising your tasks strategically and working with maximum efficiency to execute your plans quickly and by gosh the game does mean that. The Dandori challenges see you given a set amount of time to collect every single object within a level. You start out with a specific set of Pikmin and must act quickly and efficiently to grow your Pikmin army as well as defeating enemies and clearing paths to collect every item. These challenges are intense and you cannot stop for a second otherwise you're going to miss the target score. These are so much fun and really test your quick thinking abilities as well as how efficiently and quickly your brain can spot how to divide tasks up to get them done. I absolutely loved these challenges and getting a platinum score on my first try was always a delight.
The Dandori battles see you take on a mysterious leafling in a split screen battle to collect the most points before time runs out. It's a bit more chaotic and you can use your Pikmin to mess with your opponent and steal their items from them as well as pick up the traditional Nintendo style multiplayer items to turn the tide of battle. This is also offered as a traditional multiplayer mode in the main menu and it does its job well but the chaotic nature of them leaves them feeling a bit less satisfying compared to everything else on offer.
So yeah, there is an absolute ton packed into this Pikmin, taking me well over 20 hours to get to the credits while 100%ing every area on the way and Nintendo is like you thought that was it? Nah, here's even more content providing one of the meatiest post games in recent memory. We got more areas to explore, a new mode that caters to those who loved Pikmin 1 and a set of Dandori challenges that really test your skills. It's incredible just how much content Nintendo has packed into Pikmin this time around and the way each game style varies things up keeps things fresh. Despite having 9 Pikmin types and Oatchi available to use, they somehow manage to make sure each Pikmin type still has a role to fill without feeling pointless. The story mode also alleviates one of my main criticisms about Pikmin 3 by making sure that every single type of Pikmin sees use. 3 saw purple and white Pikmin go unused in the main story while 4 makes sure everyone gets their chance to shine, particularly through the caves that usually have challenges designed around specific Pikmin types.
The game is just a joy to play and very chill for the most part with late game providing some of the challenges veteran Pikmin fans might be looking for. Aside from heavy handed tutorials and a little bit of jank with lock on aiming, I don't really have much to criticise with Pikmin 4. It's an extremely well designed game that manages to expand upon Pikmin in all the right ways while finding ways to appeal to fans that love the style of Pikmin 1 or Pikmin 2. The sound design is as great as ever, with every Pikmin making unique noises and having cute footstep sound effects that differentiate over different material and there's one boss fight in particular that blew me away with how it played with the music. And of course the game carries the series usual charm with every item having a few logs to go through along with the funny names. It's always fun seeing these characters try to figure out what exactly a GBA SP could be used for.
Pikmin 4 takes the series to new heights while maintaining a delicate balance to try and appeal to as wide a demographic as possible. Nintendo have nailed expanding the various types of strategic gameplay on offer while also making sure that everything is balanced as finely as possible. Somehow they have managed to make this most content rich Pikmin title and kept it feeling fresh throughout making this my favourite Pikmin title so far and one of my favourite games of all time.
So the core gameplay loop of Pikmin 4 sees you exploring areas and using your Pikmin to collect items lying around the world to collect its sparklium that can be converted into fuel for the characters spaceship that will allow them to explore other areas of the planet and eventually return back home. The story premise is that Olimar has yet again crash landed on a planet containing Pikmin and needs saving, however the Rescue Corps sent to save have also crash landed and it's up to you, a newbie Rescue Corps member to save not only Olimar but the missing Rescue Corps members too. Yes, for the first time in the series you play as a self insert character who you can customise with a limited set of options (which is nice, the character creator is nowhere near overwhelming) that can be changed at any point once you unlock the option in the game. So in addition to collecting treasure, you will also be finding Rescue Corps members to carry back and as the game progresses, random castaways that have gotten stuck on this mysterious planet too. What's cool about this is every character has a profile card detailing a little bit about themselves and what they came to the planet to do, whether it's to research the plant life or do a documentary, there's a varied bunch of characters to meet. They all help flesh out the Pikmin universe too as you meet characters from many different planets like Hocatate and PNF-404 and it shows the Pikmin universe is so much bigger than we realised. These characters once saved can all be found in the new hub area of this game where they will offer side missions to complete like make 300 Pikmin bloom or discover a certain amount of creatures. They're nice extra challenges that help make the smaller tasks you do while exploring a bit more valuable.
