Note 2: for related woke content in this game, see this post.
After 111 hours, I have finished Kuro no Kiseki on nightmare difficulty.
It was overall lackluster. One of the worst Trails games. Not an overall bad game; I enjoyed it enough to finish it and I would rather play this over Western AAA slop (I will be playing Kuro 2 for sure), but Kuro doesn't have the appeal of the Trails franchise.
Gameplay
Aside from the true final boss' second phase, nothing posed a threat to me. I was waiting for that moment when the game would force me to buckle up and get into the nitty gritty of character building and turn based combat, but that didn't happen until the last 15 minutes. That was the only time I had to reload an earlier save and change my build. The gameplay was pretty braindead. For trash, you either run past them to the boss, or you dodge-roll around them, strike twice, dodge roll around, use your stun ability, then press X to enter turn based mode; once in turn-based mode, you just pop Aaron's S-craft and that one-shots the trash, and with the CP charger shard skill Aaron will regen back to 100 CP, so he can S-craft the next trash pack. For bosses, you just buff up and have Aaron kick the boss.
The boss fights were really uninspired. Cold Steel had a few bosses that could jail party members, or the mirrors that were immune to physical or magic damage, or Gareth sniping you from off the battlefield. Well, I guess the devs copy-pasted comrade C's mines from CS1 Chapter 6 for Melchior, but unlike C's, the mines aren't a problem at all: you just pop Aaron's S-craft to get rid of them, or you can just ignore them since they do so little damage. The only time I was in danger of dying was during a dual boss fight if I lowered both bosses below 50% HP, which meant that I would get hit with two S-breaks in a row, but the solution is just to kill one boss first. There were several endgame boss fights where I killed a boss before he even got a turn.
Another issue is the new boost system. Using boost on a character buffs him up, and a character needs two stacks of boost to use an S-craft. Boost only lasts 2 turns at 1 stack, 3 turns at 2 stacks, and regens slowly from dealing damage or being hit. It's basically a second CP bar that fills way slower than CP. Due to this system, you're incentivized not to have a tank who draws enemy AoE attacks away from the group, but instead to have everyone stack together in front of a boss to maximize the number of party members hit by AoEs, and thus fill the boost gauge faster so you can boost your party members and use S-crafts.
Since turn order bonuses are attached to characters and not to turns, and since there are no negative turn order bonuses you need to dodge, there is no turn order manipulation gameplay, which makes the combat feel shallower.
In Chapter 5, you can get two guest party members for a grand total of six characters on the battlefield at once. That was pretty fun, though sadly you could not control the guest party members. I think this highlights that the normal party cap of 4 characters on the battlefield is too restrictive, especially in this Suikoden-esque franchise in which part of the appeal is the huge roster of characters. I would like to be able to fully control six party members at once in future games.
Another issue is that while the combat was fun enough, there was very little of it. The vast majority of my playtime was spent reading text, whereas in prior Trails game there was actually quite a lot of combat to do outside of story.
The only moment in the game where I felt like I could identify where I was in this fantasy world.
The lack of interconnected roads to walk on (you instead just drive to these abstract locations) makes Calvard feel less like a realized fantasy world with a grounding in geography compared to prior Trails games. Even in Cold Steel, when you took train rides to places, there were still routes and you could pick out, "Okay, if I were to just walk a few miles further down that road, I would reach this location from earlier." Calvard doesn't have that.
Plot
Kuro's plot is devoid of tension for most of the game. Early on there is the tension of Agnes coming to Van and the flashback CG of her shocked face reading grandma's diary and not wanting to turn to the police, and Giacomo being killed. It felt like we were uncovering a conspiracy and were at risk of being killed for it, but then that danger dissipates. The story then becomes about lackadaisically talking to NPCs and doing your usual chores of finding people's lost cats, clearing out sewers, testing orbments, etc.
The game suffers from a lot of the same writing issues that plagued prior arcs. Each chapter the villains cause a needless catastrophe and antagonize people for no apparent reason, all in the name of an "experiment" that they could almost certainly do more discreetly without incurring the wrath of every faction in the setting. No, Gerard's "I want to instill fear!" isn't a convincing motivation. You fight the mafia lieutenants or a proxy at the end of a chapter but they escape, so I've accomplished nothing over the first 70 hours. I didn't feel like there was danger or that I was making plot progress until Chapter 5, when a town is nuked, another city may be nuked, we're in a battle royale fighting other factions, and we are now finally taking out the mafia lieutenants, but even the battle royale loses steam as it becomes clear nobody is killing each other in this supposed "death game". The story should have been engaging throughout.
