Not really, it's basically a series of clips of her appearances to date with some text commentary. It does remind the viewer that her appearance isn't necessarily what she actually looks like and that few people know who or what the Grandmaster really is... while framing a shot of Campanella. And the last caption says that the day when the Grandmaster's desire will become clear is drawing close. Nothing nearly as specific as Lapis' teaser though.
Also in Kuro II news, apparently the trophy list has leaked (I've avoided looking at it and plan to keep it that way) which is a good sign that it's time to lock down social media and such. For Real World Reasons I'm only going to have a couple days to play the game and then won't be able to for a few weeks, so that's gonna be a fun minefield to navigate...
Oof, that's unfortunate. Well, you know what you have to do: hook up an IV to your arm to keep yourself alive and no life it for those few days!
Right down to the wire this year but I finally finished my predictions. Hard to believe it's going to be out in less than a day. xD
https://kisekicrack.esterior.net/2022/09/28/yotakas-kuro-no-kiseki-ii-predictions/
@Yotaka Do you think you'll still do your write ups of your impressions of the game as you go along? I always enjoy reading them.
Here's my unsolicited opinion:
I will say, having finished chapter 2, I'm liking how it's a lot less formulaic in its structure compared to, say, Kuro 1 or CS1/3. Having two different groups in separate locations was an interesting choice and a little reminiscent of Hajimari's approach. Keeps the parties smaller and there's less of those silly Cold Steel scenes where you wait for 30 people to file into a room and line up for a conversation.
Animation work continues to improve by leaps and bounds, and although it's used sparingly (I think there've been 2 so far) when they go all in with the mo-cap stuff for fight scenes it's really quite impressive how much better they look. There's one in particular which I had to go back and rewatch I was so blown away by how good it was. Just for fun I then went back to watch that fight between Fie and Laura in CS1 and you can't help but laugh at how much things have changed.
I like the additions to the action battle system, but it still feels a little rudimentary. Good for when you just want blast through mobs and not deal with command battles, though. As for command battles, I like the team up attack thing they added, and I guess it's the closest thing we're ever going to get to combo crafts (how I miss them).
I'll spoilertag the next part, although there won't be any actual detail, just talking about a story mechanic revealed in a trailer for the game
@Yotaka Do you think you'll still do your write ups of your impressions of the game as you go along? I always enjoy reading them.
I will be, but for Real World Reasons I've only been able to play a very small part of the game so far (up to part of 1A*) and won't be able to really dive into it in detail for another week. At which point I will probably be playing every hour I can spare, for other Real World Reasons. In the latter case, so I can be ready to moderate floofy's channel properly once she starts playing it herself. xD
* Specifically
Okay, finished I-A so a few preliminary thoughts, which are going to be more barebones than otherwise because of the gap between starting and finishing this chunk of the game.
- I'm not surprised we got time shenanigans right from the start since all the buildup implied Van and Elaine were getting skewered in the Prologue, but the way the time leap chart is presented was kind of surprising, insofar as it reminded me a lot of 999. Thank you Falcom for not making us rewatch the entire same sequence all over again or replay the entire mini-dungeon area.
- If Falcom has done what I think they're doing with the Betophatted Man based on how 'he' dissolved at the end, I will laugh so hard. If he's not actually a person, it will make all the hair-pulling over their identity so amusing.
- Mare. Distorted text. I'm feeling pretty good about my theory that she's the Holy Beast or some sort of projection of her, given what was said around those unreadable words. Right now I haven't had as much fun with the gameplay of Marchen Garten versus TRC, but that may be because I got badly annoyed by the I-A boss.
- I really like the start of the Messeldam segment with the film shoot. It's pretty obvious what's going on before the actual reveal but it's a fun way to start and I really liked how they played with the visible screen to make it look 'cinematic'.
- We had confirmation of North Ambria regaining its independence via random dialogue in the first game, now we have details via sidequest. I rather liked Miss Graffiti and Judith actually getting to steal something as Grimcats, that was a fun sequence.
- Speaking of quests, I've noticed a trend in them so far where we're getting asked to do things by people who turn out to be the bad guy in the situation. The 'stalker' quest in Messeldam had me laughing inappropriately at the options Van can choose from. I'll need to replay it at some point to see what 'flip a coin' actually looks like in practice.