Right let's get onto the gameplay itself and all the tweaks Nintendo have made. When Pikmin came to Wii the pointer controls were such a natural fit for the series that it was hard to see an alternate way of playing that was just as good. The Deluxe port of Pikmin 3 on Switch tried to replicate this using gyro aiming but unfortunately the aiming would constantly need reset due to how quickly it would drift. With Pikmin 4 being designed for Switch, Nintendo have opted for a lock on cursor that works pretty well (aside from a few moments where multiple things are next to each other and it's hard to pinpoint what you want). Gyro aiming still comes into play but is only active when whistling or throwing Pikmin meaning you don't have to constantly reset it and you still get to quickly move your aim when needed. They've added a much more dynamic camera this time allowing you to get pretty close to the action on the ground as well as pulling out far enough to get a decent read of your surroundings and you've got shortcuts you can add to the d-pad for stuff like items and character switching which is really nice. While it's not quite at the same heights as the pointer controls during the Wii/Wii U era, Nintendo have managed to adapt the controls of Pikmin into something that is very suitable for both the TV and handheld playstyles of Switch with little compromise. The game also begins with a pretty heavy handed tutorial to help those new to the series and make sure that everything is explained in detail. It interrupts the game a little too often for me as someone who has played the series before but I can understand wanting to make sure people understand how everything works.
The biggest new addition to the gameplay this time around is Oatchi, your very own space dog companion! Oatchi can be used in a variety of ways. The main one I used was as a ride. Oatchi can carry your character and all your Pikmin on his back which is really handy and helps eliminate one of the main causes of lost Pikmin for me: the stragglers at the back being crushed or caught by enemies. Of course there's still enemies capable of knocking you and your Pikmin off causing chaos and leading to lost Pikmin but it is really handy being able to gather them all onto Oatchi's back to try and keep them safe. Oatchi is also able to complete many tasks that Pikmin can like carrying objects and defeating enemies and through upgrades he can become immune to various elements and carry heavier items. Thankfully he doesn't negate the need for Pikmin altogether, he's more of a handy helping hand for dividing up tasks or transporting Pikmin across water who normally couldn't.
We also have a couple of new Pikmin types with the Ice and Glow Pikmin. Ice Pikmin are impervious to being frozen, can withstand cold temperatures and freeze bodies of water if you have enough of them. They can also freeze enemies when used to attack them making fights a lot less riskier but when a frozen enemy is defeated they shatter and you don't get a body to carry back and grow your Pikmin population. It's a nice approach to risk/reward design that also helps make the game a bit easier if you choose to.
Glow Pikmin are mostly exclusive to the new night missions in the game but can also be used in caves. These Pikmin are impervious to all elemental weaknesses other Pikmin have but can still be killed by enemies. They can teleport to your character when they are done with their tasks and at the end of a night mission for every 10 surviving Glow Pikmin you have, you earn a glow seed that can be used to spawn Glow Pikmin in a cave. They're pretty handy if your Pikmin population is thinning out while in a cave and you can't find any more around.
Speaking of night missions, these are tower defence style missions where you are tasked with protecting a Luminol or two to collect a medicine for some of the castaways that are suffering a leafy transformation. These missions see you using Glow Pikmin to collect star bits to carry back to the Luminol to expand their numbers so they can defend against the oncoming onslaught of enemies throughout the night. As they can teleport to whoever you're controlling you can quickly switch between Oatchi and your character to manage defending multiple Luminol. It's a nice change of pace from the main missions and keeps the game feeling fresh. I do think it would've been cool if they had multiple captains like in Pikmin 3 so we could defend 3 or 4 Luminols because of how fluid the switching is with Glow Pikmin but otherwise it's a solid game mode and it's nice being able to explore at night.
