The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II (2014)

Rating: 9.5/10

Mini Review:

It's better than CS1 in most ways. We got into the major conflict, making the story faster and more exciting with less downtime (but it certainly has that because it is Trails). Though the gameplay is very similar, there is evolution in the orbments and combat, so that's welcome. For 40 hours (doing no side-quests) it was incredible, then after Finale it became a mixed bag with times where I thought about just quitting and watching a YouTube video. But I still loved it as a whole.

Full review:

So I'll talk about the good first.

When it comes to the gameplay, it's not a game of drastic changes, but minor improvements. With the orbments, all the slots are unlocked and you upgrade them as you see fit. With the combat, it's mostly the same only you get to play as a few different characters and sometimes their Master Quartz give them neat advantages. You still need to consider placement, try to get advantages at the beginning of combat and build your characters well. The core gameplay loop is still fantastic.

Also, you get to have Sara as a main character for most of the game which is cool. AND you pick a romance option, though admittedly it's less exciting than one might think.

So now we slide slowly into the criticisms, but we'll start with something neutral first. Make no mistake: this is still Trails. The game lets you speed the events up but if you're bothered by excessive talking look elsewhere. Yes, these people want to talk about their days and lives. Yes, they will sometimes abandon urgency in order to tell their opponents (who they're in a life-or-death struggle with, especially when they are TERRORISTS) that they respect their skills or whatever. And yes, the game wants you to SEE towns and dungeons so they have to give you multiple camera angles.

And yes, even though I think the story is much better than the first because all the worldbuilding is done, it does still take its sweet time. You have to accept that this game wants you to FEEL like you're in these lives (yes, I used the "feels like" meme). What I mean by that is, if you're going to, I don't know, go talk to the villains in their airship, then the game literally wants you to walk around and talk to all the major villains.

That's good and bad. Perhaps Trail's biggest strength can also be a weakness. It does more than any JRPG franchise I've played to make you immersed in the world and the characters. Everybody has a story. It's almost like a cozy game in some sense in that you have to live these lives. And I like that. I enjoy the bonding moments. It did succeed in continuing and evolving my investment in these characters. I did think hard about who I wanted Rean to romance, even though you can tell it doesn't matter that much. It doesn't alter much besides a couple scenes where they are alone because, I assume, Falcom didn't want to deal with the headaches of being like Mass Effect or some shit. For the record, I chose Laura. But I think the criticism still remains true that they need to edit their shit. It's weird because I can sit here and say that but also, I don't know if the series would be the same without it.

However, much like Cold Steel 1, there is a chunk of the game that let me down. It comes after Finale. Spoilers imminent.

You have two chapters: Divertissement: "The Occupation" Epilogue: "Winter's End"

I won't be too harsh on Divertissement because I know fans would have been happier to see these characters. Since I've played it out of order (as I wait for Trails in the Sky: 2nd Chapter Remake to come out), I don't know who these people are. You're supposed to, so I won't hate on a game for doing this when it's my fault for not catching the crossover.

With that said, it's still fucking weirdly paced. In Finale you avert an apocalypse attempted by an ancient entity after climbing a huge castle and fighting a who's who of villains that have been taunting you and sometimes fighting you all game. THEN Crossbell is annexed by the Erebonian Empire and Rean, after finally besting Crow and doing good boy things, decides to join the Erebonian Empire. So you're left being like, "Ah damn, really?" It's not the gut punch that Cold Steel 1 was, but it's still a huge character moment that I know gets explored later. Plus you see things like Crossbell news and whatnot. It's all very coherent and intriguing.

