Yeah it sure would suck if I beat this 8 months ago instead. Keeping it in the box was a good decision. 
So I beat this yesterday, and it took 75 hours. That's a longass time for a game where basically nothing happens until the last 2 hours of the game. Mind you, that's not really a knock on the game, I liked most of it, but yeah it's a game with a ton of bloat. I think it's a real testament to Falcom's ability to write fun NPCs and an interesting setting though. The actual narrative of the game is intentional a whole bunch of nothing until the very end, and the ending itself is a huge cliffhanger that resolves -nothing-. Yet, it feels satisfying knowing that I played though 7 months of slice of life (emphasis on slice) military academy hijinx with a bunch of uguu, because I will remember all these characters going into the sequel, and I'm actually excited to know what happens next to everyone - especially all the NPCs in various regions.
What I liked:
- Falcom made the transition into a full 3D JRPG really well. While the game is obviously not a high budget affair, there's a good sense of scene composition and direction. The cutscenes and camerawork aren't elaborate or flashy most of the time, but they do a very good job communicating tone and establishing the purpose of the scenes. Compared to a lot of other mid-sized JRPG developers and their first attempts into full 3D games, this is a solid A effort.
- The game makes really good use of the fact that it is full 3D to present locations and the scale of the world in a way which wasn't possible before in the series. While most locations are basically just more detailed versions of what would otherwise be a normal top down town map, the Nord Highlands and Heimdallr in particular have a sense of scale to them which would be impossible to convey with top down maps with 2D character sprites. Great stuff there.
- Once I got the hang of battles, combat was super fast and felt really satisfying. The impact feedback and sound effects go a long way in making the melee characters feel really strong. I can see why they wanted to go with the "cold steel" title, since it's a good analog for the feeling the Japanese title "sen" gives off. It's a feeling that is prevalent in the combat.
- The world building in the series really feels amazing. Coming from Trails in the Sky, being able to actually see Erebonia and meet the people mentioned in passing before, and seeing the impact of certain events mentioned, creates a real sense of an ongoing interconnected fictional universe. Instead of just creating a bunch of characters and continuing a narrative with them at the center of it, this series feels just as much as one where the sense of place is important, and the world is populated by people who live their own lives and exist independently of some threat in other countries. Soooo good.
- The final 2 hours of the game is probably close to everything I hoped the series might become one day in terms of upping the stakes. I expected that they would eventually get there, but the accelerated nature of how each element was introduced did catch me off guard. Lol.
- The School Festival events at the end were -perfect-. Not only did they put a ton of effort into having actual mini-games, but the entire atmosphere was so good. Lots of interactions, and really nice details all over the campus. I'm impressed that they really felt the drive to totally outclass their last attempt at a school festival in FC.
What I didn't like much:
- There is formula and then there is formula. I don't mind the idea of the game mirroring a school year, but the way the chapters are divided here were just too neat and it made the order of events really boring. School Quest Phase -> Schoolhouse Exploration -> Practical Exam -> Field Study Quest Phase -> Some Unexpected Shit Happens Dungeon. Repeat for 6 chapters. I liked the events that happened, but the formula is booooooooooring.
- The Old Schoolhouse. Garbage-tier dungeon. Garbage-tier excuse in the writing to keep exploring a new floor each month. Really lazy on Falcom's part. Compared to everything else in the game, and considering how central this thing is supposed to be for the overall plot of the game, it just feels like a half-assed effort. No one really seems to take the strangeness of it seriously, and even when characters in the know give a nudge nudge wink wink "this is important" hint to the audience it feels tongue in cheek because if anyone really took it seriously the entire place would be closed off and under investigation by professional scientists and archaeologists immediately.
- (>_<) Millium is a shit-tier character. Delete pls. (0_0)
- The streamlined ARCUS system with a Master Quartz and spells being actual Quartz. I'm not a big fan of this. I can totally understand the need to simplify the Orbment system because the way it was in Trails was really too complicated for it's own good, but at the same time I liked the idea that you don't equip spells but rather "unlock" the potential to case them instead. Now instead it's all about equipping the most broken Master Quartz and maxing out the level, and then just equipping as many broken status down Quartz as possible. Kinda zzzz. Hope they iterate on this further to improve it.
- The whole Scooby Doo tone for the dramatic elements of the Field Studies isn't something I feel the game did very well. With FC, I really liked how Estelle and Joshua was always accompanied by adults and professionals during their journey, to highlight that they were basically junior scouts out to earn their badges and because they were doing it while dangerous stuff were happening, supervision was necessary. In Cold Steel it feels like Class VII is given a bit too much freedom to just get involved in things way over their head, but yet no one really cares that much about it. It felt like month after month of "And we would have gotten away with it if not for you meddling kids!!!!"
- In the finale
Bonus: My reaction to the final chapter in the game.
So I beat this yesterday, and it took 75 hours. That's a longass time for a game where basically nothing happens until the last 2 hours of the game. Mind you, that's not really a knock on the game, I liked most of it, but yeah it's a game with a ton of bloat. I think it's a real testament to Falcom's ability to write fun NPCs and an interesting setting though. The actual narrative of the game is intentional a whole bunch of nothing until the very end, and the ending itself is a huge cliffhanger that resolves -nothing-. Yet, it feels satisfying knowing that I played though 7 months of slice of life (emphasis on slice) military academy hijinx with a bunch of uguu, because I will remember all these characters going into the sequel, and I'm actually excited to know what happens next to everyone - especially all the NPCs in various regions.
