After having sat on this game for a few months I can safely say my issue with it is that it feels like a DLC expansion to Kuro 1 (a la Like A Dragon: Gaiden, I assume) that got padded out into it's own game. That in itself isn't a huge problem to me, but the fact that it's a whole ass JRPG length game is. I spent 75-ish hours here and really feel like the whole story of this game could have been told effectively in half the time--maybe even less.

That being said, there is still a lot about this game I like. When the story is allowed to happen uninterrupted, it's (usually) pretty good. Kuro 2 does a great job of fleshing out a number of aspects of the world further. Even if this game does not do much to move the needle further in the overall story of the series, the general worldbuilding of the Zemurian continent has been one of my favorite aspects of the series since the moment I hopped on Sky FC and I'm glad to see the writing team still has this much attention to detail to the land they've created. In the character department, I think there is much work to be done regarding the overall cast and the group dynamic the Solutions Office faces, but individually several of my more liked characters had a ton of good stuff. There weren't many bonding events in this game but whenever there were they were definitely quite the treat; it makes me more confident of the future of the series in that regard as it's always been one of the series' greatest strengths. I'd like to give special shoutouts to Quatre, Renne, and one of my underrated faves Shizuna. With Renne in particular, Kuro 2 feels like a natural conclusion to her series long character arc. I obvs know she'll be back for future titles but her arc has been so damn good this whole time and I really appreciate what they've done with her here. I can't say the same to every character however. There was a lot of nothing done with a number of the cast. Elaine especially is an egregious example of this. Kuro 1 made her into my favorite character in the series just like that, and it disappointed me to see how little she was utilized here, especially with how much she was marketed in the months leading up to the release, and even with how the game's prologue went! One of my gripes with this series is characters just being used as static set pieces sometimes and overuse of that was definitely a knock on the overall quality of the story. The way a number of characters were utilized just frustrates me in general. To compensate for the story it's clear Kuro 2 tried very hard to be Reverie 2 in a number of ways but just couldn't land the way that did. It just doesn't work nearly as well with what they were doing.

Somewhat of a subnote, but the Calvard games have had the best gameplay in the series as well, these games play sooooo fine and I think that's one of the reasons I'll give some of the nonsense in this (and Kuro 1 too as I much as I love that game to death I can't pretend it's infallible) a semi pass. It really feels like as of this story arc Falcom has perfected the gameplay for the series, its so great seeing the progression of the formula of the series and I only think it's gotten better over time. After starting good too!! I'd really say that Kuro/Kuro 2 has a case to be made for being the best combat system ever put in a JRPG. That combined with how much I love the setting made this a much more easy to go down experience and I have nothing but high hopes for how the rest of this series goes in this department.

*Sub-subnote: ah shit this was supposed to be a quick thought and ended up a whole paragraph

Would I call this game bad? I don't know how to answer that if I'm being entirely honest. Kuro 2 is undeniably the definition of a hot mess; it has a lot of great, fantastic even, aspects about it, but at the same time sinks to lows the series has maybe never seen before. This game was very clearly rushed, it could have been so much more had Falcom given it the proper time to cook. I haven't even mentioned the poorly implemented time travel mechanic (if you could really call it a mechanic). There was a lot of good concepts introduced here but never really had the chance to develop them properly. I really wonder how we'll view this game in the future, especially with Kai no Kiseki coming later this year. If the series goes further downhill this game will be chastised to no end, but if Kai ends up being goated I hope we'll just look at this as an intermission of sorts; maybe just a recharching/cooldown period in a string of banger games.

I'm definitely anticipating Kai very heavily, and it's probably safe to say it's the game I'm most looking forward to releasing currently. I'd definitely optimistic about how it'll be, cautiously so, but I know Falcom's writing team has it in them to create something amazing with what they've done, even if I still think this was a very shaky experience. With Cold Steel 4, Reverie, and Kuro 1 being as good as they were, I am very willing to let a sub par game slide as a bump in the road if Kai is a return to form. I know the writing team has that dawg in them still. The extra year given to work on it is the main fuel for my optimism.

Van Arkride...you've rocked my world time and time again. Get it done Spriggan, I know you've got it in you.