After a series of updates to the Kuro 2 patch, it looks a lot more readable now. So, I'm replaying Kuro 1 so I can go into it with the story fresh in my mind. I'll report back with my thoughts. I'll try and keep it vague on actual details because it'd be rude not to.
End of Kuro 1 chapter 1. I'm not going to mention anything Too specific. Just my fresh thoughts on the characters. Van is the second best protagonist in the series, behind Estelle. That's not a very high bar to clear, mind you. But just by virtue of acting like a somewhat mature adult, and having some hobbies to define him, it puts him lightyears ahead of Lloyd and Rean.
Kuro 1 is perfectly playable then with the patch that's floating around, as in everything including NPC dialogue is translated? Is the translation solid or does it suffer of being too literal at times? Which version of the game did you install it in? The NIS one or the Clouded Leopard one? I saw that the patch allows infinite bonding points or whatever but only in the Clouded Leopard one. Are the bonding points too limited? I tend to only play these games once but go deep, so I would either savescum the scenes or would rather have the infinite bonds
I'm playing the NIS Version, this is my second playthrough. Because of the DMCA, the patch for Kuro 1 isn't likely to be updated for full npc dialogue. I think the game gives you enough connect points in the first half to see everyone's scenes. But, after that, it starts getting stingy. The script for the game seems fine enough. Nothing that stands out to me as "no real person on the planet would say this".
Should probably also mention the real-time portion of the combat. It's not that big a deal, you whail on enemies for a bit until they're stunned before you initiate combat. It's obviously mostly to use the game to prototype some ideas and animations they wanted to use for Ys X.
I may have misunderstood but the last time I searched for it I had the impresion it was a full translation, in case you want to check if there is a new version on 4chan.
The story and side quest dialogue are all translated in the kuro 1 patch, it's just that around halfway through the game, the random pedestrians start speaking in spaghetti letters. I'd say go for it.
I file it as the peak of the series though I also enjoyed Sky very much.
Of the 3 paths, Lloyd honestly feels like a rethread of Azure like you have already noticed, Rean is more Rean being Rean, but the C path is where the true meat is along with the Reverie. Don't expect much in the form of new skills since you just get improved ones of existing ones, though don't underestimate Lloyds ability to shit out a brave point and get two turns in a row for initiative manipulation. You will have ways to get people up to speed in levels if you need to but always have the main characters decked out and a couple of each path since odds are you won't bother having everyone perfectly equipped and that should cover you for any surprises.
Im going to see how it holds up when I replay steel and play reverie before saying if I like it more than steel.
Fair, Steel is the one I'm most down on but I did still enjoyed my time with it. It was just the most "shounen" of the group.
The game is fun but I feel like the plot is more hazardous to the setting than improves it. Take Trails 3, it had new characters that belonged to the world and introduced a cool part of it, and the old cast was more of guest stars for the ride with some great side story content.
I did take my time going through all of them in a span of 2-3 years, but yeah, they were my "obsession" as well. I just think that it's more that the Cold Steel setting is just very long in general with a couple of VERY long games in there. I do agree on how you end up knowing everywhere and Crossbell is one of the most fleshed out by far, you know everybody from every place specially now that Mains (it's theme still hits home) and Armorica are finally there, only thing it's missing is the Crossbell high class residential district and it would have everything. I did hear from people that had played with the official release order that played azure and then Reverie and they were at their wits end with Crossbell which I can perfectly get.
Definitely, all of the stuff that appears adds so many dimensions of "please, lets really not go there". The game manages to end with a bit of a "well, we don't have to worry about that anymore" but the mere fact that it introduces some shit (spoiler for when C's identity is known) like perfect fucking replicas which is a machine of perpetual copouts if it gets out of control is not something I'm thrilled about, and even if they "aren't supposed to be a thing after this game" well, genie is out of the bottle. Sky the 3rd had a better excuse to get dream matches.
