I've FINALLY finished Cold Steel IV | Review
Вставка
- Опубліковано 20 чер 2024
- The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV was a bear to review and I still don't know if I did it justice, but I tried. Thank you so much for watching!
---
X: x.com/drlevelup
Instagram: / drlevelup
Threads: threads.net/drlevelup - Ігри
great vid and great to see you back! I was a bit worried after your last video
This series is great. It has been almost 3 years since I started with Cold Steel 1 and it made me want to go back and play the older games. But I didn't want to leave on the cliffhanger, so I finished Cold Steel 2, before going into the Sky Trilogy. Luckily the Crossbell games released in the west, while I was playing Sky, so naturally I played them as well before going back to Cold Steel 3+4. I don't think I will finish Reverie before Daybreak comes out. But I'm almost caught up. Back when I started, I wouldn't have dreamt of playing through 10! games in under 3 years, while also taking breaks and playing other games to avoid burnout.
I am powering through Reverie, but I don't think I will have it done right when Daybreak comes out, which is fine!
@@DrLevelUp They are very long games with lots of content to do besides the main story. It's important to play them at your own pace. Sometimes it's more fun to do the fishing or play cardgames than watching the next hour long story sequence. Recently I found myself skipping most of the combat animations, because they make the fights too long.
My first time playing this game (I've played it twice), I was also irritated with the whole curse thing as well. But the second time through, I realized that it is more nuanced than people realize/give it credit for.
If you recall the cutscene near the beginning of the game where you're in the "dream-like" Thors setting with Juna/Kurt/Altina, Falcom was actually giving us a glimpse into what it was like for those who were under the influence of the curse. Basically, the curse amplifies the desires of those who are afflicted by it, and then twists those desires just enough to make them follow the direction that Ishmelga wants them to follow. Sadly, they didn't really do a good job of showing this in the game, and it diminishes the overall quality of it on narrative level.
Because of this, it is easy to mistake what had happened to Juna/Kurt/Altina in that moment as them just having a weird dream that is quickly brushed under the rug. As opposed to what really happened, which was them being granted the illusion of having everything they wanted, provided they forget Rean exists. Because if they forget Rean exists, they can't very well help him, now can they? When worded like that, the curse actually sounds like it could have been pretty interesting, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, the curse itself just wasn't written into the story properly. I think they could have done some really cool things with it. If they had put some of the other character we had met throughout the series into those dream-like settings, and then required us to somehow free them from it, I think would have made the curse itself feel like a more engaging/real threat. Because we would:
1) Gain a greater understand of how/why it works the way it does.
2) Understand why some of these characters would willingly submit to it. In some ways, I think this is the BIGGEST issue with Cold Steel 4. Many people simply don't understand why so many characters fell under the influence of the curse.
Regardless, I still found Cold Steel 4 to be a good game. Better on my second run of it, in fact. Although that may be because I was noticing things I hadn't noticed the first time.
I really enjoyed it, I just found the curse not well-written. I really agree on your take here, thanks for writing it all out and bringing some perspective!
In the nut shell, blame everything on the curse~ You get the curse, you get the curse, everybody gets the curse~~
The initial bit of it was fine, but as they kept using the excuse over and over it got old. Now we're getting something similar in Reverie.
@@DrLevelUp And the questionable harem choices~ I can understand you are hot for teacher but some of the choices are just down right illegal ⛔🚫⚠
@@xenogunner Just wait until my next video....