So I sorta finished
Kuro no Kiseki II/Trails of the Black II in that I'm in the epilogue NPC party time section now.
This is the weirdest game in the Trails series by far. A lot of people are gonna be super negative about it.
It's a solid and mostly entertaining game, there isn't a lot of actually bad in it like Cold Steel 4,
But it's probably the weakest game in the series and definitely the most boring game in the series to date.
The game feels like the first Trails game that's a reaction to the series sales falling down the gutter. Kuro 1 sold really really bad. Kuro 2 sold exactly the same (which is kind of an improvement since usually sequels lose sales, but I guess 50k is the baseline for the series fans and it can be steady at that).
It's an extremely budget limited game with very few locations (new or re-used) and very few characters (almost no new characters) and you just spend the game fighting the same characters over and over and over as they come up with weird situations for that to happen.
I mean where the budget really shows and hurts is that I'd wager 60-70% of the
entire game takes place in the main city, like a Cold Steel game where 2/3rds the entire game takes place at the school and surrounding town because...no budget.
Then there's the fact that not a lot of plot happens in the game, though part of that is due to the Septerrion of Calvard being the
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Time Septerrion
Meaning a lot of the stuff that happens gets retconned within its own game.
On the other hand, the game is fairly entertaining outside like one 4-8 hour stretch of it and even if most of the boss fight showdowns are nonsense and have no actual repercussions, they're entertaining and somewhat fun fights. Also the game uses the lack of budget to focus more on character development and character stuff which is good and I do like the cast.
The bad guy boss and their plot is stupid though. If Kuro 1 is a good First Chapter (FC) Trails game at a slower 150 hour pace, Kuro 2 is a less good FC game at the same pace but half the length.
Yeah, Kuro 1 is like 150 hours if you talk to all NPCs, Kuro 2 is looking to be about 80 hours if you talk to all the NPCs. But it's not 80 hours because it's a faster paced game than Kuro 1. It's slightly faster at spots, but it's more that the actual story is about 2/3rds or half the length of Kuro 1's story. Again, feels like a budget thing.
Anyhow, I like the characters, the writing is pretty ok, the events are entertaining, the graphics are really good and the few new locations look fantastic, battle system is solid, music is great, plot is kind of weak but not insulting, it's slow and not a lot happens and it's absolutely nothing like a SC (Second Chapter) game and more like another FC game but a smaller and less exciting one than Kuro 1 that's built on mostly re-use.
It's sorta like what Cold Steel 2 did, except less exciting, slower paced, and far less plot developments and more character growth and NPC slice of life focused. I really enjoyed CS2, but Kuro 2 was just alright.
I didn't hate this game like Cold Steel 4, but it's super mid and about a 7/10 with Kuro 1 being an 8/10. My main concern is that so many of its problems feel like budget issues and since the games aren't selling any better I'm pretty worried about the franchise going forward because if Kuro 3 is similar the series is fucked.
Kuro 2 is also interesting in that it's by the B-team, so it's possible the main team gets all the budget and two years and Kuro 3 will be the good SC game to Kuro 1. But this B-team also did Reverie/Hajimari which was great and one of the best games in the series, but it also mostly re-used characters/locations from previous games so maybe they were able to do more with a lower budget there. Also series sales weren't quite as bad at that time. CS4 opened at 84k, Hajimari at 83k and these Kuro games are opening at 50k. Down from like 150k opening at Cold Steel 1/Crossbell days.