The final chapter was another slog and unexciting. It's a rehash of Tokyo Xanadu's finale, except dragged out for thrice as long. The guys you killed at the end of Chapter 5 come back. Killing them a second time isn't interesting. The story really should have stopped at the final boss. I didn't care for him. He was another nothing villain like Joachim, but once he died, I thought it was time for the game to pack up. The true final boss nonsense embodied the worst of bargain bin JRPGs. I guess I've always disliked Falcom true final boss storylines, but this was Tokyo Xanadu levels of "I don't care" and was a low note to end the game on.
There are pacing issues on the micro level. There is so much talking that it deflates tension within the scene. I killed two bad guys... and then I get a two-minute scene of every party member saying "oh we will bear this burden with you Van". Undercuts the moment.
There is a lot of sloppy writing. There are lots of pointless fights against friendly characters, whether they're wanting a duel with you for flimsy reasons or being mindcontrolled into fighting you. Lots of having to be saved by an old franchise character like Renne or Fie. Shards can apparently do anything, and the writers forget or remember what shards are capable of whenever it is convenient. Van can use shards to stealth? Why weren't characters using shards to stealth in this other situation? Shards can block a barrage from a gatling gun? Why weren't characters using shards to protect themselves in this other situation? Etc. They introduce a new character who is the strongest jaeger in history (despite having never been mentioned before by the many jaegers and martial artists we've interacted with over the past 10 games and 1,000+ hours). He aims a laser gun and pulls the trigger and characters praise him for his "strength". Cloud computing can apparently increase your powerlevel now (lol). Shizuna can successfully copy Rean's spirit unification ability on her first try just by looking at him for 5 seconds. Gramhardt - a normal guy with no superpowers - can intimidate a powerful Anguis to back down with the story having done nothing to justify it (what was stopping Harwood from just dissolving Gramhardt into black goo on the spot?). Etc. It's hard to take anything seriously.
Characters
Aside from Bergard, I didn't really like any of the main party. They're not unlikeable like most of the SSS but they just weren't captivating like the Sky cast or the old Class VII. Several of the characters also felt very derivative of older Trails characters. We have yet another delinquent bad boy. We have yet another little jaeger girl who was disowned by her corps. We have yet another ninja maid working for a big weapons manufacturer with a mysterious backstory. We have yet another teenage tech prodigy (though fortunately Quatre isn't anywhere near as obnoxious sueish as Renne or Tio... yet. Fingers crossed for his backstory reveal in Kuro 2). We yet another demure daughter of the country's democratically elected executive. We have yet another famous female performer who has a secret identity as a masked criminal. Even Van becomes a rehash of Rean towards the end of the game as well. Bergard was the only one who didn't feel derivative, and he was pretty interesting in and of himself, being a retired 69 year old man who is trying to take it easy and is touring the world while he still can.
Kuro suffers from FF12 syndrome: I found the secondary cast like Dingo, Marielle, Alvis, Maxim, Daswani, etc, to be more interesting, and I wish the game had been about them. Van/Dingo/Marielle had more chemistry than the main party members of Van/Agnes/Aaron. It's really disappointing that Alvis was never playable. There were several moments where I thought, "Yes! Alvis is finally going to fight with us!" and then it didn't happen.
Of the three disciples, Hamilton is disappointingly boring. Albert had the classic kooky mad scientist with sideways hair look, Schimdt had that old professor look and was interesting due to his curt and amoral nature, but Hamilton is just... a kindly old lady? Huh?
Aesthetics
Your average Calvardian town.
If only the rest of Calvard was beautiful like Oracion.
The models and lighting look nice. The character cut-ins are now 3D. Character designs are generally good or okay. Sadly every town except for Oracion (and to a lesser extent, Longlai) looks like ugly modernist architecture.
Music
Most lackluster Trails OST thus far. Nothing ear-gratingly bad, but I only found a small handful of tracks worth adding to my favorites playlist. I also wasn't a fan of the anime pop song that was used for the true final boss. A far cry from CS1 and CS2, where most of the OST was really good.
Setting
Calvard feels small, despite being touted as "the biggest country in Zemuria" (a lie easily disproven by looking at the map). In CS1 and CS2, you only explored the Eastern half of the Empire, and you heard about these places in the West that you didn't get to visit: Saint-Arkh, Jurai, Parm, Hamel, Ordis, etc. It made the Empire feel vast. However, in Calvard, I've been to the four corners of Calvard in just one game. The only places left to go are the trading port of Messeldorm, the village of Anchorage, and the airbase mentioned in Reverie. The writers will have to pull never before mentioned, suddenly important cities or bases out of thin air in the sequels.
