I played all of cold steel in 2 months. Apparently I have a problem. I agree with the individuals who said I do. Then let me answer a few basic questions from this predicament.
Do I like cold steel? Ya, its alright. Certainly the weakest between the 3 main arcs so far. Do I have praises for the arc? Sure I do! Some of my favorite moments in kiseki now come from CS. Is there problems I want to address? Well…funny you say that..
Before I go on my rampant tangent of my issues, ill first go off on complimenting the series.
Gotta say this before hand
THERE IS GOING TO BE SPOILERS, so if rando #354 complains on why im talking about certain scenes they haven’t seen yet from a future game, that’s all on u buddy.
To start off, CS3 has one of my favorite finales in kiseki. The fact they had the balls to kill off one of the casts most beloved characters AND have the good guys lose with such a dramatic build up? That was fantastic. From that standpoint, it looked like “how tf they gonna salvage the end of the world upon them lmao” Killing off millium hurt, she was by far the best class 7 member. She had that energy that literally everyone else lacked. I stayed up until like…5am I think, finishing CS3, that’s how invested it got me in from the finale starting.
CS2 I liked consistently. Each chapter had you revisit previous areas of the first game, but fixing shit that went wrong due to the actions of CS1. Each moment had something of note and value to the story, whether it be minimum or massive. The finale segments of CS2 was also one of my favorites with how they concluded old class 7s time together. That and on top of the mini crossbell segment that certainly was a jumpscare, meshed perfectly for how to exit the first half of cold steel.
CS4s first act was by far the best act out of the non-finale segments in all of cold steel. The entire segment without Rean? And the characters learning how to deal on situations without him while on the search for him? Was wonderfully done. There was some really great character moments, like with Musse and Ash coming to terms on how they deal with themselves with all they have been through.
My favorite fight in all of kiseki, after some thinking on this, has to be the boss fight between all of the Iron Bloods. Decisive Collision SAR is already probably my favorite track in cold steel, but adding a whole lot of other story elements that feel very attaching, damn fantastic fight. Jusis has really grown on me, he grew from some pompus prick noble who feels holier than thou, to one of the few class 7 members who actually is suffering, the only other one I can think of is Alisa (not counting rean bc its very obvious at that point). Jusis has known a lack of love from his father since he was born of a commoner, but held high regard for his brother, Rufus, for always sticking up for him. Eventually, with adding Millium to the picture, Jusis gained another person he can show his softer side for, since Millium does not mind bringing out her most playful side with him. With CS2, Jusis felt torn about Rufus’s decision on joining the noble alliance and being an enemy of his father since he does not wish to follow his footsteps. By CS3, Jusis learns the hard truth that Rufus isn’t even blood related at all, and that his father has been neglecting the wrong child, but wanted to keep up appearances. On top of the iron bloods actions and severe confrontation with Rufus, Jusis had to deal with fighting Millium, which they both did not want to do. With Millium dying also, Jusis was torn lmao. He has basically no family left, and I love those moments of character suffering, when they have very little to no power to fix anything. Glad the series was not afraid to go this route.
With Alisa, she probably has the award of the worst parents of kiseki. While rean has the worst dad, both of his mothers are very nice and irrelevant people. Alisa has a bitch of a mom who was willing to fuck over the world if it was really her old husband she was dealing with. But with the reveal that it was his alter ego, she dipped out. But please realize she was willing to 100% follow through, if it was her original husbands personality who decided all that. And as for that husband/ father of alisa. Ya where to begin: war criminal, crimes against humanity, terrorist, disregard for his daughter and wife, the list goes on. So Alisa had a very shitty parental issue, and adding salt on the wound, with her best friend and maid going back to the dark side bc….a contract im still having trouble understanding the legalities of, Alisa was also in a very dark spot with all of her close members basically becoming her enemy.
On a different topic, music has always been something I put something important to me when I rate or talk about a game or series. Each kiseki game has their absolute bangers. Sky Fc having sophisticated fight, SC silver will, 3rd Silver will forma de death (Defeat me, that is all), Zero having getting over the barrier, Ao having azure arbitrator, cs1 having their op [I like it ] cs2 having their final final boss theme, cs3 having the godsend that is decisive collision SAR, and CS4 having the final dungeon theme. I feel its fair to say that each of the kiseki games pre CS had very notable themes for each area, Like off of memory, I can remember the theme of the port town from Sky. I can remember both the hospital theme and the main city themes of all of the crossbell games. Each of the fortresses had very militaristic vibes, very memorable.
The cold steel games did not have very memorable tracks aside from some of the battle themes. A lot of them felt like…filler music. I honestly cannot remember an area theme aside from cs4 final dungeon theme (thanks to recent playing), and maybe the ehil fortress theme. A lot of it was “that sure was an area theme” that serves the purpose to having an area theme. The music composer change was apparent. The new composer definitely had some bangers, but everything else was, lack of a better word, unremarkable. Which is sad, bc I love hearing an entire ost full of heaters.