Divertissement feels weird after that logical conclusion. It's neat because it offers an alternative view of the conflict, of the people being occupied. And I enjoyed it on that level. But did we need a dungeon? Nah. It could have been reworked into the final cutscene. I mean shit, the game doesn't care about making you watch shit for 20 minutes any other time, why start now? The biggest annoyance comes at the Epilogue. I'm not lying when I say I considered stopping and watching YouTube. I didn't because I wanted to have a completed save file for Cold Steel 3, but holy shit was I ever close. Before I say why it's so bad, do know that it's not the entire chapter. So Falcom thinks it was a good idea to force us through a 16 level randomized dungeon where the enemies get progressively harder. This is post-game type shit, not shit you make mandatory after multiple logical places for it to end. Every 4 levels you fight a boss. Why wouldn't it just be... I don't know, 4 levels? I just ran through it, only stopping to beat up enough enemies to fill my CP bar. I didn't open every treasure chest but when I did, I usually got lame gear. It's a completely unnecessary dungeon.

You know how I know that? Because the final boss tells you so. It's described as a hollow trial, with a setting akin to the final boss in Cold Steel 1. Only in Cold Steel 1 it was a "what the hell?" moment (in a good way). Here, you know what the purpose is? One final trial for Class VII to prove themselves as a class before they go their separate ways. Only we just got finished with the aforementioned apocalypse. You thwarted an ancient being, fellas.

I'm hating pretty hard on these two chapters but I want to make sure it's known that I didn't HATE them. I hated the final dungeon. But I was either tolerant of or liked the rest of it. I just think they could have condensed the two chapters and it would have been better. Play the hits. But as it is, I suffered ending fatigue.

As of now I'm giving this a 9.5/10 even though I spent the last few paragraphs being negative. I can't ignore the 40 hours or so where I was absolutely entranced by this game. I was playing it whenever I could. On days off I'd play 8-12 hours. The pull is never that strong with games that I don't legitimately love. And I do believe that, warts and all, it's better than the first one, which I gave a 9/10. If I did this, I'd probably rate it like 9.2 or 9.3 but I don't rate like that because it's irritating.

So with all that said, I'm looking forward jumping into Cold Steel 3.

In general terms the Cold Steel sub-series from the mainline Trails has been a great experience.

I enjoyed the transition from the 2-D/isometrical experience that In The Sky and Zero/Azure delivered to a more 3D aesthetic.

There is a lot of love put into the game and you can see that. Seeing the continuation of the story threads started on CS1 was intriguing. I also appreciated they moved away from the School Life format in some sense, because otherwise it would just be the first game all over again.

The characters arcs are very anime-ish but I think they delivered everything they went for. The tropes are really an excuse for easy story telling and I think the game designers made it work.

The music score is great and for such a long game I noticed that I actually loved the songs rather than being tired of listening to them. That is not easy to achieve honestly.

I did not particularly liked the game design decision made for the last dungeon – I believe the difficulty spike felt like a grind-wall to get to the actual “actual” ending. I also think the New Game Plus options kind of fade into oblivion given the fact there are two more games in the series. I would hardly consider going through all of that all over again just for slight changes in scenes or extra content.

I LOVED the Divertissement chapter, I thought it was very clever to add that particular connection to early games and it really hooked me in asking myself what is next.

And last but not least – Jusis best husbando!!!111

PS: The ending song... THAT is a song.

The first game ends as the civil war starts, and the sequel sets the tone brilliantly. Being separated from your classmates and going to places to reunite with them is a nice way to build lots of stuff, from their progress as characters, the plots and events throughout the country as the civil war goes on. Again, soundtrack fits nicely that some of them being reused is ok.

And then the ending gives me a twist that I didn't expect at the time, but would eventually make sense as time goes on.

Officially half way through the Cold Steel saga now!

I fell in love with the first game, and this one is no different. Where the first game slowly built to its apex over many, many hours this game opens at a sprint. It carries the first game's momentum and drives the stakes even higher.

The battle system is more of the same, not really a major overhaul there. One major quality of life improvement is that you can call a horse or a motorcycle to help speed up your traversal.

My only complaint comes towards the ending. It feels to me like the emotional impact was sacrificed to make room for game play and while I can see how that works from a technical standpoint from a story telling point of view it's not super great...

