Hm, while I think this game kept my interest a lot more than it did for 1, I didn't particularly find it much better or good. Definitely feel there was a more engaging story here, just didn't connect with it, it didn't feel anything new to me and I guess was a bit predictable at times. I hate Joshua's character and background, was completely generic to me, wasn't a big fan of him prior to this game anyways. Thought Estelle's and Joshua's romance wasn't needed and forced while I much had rather preferred they kept their previous relationship and grew on that more than something shallow here for the sake of it. None of the plot beats really piqued my interest or got me feeling a certain emotion. I feel I have a lot more to say on the narrative and characters of the story but don't know where to start.
The gameplay itself, wasn't a huge fan of it before, but in particular this game, the bosses absolutely BLEW. The Loewe fight having a continue glitch was so jarring, the final boss having unnecessary stages with vats of HP that really did nothing to the narrative has me questioning the point. Multiple bosses throughout the game put you at unreasonably unfair advantages to the point there's nothing you can do before you get one shot by some super move at the start, and I was definitely not under leveled.
The pacing was better but at times it definitely was padding out certain events and making the experience longer

Best of the trilogy. Do have issues but thought Kevin and his whole thing was pretty decent and definitely related to certain aspects of his character, Reis was a nice addition also, nothing extravagant or big but did well, don't have anything to say on any of the other characters as they felt like bit parts. Kind of was expecting a bit more after the starting bit but was underwhelmed just a bit, but still overall was decent. So far in the series, seems to always have one section of the game that's either stale or padded out for length which really throws off the pacing at times and something I really don't appreciate and wanes my interest, iirc it was ch. 5 or 6 in this game where I got that feeling which was kind of a blow cuz as I said earlier, was expecting a good bit based off how the game started.

7.5/10
Enjoyed this a bit, was quite nice. While was cliché here and there, it wasn't like it was bad clichés and didn't mind it (Though quite a jarring difference between the clichés and the setting because of the real life war it took ideas from). Plot wasn't a world beater but did a nice job, simple to follow and engaging to a degree. Gameplay was interesting, overall a fun tactical rpg at times needing a lot more thinking than usual which is a good thing. The addition of Valkyries in a war story was nice and cool, though I definitely wish it was more prevalent within the plot, only really showing face a few times which is a bit off putting given the name of the series.

Was quite fun, challenging as expected, beginning was a bit dull for me was hard to fully get into it early but as I progressed I got a lot more into it. The endings had cool ideas/themes for them, TDE being the main ending people do, I thought that was the best for sure, outside of that, in particular, I was quite fond of Chiaki's end and thought her perspective of the whole thing was definitely my favorite of the rest
Supposedly it is a theme w SMT games and its narrative and storytelling to use other methods to do so like worldbuilding and other methods, which was definitely evident here, though I do wish there was a tad bit more "plot" or story in your face, more dialogue between the established characters maybe? idk I'm not the creators, though don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with how it was presented here, I just feel for me personally, more story would've pushed this much further up for me