- On that note, 'Luca' being Ixs and shooting our informant as soon as everyone figures out that something's not right. I confess I didn't see that coming until the cutin of the bullet getting loaded. Wasn't expecting to see him in combat so soon; I guess this means Swin and Nadia are going to meet Jolda in I-B.
- Oh yes, getting more posthumous hints about Dingo's past and what he was up to in Messeldam (alluded to in the first game) was nice. I'm expecting more to come.
Impressions continuing on through the early Intermission and these might be a bit out of order since it's easier to talk about some things at the same time instead of chronologically:
- I'm still finding Marchen Garten to be more of a chore than TRC. It's probably the size of the maps; I haven't done a direct comparison but they feel larger to me here and while the settings are cool it feels like they take too long to navigate, though the total number of areas in each floor is about the same as any given TRC level. And maybe I've been underwhelmed on the bosses so far since aside from the first floor they've all been repeat enemies from the first game, compared to TRC which threw all kinds of loopy stuff at you like C U B E and Giant Whale Temple.
- I am shocked that Trion Tower wasn't the dungeon for I-B after the initial importance given to it, which means Falcom must be saving it for later. Especially given the conversation about how Epstein not only came up with the designs but apparently future-proofed it for technology that didn't exist at the time of his death...
- I was already pretty damned sure Garden Master is Ace pre-release and the conversation in Darklight Town where they remind the audience that Ace exists made me certain that they're the same person. I guess Falcom realized how obvious it was because they confirm it right after his first proper introduction instead of teasing it and having Swin and Nadia wonder about it. Okay, they're trying to rationalize it away as 'maybe he was the Ace of Swords before Nadia's brother was assigned that name' but it doesn't change things.
- Let's do the time warp again! And again! I find it amusing that the correct solution turned out to be 'get Walter involved, because he's mean enough to consider beating the people turned into Demi-Grendels up so they can't move and so can't be endlessly revived'. And hey, more reminders that Reverie is totes important, which amuses me greatly given that certain people have been trying to claim the game is completely skippable.
- II-A, aka 'Lets Do The Wuxia Thing Again'. Hoo boy, this chapter left me... well, wanting to punch Cao in his stupid smug face. For eight games now he's been manipulating his way around and always ended up if not our friend at least having aligning interests at the end of the day, even if his motives are entirely based on pragmatism. And then he finally pulls one over on everybody and gets away with it, after briefly looking like it was going to be a 'business as usual' resolution where he and Gien had planned the whole thing, until Van spots the flaw in the argument. I'm very interested in why Gien and Cao refer to it as not creating House Lee but reviving it.
Chances of him being directly inspired by Cao Cao: Now 110%.
- Backtracking a bit, Shizuna's reintroduction scene is very her. 'I'm going to drop into the men's baths and have no idea why that's weird' and then she foreshadows her next appearance with the comment about her temporary job. And the sidequests continue to reinforce the main plot in various ways and/or provide a bit more development for Aaron, which is nice.
- That fight scene at the sea cave after the battle was over was amazing.
- The likelihood of Lucrezia's weapon not being another Divergent Laws creation is about zero, after she used it to literally cut a hole through spacetime to sneak into the tower.
- After dealing with Cao's smug antics at the end of II-A, seeing Swin and Nadia pretending to be high school students was exactly the change of tone I needed. Especially as Nadia is trying so hard to cram every single high school trope she can into her life while she has the opportunity her childhood denied her to briefly enjoy something resembling 'normalcy'.
- Raising my hand here, I was expecting the C from Kuro's Finale (and now II-B) to be Rufus using cheaty Elysium knowledge, but Swin and Nadia swear it's not him and Towa confirms that it's definitely not Crow so I guess that settles it.
- Elie's father appears!!!
- Sneaking in some lore on the Democratic Revolution via a book return quest (and the tables of contents we can read once we've done so) and the later main plot was rather clever. Still waiting for my Big Sheena Dirke Twist...
- And of course we couldn't go a whole act without time shenanigans. Poor Agnes is going to need so much therapy after this, seeing how she's been forced to watch her friends die repeatedly. And then Falcom faked us out with Swin on the final cycle.