There are also a few moments that feel like they're building to a climax and then the good guys and bad guys just agree not to fight. It can be a little dissatisfying at times and confusing at others. Like, a scene can be set up where the heroes are at the villain's mercy and the bad guys will just... Let them go?

So anyways, here's the SPOILER WARNING but I'll still try to be vague.

In the final act of what I'll call the "political story" you witness a major death, learn the true parentage of Rean, and learn the motivations behind the game's major villain which also reveals some of the history of Erebonia. These scenes are campy and anime as fuck, but that's what makes them fun.

These revelations should have also been the ending of the game. This is the pinnacle of the 50 hour story you've just fought through, the natural ending of the countless battles and journeys you and your rag-tag team of teenagers have striven for. This is the part that truly matters.

Don't get me wrong, the little teaser featuring the two guest characters is still fun (though it could have been a little easier and shorter as a set-up, it kind of overstays its welcome in my opinion but I've also not played the game that these characters come from so mileage may vary I suppose) and its a great way to slowly introduce the other games into the fold. But the return to Trista and the subsequent dungeon really start to spread the game thin.

I found it hard to be invested, I had pushed through the end, fought what should have been the final boss (I mean, it was a god damn 5 boss rush) and witnessed all the critical scenes. I know the drama of the class parting happens at the end of that dungeon but I honestly felt like the trial could have happened before the final showdown and the parting could have been emotional while also being written in after the showdown that SHOULD have ended the game. (Also, could have used some clarification on what happened to the myriad battles that happened along the way up the tower where our intrepid allies fought bravely for our heroes to push on.)

That aside, though, the journey is more important than the destination and the final dungeon is still pretty interesting and fun even if I felt it stalled out the narrative. From a game play perspective it's still a good time.

This series is the gift that keeps giving for an RPG fan like myself, how could I not give it a 5 even with my quibbles. I'll be taking a break before 3 though, I need some R&R from the fighting!

I have finished the game but liked it so much and did not want to end so while still playing I bought the ps4 version as well so I could skip scenes (you can’t) and play it again. (Sam)

Alas what I did not know was that the game was not over at all and that when finally finished it I was not in the mood to re play. The ps4 does have turbo version though which means it a goes a bit quicker but you still have to continuously hit the x button when they keep on talking.

That being said I have spent at least 160 hours on it so it’s not that weird that I want something new. That reminds me I pre ordered 3. 😂

It is a great game. 👌

Extremely long and boring game. The first half of the game is interesting but it gets boring after like 2/3 of the story and then the story drags on and on and on and on and you have to suffer another 40 hours of extremely redundant and boring gameplay where some character called "Rean" pretends to be 10 times as powerful as God could ever dream of becoming in his wildest dreams.

Some characters in the story are truly interesting but this "Chuck Norris wannabee Rean" (the main character) is extremely, ridiculously dull and boring.

With its recent release on Steam I was finally able to pick up the sequel to Trails of Cold Steel 1. The first game was a slightly above average rpg that separated itself from the pack with an incredibly complex and fleshed out nation and politics. I'm also a sucker for its Chrono Trigger-esque area attacks. That being said its characters, while serviceable and with a lot of dialog, lacked convincing relationships or any strong design, and its plot was skin deep and didn't do much with its strong setting. All in all I had a good time, but probably wouldn't have played the sequel, had it not been directly linked to the plot of the first, as your decisions carry through a la Mass Effect. Unfortunately the sequel does nothing to fix its predecessors problems and only exacerbates others.

To avoid spoilers I'm going to be a little vague on the plot, but it follows a group of military academy students during a war, as they try to come together and find their purpose and role in the conflict. Much like in the first game, the politics in play in this conflict are well fleshed out and interesting. Its easy to understand why the conflict is happening, on what side everyone stands, and how its playing out. There's a lot of nuance in the war itself, unfortunately all that nuance appears to be lost on our characters who fell like they are trotting around on a fun and wholesome adventure and not embroiled in a violent class-based civil war. The cast from the first game returns and are still charming and have quite a lot to say, but still fail to make a lasting impact or bring anything that you haven't seen before in any jrpg. They also suffer in this game from very lackluster costume design that does very little for their character.