Lorewise, Calvard is undercooked. In this game, I have learned more about the new foreign countries of Elsaim, Valis, the Holy Isca Empire, the Khurga village, etc, than I learned about the country in which the game is actually set. Comparing Kuro 1 to CS1 is an embarrassment. We knew way more about Erebonia in the 90 hours of CS1 than about Calvard in the 110 hours of Kuro 1. We knew about different emperors and what their rules were like, about different ancient heroes like the Eisenritter or Roland, and ancient catastrophes such as the Dark Dragon, but in Kuro we only know about the revolution (which we already heard of in Crossbell and Cold Steel) and that's it. Kuro 1 is setting up another Calvard vs Erebonia war arc, yet after 110 hours I still can't tell you who Calvard's military leadership is. In CS1 we had Generals Vandyck, Zechs, Craig, as well as Victor and provincial army leaders such as Rufus and Albarea. Who does Calvard's army have? No one. We know Gramhardt has hired foreign mercenaries like Marduk and Ikaruga, but we don't know of any actual Calvardian warriors who are loyal to the state—Zin certainly isn't—or generals. Three new pieces of military equipment are introduced (fodder for Rean to carve up in Kuro 3) but we don't even know how many armored divisions Calvard has, or if they even have armored divisions. We don't know how many military installations Calvard has either, as we don't visit any and none are named.
I like that they're going to do the Erebonia vs Calvard war arc again, though it is hard to get excited for Gramhardt as the villain. We've already had two warmongering demagogues, and Gramhardt isn't very charismatic or intimidating compared to Osborne or even Dieter. He hardly has any groundwork laid for him. Dieter was a successful businessman with lots of connections and lots of money to throw around, and Osborne had 14 years of governorship under his belt, but after 110 hours of Kuro the writers haven't really justified Gramhardt's power and supposed hypercompetence. I don't buy that this guy who was a soldier in the army and just got elected this year holds this much influence over all of these underworld organizations. Still, I do hope we finally get the war arc that CS4 botched. Rean's Tyrfing wielding a sword vs Gramhardt's Zyklas using a hybrid of fist weapons and arts should be a fun fight.
Miscellaneous
I'm glad the writers introduced a new character to do the riddle puzzles instead of bringing back Bleublanc for the Nth time. I thought Percy's puzzles were fun. I just wish you could prevent the sidequest objective markers from appearing on the map, since they spoil the experience.
Master quartz (now called Hollow Cores) having voice AIs is a nice touch.
I like how my party members follow me around in the overworld outside of battle, though I wish NPC guests like Marielle also did that.
It's nice that I can do all bonding events (now called Connect Events) in a single playthrough.
It is disappointing that you can no longer scan enemies and spin their models, nor is there lore on them you can read.
I miss the post-fight skits. Really gave a sense of camaraderie between the characters and some of them were really funny.
PC port
Overall great, except that for some reason the game stutters during some S-craft animations (namely Van's, Feri's, and Aarons, and maybe a few others I'm forgetting) when v-sync is turned on. With v-sync turned off I get no stutters but I do get screentearing which looks bad. I do not have a Nvidia gsync compatible monitor so no idea if that could have fixed the problem. I have a Nvidia 3070 Ti. Kuro got a patch yesterday so this may still get fixed.
TL;DR
- + Good visual fidelity, nicer presentation
- + Combat is serviceable enough
- + Chapter 5 was overall entertaining
- + Secondary characters were good
- + Comedy, might have the most gags of any Trails game I can think of and most of them landed for me
- + Voice acting
- + Overall good PC port (except for the S-craft stutters)
- +/- Main party is inoffensive but not interesting (except for Bergard)
- +/- Lackluster soundtrack for a Falcom game
- - Boring boss battles
- - Visually every location except Oracion and Longlai was ugly; not a fan of the modern art direction
- - 110 hour long game but only the 20 hour long Chapter 5 was engaging.
- - Meh villains
- - Sloppy writing
- - Too many NPCs and they update too frequently, really slows down the game
- - Calvard is spiritually bankrupt and unlikeable compared to prior countries
- - Woke
4chan has finished their fan translation of Kuro 2, so I will be playing that once Durante releases his PC port (probably next year I'm guessing), but I am not invested in this arc like I was in Sky or Cold Steel. Hopefully arc 5 will course correct. The setting of warring villages in the dying East will certainly be more interesting, though that won't matter if we're saddled with the same fundamental writing issues that are plaguing this series. The decline of the gameplay and the music is also worrying.
