i have been playing more the last few days (tearing myself away from balatro and sdvx) and the game really does just delight every time. (minor wall of text lies beyond)
all of the side quests and stock times (one on one companion character hang outs) are so good. like it's just a little optional thing where you hang out with one of the other characters but somehow they all manage to feel very meaningful? like i remember in cold steel series a lot of them were like. iunno very forgetable mostly and also just a big time sink to see them all when there are. like 10 every week. i used cheat engine to see every single one of them. i'm not doing cheat engine for kuro (im lazy) but i don't feel that bad about that since i'm missing like. two scenes. and i get the feeling that like i will be able to fill all the friend meters without cheating for the first time lol. it's kind of neat when it's like if it's the most recent game and you're waiting and you are like this game is fun to play. i will ng+. but for me catching up still (they have announced the next game and i have to finish kuro, play kuro2, and play nayuta before that one) so ng+ not on the menu. iunno it's different than before. the scenes i'm missing are really good but. i don't feel like cheating to see every single one. i think bc the game made really good changes in other places i'm expecting it to have improved on this aspect as well. so i'm playing on the games terms this time to see! and if it stinks i'll cheat engine for kuro 2 lol. well actually there's almost certainly at the end of the game a thing to see scenes like that. and if not i have like 200 saves lol. so i can go back if i feel like it!
anyways i rambled enough. today i did "pointing at the screen" for an ice cream stand lol.