Thankfully the gameplay loop is still fun. You go through the war completing various quests, some optional, ranging from monster hunting, item finding, and even some stranger ones like horse racing and fishing. All these activities are attached to specific locations and characters that once again help build the world, but do little to nothing to flesh out the people in it. Combat is almost identical to the first entry, with a few minor features added, which isn't a bad thing. Its a turn based rpg taking place in an open area, with an emphasis on area attacks and the ability to affect turn order. All the new features give you more options, but don't do anything to liven up the core combat. Its still fun and pulling off massive damage to wipe out multiple enemies is intensely satisfied.

On the aesthetic front, the games soundtrack is good, but not stellar. It worked and did its job in game, but is nothing I would choose to listen to on my own time. The effects in battle of attacks and damage are nice, and the environments look good for when the game was released. The character models are also passable but nothing to write home about. Much like the game itself the visuals are just good enough to work, but nothing more.

In the end I find myself feeling the same way about the sequel as I did the first. I made it all the way through, and am invested enough that I will have to play the sequel when it comes out, but looking back on it find myself dissatisfied. One of the recurring elements were throughout the game, your party would face a character they had no chance of defeating, only to be saved last second by a Deus Ex Machina. It happened so often that it removed any of the bite the games narrative had, as the danger to the cast stopped feeling real. In much the same way a solid rpg with decent characters and an excellent setting, loses its bite with lackluster design, and a very flawed narrative.

Scroll down to read the review, or watch it in video form here!

NOTE: If you have not yet played Trials of Cold Steel 1, there will be minor spoilers in this review regarding certain events that take place in that game. If you wish to go in completely blind, now is your chance. Everyone else, here we go...

Trails of Cold Steel II is a fantastic example of how far classical RPGs have evolved since their beginnings many decades ago. It combines elements from all the best in the genre, like Final Fantasy, Suikoden, and Persona, and blends them together with a world bursting at the seems with detail and imagination, and some of the best writing and characters to come from an RPG short of CD Projectk and Bioware, with a mechanical depth and level of customization that even surpasses its peers. Granted there are a few minor shortcomings, but to be frank, they could not bother me less.

Set in the fiction continent of Zemuria during a technological revolution, Trails of Cold Steel follows the story of Class VII, a select group of students from a military academy being trained for a specialized purpose. The first game followed Class Vii as they traveled around the nation dealing with the various issues of the local populace, while witnessing a larger conspiracy building up right under their noses and final exploding in that games grand finale. By the second game, the playing field has been altered quite a bit. The various members of class VII find themselves separated from each other in the midst of a large scale civil war, and must reunite in order to hopefully find a way of bringing the conflict to an end in a more ideal manner.

The story of the Trails series and in this case Cold Steel specifically, is quite expansive and a bit complicated as well. It deals with a several large scales themes of nobility and lineage pride, the nature of war, and yet it is able to keep all of these concepts in check because at it’s core, the story presented here, despite being told on a grand scale, is intrinsically personal. In a narrative driven game, especially one of this kind, one of the most important elements to get right is your setting, and making the player feel as if they are exploring a living breathing authentic world, something that the Trails series is completely unrivaled in. Honestly going into detail on why this setting is so fantastic would take a while so I’ll instead point you towards an excellent video Mother’s Basement did on the subject.

But for the purposes of this review, I can say this: Instead of most JRPGs where you’ll be traveling the world and eventually ending up in space or something to confront the demonic final boss, the entirety of Cold Steel I & II take place in the eastern half of one single nation. By focusing on a smaller scale like this, the amount of life and detail injected into every section of this world rivals even the likes of Bethesda and Bioware games.

Whether it be virtually every NPC having their own name, personality, and personal stories that progress along side the main plot, to small things like reading newspapers to learn about current events whether they are relevant to the main plot or not. And this is before we even get to the main characters, all of whom, from the lead protagonist downward are incredibly deeply and intelligently written. