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Imho, it's still very much worth it for the sheer scope of the story. If I had to sum up my opinion, I'd say Steel has lower lows than either Sky or Azure, but it has moments as high, and since there are more Steel games, these moments, both low and high, feel more diluted than in Sky or Azure. In average, less good, but as I said, still satisfactory.
That said, Cold Steel definitely has some issues. This isn't all of them, but it's a start:
1) There's a larger than usual party size. It starts out with 9, although the story limits who is in your party for large parts of the game. The "core" party size only goes up from there. This results in many party members getting shortchanged in development. While everyone gets moments in the spotlight, Alisa, Jusis, Machias, and maybe Fie tend to have the meatiest parts. Others are much more one-note (*cough* Elliot *cough*) or don't have enough conflict or trauma in their backstory to stand out against the others (*cough* Gaius *cough*), or only really get development and spotlight time in later games (*cough* Emma *cough*), or are just shocking wastes of potential (*cough Laura *cough*).
2) Making matters worse, a lot of character quirks and development is crammed into optional bonding scenes, which are gated by bonding points, and you won't have enough to see everyone's scene without being on NG+ and selecting unlimited bonding points.
3) Continuing from Zero-Azure, the main protagonist can optionally choose a romantic option, which means that they are written as dense and oblivious to the attention from girls until the moment of choosing. The developers also clearly have a favorite who gets the most and strongest scenes with the main character, which often annoys players who have a different preference (and even if you do consistently pick the developer's favored choice, the mandatory obliviousness is still annoying, because in almost every game Rean gets reset back to neutral).
4) Class VII's premise is that it's bringing together a diverse set of lifestyles and experiences from across the country, a set of different voices, which sometimes conflict. However, after about the halfway point of Cold Steel 1, the different viewpoints start to shifts to "I agree with Rean." The combination of rarely leaving Rean's viewpoint, making all the bonding events being 1-on-1 with Rean and a person, and everyone and everything focusing around Rean and how special Rean is really sucks the air out of the room for everyone else, which is especially glaring for a series with such a high playable character count.
5) Unlike previous player characters, Rean doesn't have a direction in life, and unlike previous games, his motivational speeches too often are just empty platitudes. In Crossbell, Elie's big issue was Crossbell's messy political deadlock. It was something which was impossible for her to solve on her own, so because she didn't know what concrete steps to take towards the goal, she just spun her wheels and got nowhere. Rean is unfortunately a lot like that.
Well, I'd say that Alisa and Machias at the very least get some definite character development, although that is damning with faint praise.
From your comments, now I know that is worse than I imagined. The characters were what, along with the story, hooked me into this series, which is a shame seeing it going to this direction. Being also a big fan of Persona, I see where Falcom did want to go but failed horribly.
This is really sad lol, since in Crossbell we also have a diverse cast that, aside from Ellie, it's really entertaining and have really good interactions between them. I think that's the benefit of having a concise cast rather than a collection of waifus and husbandos, which in other games I don't really take an issue with that but here in Trails comes off as cheap and uninspired just to cash in on the popularity of Persona.
I was really hyped to play Cold Steel since it is directly connected to the events happening in Crossbell, and I'm still hyped don't get me wrong. I know the story is going to be great and really want to know what will happen next, so I'll just put my energy into that!
It actually gets worse.
Cold steel 3 is when I gave up because the writing just became so bad and I loved sky and crossbell.
One thing I'd definitely start with, though probably don't need to say it, is I'd encourage you to go in open-minded. Even given you've got issues with what you've seen so far, it's still plenty possible you won't end up as down on it as others are. While I've only played through 2 so far myself, my stance so far is that I think there are notable ways in which it's weaker than the other sagas so far, but nothing has come remotely toward making me as negative about it as others seem to be.
I'm with Stabbey and some others on thinking one of the ways in which Steel is most hampered is the cast size. For comparison, the Sky main story had, depending on your point of view, either 1 or 2 main characters, who ended up quite well developed. Zero / Azure switches gears to something similar to what Steel ends up doing, but since the focus group only has 4 people, each of them still gets a fair bit of focus and development as individuals. In Steel, in many ways the main character is 'Class 7', and at 9 people strong, that just doesn't allow much room for individual development. Even within that context, I think some things can be done better. That said, I personally at least found that taking Class 7 as a whole as a character, there's some decent 'character' writing with its development and arc over time; if not to the level of earlier series, at least reasonably comparable.
Beyond that, I would say that some of the other key things that I look for in the series -- the vignettes that almost any given NPC goes through over the course of the games, the little world building details that were planted throughout earlier games in the series and come back / finally make sense here -- are all still very much present and accounted for. Even with the character writing not reaching the same highs, I definitely think that if that aspect has any appeal for you whatsoever, you'll continue to be well more than satisfied moving forward.
This is stupid. IIRC Bleublanc/Phantom Thief B already had puzzles and cards with clues since Trails SC (maybe even the FIRST trails game). WELL before Persona 5.
Delete your comment, you have no idea how idiotic you sound.