- I would so watch these movies that we're getting glimpses of. I really enjoyed them in the first game (especially the cinephile commentary after the screening) and I really like them now.
- I was wondering when we'd see Lascar again since he gets mentioned and we run into Kaina and hey, turns out he gets his own quest which also resolves some of the mysteries around Gray 'I have a last name for some reason' Arnold. And reminds us that Winners Don't Do Drugs! The kid still needs a damned big hug...
- I remembered seeing Chignon in the trailer and should have realized something was going to happen to her as soon as she mentioned being half-eastern. And yet, it really looked like Towa managed to pull it off there for a minute. Dammit Falcom, even when I know there's going to be time resets it still manages to hurt when you kill characters. As long as this doesn't become a pattern after Sept-Terrion Hax stop being applicable, since I'm certain that's what we're seeing here.
- I really should have noticed the... not exactly wordplay but specific emphasis in C's note, and connected the dots to the statues sooner.
- So Altera hasn't just borrowed Lapis' powers but she basically is Lapis' consciousness, stuck in this form. Well damn.
- Ace's self-buff has the DG emblem appear behind him. That's not creepy at all...
- Elroy has his own private island? I don't even want to know how he reports that to the tax authorities... and Sherid is here for Shenanigans, and Nina is here for what I am sure are totally non-sus reasons. Yes, I've gotten just far enough to see where she stares at the old animist ruins when she thinks nobody's watching. I know how Intermissions work here, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Impressions continuing on through the early Intermission and these might be a bit out of order since it's easier to talk about some things at the same time instead of chronologically:
Spoiler- I was clearly wrong about Jolda being in I-B, because instead she's in II-A. Oh well. Nadia and Swin remain amazing, especially in the one sidequest where they have to pretend to be a lovey-dovey couple and Nadia is getting so into it while Swin is trying to keep up. And then it turns out to involve... HER. I also like how the quests are reinforcing the main plot, especially with the one following the Desire plotline from the first game which then turns out to foreshadow the end of chapter reveal.- I'm still finding Marchen Garten to be more of a chore than TRC. It's probably the size of the maps; I haven't done a direct comparison but they feel larger to me here and while the settings are cool it feels like they take too long to navigate, though the total number of areas in each floor is about the same as any given TRC level. And maybe I've been underwhelmed on the bosses so far since aside from the first floor they've all been repeat enemies from the first game, compared to TRC which threw all kinds of loopy stuff at you like C U B E and Giant Whale Temple.
- I am shocked that Trion Tower wasn't the dungeon for I-B after the initial importance given to it, which means Falcom must be saving it for later. Especially given the conversation about how Epstein not only came up with the designs but apparently future-proofed it for technology that didn't exist at the time of his death...
- I was already pretty damned sure Garden Master is Ace pre-release and the conversation in Darklight Town where they remind the audience that Ace exists made me certain that they're the same person. I guess Falcom realized how obvious it was because they confirm it right after his first proper introduction instead of teasing it and having Swin and Nadia wonder about it. Okay, they're trying to rationalize it away as 'maybe he was the Ace of Swords before Nadia's brother was assigned that name' but it doesn't change things.
- Let's do the time warp again! And again! I find it amusing that the correct solution turned out to be 'get Walter involved, because he's mean enough to consider beating the people turned into Demi-Grendels up so they can't move and so can't be endlessly revived'. And hey, more reminders that Reverie is totes important, which amuses me greatly given that certain people have been trying to claim the game is completely skippable.
- II-A, aka 'Lets Do The Wuxia Thing Again'. Hoo boy, this chapter left me... well, wanting to punch Cao in his stupid smug face. For eight games now he's been manipulating his way around and always ended up if not our friend at least having aligning interests at the end of the day, even if his motives are entirely based on pragmatism. And then he finally pulls one over on everybody and gets away with it, after briefly looking like it was going to be a 'business as usual' resolution where he and Gien had planned the whole thing, until Van spots the flaw in the argument. I'm very interested in why Gien and Cao refer to it as not creating House Lee but reviving it.
Chances of him being directly inspired by Cao Cao: Now 110%.
