One of the best open world games out there, has a great balance between story progression and freedom to explore, combined with the story just being pretty solid in general, and the atmosphere of the whole game being top notch. Seriously this game is hella beautiful, I found myself wandering around the environments just to take in the atmosphere and the game actually does give you reason to go there which is just an added bonus. The wind mechanic was also super interesting as well, idk if I've seen a game do something quite like that. Really did have such a balance between serenity and intensity which is incredibly impressive

This game was INTENSE. I kinda wish the quality was more consistent thorough the game, act 3 and the finale were insanely fucking strong but before that the game's pretty ehhhh aside from Fragments which is something you don't wanna say about a 100+ hour jrpg. The whole curse aspect was kinda wonky even if I do think it worked which is a good microcosm for how I feel about the quality of this game. Some of the highest highs shadowed by some of the lower lows that really highlight the strengths and weaknesses of Cold Steel as a whole but overall was a really good conclusion to the Erebonia arc :D