Onto another subject, holy fuck is cold steel easy. For the first two games, I played on Hard, thinking I would like some challenge since ive played this series for a while now. I switched to Nightmare for the last two games and still did not feel fulfilled in how baffling easy these games are. I should have limited myself to like, not using brave orders or not using ex orbs, or not using certain strats or characters, etc..
The biggest and most notable example for how I found the games were too easy, was in CS3 against both Campanella and McBurn during the crossbell final fight. They both were heavy ass dealing magic users who had the capability to nuke my party whenever they so wished…Emmas brave order allows me to absorb magic attacks for 10 turns. Both mcburn and campanella do NOTHING but magic attacks on both basic and craft arts. The difficulty went from a 9 to a 1. Should I have not done it? Maybe. Should they have had that function in the game? No. Brave orders trivialize almost every fight. The few times I was screwed over was during cs4 when them fuckass ironbloods have brave orders of their own, cancelling out mine, but from there I do way too much damage and take too little to care regardless. On nightmare the game was too easy. On the Very Hard mode of their series, about…10 games in, their game was too easy. They added way too much and had too many gimmicks to charatcters for difficulty to mean anything. This creates another issue I hear which is abyss mode, which is just too hard, and that you have to resort to the most cheese strats to even manage a standing chance. Balance does not feel efficient in this series now, which is unfortunate bc I liked the difficulty standing in the crossbell games, even though if those had the starting problem with how busted you can be. Even that does not compare to what you can accomplish by in cs4.

So onto da meat and ‘tatoes of my biggest issues: the story and Rean problem.
So this is a bit of a weird, yet understandable situation that sort of makes sense, but is still very asinine to see. Ill give a few examples. Musse is a phenomenal character who shows the true ideals she stands her guns on, dealing with the political world and the brunt of stress she had the potential of dealing with. Juna is a victim of crossbells annexation and holds a lot of malice and anxiety towards both the ones responsible and the scapegoats for her tragedy. Alisa struggles in the business world trying to appease to her mothers wishes all while trying to understand and better herself as a woman. Emma is looking to see becoming the next promising elder in her secret village of witches who are in charge of very important world building stuff. Gauis ( as much of a meme that he is) is now a dominion member of the church, a very high position of power and influence, akin to oroborus members. Jusis is a struggling member of the noble faction who learns to keep his friends close to him while fighting against the system that oppresses his friends so. Altina has now grown more self aware of her own existence and wants to learn how to be a better person with her friends.
Until Rean steps in.
From there, Musse becomes very insufferable, Alisa becomes very rean thirsty, Juna does a complete 180 on her standing with her teacher and by the end of CS4 confesses her love to him, Altina all of a sudden loves rean, Emma gets naked several times for rean (in the astral plane), gauis then wont shut the fuck up about the wind (maybe this isn’t a rean problem), jusis just relies on rean whenever he steps in, fie relates rean to her dad and falls for him, laura p much forces herself onto rean, sara is into rean, claire kisses rean, machias rean, kurts there, rean rean rean rean rean rean rean rean rean rean
REAN
Now on the flipside, this is where it gets funny. Rean is a very suffering character in which by the end of CS1. He lost his friends to the faction and had a great fear of not knowing whether they were alive again or not. By CS2 he was stuck being a dog for the government against his will and judgement. By CS3, he was promoted from dog to hound for the government whenever lechter dropped in with a paper in front of reans face and said “ do it, boy”. By the end of cs3, he was at his lowest, being the cause for the end of the world, all with his friend dead, and his dad holding him by the neck saying “les get this bread”. Rean definatly is a good character and has a lot of hard moments….when he isn’t involved with girls.
When he is involved with a female of some type, he becomes the most dense motherfucker next to the likes of kirito or lucia route tonouji kotaro. He does the “ahh..etto..nani..?” while looking dumbstruck as ever. He can just BREATHE, and they be thinking about rean 24/7. Everybody loves rean. He don’t understand why. You see, I liked Juna in Cs3 bc she hated rean for some reason. Ash was a dick to rean. Juna 180’d in cs4 and that was very fucking unfortunate. Rean needs some haters bc god forbid he got none in the world of Zemuria. Of course this is 100% on the writters, bc man, give the man a nongeneric role that isn’t harem protagonist or shonen katana wielding mr perfect. There is so much more to all the bullshit they give him, like the cassius bright ordeal, or the fact he can beat super well trained awakener pilots with like 2 years experience vs their 50+ years. Did you know he can cut tanks in half without harming the drivers? Bc fuck it why not.
