(though overall I'm not the biggest fan of the Estelle/Joshua/Renne plotline).
best part of the series, yo
-The SSS have a really nice dynamic as a team - in part it's probably due to the size, but no one feels extraneous, and even though Randy jokes around a lot his serious side is a lot more apparent than, say, Olivier's or Crow's. The guest party members are also great - I'm not big on Rixia (though that could easily change in Ao) but I really like Noel and Wazy, and it was nice seeing Dudley slowly warm up to the SSS even if he's kinda tsundere about it.
I've always thought the SSS had far and away the best group dynamic of any Trails main cast. They're all great characters that interact well with everyone else and nobody feels extraneous. Rixia definitely gets better in Ao but I was also a pretty big fan of her in Zero to begin with. Probably a top 5 character in the series for me.
-Pacing had its ups and downs. Chapters 1 and 3 seemed kinda weak in that regard.
I do agree with this. Despite chapter 3 having a contender for best scene in the entire series it's not one of my favorite chapters overall. Parts of it drag on for quite a while and the climax doesn't really have the impact that it should for me.
Probably had the weakest antagonists in the series? Which kinda makes sense given that the game focuses on political corruption a lot so you aren't gonna be fighting a lot of interesting people (aside from Garcia, he was alright), but still. The big bad ended up being very one-note after the reveal and honestly the entire shift to dealing with an evil cult felt a bit abrupt.
I like the cult as an organization but yeah I don't really like the actual antagonists much. Fortunately I think Ao improves in this regard. ---
Oh woops. Putting Advokaiser in my sig like this until I think of something more clever