I played three different Fate games last year and was pleasantly to have CCC end up as not just my favorite game of the bunch, but one of my favorite RPGs of all time.

A lot of Fate spinoffs try to downplay or deny the eroge elements of the original game, but CCC refreshingly leans into it by asking, what if we made a game all about sex and desire, and very specifically about women's feelings about sex and desire. If you play this game as the girl protagonist (you should) it's a beautiful lesbian romp, moreso because the game is pretty deft about shifting between its sex comedy and character drama modes. Everybody in this game is a weird pervert but nobody is left on the floor as simply comic relief. You're invited to laugh at their antics but also to understand where they're coming from. You WILL get sad about the emotional problems of the big titty Sakura clone. Hell, you might even get sad about Shinji.

Speaking of, the game makes great use of recontextualizing its cast both as characters you originally saw in Fate/Extra and as characters who are retellings of the original Fate/Stay Night cast. Stay Night's themes of instrumentalization, repression and love are excellently reprised, especially in the character of Sakura, who serves as the heart of the story and the element that really makes CCC special. Once again, play as a girl! You owe it to yourself to experience gay Sakura.

"But Olivia, isn't the combat bad?" Just use save states if it really bothers you that bad. I know you all played Baldur's Gate 3 last year it's not worse than THAT.

I think the best way to categorize Cold Steel 1 is as a worse version of Sky FC. It's the same kind of first-in-a-saga introductory game, but it's noticeably worse at introducing you to the setting, characters, and plot.

The writing in this game feels particularly amateurish and oddly more like a first try at this kind of story than FC. The characters feel thinner and more trope-y than earlier games. Every time they have conflict with each other, it follows the exact same structure. The plot is basically allergic to consequence and arcs will just wander in and out without any effect on the overall story until everything pops off at the very end. Sure, when the twist hits it's engaging, but ideally you do not want your action-filled twist climax to make your audience think "Finally, something is HAPPENING."

If there's anything enjoyable to balance the scales it is mostly the familiar trappings and inertia that comes with being part of the Trails series. The battle system is fun and particularly enjoyable to break coming right from Sky's relatively straightforward foundation. I genuinely love spending half an hour before a dungeon re-doing everybody's Quartz and Orbments. Here and there between all the lets-all-just-along along third way bullshit it's clear that -someone- on the writing team is thinking about the economics and history of Erebonia. I just wish that person was in charge instead of the guys obsessed with shitty 2010s high school harem anime.

But I have to admit, because I have the Trails brain rot, when a character gets revealed as the Second Anguis of Ouroboros I did have that LET'S GOOOO reaction. Ultimately I can forgive a lot from a middling entry in a franchise I otherwise really like. 2/5 game, not that good, can't wait to play the sequel.

Also Fie best girl.

Worth playing for the aesthetics alone. The character, sprite and enemy art are all unique and fun, the music is quirky and catchy, and the hospital is an interesting dungeon to poke around in.

The 30 minute timeline gave me pause but it proved to be more than generous enough and adds a fun little layer of learning your route through the hospital to collect your favorite party members again after each cycle.

The level-as-you-use-it progression system is a fun idea but in my case it tended to lead to unbalanced characters who atomized 90% of the enemies in the game and got melted by anything that could survive their offense. Some opaqueness in the battle system also led to situations where I wasn't sure why my skills were doing very little damage or what magic was best to use. I found myself wishing that the tutorial tips in a menu somewhere and not items that get removed from your inventory after you die.

Those are minor frustrations in the end, it's a short enough game that they don't get in the way too much and the positives are more than able to carry you through to the end.