The bulk of your game time is exploring the beautifully crafted environments and collecting the various treasures available. Nintendo have made a couple of tweaks to the traditional Pikmin formula. First is the limitation of just 3 Pikmin types at any one time which helps making sure each Pikmin type can have a chance to shine as areas are designed with this in mind and will offer recommended Pikmin types to bring along. There might be a couple of times where you'll want to swap out for another Pikmin type to accomplish a task but for the most part the game is extremely well designed around this, and in caves it is possible to find Pikmin types outwith the 3 you brought in allowing you to play with a larger variety at once for a bit. I think this limitation works well for preventing people from becoming overwhelmed by the amount of Pikmin types to choose from as well as making sure the player has to strategise with a limited amount of resources. Also different this time round is starting with a limit of only 20 Pikmin at once. This can be expanded by finding Farlic onions throughout levels, increasing the limit by 10 every time until you hit the traditional limit of 100. I assume this was done to ease newcomers into the series and not overwhelm them and I think it works well. It's another item to collect and it feels good watching your Pikmin limit expand, being able to accomplish more tasks and fight stronger enemies as your army grows. Another gameplay addition is the ability to rewind time to undo mistakes. It's a pretty comprehensive rewind allowing you to go back to specific points or even all the way back to the beginning of the day. As an optional tool it's great for accessibility and while I tried to avoid using it, it did come in handy during the final boss encounter after having my purple Pikmin wiped out from trying to figure out how best to hit the boss.
There's a very well done balance between overworld and cave exploration that helps keeps both feeling fun and fresh throughout. The overworld has all the usual Pikmin puzzles to solve, walls to break down, tunnels to dig, etc and caves can be found throughout these levels. Caves act much like they did in Pikmin 2, hiding treasure to collect and holding some of the more difficult enemy encounters. These areas have been tightly designed this time, offering very puzzle box like experiences as you work your way through them. They also tend to house the rarer Pikmin types allowing you to add new Pikmin to your army. The caves this time are often around the 5 levels mark so you don't spend as much time in them as you do in 2 allowing a better balance between the areas you're exploring. I loved the caves in this game as they were very fun and tightly designed areas that offer fun puzzles to figure out with your Pikmin.
I've covered so much already but wait, there's more! As well as being able to find caves through the levels, there are new Dandori challenges and battles that can be found too. Dandori, as explained in game, is the art of organising your tasks strategically and working with maximum efficiency to execute your plans quickly and by gosh the game does mean that. The Dandori challenges see you given a set amount of time to collect every single object within a level. You start out with a specific set of Pikmin and must act quickly and efficiently to grow your Pikmin army as well as defeating enemies and clearing paths to collect every item. These challenges are intense and you cannot stop for a second otherwise you're going to miss the target score. These are so much fun and really test your quick thinking abilities as well as how efficiently and quickly your brain can spot how to divide tasks up to get them done. I absolutely loved these challenges and getting a platinum score on my first try was always a delight.
The Dandori battles see you take on a mysterious leafling in a split screen battle to collect the most points before time runs out. It's a bit more chaotic and you can use your Pikmin to mess with your opponent and steal their items from them as well as pick up the traditional Nintendo style multiplayer items to turn the tide of battle. This is also offered as a traditional multiplayer mode in the main menu and it does its job well but the chaotic nature of them leaves them feeling a bit less satisfying compared to everything else on offer.
