Look, I love the game and I love the entirely series.

But you know what?

For that stupid final boss they deserve their rating lowered.

For those that don't know, the last boss is infamous for how abysmally bad it is designed.

It is a gimmick fight you fight with a completely new uncostumisable character.

Thing is, if you play on hard or nightmare the game expect you to be roughly 10 levels above what you need to finish the game (because said new characters stats scale with the leve you had with your mc) otherwise even if you play the fight literally perfectly you have a laughably low chance to win.

As in, you will need around 20 tries to beat said boss.

There is also no way to grind just before said fight.

The fight is without exaggeration, probably one of the worst ever designed.

i played this because i liked the other games not because i like this one in particular.

It was personally really jarring going from 2.5d to 3d with mediocre graphics. I missed the Sky FC/SC/3rd portraits which were charming and perfectly expressive.

However, I'm more lenient on rating this game than the previous games because this was a time where Falcom was trying to change and "get with the times" for graphics. They were in the middle transitioning 2.5d to 3d and overhauling gameplay mechanics, all while keeping a rapid game release cadence. An impressive feat for such a small dev team.

All-in-all I had an enjoyable experience playing Cold Steel I, though some parts of the story in the game were a bit dry.