Kuro no Kiseki 2 Crimson Sin - Review

Lol, they buried Aaron...

Genre: RPG
Developer/publisher: Falcom
Platform: PS4/PS5.
Official Site: https://www.falcom.co.jp/kuro2/

Release date: 2022-09-29.  

Okay its that time of the year! unfortunately while I greatly looked forward to this game

I did not enjoy it as much as I had hoped! first of all this is a direct-sequel to kuro no kiseki

so I don't recommend starting with this game. Sadly when this game launched

there was a bunch of drama Llama due to chinese streamer that rushed the game

and finished it in a day or so and a lot of fans were disappointed.

After playing it myself I can sort of understand why!

I will say this here, I tried to be positive but this game is far from perfect

this is not one of those cases where sugar coating it is gonna make it better.

Anyway if you don't like what you're reading close the tab and

go play it for yourself and form your own opinion.

There won't really be many plot spoilers in this post, though some notes

about random scenes but nothing with full context.

Pro's

- Story has an interesting enough premise and it is good as a direct-sequel.

- Rion and Celis are goat, Nadia and Swin are cute little angels.

- BGM was good, tho mostly boss fights.

- Fishing minigame is back and better than ever.*

Con's

- This game does very little for the trails series as a whole.

- Dumb bad ends with time travel gimmick yet no consequences for it.

- We hardly visit any new areas.

- Characters get too careless and OOC in a way that does not fit.

- Minigames for the sake of having them.

I'm going to start with the things that I liked!

I loved spending more time with Rion and Celis and learning more of them

they're also Bergard's disciples/students and they go way back. Sadly Bergard couldn't

be around much in this game but these guys have our backs most of the time, especially Rion!

I liked the scene where Celis kicked a door and Rion went like oh my that's quite sturdy isn't it?😅

or the one where Rion covered Celis's mouth as she was about to spout obscenities.😂

I Need more cheeky guys like Rion in my life...

 Someone at falcom may have been a Eugeo fan though as Rion's S-craft is quite the reference!

and well he ended up being like a true bro too so... hmm!

Cuz Bergard isn't present at all in this game and I wish Rion/Celis replaced him in full

but they ended up being more or less guests that join at fixed times.😭😭😭

A timeless classic...

 Nadia and Swin are also back and they're so cute and sweet, most scenes were fun with them

also plenty of fun moments with the cast in the game, it wasn't all bad.

Okay you may be like what does this have to do with any of the plot? well it doesn't

the plot is mostly about the eight genesis, Quatre also gets more development

as his backstory was actually pretty big and could definitely not be told before.

Unfortunately this game may have been about the eight genesis but it did a terrible job

at even explaining wtf they even are... instead we get an entire chapter full of bullshittery

but hey just in case anyone misinterprets this sentence i'll add that atleast it wraps it all up

pretty well and there was a reason why garden master wanted the dang things... and why red grendel exists. So even if this game does nothing for the series as a whole it is good as a sequel.

Elaine has a nice ass.

Sadly I thought Elaine would have more presence but more often than not it felt like Swin

was the second protagonist and she was even sidelined for a whole chapter.

Haha atleast Elaine's final connect event was kind of nice, super fanservicey but uhm

while that is nice its also nothing definite regarding her relationship with Van.

 

Van is a good MC, kuro 1 has showed that but in this game he and the crew have

gotten careless, add into the fact the dead ends are just shock value

its like they tried to turn this into a visual novel! Maybe trails becoming a VN

wouldn't be so bad, perhaps this way they could actually finish the story as a whole. /s

As for Shizuna... she was cool as always but yet again this wasn't her game!

also I didn't really like her costume this time cuz it looked like she robbed a store 

and was caught in the act when going for the pants.😂

 

Anyway if you expect Kuro no Kiseki 2 Crimson Sin to make big progress for the series in general

then drop those expectations cuz you ain't gonna get it! but as a sequel or fandisk to Kuro 1?

yea it is good in that sense but it also doesn't do too much for any of the cast.