So yeah, there is an absolute ton packed into this Pikmin, taking me well over 20 hours to get to the credits while 100%ing every area on the way and Nintendo is like you thought that was it? Nah, here's even more content providing one of the meatiest post games in recent memory. We got more areas to explore, a new mode that caters to those who loved Pikmin 1 and a set of Dandori challenges that really test your skills. It's incredible just how much content Nintendo has packed into Pikmin this time around and the way each game style varies things up keeps things fresh. Despite having 9 Pikmin types and Oatchi available to use, they somehow manage to make sure each Pikmin type still has a role to fill without feeling pointless. The story mode also alleviates one of my main criticisms about Pikmin 3 by making sure that every single type of Pikmin sees use. 3 saw purple and white Pikmin go unused in the main story while 4 makes sure everyone gets their chance to shine, particularly through the caves that usually have challenges designed around specific Pikmin types.
The game is just a joy to play and very chill for the most part with late game providing some of the challenges veteran Pikmin fans might be looking for. Aside from heavy handed tutorials and a little bit of jank with lock on aiming, I don't really have much to criticise with Pikmin 4. It's an extremely well designed game that manages to expand upon Pikmin in all the right ways while finding ways to appeal to fans that love the style of Pikmin 1 or Pikmin 2. The sound design is as great as ever, with every Pikmin making unique noises and having cute footstep sound effects that differentiate over different material and there's one boss fight in particular that blew me away with how it played with the music. And of course the game carries the series usual charm with every item having a few logs to go through along with the funny names. It's always fun seeing these characters try to figure out what exactly a GBA SP could be used for.
Pikmin 4 takes the series to new heights while maintaining a delicate balance to try and appeal to as wide a demographic as possible. Nintendo have nailed expanding the various types of strategic gameplay on offer while also making sure that everything is balanced as finely as possible. Somehow they have managed to make this most content rich Pikmin title and kept it feeling fresh throughout making this my favourite Pikmin title so far and one of my favourite games of all time.
As someone who loves the Crossbell arc a lot, I definitely had high expectations for this game.
But holy shit man, those expectations couldn't even hope to hold a candle to everything this game does so ridiculously well.
First of all, the gameplay's ridiculously fun. It's snappy, and all of the new features and gimmicks added to it are such a blast.
Swin's Marks - a completely new debuff unique to him that procs on his crafts and guarantee the next hit will be a crit especially, might just be the most fun I've had in this series since the golden days of stacking buffs on Richard in Sky 3rd and yelling go white boy go as he spins 6 turns in a row with less delay on his crafts than regular attacks.
Slap a Gungnir Sub-Master Quartz on that kid and watch him absolutely nuke anything he touches after marking something through a simple 20 point craft. It's beautiful.
But gameplay's never really been what's drawn me to this series - it's generally enjoyable, but definitely not the highlight that I'd mainly like to talk about.
That'd be the writing, and the numerous amount of incredible casts I've come across on this ridiculously expansive continuous series that have inspired me in ways both small and large.
And man oh man, this game definitely isn't any different in that regard.
Starting off unsurprisingly due to my aforementioned love for the once-called City of Sin; there's a few faults to be had with Lloyd's route - but to me, the only thing that really sticks out is that the way a certain chapter ties immediately into the finale isn't particularly rewarding at that time.
But apart from that? Perfect. Genuinely perfect.
It takes everything the Crossbell arc's about, spins it into a new perspective, and makes it come together so damn well as the SSS dust themselves off and get right back to fighting for their home they've come to love so much, same as they've done countless times before; except now, fully aware that their role as heroes was never theirs alone.
It's such a fascinating route; it makes full use of the speech about justice Dieter gave them in Zero, and even makes them truly be able to stand in KeA's shoes regarding her circumstances in Azure.
It really does feel like a third Crossbell game, because it wraps things up perfectly due to the emphasis on them, and I couldn't be happier about it.
But that's not all! It's even got the "Miserable Sinners", a group lead by a mysterious masked criminal known as C, as an all-new cast introduced in this game. And man, I don't think I've ever grown used to a war criminal and their unhinged children so easily.
Swin and Nadia are fantastic, because they make full use of the way Trails loves to branch off into different mediums to give the players multiple ways to grow accustomed to it's world.
