This is a game I have played, yep. This is gonna be my longest review by far due to this game having way too much to talk about. This is a game I had such insane low hopes in before I went into it due to hearing some things here and there from my friends on discord and since 2 Xenoblade faces on twitter were playing it around the same time I started CS4, which is maybe why I can give it some slight props in certain situations. I’m the type of person who can find some things to enjoy in a game where all else fails, and there were some things in this one I did find. The one thing I found myself really enjoying was the non-true ending. It was something I did not expect for them to do and I really took a lot out of that. It kept a sense of stakes in previous events (that the true ending reverted cause fuck stakes) and added more on top of that. A second thing was that the combat was so fucking broken that I found comedy in it. I’m sorry, I should not be doing half of the hp of a final dungeon boss on nightmare difficulty. The difference between this game being easy and a game like CS3 being easy is that CS3 is too easy due to corny things. I will 100% rather broken caster Crow over broken Spirit Unification and Sledgehammer easy. I honestly really like how the game flows into getting Rean out of the BW. It’s a great change in pace and a pretty decent difficulty boost in showing that Rean really is the core of every group he is in. And lastly it would be a disservice to knock the good scenes the game has. There are more great scenes in this 1 game then the past 3 games which has to be some pluses to it. But we’ve all run out of things I enjoy, you know what time it is. The amount of fraudulent characters in this game is hilarious. You make a game which has characters like Cedric and Claire and expect me to enjoy these villains. There are only at max 3 villains in this game I enjoy and thats so fucked up. The only character that I feel like kept getting real development in this game was Ash, and this is only because Joshua was in this game. Another thing I really don’t like was that it feels like they tried to fit way too many references into this game as to previous games. It’s been known that Cold Steel is just a big Sky reference but holy shit there's just so many in this game that it just feels like they just wanted to reference it. There's a scene where Ash says for no reason that Joshua would look good in a dress and it is 100% only there so they can say it is a reference. The worst offender of them all is the story. Jesus it's so nonsensical, nothing happens for genuinely 35 hours of the game. The curse is an awful story mechanic where it is only there to help create needed conflict to evolve the story. “Huh, how do we make x event happen? OH YEAH IT’S THE CURSE THAT CAUSED IT”. And finally, why the FUCK did they reintroduce Gilbert. It is an awful character who is so painfully unfunny but APPARENTLY THIS WHOLE COMMUNITY LOVES HIM??? WHERE DO YOU SEE THIS I GENUINELY CAN’T TELL MAN. Coming from someone who genuinely really enjoyed CS2, I really wanted to end this all saying that it wasn’t the only Cold Steel game I genuinely enjoyed. Coming out of that, I can’t say that this was an experience I would recommend. There are some great things about this game, but the other side of the coin is much heavier. Take me back to Crossbell please

Date beat: 10/23/23
2.8/5

This game hurts me inside. First off I'll say what I enjoy about this game (it is shorter than what I dislike :3). There are multiple greatly written characters in this game. Juna is a character where she hits a perfect spot for me (when her writing isn't completely revolving around Rean). I fucking adore more human character writing like that and it completely caught me off guard. (Most) of NC7 are really fun to be around that it was a great breath of fresh air. But onto the disliking part, there more than I want to admit. First off, the story. Its uh, not good in my opinion. It at least a perk above Cold Steel 1 that this game feels like it has a direction, but what it spews is some clown ass stuff. 2nd off, this game is so insanely easy. Again, played on nightmare and every fight just evolved into
SPIRIT UNIFICATION -> SLEDGEHAMMER -> ARCANE GALE -> WIND BLADE
Rean and break are so insanely powerful that it is making the beginning of Cold Steel 4 feel harder cause they aren't a real option LMAO. 3rd one is ironically back to the character writing. Yes I know I just gushed about how Juna was mainly written, but every new character have this really unfortunate character ideal that they all need to impress Rean Schwarzer omg Rean I love Rean. It makes everyone feel more shallow cause they all have to impress their almighty overlord Rean. Also Musse sucks. 4th and final one is HOLY SHIT THAT ENDING WAS AWFUL. It goes to a genuinely sad and great scene into the worst ending of all. I'm glad I was able to play this game but I will never do it again

Beat: 10/9/23