- Backtracking a bit, Shizuna's reintroduction scene is very her. 'I'm going to drop into the men's baths and have no idea why that's weird' and then she foreshadows her next appearance with the comment about her temporary job. And the sidequests continue to reinforce the main plot in various ways and/or provide a bit more development for Aaron, which is nice.
- That fight scene at the sea cave after the battle was over was amazing.
- The likelihood of Lucrezia's weapon not being another Divergent Laws creation is about zero, after she used it to literally cut a hole through spacetime to sneak into the tower.
- After dealing with Cao's smug antics at the end of II-A, seeing Swin and Nadia pretending to be high school students was exactly the change of tone I needed. Especially as Nadia is trying so hard to cram every single high school trope she can into her life while she has the opportunity her childhood denied her to briefly enjoy something resembling 'normalcy'.
- Raising my hand here, I was expecting the C from Kuro's Finale (and now II-B) to be Rufus using cheaty Elysium knowledge, but Swin and Nadia swear it's not him and Towa confirms that it's definitely not Crow so I guess that settles it.
- Elie's father appears!!!
- Sneaking in some lore on the Democratic Revolution via a book return quest (and the tables of contents we can read once we've done so) and the later main plot was rather clever. Still waiting for my Big Sheena Dirke Twist...
- And of course we couldn't go a whole act without time shenanigans. Poor Agnes is going to need so much therapy after this, seeing how she's been forced to watch her friends die repeatedly. And then Falcom faked us out with Swin on the final cycle.
- I would so watch these movies that we're getting glimpses of. I really enjoyed them in the first game (especially the cinephile commentary after the screening) and I really like them now.
- I was wondering when we'd see Lascar again since he gets mentioned and we run into Kaina and hey, turns out he gets his own quest which also resolves some of the mysteries around Gray 'I have a last name for some reason' Arnold. And reminds us that Winners Don't Do Drugs! The kid still needs a damned big hug...
- I remembered seeing Chignon in the trailer and should have realized something was going to happen to her as soon as she mentioned being half-eastern. And yet, it really looked like Towa managed to pull it off there for a minute. Dammit Falcom, even when I know there's going to be time resets it still manages to hurt when you kill characters. As long as this doesn't become a pattern after Sept-Terrion Hax stop being applicable, since I'm certain that's what we're seeing here.
- I really should have noticed the... not exactly wordplay but specific emphasis in C's note, and connected the dots to the statues sooner.
- So Altera hasn't just borrowed Lapis' powers but she basically is Lapis' consciousness, stuck in this form. Well damn.
- Ace's self-buff has the DG emblem appear behind him. That's not creepy at all...
- Elroy has his own private island? I don't even want to know how he reports that to the tax authorities... and Sherid is here for Shenanigans, and Nina is here for what I am sure are totally non-sus reasons. Yes, I've gotten just far enough to see where she stares at the old animist ruins when she thinks nobody's watching. I know how Intermissions work here, I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Agreed with the Garten. It feels like more of an after thought than something like the Corridor which was obviously a big part of Reverie and thus had a lot more going on. I hope they don't feel the need to include something like that with every release, unless they can do something interesting with it.
Elroy is rapidly becoming one my favourite Society members - he's just so entertaining!
I've got my popcorn ready for Intermission conclusion thoughts.
Also, how does Cao STILL not have an S-Craft?!
I haven't finished Intermission yet but I did get to a certain moment which I'm sure you can guess.
This has been a much longer Intermission than I was expecting, pretty sure it's almost done though and I'll have more comments about the chapter as a whole once I'm at that point.
EDIT: Okay, now I've finished Intermission, so feel free to break out your popcorn.
Oh, you were looking for more? ;p Well, I should start with a caveat that someone I know (who I've been providing a running story summary to for Reasons) saw that content ahead of me and had 'subtly' implied that I hadn't seen anything yet, when I was sending reaction thoughts their way. The fact that they kept doing this as I hit progressively more ridiculous things going on in Intermission had me very concerned. Because apparently things such as 'Harwood straight-up murders the entire island', 'Harwood knows we're time-warping somehow', 'Murdergame 2.0', 'Gouran is Cao's long-lost brother', 'Nemeth Island is Paradise' and 'Renne briefly gets possessed by the memory-ghost of Cross' didn't even make the final five revelations.