All their volumes of books about their backstory are available both in Cold Steel 4 as a collectable series, on Reverie's title screen and on it's website - that's a way they love to give you a teaser of characters before they appear, and that's so fascinating to me because I personally don't know any other series of games that does something similar, definitely not in-universe.
One of my favorite characters in this series, Toval Randonneur, is much the same - he's first introduced as a young crook in the Carnelia books in Trails in the Sky, then a few years later in the timeline you'll see him again as a cocky bracer who's found his place in the world in the Ring of Judgment manga set just before Trails from Zero, and then finally introduced in-game as a more mature bracer in Cold Steel 1, eventually leading into somewhat of a mentor role through the early game of Cold Steel 2 where he makes use of those life experiences to pick Rean back up when he's at a low point.
It's just so cool to see characters develop like that through multiple mediums, and watching S&N take their future that belongs only to them after all they've been through in their books was so incredibly cathartic.
C themselves and Lapis are both fantastic too, and I did not expect this to be the existential crisis group, but they bounce off each other so incredibly well. They might be miserable sinners - but they slowly but surely find it's a lot less miserable with company, and stuff like that is just right up my alley.
It's also a breath of fresh air to have more of an anti-hero group after so many games of goody two-shoes, and it makes them all the more enjoyable. From what I've heard a more younger, newer part of the writing team was in charge of their route - and it really adds to how much it stands out, in a really good way.
Ofcourse, the game's not without it's flaws - having to juggle between three routes constantly means either having to split resources for sub-optimal builds or constantly swap the good master quartz, regular quartz and accessories around, and I chose the latter. Admittedly my own fault more than anything - splitting resources is probably what they expect from you; but yeah. Trading all that and making sure it's all given to the correct characters can definitely take some time when there's up to atleast 10 times in your playthrough where you gotta do this.
And yes, even though I've sung praise for Lloyd and C's routes specifically there are in-fact 3 of them - but much like towards Cold Steel itself I'm.. pretty much ambivalent towards Rean Route, personally.
It's fine, definitely not anything that's actively a blemish on the game or anything - just not my cup of tea, personally.
It's got plenty of Rean development, and if that's your thing you're in luck; but after four games of Cold Steel I'm just kinda tired of having things revolve around him as much as they do. I don't think he's bad by any means, but at some point it just feels like they're regurgitating things for him to get into his head after doing the same for four games long.
That's probably the point, to be fair - trauma like his is certainly not something that can be switched on or off due to something simple as good advice, but yeah. At some point enough is enough, hence the ambivalence to it all.
That being said, yes, even with not feeling too strongly about one of it's three routes - I utterly adore this game.
Lloyd and C's routes are without a doubt my favorite thing about this series yet, and I cannot wait for Kuro if this is the quality of writing I can come to expect.
But that's a trail for another day! One I'm very, very excited for thanks to this masterpiece.
But holy shit man, those expectations couldn't even hope to hold a candle to everything this game does so ridiculously well.
First of all, the gameplay's ridiculously fun. It's snappy, and all of the new features and gimmicks added to it are such a blast.
Swin's Marks - a completely new debuff unique to him that procs on his crafts and guarantee the next hit will be a crit especially, might just be the most fun I've had in this series since the golden days of stacking buffs on Richard in Sky 3rd and yelling go white boy go as he spins 6 turns in a row with less delay on his crafts than regular attacks.
Slap a Gungnir Sub-Master Quartz on that kid and watch him absolutely nuke anything he touches after marking something through a simple 20 point craft. It's beautiful.
But gameplay's never really been what's drawn me to this series - it's generally enjoyable, but definitely not the highlight that I'd mainly like to talk about.
That'd be the writing, and the numerous amount of incredible casts I've come across on this ridiculously expansive continuous series that have inspired me in ways both small and large.
And man oh man, this game definitely isn't any different in that regard.
Starting off unsurprisingly due to my aforementioned love for the once-called City of Sin; there's a few faults to be had with Lloyd's route - but to me, the only thing that really sticks out is that the way a certain chapter ties immediately into the finale isn't particularly rewarding at that time.
