This is a really fun game but mostly that. Messy dynamics, misunderstandings, etc. are what make this game and its characters compelling and yet I feel like there could have pushed for a lot more? I think its focus on being flashy and snippet-ish makes it feel great because it's like a flash but also makes it feel shallow because you don't really get to sit with anyone for long? I think my review is just as scatterbrained as I feel about this game. But in that strange I'll be brainrotting about some stuff in this game for a while.

There's something very steady about this game which makes it fine but the more I sit away from it...after doing all the endings...the more I feel like it was a game that went through the motions with some interesting concepts but just felt rather emotionally flat. Which isn't great when you are playing a visual novel since you don't really have other things you are doing to engage you. In a sense I'm torn between rating this higher and lower and ultimately settled in the middle because

Things I liked
-Presentation in terms of visuals, animation and sound effects. they definitely spent budget here. voice acting also excellent.
-Chapter pacing. No chapter felt overly long.
-Not "redeeming" a character just because they are supposed to be on the "good guys" side for the most part.

Things I disliked
-Without saying too much, half the cast, even in their own routes, don't feel really developed. I only ended up caring about one of the 6 girls. 2 were developed okay but I didn't care for them. 3 did have their stories but it also felt like they were there for the count.
-The true ending. I did not like it. It doesn't help that I didn't like the girls' routes that much, except for one.
-Just in general. Like I didn't hate the creepiness of the otaku main character but it also really didn't feel like it had a point emotionally.

Funnily enough I liked the "worst" of the endings the best. Maybe because that's just how I saw the protagonist.

I think this is one of the more well-known otomes for a good reason. A solid game for that genre. A really likeable protagonist, and a great dynamic between the group. The romances between Cardia and the available choices all have a different feel which is nice for variety. Compared to some other otomes I have read, the last route unlocked was a real nice treat here because it incorporated stuff from the other four routes in a nice way. Probably my major gripe would be loose ends that they likely address in future games, but I would have loved to have it in this one to make it more of a fuller package. But I guess they want my money (and I'll give it to them) lol.

This game really takes a while to start so be prepared for a long wait of like 3 hours before payoff? Ultimately I feel like I can't rate a game that high when I thought I would drop it multiple times. But the game is really good in showing a genuinely interesting relationship and complicated but real dynamics. It takes its time which I realize isn't as much of a thing in other GL VNs I've played which give you very little to work with. Ultimately it's why I still think about the game months after beating it and look towards replaying it sometime soon.

Runs pretty well on a steam deck all things considered, as long as you don't care about trying to input text...

Main story is pretty much what you'd expect. It's hard to give the game a super high rating as a RPG when the story is the way it is. But this game's combat and dungeon design is quite good, and while I played on an easy difficulty because I'm a wuss, I feel like the game was pretty fair balancing combat and platforming (not punishing me too much for falling...a lot). Boss design wasn't too bad. Honestly wished I had cared for the main plot though, everything else made it a nice experience but I don't think I'd care to replay even if I know you can eventually unlock another character by doing certain things...

Solid game. Really exciting combat for an Atelier game and the synthesis is still lit. Wish items were more useful in battle or at least you could use them more often before running out of CC. Strong on the main story character stuff. Weak on the non-main story character stuff - it feels like it was cut out to be sold as DLC later or something? Because there's one ending and no time limit there isn't really much incentive to replay unless you want the battle challenge. But for a single playthrough experience I think this was pretty good and still holds up now.

Honestly feel like this game would have been better as a visual novel. The combat is serviceable but not great. Like it doesn't really feel good to play it in my opinion, but you can get by. The characters and the world and the story in general are the things I loved about this game (although the amount of navigating between short scenes in some of the subevents could really just be removed). But since combat is a big portion of this game I really can't give this more than 3 stars, even when replaying it on easy.

Very heavy character focused story to the game's benefit. Really leans into the comics aesthetic, both in style and in story-telling. So yeah some of the characters are pretty shallow and one-dimensional, but the main players are well-developed and there is plenty of screentime for all 4 buddies. Lots of content really, almost overwhelming with how much side content there is. (I think it might be like another 20 hours of visual novel stuff to the 40-ish hour main campaign.)

The puzzles aren't hard because it's about the journey to get the clues more than the puzzles themselves. Having two different routes for most of the missions and different dialogue depending on which buddies you bring together into a mission give a nice flair to these sections, making needing to replay some of these missions to get all the side content unlocked not so bad.