In short, Kuro no Kiseki 2 can be a disappointment *if you expect to much in the grand scheme of things.

 

More rambles after the jump, edit: I won't force anyone to read any further as I can sound

kind of harsh, cuz despite loving parts of it I did not enjoy the game as much and actually

expected more of it. Please note that I do not think this game is that bad...

if you really don't like what you're reading then I urge you to play it for yourself

maybe you will like it more than I did! thus my score of enjoyment overall

is a 6/10 this is my personal rating for the game.

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Unfortunately this game has a high amount of gore / death as well as dead ends

and also a time travel gimmick with unfortunately no real consequences for it happening.

We can't have our protagonist and heroine die within the first hour of the game can we?!

Makes me wonder if someone at falcom was a fan of re;zero or played shuuen no virche or something

thankfully it wasn't as despairing as virche but it did have me going like OMG why?!

most of the time I was either shocked at wtf happened or laughing hysterically

and it got especially bad in chapter 3 which also wasn't the games highest point and honestly

it peaked at the end of the intermission and the way ch3 progressed was not a good look.

Its just all those damn dead ends can get to a person. 

Of course story wise, it all made sense of why it had to be that way cuz someone

was butthurt and wanted to correct the timeline cuz he got his ass kicked too hard centuries ago.

I won't say any more but part of me just cannot stop laughing at this.😂

Sadly some things aren't explained and like I already said there is no consequences

for any of the time leaps and I think that is what bothered me. Cuz sure it keeps you

on edge but characters going OOC so much they'd do things they would never do

just cuz ''mind control'' or get careless too much just for a minute

of shock value for a dead end is in my opinion not good.

Its gets worse to the point of characters keeping their memory of previous leaps

and just being able to carry on as is. Of course once more there is never any consequences.

I know alternative timelines is not new to this series both zero and coldsteel 4  have a dead end

of sorts but it was never treated as such nor overused like kuro 2 does.  

Dead ends really do range from being dumb, careless to just downright sad. A good example

is chapter 1 side B: They died and time leaped oh well... hmm maybe we need Zin?

Rip again somehow... clam dip flow is old and busted! why not walter? awww yea now we talking!

NICE, lmfao cuz at this point I was losing it.

 

The flow of the game is similar to Hajimari and it can be quite unpredictable

but due to the no consequences for the time leaps I don't thing it was as good

and more often than not while I wasn't appalled or hysteric, I was like here we go again!

I also usually play games on normal but due to how fillerish it got I was like fuck this shit and 

switched to very easy cuz I didn't want to deal with the nonsense battles in ch3. At the time I had

like 30 hours of playtime from playing on normal, by switching at that point to very easy

I managed to clear the game within a reasonable time; 45ish hours.

Not having to waste time on 10+minute battles saved my sanity but yea if you go

through marchen garten and partake in other optional activites, sure it can be 70 hours.

Also most of the main cast in kuro 1 already had their development and couldn't

get much more, said characters also don't stand out much meaning; they cannot do

much with the kuro cast anymore thus leading to that filler arc. I'd like to believe

it is in falcom's best interest not to use multiple writers cuz at the end of the intermission

they had gold which turned quite litterally into dirt for the majority of the next chapter.

If there was any development for the old cast it was all in the connect events...

 

I got it stuck in the floor, LMAO.

 

 Gameplay is mostly the same, L.G.C alignment is still there but mostly for sidequests

and quests are pretty much the only way to get money aside from fighting.

There's a lot of minigames but they all felt like padding to me especially 

the ones like following an character around while not get notice. >_>; 

I didn't enjoy opening locked chest either due to having to play a minigame as well

due to the fact it had a time limit and it felt pretty tight and stressful just to get some treasure.

We don't get to visit many areas but the ones we do look pretty.

Moving on Marchen Garden is an optional content but I didn't really feel like doing it

mostly because of the gacha minigame in there and it works like this:

You can obtain shards and Mare can use them to smash a cube and then you get rare items.

