This is mostly because this is one of the rare examples of a game where it’s save is useful that is going to be useful in the near future. It really doesn’t fit here, but hell. I have things I’d like to say about Cold Steel in general, mostly about Rean and the whole harem/dating sim thing, so I might as well give it a full post. After a quick thing about completion and some short things on the game’s content, this will mostly be about me ranting about how Cold Steel 3 kinda shot itself in the foot and how glad I am that after the newest game in the series, they are dropping the whole fake dating sim thing.

Okay, completion. For Cold Steel 3, this really just means having what you need to get max bonuses into Cold Steel 4. The S rank on quest/side quest progress is for the most part very easy compared to the previous entries, as almost every quest is either obviously marked or outright given to you. As long you check each map at least once per day segment, you should get either A+ or S fairly easily, guide or no. Compared to 2 and 1, its just way easier to not miss things. The Enhancement rating for the school one is also easy, just kinda weird. As far as I can tell, it tracks four things. Bathing in the dorm scenes, monster book progress, character note progress, and book finding progress. While I’m not 100% on this, I think as long as you do those you are fine here too. Character note is probably the only tedious and annoying one to do, and really the main reason to use a guide for the game.

Then there’s Rean’s level. On beating the game, you will likely be level 65~. You need to be 75 to get the full bonuses into the 4th game. In the original release of the game, levels didn’t carry over so you had to grind and since the final dungeon’s best grinding spots get locked out as you progress through it, you end up with horrible spots to grind for hours to gain the 8~ or so levels you need before using the 2 auto level up items the game lets you buy per run. Our release lets you carry over levels, but since nothing gives good xp until the end game you might need 3 runs to get enough to hit 75 with the auto levels items unless you fight everything again. The obvious solution? Buy more auto level items. The ones on the real life money store are the best way to hit the level you need, and it kinda disgusts me a bit.

The final save related thing is a short scene with Alisa, the kinda main heroine. In 4, she has two meeting scenes based on something in Cold Steel 3. I think you just need to do her romance moment in her final bonding event, but there’s basically nothing that actually mentions anything about this. I made two saves for either version, but I really wish I was sure that the one for her worked. Not that I care for myself, I don’t like Alisa and I really don’t like how her romance moment is both the most passionate one, and the only one that matters that you do it in 3.

I guess I’ll mention what fanservice the game has next. Sara’s whole design is probably my favorite bit, do to the whole slit allowing you to see a good deal of her ass and her abundant cleavage. As for the main girls for this game, they all get swimsuits and some light jiggle. There’s actually a lot of costume stuff, more then I usually see in games nowadays without paying. That’s it beyond the very in character but still weird bad girl groping another villain to orgasm thing.

Moving on to the main focus of this post, my complaints. I’m going to start with the one not Rean related thing that bothers me. Death kind of felt impact-less by the end, do to how many “dead” people were up and walking around. When the only truly dead characters to this point are two side villains, death became cheap. So when some characters “die” in the ending, part of me really hopes they actually died just so death stops being cheapened. It’s really hard to care for a plot where everyone just never actually dies despite constantly getting close.

Okay, Rean. Let’s start with how wish fulfillment he comes across as. He’s an adopted son to a dukedom, with loving parents and a sister who has a crush on him who is also friends with the crown princess who also has a crush on Rean. Rean has two mcguffins super powers that make him one of the most important characters in the story. He is the center of his class, being a bridge between every conflict to such a degree that the class feels less like a group and more a bunch of people who interact with Rean and maybe each other once in a while. Every half important female he meets will develop a crush on him and he has the chance of acting on that crush, kinda.

It’s that last one that kind of ruins the Cold Steel story telling for me. The dating sim elements Falcom cribbed from Persona actually introduce a big writing issue when it comes to developing the characters. Mainly that no one in the main cast can have a relationship that is important to the plot that moves forward. Not a single main character has a love interest outside of crushes on Rean. Even the male friends Rean has have no romantic interests, ever. While this makes sense for most of them to be to focused on their individual lives over romance, Jusis is the second son of one of the highest ranking noble families in the country. He is basically at marriageable age in a school filled with noble women who would be aware that he is an important person to form a connection with. This has nothing to do with his character. Honestly Jusis is probably the only member of Class 7 who does things outside of Rean’s influence that matters, and is the only male to have a meaningful relationship with a female member of Class 7. Romantic or not, they are the only two. In fact, Jusis is the only member other then Rean to have more then 1 person is Class 7 he actually interacts with and has a notable relationship with. They all talk, but Laura really only interacts with Fea. Emma and Alisa barely interact with anyone outside there attendents. Elliot and Gaius only talk to Rean. Machias fights with Jusis and not much else. For being a class whose relations to each other make them stronger, they actually barely interact.

