HE SAID THAT?
I’LL GO FUCKING INSANE (IN A POSTIVE WAY) IF THAT HAPPENS
DOUBLY SO IF THIS MEANS THE KURO NO KISEKI GAMES ARE COMING TO XBOX WHEN THEY GET THEIR WESTERN RELEASE
deep breaths
Anyway…
With the Post-Game story done… I. Am. DONE OF KURO NO KISEKI 2! Semi-big story bomb dropped at the end there and I’m extremely interested to see where that’s going.
With that done, I give this game a 8/10 (I gave Kuro 1 9/10 for comparison)
Let’s start with the negatives: The variety of locations you visit compared to Kuro 1 is SEVERELY lacking. 70% of the game takes place in the capital of Calvard, Edith (which is also in Kuro 1 so it isn’t that special). In Kuro 1 you go on many trips all around Calvard and see lots of locations, I was hoping to see even more in Kuro 2, but you only get to see like, one new city.
The story was also great up until Act 3… Then it hit a hard wall for a long while. There’s a certain gimmick in the story that is quite interesting until this point… Act 3 takes the gimmick and overuses it to hell and just grinds the story to a halt to use it, the story stops until the end of Act 3, basically. It was pure padding, and usually I don’t mind Trails padding as it’s basically a series staple, but this one was just bad.
But again, there was MANY great moments in this game (especially if you’re a Renne fan), and the “animated” cutscenes are some of the best work I’ve seen in a JRPG, I seriously cannot believe the animation in those comes from the same Falcom that made the robotic, stiff Trails of Cold Steel series.
The overall narrative of the series basically did not move either, which is quite disappointing considering this game takes place in the year that Falcom has been building up to since 2018’s Cold Steel IV, which gave big impressions during the prerelease. I suppose Kuro Final Chapter will also take place in this year.
Another complaint is that we didn’t learn anything else about Van’s backstory. Kuro 1 ends with a massive revelation about him and then Kuro 2 just did not elaborate at all. While I do really like his character, in Kuro 2 he -kind of- just felt like some tough guy who was leading the party and that was it.
Soundtrack is actually quite a bit stronger than Kuro 1, which is a game that I felt had the weakest Trails soundtrack. Final boss theme is very strong.
The gameplay is on point as usual, I played through on Nightmare and had a great time. I really like Kuro’s Action/Turn-Based hybrid gameplay, and Kuro 2 basically just refined it. There is of course, also a decent postgame to play where you can grind to your heart’s content. There are also tons of minigames to play (Kuro 1 had no postgame and no minigames which made it feel like a barebones game) and there are quite a few interesting NPC stories to follow here.
To conclude, I LOVE the Kuro no Kiseki party cast, it’s gotta be one of my favorite JRPG casts ever. With strong characters and great gameplay and music, I was very pleased as usual with this game. But the story left a bit to be desired, and I say it as someone who likes the stories in the Trails of Cold Steel arc. Again, 8/10.
I assume Kuro no Kiseki Final Chapter will be Falcom’s 2024 game… I’ll be waiting patiently. This is the first time since starting Trails in the Sky FC in 2020 where there is no currently announced (it’s basically not announced anyway) Trails game to look forward to for me. If they start bringing the games to Xbox then it looks like I’ll have something to do with Trails to hold me over till then lol.