Unfortunately for things like costumes you need 3 of the same item before you can get it

which means unless you do it a lot or get lucky, chances are very low and IMHO the system

is worse than hajimary because of it. Since the pool of costumes is so big, Judiths golden blood

costume ended up being at 2/3 for a good while cuz I kept getting other things.

I honestly thought Hajimari was more forgiving and it wasn't too difficult getting things

from the rng pools. Oh well, it is nice however that you can have any character to join your party

as you explore the marchen garden floors. Especially nice in the case of Rion and Celis.

The only content where you can actually play as whoever you want; Marchen Garten.

 Sadly even with my short time in Marchen Garten I am already sick of the cube...

which honestly isn't a good look. I've always disliked gacha and I think this doesn't

belong in a single player RPG. What happened to actually unlocking things?

well I guess locked chests aren't so bad then huh.

 

Also while it is good you can unlock preorder costumes and the like from marchen garten gacha

shenanigans, some of the swimsuits particularly Shizuna,Elaine and Renne's are shamefully

recycled from Laura,Alisa and Elise back in coldsteel. Not to mention the racing and suit costumes

look almost the same on some character, it is clear to me falcom did not put effort here.

Edit: They seem to still be capable of personalizing dlc costumes and there

was improvement on week 2's release of dlc! but I saw a leak of the rest of the dlc costumes

and they were pretty much copy pasted costumes with slight costumization for all the girls... sigh.

Good if you're into that but those costumes weren't for me, I did like the guys suits though!

 

 Other than that I did like the fishing minigame this time! mostly cuz its no more button mash

there was also a basketball minigame but I ignored it, not sure why they bothered

other than to take a breather from the story which at times wasn't going swimmingly. 

There was also an activity during the intermission where you had to drive a car through

the island but as Van and Aaron took the Queen Shizuna out for a ride it ended up being

a bumpy one as the controls for that care were rather crude for lack of better word.

 I didn't do any of the activities more than once since it was too repetitive and I just wanted

to move on with the story. If you don't get it yet, yeah you can get a lot of play time out of this game

and there is a lot to do, if you can be bothered but I personally didn't see much point to it

aside from the marchen garten thing.

Final thoughts!

Lmao, Bergard just in time for a group picture tho why not add his disciples as well?

Unless you really like bad ends and time leaps Kuro no Kiseki 2 Crimson Sin could be a miss!

Other than that this is the sequel to Van and Agnes's tale and it is good at wrapping that up

for the most part atleast sigh falcom is gonna be falcom huh? yea plenty of things are up in the air.

I tried my best to enjoy what I could but it wasn't enough... the writing was pretty much

on the wall that said this game was rushed or had a hard time in development.

I mean the prequel had issues but most of it were masked by the fact it felt fresh

due to being the first game in a new arc, with the sequel it really showed that yearly

kiseki games mean that they don't have enough time to make the most of it.

If anything the things that I enjoyed the most were the characters not the overall story...

at first I thought it was fine but chapter 3 ruined it so bad I had to drop the games

difficulty because I didn't want to deal with the nonsense battles and constant dead ends.

Aside of the rion/celis bit I did not enjoy that chapter all that much

but it did get better as it progressed leading into a fantastic chapter finale, it is just sad

that you could probably omit half of it and still get the intended result.

Honestly to get straight to the point which this series is getting hilariously bad at, the story

might be good as a direct-sequel but absolutely terrible for the kiseki series as a whole.

Making me even wonder what the series even is any more! Maybe falcom forgot the lore 

along the way like they forgot to add a picture of Kevin in kuro 1 and are just winging it.

Basically from my understanding trails is about a group of heroes who faces what is

right infront of them and sometimes these things end up actually being really big. Over the course 

of the series we've seen and learned a lot of zemuria but there are still many questions

and this game makes almost zero progress towards the big picture and at the end of the day

if this continues I think the trails series is done as they beat too much around the bush.

I know it is unrealistic to expect them to do it all in one game but yea almost a whole chapter

being literally filler? no new areas of calvard to explore except an island which I dubbed

open-world island. TBH I was sick of that island by the time that chapter ended cuz its big.

