Alright, finally finished this monster of a sequel after two months. Here's what I have to say. TLDR: While not my personal favorite, CS3 makes a good case of being considered the best of the franchise.
While boasting ]the highest peaks on the franchise so far, I personally didn't find it's 80-90 hour length completely justifiable, especially considering CS2 hit such a nice sweet spot of sub 60 hours. In my opinion, CS3 could still have achieved the fervor it set out to accomplish even if it was trimed by 10-15 hours.
With that said, now having nearly 250 hours into this franchise, the gameplay features changes I can positively highlight. The addition of brave orders was a welcome one. It definitely helped change up the gameplay and provided another outlet to help support the battles when things got tough. Same goes for the break system as well.
Overall, I'd consider CS3 my second favorite Cold Steel entry, behind CS3 and above CS1. While improving on the gameplay compared to the first two outings, I think that CS3 regresses to the same flaw that CS1 had which was stretching itself slightly thinner than it could have been, despite Nihon Falcom proving with CS2 that they were capable of correcting. With that said, CS has gone 3-for-3 and I look forward to finally completing this series sometime in 2023. But, CS3's length has me feeling a bit burnt out, so it will likely not be until late 2023.
While boasting ]the highest peaks on the franchise so far, I personally didn't find it's 80-90 hour length completely justifiable, especially considering CS2 hit such a nice sweet spot of sub 60 hours. In my opinion, CS3 could still have achieved the fervor it set out to accomplish even if it was trimed by 10-15 hours.
With that said, now having nearly 250 hours into this franchise, the gameplay features changes I can positively highlight. The addition of brave orders was a welcome one. It definitely helped change up the gameplay and provided another outlet to help support the battles when things got tough. Same goes for the break system as well.
Overall, I'd consider CS3 my second favorite Cold Steel entry, behind CS3 and above CS1. While improving on the gameplay compared to the first two outings, I think that CS3 regresses to the same flaw that CS1 had which was stretching itself slightly thinner than it could have been, despite Nihon Falcom proving with CS2 that they were capable of correcting. With that said, CS has gone 3-for-3 and I look forward to finally completing this series sometime in 2023. But, CS3's length has me feeling a bit burnt out, so it will likely not be until late 2023.