This review contains spoilers
I hate this game. I am hating so hard on this game right now. I am confused why they made a trails game, which is a series known for having a lot of story, which has little story. This is a game where you go through the exact same dungeons you did in the last 2 games for 40 hours. Chapter 5's final boss can suck the fattest cock known to man kind, I hate getting petrified and then having to back out, put on the petrify immunity accesories and then do it again. Chapter 6 is like 15 hours long and filled with endless walking through empty dungeons from the last game. Chapter 7 started with me walking aimlessly then the game just decided that its time to proceed when I didn't do anything. I also clipped into the ground in chapter 7 because I was using fast forward and lost a lot of progress so be careful with that. Chapter 8 pulls a FF6 and makes you use all your party members, so have fun leveling and getting new equipment for literally every character.
The door mechanic is a lazy way to implement story that doesn't actually matter. I am not here to play a VN, this is a jrpg. Its like they gave up on trying to balance the story and gameplay and just said "fuck it, do it yourself". I personally don't care for these cutscenes, I don't need more character development in this game, I already have 100+ hours invested in these characters.
The characters trying to ship Agate and Tita together is absolutely fucking disgusting. Tita is a child and Agate is a grown adult, and Anelace, one of the other characters says that the age gap is nothing to their love. Ew, gross, I can put the Estelle and Joshua love thing aside because they aren't blood related and it's also just weird shit they do over in Japan that you get used to if you've watched enough anime. I didn't talk about this in my SC review but it's also gross how Agate uses Tita as a substitute for his dead little sister. His arc would've been a lot better if it was about him learning to cope with his loss and not just finding a new sister replacement.
I think Kevin's arc is interesting but I think Falcom struggles with displaying emotions through writing. I feel like they tackle these issues on a very surface level without getting too deep into. I don't know what they are afraid of, but they failed both times with Joshua and Kevin at making me feel anything for these characters. Like yea, Kevin feels like he should go to hell, and then literally goes to hell, but it falls flat, it doesn't truly express the despair Kevin is feeling to the player, or at least me personally.
Otherwise, in terms of story content, I struggle to understand how any of this is important. This is a fanservice game, they get all the characters together, write about whatever random bullshit they did between SC and 3rd and put them in doors, and repeat dungeons from the previous games. I just find FC the best, everything is new, every character doesn't hang out with you like they do in SC because like real people, they got stuff to do. The character dynamic between Estelle and Joshua was great, and fleshing out the world was great. SC gave me the impression they were gonna dig deep and make true on the promising writing of FC but then they just wrote shounen slop. Then 3rd is a nothing burger for fans, and 15% new content. At this point, I just want to get to crossbell. The combat system is stale with nothing new, the story is irrelevant and non-existant, the soundtrack is probably the weakest, and environments are painfully generic. My expectations are now in the gutter and I expect nothing from crossbell.
FC really did feel refreshing to play too. The combat system was weird but different and fleshed out thoughtout that one unlike SC and 3rd where it stagnates. The main character was a WOMAN. That never happened back when this was made, AND she is properly fleshed out. Olivier is bisexual??? Maybe, I am uncertain about this but he says a lot of things that made me think so. It was so different from the FF games where you play as a blond guy with his short black hair girl friend to kill god. FC did not end with killing god. I pray that the future games can capture some of those feelings I felt during FC and sharpen them.
The door mechanic is a lazy way to implement story that doesn't actually matter. I am not here to play a VN, this is a jrpg. Its like they gave up on trying to balance the story and gameplay and just said "fuck it, do it yourself". I personally don't care for these cutscenes, I don't need more character development in this game, I already have 100+ hours invested in these characters.
The characters trying to ship Agate and Tita together is absolutely fucking disgusting. Tita is a child and Agate is a grown adult, and Anelace, one of the other characters says that the age gap is nothing to their love. Ew, gross, I can put the Estelle and Joshua love thing aside because they aren't blood related and it's also just weird shit they do over in Japan that you get used to if you've watched enough anime. I didn't talk about this in my SC review but it's also gross how Agate uses Tita as a substitute for his dead little sister. His arc would've been a lot better if it was about him learning to cope with his loss and not just finding a new sister replacement.
I think Kevin's arc is interesting but I think Falcom struggles with displaying emotions through writing. I feel like they tackle these issues on a very surface level without getting too deep into. I don't know what they are afraid of, but they failed both times with Joshua and Kevin at making me feel anything for these characters. Like yea, Kevin feels like he should go to hell, and then literally goes to hell, but it falls flat, it doesn't truly express the despair Kevin is feeling to the player, or at least me personally.
Otherwise, in terms of story content, I struggle to understand how any of this is important. This is a fanservice game, they get all the characters together, write about whatever random bullshit they did between SC and 3rd and put them in doors, and repeat dungeons from the previous games. I just find FC the best, everything is new, every character doesn't hang out with you like they do in SC because like real people, they got stuff to do. The character dynamic between Estelle and Joshua was great, and fleshing out the world was great. SC gave me the impression they were gonna dig deep and make true on the promising writing of FC but then they just wrote shounen slop. Then 3rd is a nothing burger for fans, and 15% new content. At this point, I just want to get to crossbell. The combat system is stale with nothing new, the story is irrelevant and non-existant, the soundtrack is probably the weakest, and environments are painfully generic. My expectations are now in the gutter and I expect nothing from crossbell.
FC really did feel refreshing to play too. The combat system was weird but different and fleshed out thoughtout that one unlike SC and 3rd where it stagnates. The main character was a WOMAN. That never happened back when this was made, AND she is properly fleshed out. Olivier is bisexual??? Maybe, I am uncertain about this but he says a lot of things that made me think so. It was so different from the FF games where you play as a blond guy with his short black hair girl friend to kill god. FC did not end with killing god. I pray that the future games can capture some of those feelings I felt during FC and sharpen them.