No, that would be 'Quatre the Angel of Death' (combined with the post-time leap revelation about his background), 'If Ixs or Jolda goes down before the other, you get NUKED on the next turn the survivor takes and have to do the whole fight over again', 'Ixs and Jolda are Gerard's children', 'DG was even more fucked up than we thought and wanted to open a gateway to the Beyond (which Harwood is trying to finish, because) and finally... that. Oh great, we won and we got the last Genesis piece so I guess we're done her- god dammit Swin, why?! I had to stop at the save screen after that, to preserve what's left of my sanity.
Once I get back to the game I'm going to have to do a before/after time check to see how long the entirety of Intermission took me, because I'm certain this is by far the longest such chapter in the series and I'm curious by how much, compared to something like CS4's Black Workshop intermission or Azure's Mishlam vacation.
@JumpyJunpei Aaaaand main story is finally done. Offhand I think this game took me the longest of any Trails game to finish, partially because I had a lot of Stuff going on during times when I'd normally be streaming but I also had some days I just had some trouble getting motivated to pick it up. Marchen Garten's probably a big cause of it, because while I get what they were trying to do with it, it just didn't grab me in the way that TRC did. The areas sure looked pretty though. I'll summarize my thoughts on the main plot in a bit, but that was definitely one hell of a final boss fight.
I'll be curious to see how you felt about Chapter 3. I know that was a major sticking point for some people (I grew a little weary of it, too). Also, the reveal of what was going on with the man in white. A lot of the main story ended up kind of feeling like something you'd get in a bridge game like Reverie or the 3rd, but I guess we'll see if it has consequences for Kuro 3.
I'll summarize my thoughts on the main plot in a bit, but that was definitely one hell of a final boss fight.
THAT moment was just so damn cool. What a way to end it.
If I was going to gripe about a segment of the game, it would be Intermission more than Act 3. The former felt like it went on forever and while it had so much major stuff going on and some ginormous reveals, it also felt looooooong for what's literally called a 'Fragment'. It's like they wanted to combine the 'have fun and chill with most of the cast' of Azure's Mishlam beach vacation with CS4's massive dungeon crawl, and then they threw in a large map on top of it all. I can see why they wanted to try and combine the two but it was definitely a larger chunk of game than I was expecting.
Act 3 was also reaaalllllly long but it was broken up into enough discrete chunks that each one felt reasonable. Well, with one exception.
And yeah, the main plot does kind of feel like 'We wanted a bridge game' rather than something of obvious import, but we'll have to wait in Kuro 3 to know how much this game has set up that we didn't otherwise get from the first. Obviously gathering all the Genesis is important, but right not it's not apparent that we couldn't have done that in some other context in the next game. And unless something comes up in the postgame, we only got hints regarding the obvious plot hook from the first game about what Gramheart is planning.
On that note, one thing I'm wondering given the ending:
While I don't know the details of the games story, seems like Kuro 2 from the places I've seen hasn't had the best reception. No outright hate, but pretty mixed reception where even the best impression still feel it lacked a purpose. Perhaps with context of the whole saga once over it may be liked more, but it feels like this may be one that the general fanbase doesn't care as much about, much like Sky 1.
And yeah, the main plot does kind of feel like 'We wanted a bridge game' rather than something of obvious import, but we'll have to wait in Kuro 3 to know how much this game has set up that we didn't otherwise get from the first. Obviously gathering all the Genesis is important, but right not it's not apparent that we couldn't have done that in some other context in the next game. And unless something comes up in the postgame, we only got hints regarding the obvious plot hook from the first game about what Gramheart is planning.
Honestly, the whole time I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and there to be catastrophic ramifications for the constant meddling with the timeline, albeit against their will since it triggered (seemingly) automatically. I feel like there aren't a lot of time travel stories where people get to abuse that kind of power -especially when it comes to reversing deaths - consequence-free. But, again, we'll have to wait and see. I think my opinion of this game hinges a lot on how 3 pans out.
Spoiler
I dunno, the more story they keep adding to his lack of a Stigma, the more I think it might be true. Could it be time to give up that lying Gaius/Barkhorn theory? Are we high on copium?
