This is a hard one to review because while it's long, it isn't a complete story. Taken by itself in a vacuum, nothing happens. You're rotating between Free Days (side quests that end up being go here, talk to someone, go there talk to someone, repeat) diving deeper into a dungeon, test combat with a goal for bonus points, kicked off to a new location where you do more tasks for villagers in the new area, then "plot" happens. That happens every chapter, in that order. I'm also struggling to call it plot since it's less events moving the plot around and more framing the political landscape and introducing different parts of the world. It makes Cold Steel 1 feel like less of a game on its own, and more of an extended prologue.

If you don't mind a glacially slow burn, go for it. Just use a guide if you're not prepared to talk to every character during every time period, because there is a lot of hidden content that will be missed.

My playtime was close to 120-ish hours, I just left the game idling a lot.

This is a hard one to review because while it's long, it isn't a complete story. Taken by itself in a vacuum, nothing happens. You're rotating between Free Days (side quests that end up being go here, talk to someone, go there talk to someone, repeat) diving deeper into a dungeon, test combat with a goal for bonus points, kicked off to a new location where you do more tasks for villagers in the new area, then "plot" happens. That happens every chapter, in that order. I'm also struggling to call it plot since it's less events moving the plot around and more framing the political landscape and introducing different parts of the world. It makes Cold Steel 1 feel like less of a game on its own, and more of an extended prologue. If you don't mind a glacially slow burn, go for it. Just use a guide if you're not prepared to talk to every character during every time period, because there is a lot of hidden content that will be missed. My playtime was close to 120-ish hours, I just left the game idling a lot.