So, I finished Cold Steel IV yesterday. Some observations, with spoilers included:
- Definitely the longest game in the series. Took me around 90 hours in all to finish it, which is about 10-20 hours more than it took me to beat the first three. I generally got the impression that this game simply has more content (levels, areas, encounters, quests, etc) than any of the others.
- I'm not sure the increase in size actually works to the game's advantage. Even though the content quantity has been increased, it seems that the quality has been diluted to an extent. Level design is a case in point. There is only one level that springs to mind that comes close to the better dungeons from ToCS 3, that being the Einhel Keep level, which I admit was pretty cool. Prof. Schmidt was conjuring some heavy Mad Overlord vibes there. Other than that, the level design seems to have experienced a regression, something that reverses the trend seen since ToCS 2 onwards of actually improving the level design in each game. A part of this was them more or less ditching the levels where two or three parties cooperated with each other to progress through the dungeon. There are still levels where you control many parties, but they operate pretty much separately. Kinda sad they didn't expand on this idea.
-Some users have already stated in this thread that the combat gets harder in every Cold Steel entry. I concur with that, and this game definitely continues that trend. This is probably the hardest of the Cold Steel games. I played it on Hard, and have got to say it gives Cold Steel 3 Nightmare a run for its money. The tactic of alpha striking with S-Crafts/Domination - the importance of which has frankly always been blown out of proportion by people who want to dismiss the combat in the series - has been brutally nerfed. Of the ToCS games, this is probably the one with the lowest amount of bosses that can be taken out with this kind of strategy. There are, of course, still some major encounters where it works, not to mention the odd boss/sub-boss for which it is the optimal strategy.
I haven't played through the Sky games, but I've seen people mention in forums that Earth Wall spam is the most broken strategy in those. Supposing that is indeed the case, then ToCS 4 could perhaps be seen as a throwback to that, as the most surefire strategy to get through sticky situations was usually to keep my party buffed up with Adamantine Shield, Crescent Mirror, and Shining (not to mention bringing Emma along for both her S-Craft and Order). Part of this is due to the high durability of the bosses, which means you have to secure your own survivability in turn, but it's also due to the increased proliferation of status effects, as enemies (and not just bosses either) will after some point start handing those out like candy.
When the combat is at its best, it works very well and is typically an exercise on knowing the system, paying attention to the types of attacks, moves, status effects, and tactics used by your foes, and using buffs and positioning to counter. The best example of this was probably the Pantagruel boss gauntlet. At its worst, however, the combat feels like a bloated battle of attrition where the outcome (in your favor) is not really in doubt, due to how cheese-able some of the buff-centric strategies can be. Even the bosses that can cancel your buffs don't change that, neither does the new ability some enemies have to riddle you with "negative" orders that debuff/hinder you and prevent you from using orders. Compared to that, even the battles in ToCS 2 and 3 where you could indeed just alpha strike were preferable. At least those were over quickly.
Early game is still generally more challenging than late game, as expected, and this is probably the most interesting thing about ToCS 4's rather sluggish early game (something that was especially disappointing considering how strong the intro was). Overall, the combat is something of a mixed bag, and even though it is likely the hardest of the ToCS games, it's still not a particularly difficult game. It should be noted, however, that like the other ToCS games, it's not mindless either.
-The game proceeds in a very linear and story-driven way, with exploration being weaker than it was in previous entries. The return of the ToCS 2 style open world is welcome, and the shift away from the school setting means that side content is structured in a less rote manner than it was in 1 and 3, as expected. However, the actual side content is not as interesting as it was in ToCS 2. Probably because back then there was a civil war going on in the explorable regions, while in 4 the actual war is only going on in the frontier with Calvard. It's fine that you can travel around to many regions, but there isn't much of a point when there isn't much of interest there. This is perhaps compounded (or alleviated, depending on how you see it) by the fact that the class score system feels more lenient than in previous entries. Furthermore, since the regions are practically the same as in ToCS 3, there isn't much of a sense of slow exploration and discovery of new areas of the setting (which was a strength of both ToCS 1 and 3). IMO in this aspect the game has neither the strengths of ToCS 2 nor those of 1 and 3. That said, some of the side quests are really cool, like the ones with Estelle and Lloyd (both in the final Act).
-The character system and the combat mechanics seem roughly the same as in ToCS 3. Not much experimentation going on here. Some enemies now have "negative" orders, as I mentioned, but the overall impact is negligible. Lost Arts are back and there are now Level 4 EX Orbs for your mechs, but mechanically, this is probably the Cold Steel game that changed the least from its predecessor. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. Cold Steel 3 was great in terms of character customization and systems. The combat mechanics had their drawbacks, but they also made for good fun a lot of the time. A lot of that carried over to this game, leaving aside the changes in the approach to encounter design. Probably the best thing to be said about this element in ToCS 4 is the fact that, after a certain point, you get a great cast of characters plus a lot of control over said cast. When it comes to these last two points, this is probably the best game in the series, and it certainly facilitates the building of your ultimate Cold Steel band of bros (or waifus?) and (mostly) keeping it together all the way through (though "mission locked" characters still abound, as usual). There were apparently some complaints about some fan favorties (like Crow) being too weak, but overall I found that the unit balance was decently done, and I didn't have a lot of problems with my preferred party setup.
-The story is probably the weakest in the series. They avoided the trap of blaming everything on Ishmelga, but at the cost of making nonsense of the motivations of a lot of the characters working with Osborne. The 'fantastic' stuff seems, as I feared after ToCS 3, to have taken over completely. It has, of course, always been there. Not only in the series, but in Cold Steel itself. But in 1 and 2 this kind of thing was usually subsumed within political/war drama elements that were honestly more interesting. In ToCS 3 it does take over, but more or less by the end of the game. Here it permeates everything from the get-go. That said, the game sorta compensates by simply offering a lot of spectacle and 'epic' moments, the best parts probably being those that involved a lot of the characters and groups working together (both Class VIIs, the SSS, the Bracers, Mille Mirage, etc). Highlights include the Pantagruel and the Mishelam section near the end. The interactions between Rean and Cassius were pretty cool too, especially that classic anime moment when Rean masters the ultimate technique. I also think that, whatever its flaws, the story provides adequate closure for the arc, even if IMO it's not as interesting as those of the previous three games overall and by itself.
All in all, I felt ToCS 4 was, in its own way, just as good as ToCS 2 and 3 and better than ToCS1. Like all of the other games in the series, it has its pros and cons, but when all is said and done, it does have this going for it: it's one of those rare games that gives you a feeling of having completed an epic journey by the end. In part this is simply due to how freaking time-consuming it is. But that is also due to both the game's massive scope and the fact that it brings an already epic series to its conclusion while delivering a lot of memorable moments in the process. I'd definitely recommend it to people who have stuck with the series from 1 to 3.
EDIT: In retrospect, I was probably a bit harsh on the game in my concluding assessment. Amended that.
