this is an overall more flawed experience than either FC or especially SC. i think it lacks both the consistent good vibes that FC held in spades, and it didn't completely and utterly capture me the way that SC, even in its weakest moments, held me

but the sheer peaks of this experience, especially near the end of the game, ultimately make most of my complaints feel null. the story of kevin, his shattered soul masqueraded by layers upon layers of forced harshness and jokey smarm, is one that hit me in the soul. the same way that joshua and estlle's love and the tragedy of loewe in SC did. the depiction of both his deplorable backstory, and his journey through gehenna with ries, displayed such an overwhelming portrayal of guilt, and of the deep running currents of self-hatred. and how fucking hard it can be to finally let go of that guilt and learn to move forward

to finally remember how to love again. and to finally remember how to be loved again

beyond specifically kevin's own personal journey, the game has MANY high points that i believe deserve their own recognition. those being for me

- moon door 4. seeing the childhood lives of joshua and estelle, how broken joshua was when cassius rescued him, and how estelle's warmth slowly mended his broken soul, makes the events of FC and SC hit that much harder
- star door 3. wonderful characterization for both kloe and joshua here. it speaks volumes that kloe, despite being the one who was getting rejected, maintained complete emotional strength and stability. and poor joshua got tongue-tied haha
- star door 8. i don't think a single kiseki character was sold for me as fucking hard as osborne was in this door. it genuinely made me want to just skip crossbell and go right to cold steel (though i will play crossbell, don't worry haha)
- star door 14. probably the hypest fucking scene in the entire game. being able to see how different all the anguis are, and especially how remorseful and genuinely saddened the grandmaster was by the loss of weissman and loewe, intrigued me DEEPLY
- star door 15. probably the best scene in the entire trilogy, while also being the most nauseating and upsetting. piecing together what renne was being forced to do, all the alternate personas she created, and having to confront it in full with THAT art, made me feel genuinely disgusted. pure, concentrated darkness
- estelle, joshua, and renne's final goodbye. ngl the entire sequence after the final boss got to me, but it was specifically these three that almost broke me. estelle's words of warmth and comfort to someone with such a damaged soul as renne, and how they DID reach her after everything, almost broke me. up there with joshua and estelle's reunion / loewe's death in SC as the most moving scene in the trilogy

i'm deeply excited for crossbell, cold steel, and everything else kiseki has to offer. but i'll always have a place in my heart for this trilogy, for the world of liberl and for its wonderful cast of characters. but like the game says; it's not goodbye, but until next time :)

i have played every single kiseki entry in chronological order. starting with FC back in february, then slowly working my way through them. from the sky games, to crossbell, and now cold steel. when i finished CS1 around a month ago, i really loved it. i thought that it was the best beginning game to an arc in the series so far, over zero and even over FC for how much i love that game too. needless to say, between my incredibly positive thoughts on the sky arc overall with SC and 3rd both being two all time favorites, and where CS1 ended off, CS2 had LARGE shoes to fill

but what it did went so far beyond what i could've expected

i am being completely genuine when i say that this is probably my favorite game in the series since 3rd, it's tied with it for second place. and honestly? were it not for act 2 of this game being pretty roughly paced even by normal kiseki standards, this would probably be up there with SC for contention as my overall favorite

the gameplay of this is by far the best of any kiseki game up to this point. i really loved SC and 3rd's combat, and despite my grievances with azure they introduced some awesome new features with that system. but the refinement CS2 made upon the already fantastic system in CS1, coupled with arguably the single most exploitable feature in this series with overdrive, makes this game just such an unbelievable treasure to play. nowhere was this made more evident than in the epilogue, cause honest to god, i could've prolly sunk an extra 10 hours just running around in the reverie corridor using the entire cast the game gives you

but where this really gripped me and refused to fucking let me go was with its story, more specifically with the quiet but culminating tragedy they present with rean. the game goes to such drastic lengths to portray not only the nearly endless well of empathy and love within him, but the depths of his self-hatred as well. without his loved ones, he's so tormented he can't function. he needs them to exist, he needs them to pick him up when he falls, to motivate him not to give into despair and let death take him. and more than anything, he needs to protect them. to know they're safe, to know they're there with him. hence why he hunts after all of them

but crow eludes him

crow remains out of his grasp, driven by his own journey. the assassination of osborne was what he drove himself to work for, everything was an afterthought. he built himself to become a singularly driven tool of revenge, reneging his humanity for this sake. but like cassius bright says so eloquently to joshua in sky SC; through simply existing, you form bonds, and you connect to others. and those connections remain no matter the years or strife that pass. crow, whether he wanted it or not, formed that connection with rean and the rest of class VII. they knew it, and he knew it

but things could never go back to the way they were

that, ultimately, is the tragedy that makes it. not only does osborne's survival, as already told by trails to azure, mean implicitly that crow's journey is an inherently meaningless one. we know that this war, everything that we thought meant the culture of erebonia would change, was simply another one of his plots. all the lives he trampled, all the dreams he shattered, everything that mounted against him, was another tool for him to wield and shape erebonia into an even more militant, imperialist hellscape. crow and the connection he made to class VII meant nothing, and that shatters rean. if someone like him could be reduced to so little, even with his almost unrelenting willpower to see his journey through, what does it say of himself? of someone so tormented by self-hatred and guilt he believe he has no place to reside?

and osborne tells him. it's that he becomes another tool. burdened by a title he never wished for, committing actions he never believed in, fighting legitimate heroes to which he believe he could never hope to be. and all of this while knowing the burden of his loved one meant nothing. that he failed. that he failed himself, crow's friends, class VII, and the thors academy as a whole. and no matter the smile he puts in on that epilogue, no matter the reclamation of those peaceful days they all sought, there is but one simple truth:

things will never be as they were. and they can never be again

a character driven by love, forced to commit atrocities for a man he wholly despises. a man who's simple existence spits in the face and in the life of someone he grew to cherish. a country torn in pieces, sewn together through the threads of further strife and discord. of blood, and iron