Others are just expansions of areas we already visited and not by much, Messeldam was nice

but kind of bland. Then there's the minigames but it felt like its mostly for the sake of having them.

At times I literally groaned every time I had to open a locked chest or had to follow some npc

without them noticing me, also don't get me started on that baloon minigame.💀💀💀

Basketball minigame may be nice... but idk, pretty sure fishing was where it was at.

I'll ninja edit this in that thankfully locked chests seemed to be minimal...

 

I don't want to complain too much but hmm I think unless you really REALLY

like Kuro 1 then I can recommend this game but if you don't then its an easy pass for now

because let's be real, this game is good at being a direct-sequel but not much else.

I am sorry, despite me liking the little moments with the characters and some even made me 

smile and laugh, there's just not much else I liked about this game. I never drop the difficulty

in a game unless I seriously don't want to deal with BS and this game had it.

 

Once more I know it is unrealistic to expect everything to get explained

since this is Van and co's game but yea Kuro 2 is no perfect work.

Its clear there might have been too high of expectations, anyway its better to not

have too high expectations from this point onward and just enjoy the games for what they are/present.

I'm not sure if I even want another trails game any time soon due to how messy this game was.

Maybe this was falcom's intention... or they really just couldn't do much for 

Van's story as is so they had to padd it out with such nonsense.

I mean... an entire chapter filled with OOC/what if's due mind control...

most of kuro1 cast already had a decent amount of development but this game adds very little.

Maybe one day Elaine...

 Anyway the burn out might be real and this game really pushed me over the edge

dragging out an IP for this long really isn't good, I hope falcom realizes this

*its getting stressful trying to remember everything even or what is even in store.

Sigh... the only thing that heals it is the fact Rion and Celis were so great and to some extend

Nadia and Swin being cute little angels! but lmao you know its bad when at the end of the day

when all is said and done I don't even really care about the main cast that much even if it is their story. Its clear falcom couldn't do that much with the characters of this arc to the point that

recurring characters also steal the spotlight like Nadia and Swin did.

Lmao they really were the other protagonists weren't they? 

To make it worse, I hope you like doing connect events or made a backup save to view all

cuz all the good stuff was in there! huh that's just like zero no kiseki huh? including

the stealing the spotlight part. Ive been thinking a lot about this game post writing this post

but the recycled content, the filler chapter... Kuro 2 really felt mot like an add on to kuro 1.

Finally I want to point out the disrespect towards Rion and Celis in the last chapter, they were

basically treated like Elaine was in Kuro 1... even though they would definitely help if need be

but Van doesn't even call out to them even if they were right around the corner.

History repeats itself... perhaps we really need them as the protagonist next game and in doing so

maybe we'll get to see Arteria too then and perhaps we'll actually get to the heart of the matter.

Its already confirmed the church is evil for hiding important info anyway huehuehue

but not necessarily that evil.  I know some of this is just wishful thinking...

I wish they panic followed the group into the final dungeon...

Oh well aidios amigos till next time, this game wasn't all bad but not really that great either.

I think Xenoblade 3 despite its own issues was a more well-rounded game than whatever this was

Edit: cuz no matter how much I look at it this is so rough around the edges its not even funny 

as you can see the burn-out for me is real and while I will probably pick up kuro 3's rumored

final chapter just to see how Van's tale ends, it'll probably be my last kiseki game.

 ~

Anyway plenty of other games coming out, speaking of i'm kind of looking forward to valkyrie elysium

it might not seem like the greatest game ever but I did enjoy Tsuda-ken and akira ishida in the demo

and I sure do not mind a spiritual successor to valkyrie profile. Then there is also star ocean 6

and I still got to finish Cupid Parasite which I put on hold for this game. 

 

There will be free DLC update that will add more chara's that were previously guests +

more floors to MG, unless they do something wow for the plot I probably won't update this post for it

since I am waiting for all the DLC to come out to have one last spin with this game. 

As of 20-10-2022 i've made my final edit to this post and there is really not much more to say.