The gatcha is honestly harmless unless you have the same mental deficiency as the completionist. It's also incredibly pointless since most of the stuff you get is trash anyway, but I wasn't particularly fussed by it and at a point I was choking on Orbments anyway. Hopefully it never grows past this or only ends up in a shitty mobile game with no narrative relevance.
I honestly think that around CS3 they noticed they basically made fucking Kirito and decided to just go all in on it. For fucks sake, in the magical alissa sidegame one of the things I learnt is that Rean seals his power in his right arm. He is every mary sue, gary stu, chuuni and harem fantasy rolled up into one while also having the most bland and safe personality possible. Now I just hope they had their fun with it and never ever fucking do it again. Biggest issue with Cold Steel is how everything revolves around Rean from the macro plot to character interactions in general and it really failed to generate the concept that they are a "group of friends", we instead ended with people that are friends with Rean (new class 7 did succeed more with this though).
Pretty much, I was lucky enough to have like a year in a half to really get a craving for more legend of heroes and it landed well for me but Lloyd's arc is a pure rethread including another guerrilla forming in Mainz, was also bummed that Orlando wasn't allowed to go ballistic, I always felt cockblocked when Randy took out Berzerker for the first time only to have it broken 2 minutes later by Shirley. Rean is Rean, guess he needed to relearn for the 7th time to drop the messiah complex and having Ishmelga be the big bad was fucking ass. The Rufus arc was great though and if the game had been all about him expanding a bit more on his narrative and adding some actual global plot progression it would have been great. Really liked Lapis, Swin and Nadia, they were the real standouts of the game.
Good list, a part of me wants to be extra pedantic and categorize them on what's mary sue, what's gary stu,. what's chuuni and what's harem fantasy. Because my god, Rean wanted ALL the hats if wishful self fulfillment. I still think they just said fuck it and went all in, that or a lead writer should get kicked out ASAP. Just really surprised there was a Legend of Heroes protag that was such a vortex when Estelle, Kevin nor Lloyd don't have a fraction of this shit (Lloyd managed to escape the harem with the only consequence being Rixia being a bit stunted in that front and well, Noel was always just there anyway). Hoping Kuro's main character is a lot closer to the first 3 in potential and aspirations.
My mouth was agape when I realized the ending completely ripped off the Code Geass ending, though at least it done it right this time. If it was just the Rufus show I think the game would have been far better.
I liked Lloyd just being a normal dude in a world of crazy ass ninjas and knights yest still kicking ass, McBurn actually mentions it. Even if he gets his harem, at least it doesn't conflict with Randy, who doesn't have much romantic chemistry with the other plot members. Also Rean's harem has just about every romantic trope and archetype besides (maybe) yandere.
It actually had an obvious setup this time, I immediately saw where this was going once the lasers were made to be directed by public opinion and Rufus stayed behind. On Code Geass it was just a "I have this cool idea and I will jam the square inside the round hole no matter the force", but Code Geass had a very strong start that lost a lot of steam after Lelouch got defeated and after the reset it spiraled hard into hell, like most Japanese media honestly, great setups with horrible conclusions.
Hell, I'd say Reverie closed it off in that Lloyd is all about Ellie's milkers and birthing hips so he managed to escape the spiral of never having a conclusion to his romantic arc. Rean is fucked though, outside of scenarios that could NEVER work like being hooked up with Alfin, almost everything else could be "canon" and it's obvious they won't commit to any, waaaaaay too many waifus, if they had just stuck with the core 3 of Emma, Alisa and Laura it could still be a "yeah, it was Alisa all along and you knew it" but after killing any development from anything with a vagina for 2-3 games in a row? Hard sell and if there is ever a 5 year timeskip or whatever, he will be eternally single and lusted over I'd imagine. I always found it funny how all the dudes from original class 7 got themselves girlfriends from outside of class (except Jusis and Millium), same deal with new class 7, but all the ladies are shackled to the Rean cock.
