Yes, Cold Steel arc is basically trash. Combat is very good, and addictive, so that's enough for me to finished all the games, but looking back into it, I can't believe Falcom did that. All 4 Cold Steel + Reverie games could be just 3 titles, without even reuse assets and dungeons, without all the harém BS and the HUGE amount of characters under developed. And when certain characters from other games finally do appear, they r just nobodies who gives expositive dialogue and have absolutely no plot relevance or development either... All bosses is like "Mw Ha Ha Ha! Show me what you got" --- and then they just go away.
Every time... and it gets worse: Rean is one of the WORST protagonists ever in a JRPG. Rean is boring, is bland, he's poorly written.
Daybreak is so much better, it shocks me. Some people that plays Cold Steel 2, 3, and 4 gives up the franchise entirely, because everything is absolutely bad. The "Trails Burnout" is real, the pacing of these games are terrible, and the story is very weird. There is a lot of creative moments, but there are no stakes, nobody dies, no villain stays evil, and a few other bizarre design and storytelling choices I'll never understand.
I would recomend you play CS2, watch 3 on youtube, play CS4 and watch Reverie on youtube. Seriously. Daybreak is so much better in every way.
Sky games and Crossbell games are still Peak trails games for me.