Really the only downsides is the QTEs kinda suck and aren't fun to play. And the above mentioned shallowness - the game plays it a little too safe sometimes not really going into the problems that are clearly present in the world. [And yeah, it feels BL-adjacent without having any explicit BL moments but I wasn't expecting more from a Nintendo game lol.]

I'll leave the short summary on top and dig into stuff more after.
The short:
Good - Addressed some major questions in the worldbuilding and in character backstories. Good step forward in the overall narrative of the series. Emotional moments hit a good peak when they happen. Combat is greatly improved.
Bad - Pacing is kind of all over the place. Some things feel like they were forced in because it was necessary info and not because it fit at the time. Quests in general didn't seem interesting. Activities for the intermission and the last chapter were pretty uninteresting.
Ultimately as a fan of the series' characters and background lore, this was a satisfying entry. But I don't know if it'd be fun for newcomes like those who only played kuro 1 beforehand.

The long:
I think kuro no kiseki 2 came at an interesting time due to the marketing before kuro no kiseki 1, where there was handwavy "we only make 1 game at a time". Well obviously that was a fib because there is clearly going to be 3 games in this subseries. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the disingenuous marketing has left a lot of sour taste in people's mouths. Not that I bought too much into it.

Thankfully for me the marketing that I saw made this game look like it would be all over the place with Marvel movie style action so in that sense, I wasn't disappointed. It still doesn't meant I give this game a free pass for fulfilling those expectations, because I don't think even the biggest fan can defend some of the choices made in the pacing for this game. Act 3 is egregious in how it wants to hit it's big point with a sledgehammer but it's like, there's more than enough of a hole to bury like 5 bodies, please... Especially because the roughest section dips into the series' politics which, okay this is my personal view, the weakest part of the series due to how much it is simplified and makes how many good politicians? Somehow? (And also egregiously over the top action scenes that made me roll my eyes and also groan at the battle gauntlet because when was I going to be able to save?!).

In contrast to the first game, the "antagonist" of this game is not as present. Which narratively makes sense when you get to the end, but makes the pacing from start to finish rough when you don't have as much of a driving force in your face. If you are someone like me who happens to enjoy all the characters in their small, silly moments, then there is still plenty to enjoy, but I feel like kuro 1 had both of these things, both an antagonist to look forward to running into again and character interactions that made you laugh and smile.

Although, compared to kuro 1, if you want more answers to some questions that were raised as far back as Sky 3 (?), this game's got you. Sometimes coming in a section that feels overly long, but hey, at least there was some purpose to it...

The one thing that is basically improved in all aspects is the battle system. It runs better, it feels a little faster which is good for the action part, there's more to do in the action part making me not skip out of field battles immediately like I used to in kuro 1. Shard search around town and fishing are fun (might be my favorite fishing in this series). Fast forward has been there since the beginning which makes field battles even more fun when you decide to grind through the virtual world Marchen Garden. I'm kinda meh on the cube gacha style rewards but it is better at giving rewards than Hajimari's at least. The hacking minigame is fun and the stealth missions are totally a simplified easy version of what I've experienced playing Judgment games, and it's not used a ton so it's good and fine.

The mostly good thing are the connect events as well. Actually they are all good, with some of them extremely good. It's just I wish they were distributed along the story a little more evenly.

The quests had some really good ones especially if they involved characters from the previous game, but there aren't many of them and I didn't find the non previous NPC ones to be interesting. Aka I only added 2 NPCs to the list of ones I want to go see in the next game if I can. So that was a little unfortunate.

And last, the activities. (I won't talk about the new music - it sucks. But the old music is still lit.) I really enjoyed the silly activities at Ronglai in kuro 1 and thought I really learned stuff about the characters through them. Unfortunately that is not the case for the activities in Kuro 2. I think only the drink-making one gives you any real insight into the characters. And you get so many activity points! But I ended up doing the faster ones or letting them run while I did stuff around the apartment just to get the bonus bond points.

Okay one last last thing. I loved the ending. I don't care if it might have been really cheesy. The game stuck the landing at the end at least.

I hopefully covered all the things I wanted to point out with this edit to this review. I think there is a lot of stuff to chew on from this game. I will hope the 3rd entry in this subseries lives up to the promise that the first started with and the second (this one) managed to pass on. The conclusion could be really lit or it could be a letdown. I guess we'll find out soon enough...