But apart from that? Perfect. Genuinely perfect.
It takes everything the Crossbell arc's about, spins it into a new perspective, and makes it come together so damn well as the SSS dust themselves off and get right back to fighting for their home they've come to love so much, same as they've done countless times before; except now, fully aware that their role as heroes was never theirs alone.
It's such a fascinating route; it makes full use of the speech about justice Dieter gave them in Zero, and even makes them truly be able to stand in KeA's shoes regarding her circumstances in Azure.
It really does feel like a third Crossbell game, because it wraps things up perfectly due to the emphasis on them, and I couldn't be happier about it.
But that's not all! It's even got the "Miserable Sinners", a group lead by a mysterious masked criminal known as C, as an all-new cast introduced in this game. And man, I don't think I've ever grown used to a war criminal and their unhinged children so easily.
Swin and Nadia are fantastic, because they make full use of the way Trails loves to branch off into different mediums to give the players multiple ways to grow accustomed to it's world.
All their volumes of books about their backstory are available both in Cold Steel 4 as a collectable series, on Reverie's title screen and on it's website - that's a way they love to give you a teaser of characters before they appear, and that's so fascinating to me because I personally don't know any other series of games that does something similar, definitely not in-universe.
One of my favorite characters in this series, Toval Randonneur, is much the same - he's first introduced as a young crook in the Carnelia books in Trails in the Sky, then a few years later in the timeline you'll see him again as a cocky bracer who's found his place in the world in the Ring of Judgment manga set just before Trails from Zero, and then finally introduced in-game as a more mature bracer in Cold Steel 1, eventually leading into somewhat of a mentor role through the early game of Cold Steel 2 where he makes use of those life experiences to pick Rean back up when he's at a low point.
It's just so cool to see characters develop like that through multiple mediums, and watching S&N take their future that belongs only to them after all they've been through in their books was so incredibly cathartic.
C themselves and Lapis are both fantastic too, and I did not expect this to be the existential crisis group, but they bounce off each other so incredibly well. They might be miserable sinners - but they slowly but surely find it's a lot less miserable with company, and stuff like that is just right up my alley.
It's also a breath of fresh air to have more of an anti-hero group after so many games of goody two-shoes, and it makes them all the more enjoyable. From what I've heard a more younger, newer part of the writing team was in charge of their route - and it really adds to how much it stands out, in a really good way.
Ofcourse, the game's not without it's flaws - having to juggle between three routes constantly means either having to split resources for sub-optimal builds or constantly swap the good master quartz, regular quartz and accessories around, and I chose the latter. Admittedly my own fault more than anything - splitting resources is probably what they expect from you; but yeah. Trading all that and making sure it's all given to the correct characters can definitely take some time when there's up to atleast 10 times in your playthrough where you gotta do this.
And yes, even though I've sung praise for Lloyd and C's routes specifically there are in-fact 3 of them - but much like towards Cold Steel itself I'm.. pretty much ambivalent towards Rean Route, personally.
It's fine, definitely not anything that's actively a blemish on the game or anything - just not my cup of tea, personally.
It's got plenty of Rean development, and if that's your thing you're in luck; but after four games of Cold Steel I'm just kinda tired of having things revolve around him as much as they do. I don't think he's bad by any means, but at some point it just feels like they're regurgitating things for him to get into his head after doing the same for four games long.
That's probably the point, to be fair - trauma like his is certainly not something that can be switched on or off due to something simple as good advice, but yeah. At some point enough is enough, hence the ambivalence to it all.
That being said, yes, even with not feeling too strongly about one of it's three routes - I utterly adore this game.
Lloyd and C's routes are without a doubt my favorite thing about this series yet, and I cannot wait for Kuro if this is the quality of writing I can come to expect.
But that's a trail for another day! One I'm very, very excited for thanks to this masterpiece.
Pikmin 2
2023
Ho fatto il 100% vaffanculo al livello 10 della tana di sogno vaffanculo