Its very weird that when either party is separate, whether it’s the friends faction or rean solo, they have great moments, but mesh the two together, and it can be a mess 75% of the time. Speaking of factions and members, I can think of two characters who had 0 reason to be a part of the group. Elliot had no business being there. No one will fight me on that. Hes accomplished nothing, can contribute nothing, is nothing, and will have been remembered for nothing aside from needing to get stronger and getting his s-craft the next segment. The next member who did not need to be there was laura. She was best as a side character or npc to the likes of towa. Alright characters to their standing, but 0 need to be in the party. Every one else played a much bigger role than those two. They had to story-buff laura to have her the slightest semblance of being in the group, its laughable. She was insufferable in cs1, unnoticeably there in cs2, there in cs3, and a creep in cs4. I have no idea why she has fans aside from their poor taste in “she looks hot bro”. The same can be said for a lot of characters of class 7, but they at least provide their 2 cents at important members. I can easily list them: Emma is the most important class 7 member with her role as the witch, jusis is the noble lord upcoming, machias is the peoples champ for the noble party, alisa runs the fucking reinford company is a branch ceo, gauis (undeservingly) is dominion number 8 of the church, fie is ( by some fucking aspull) a senior ranked bracer within a year, sara is a former high ranked jeager, crow (I don’t even need to list his reasons lmao, if u know u goddamn know), juna is a crossbell hero, kurt is a fucking vander (who does nothing with it now that im thinking about it), altina is a former intelligence member for the government, musse is the fucking mastermind behind countering Osbornes plans, ash is the secret survivor (retcon lmao) of hamel and semi responsible for the events leading to cs4 with the assassination attempt of the emperor. Everyone important. Elliot? Plays a mean violin. Laura? Her dads cool.
Back to more gripping on other subjects, the oroborus have never been more frauds than ever before. Their cast is fucking weak sauce. It took fucking 4 games to convince me that mc burn is actually a threat instead of being a guy who can set stuff on fire very hot. Ya turns out he is a super demon from another plane of reality that the full force of class 7 could dent in, cool. Duvalie has no personality aside from “waga arugie!!” shes the main member of the stalhlrieqhwfbwerjgbwerv, but she quit that p much. The others followed suit after their main boss died. Speaking of, the main boss, lliane, died to a backshot from Rufus lmao. Vita quit, Bluebanc quit, McBurn p much I think quit from the ending of cs4, campanella kind of was there but got pushed back by the most obscure of npcs (aurelias right hand man whose name I forgot lmao) and to top it off: there was very little they did in terms of hostility and terrorism. Shirly literally was there to fuck around and for some reason gilbert was there. Remember in Sky when oroborus actually initiated world-ending shit? Oh ya also forgot that mariabell was there…don’t know why exactly she was there now that I think about it. She played like no role I was aware of for the phantasmal blaze plan. Speaking of, that plan is retarded.
Osborne was the most competent villain in cold steel, man actually thought light years in advance. Everyone else was either alight or less. George was a joke. No one is taking his ass seriously. Want to see a better fat villain? Watch puss in boots 2.
The last compliment ill give, which I don’t know if I covered already or not, was act 1 of cold steel 4 was the best act out of all of cold steel apart from each games finales. Even at that, I liked it more than cs1 and cs4s. each character learning how to deal with their own shit without rean? Awesome stuff. The guy needed to take a step back. There was some fantastic moments that each character had an opportunity to shine in.
Now for the worst act ive had the bitter experience of dealing with, act 3 of cs3. This shits like cs1 chapters all together, but on steroids. Not only did almost nothing happen for the grand amount of it, I can remember nothing apart from their final dungeon, but they had one of the worst rean moments in the game. Sara kiss bc she likes her former student. And claire comparing rean to her brother and proceeds to kiss him. Claire probably has to be my most hated character in kiseki. Shes so badly written, but guys will fall for her bc shes hot lmao. It’s a mess. But my main issue lies in the final dungeon part of that act. Can you imagine being told by some jobber group that “ no, you cant come in, youre not strong enough, nor do you have a leader amongst your group to handle this, we’ll do it, unless u think u can beat us”. Rean in all his glory, backs off, one of the rare times he submits to this bc………anyway, aurelia joins in, that one character they introduced in cs2 for being super strong bc she is. Anyway turns out by the magical science of bulllshit, shes strong! And a leader! She will lead the brigade! And in gameplay? Oh fuck it make her one of the strongest units you have ever seen. Cherry on top? She can match up to Lliane toe to toe, ya know, the 7th Anguis who was known for being the litteral strongest next to McBurn, who had demon powers. Ya she can match up to her toe to toe, no special powers OR REASONING, whatsoever. And then they all fuck off, chapter over. Man im getting a headache thinking about that again.

Cold steel has more problems than praises than I can count, but their praises can come high when I think on them. So its not that it’s a dogshit series, but disappointing for how they handled a lot of scenes and characters. I hope, oh god do I hope, that kuro fixes up a lot of the issues I had. Mainly there being a Van problem, whether it be a harem or naïve issue. I move onto the penultimate game before the Calvard arc, Hajimari. I thought I was really looking forward to this game from the past, now im just bracing myself for a lot of weird character moments. If they somehow manage to salvage a lot of characters from their previous bad writing experience, ill be baffled upon belief.