What I liked:
- Falcom made the transition into a full 3D JRPG really well. While the game is obviously not a high budget affair, there's a good sense of scene composition and direction. The cutscenes and camerawork aren't elaborate or flashy most of the time, but they do a very good job communicating tone and establishing the purpose of the scenes. Compared to a lot of other mid-sized JRPG developers and their first attempts into full 3D games, this is a solid A effort.
- The game makes really good use of the fact that it is full 3D to present locations and the scale of the world in a way which wasn't possible before in the series. While most locations are basically just more detailed versions of what would otherwise be a normal top down town map, the Nord Highlands and Heimdallr in particular have a sense of scale to them which would be impossible to convey with top down maps with 2D character sprites. Great stuff there.
- Once I got the hang of battles, combat was super fast and felt really satisfying. The impact feedback and sound effects go a long way in making the melee characters feel really strong. I can see why they wanted to go with the "cold steel" title, since it's a good analog for the feeling the Japanese title "sen" gives off. It's a feeling that is prevalent in the combat.
- The world building in the series really feels amazing. Coming from Trails in the Sky, being able to actually see Erebonia and meet the people mentioned in passing before, and seeing the impact of certain events mentioned, creates a real sense of an ongoing interconnected fictional universe. Instead of just creating a bunch of characters and continuing a narrative with them at the center of it, this series feels just as much as one where the sense of place is important, and the world is populated by people who live their own lives and exist independently of some threat in other countries. Soooo good.
- The final 2 hours of the game is probably close to everything I hoped the series might become one day in terms of upping the stakes. I expected that they would eventually get there, but the accelerated nature of how each element was introduced did catch me off guard. Lol.
- The School Festival events at the end were -perfect-. Not only did they put a ton of effort into having actual mini-games, but the entire atmosphere was so good. Lots of interactions, and really nice details all over the campus. I'm impressed that they really felt the drive to totally outclass their last attempt at a school festival in FC.
What I didn't like much:
- There is formula and then there is formula. I don't mind the idea of the game mirroring a school year, but the way the chapters are divided here were just too neat and it made the order of events really boring. School Quest Phase -> Schoolhouse Exploration -> Practical Exam -> Field Study Quest Phase -> Some Unexpected Shit Happens Dungeon. Repeat for 6 chapters. I liked the events that happened, but the formula is booooooooooring.
- The Old Schoolhouse. Garbage-tier dungeon. Garbage-tier excuse in the writing to keep exploring a new floor each month. Really lazy on Falcom's part. Compared to everything else in the game, and considering how central this thing is supposed to be for the overall plot of the game, it just feels like a half-assed effort. No one really seems to take the strangeness of it seriously, and even when characters in the know give a nudge nudge wink wink "this is important" hint to the audience it feels tongue in cheek because if anyone really took it seriously the entire place would be closed off and under investigation by professional scientists and archaeologists immediately.
- (>_<) Millium is a shit-tier character. Delete pls. (0_0)
- The streamlined ARCUS system with a Master Quartz and spells being actual Quartz. I'm not a big fan of this. I can totally understand the need to simplify the Orbment system because the way it was in Trails was really too complicated for it's own good, but at the same time I liked the idea that you don't equip spells but rather "unlock" the potential to case them instead. Now instead it's all about equipping the most broken Master Quartz and maxing out the level, and then just equipping as many broken status down Quartz as possible. Kinda zzzz. Hope they iterate on this further to improve it.
- The whole Scooby Doo tone for the dramatic elements of the Field Studies isn't something I feel the game did very well. With FC, I really liked how Estelle and Joshua was always accompanied by adults and professionals during their journey, to highlight that they were basically junior scouts out to earn their badges and because they were doing it while dangerous stuff were happening, supervision was necessary. In Cold Steel it feels like Class VII is given a bit too much freedom to just get involved in things way over their head, but yet no one really cares that much about it. It felt like month after month of "And we would have gotten away with it if not for you meddling kids!!!!"
If all of it was just limited to local conflicts and small scale plotting that added to larger things in the end, I think I would have been fine with it ultimately, but what really soured this ongoing thing was the last few chapters. First they established that Garellia Fortress was the most important border fortress in the country, then they proceed to undermine that by making the security so laughable that a bunch of kids had to stop terrorists from hijacking the railguns. Really? Then we have the kids running into a burning factory in Roer to fight off a mech of unknown origin, and then sneaking alone into a mine held by terrorists instead of just telling much better trained adults about the route they discovered. And when the Schoolhouse goes magic-berserk, the adults actually let the class into what could be an extremely dangerous unknown magical realm, just so they could... errr.... try to save the school festival from being cancelled? Really? Smh.
- In the finale
I was super disappointed by the operetta and concert events. It was something they hyped up for two whole chapters and I was expecting a really good payoff since everything else was so perfect. Sadly they didn't even show the operetta, despite doing the play in FC. To make things worse, when the concert started, the full staged cutscene along with lip flaps playing against a mismatched BGM with NO vocals made the entire thing feel like a huge waste. Terrible "budget" moment for the game. When they finally decide to use vocals for the final song, it felt even worse because it was a solo female vocal playing while the cutscene was showing the entire class singing. Ughhhhh.
Bonus: My reaction to the final chapter in the game.