Sorry about the tangent, Rean kind of ruins everything about the character relations in Cold Steel. Like I said, romance cannot be a part of the main story because of the dating sim elements. But even with the dating sim stuff, the romance basically doesn’t exist. End of 1 is a date, end of 2 is watching the moon, 3 is a bit of flirting(unless you pick then Alisa…). Those are the end of the romances as of the third game. Rean has literally kissed one girl at most depending on who you pick. For the mechanic that brought me into playing the game, it basically does nothing and is used for nothing. Rean has had the same relationship with the members of class 7 from the first game to the end of the third with the only exception to that being Emma do to her reveal in two, though since she barely does anything that reveal was pointless anyway… And this issue will continue with Rean. They can never have him pick a partner without drama, so he can never be written to move forward in that part of his life. But all the characters need to be written as possible options for him, so they can never move on either. This is actually a big thing that Persona does that bothers me to. Because of the continuous worlds both games use on top of letting you pick a romantic option, but the companies not having the resources to actually reference your choices or not wanting to commit to them, nobody that you can romance can ever move on with that part of their lives. Despite all the shipping Persona 4 has, those characters can never date in anything canon. They can only be shipped, because the world is constantly advancing so you can’t just pretend they get together off screen and live happy since they will be referenced again and won’t be together. They are effectively alone forever because of player choice, and it bothers me big time. This isn’t an issue in most VN’s since they are one shot stories, but in continuous things its an issue.

Rean as a character is also just to Mary Sue. His one legitimate character flaw is his sense of self-worth, which leads him to basically attempt to throw his life away at a drop of a hat in this game. 1 handles this fairly well, since his overpowered center of the universe self isn’t fully awakened by then, but as of three he just attempts the noble sacrifice all the damn time. Its not interesting to have him be told to stop that in every chapter and him never learning his lesson. Rean is basically the most important chip the good guys can play, him dying is way worse then his students. Horrible or not, that’s the truth of the matter.

A bit more on class 7 in 3 specifically that bothers me. They all went there separate ways in 2 to find ways to move the country forward without red tape and stop the villains plans. Despite this, none of them actually help stop the enemies plans. They offer fire power when Rean needs it, but during the few times where they attempt to bring together there knowledge together to figure things out, they know barely anything Rean doesn’t. I know show, don’t tell is important, but what where these people doing? None of them offer anything actually useful. It’s new characters that actually advance the plot for the good guys. So the entire point of the time skip achieved nothing. They got stronger. They got cell phones. They didn’t figure anything out. The villains plans that required the good guys to act exactly as they did go off without a single damn hitch.

3 is the longest entry in the series, but I can’t help but feel it’s also the weakest of the Cold Steel set. 1 has the excuse of needing to set the stage, but is interesting because of how many new people and the culture itself that you learn about. 2 has the war. 3 is basically 1 again, with the same world, just a few years later. The problem being that what changed in those years was not enough to carry the length of the game. There’s a lot of retreading old ground(with using old characters to help pad) and the new school just didn’t feel as interesting as the original Thor’s Academy. Which is probably because it is legitimately a ripoff/copy in-universe.

I think those are my main rant topics. Honestly, while I enjoyed a decent chunk of the game I couldn’t help but feel deflated with how formulaic it was on top of introducing so very little. The locations are fine, interesting for sure, but what you do in them is basically the same for all 4. This was less noticeable in 1+2 because the story structure felt less repetitive, but in 3 it just is. It’s just way to padded out for what it wanted to say for what was suppose to be Rean’s second to last game. I know 4 goes overboard on God Rean, with way more harem nonsense so I hope that’s at least funny. I’ll be glad to be done with Cold Steel and hopefully Falcom will write something that matches what I’m told of Sky’s/Crossbells stories.

Save for Cold Steel 3

Save 0 is final boss in my second run, ignore it. Save 1 is the festival with everyone at max for character bonding achievements and scenes. 4 is the groping scene between two women that is not consensual but really does show the two’s characters off better then it should. 5 is the final boss, nightmare, from my first run for achievement.

1– clear save is with Alisa(I hope). 102 is without. Both have all the other bonuses for import.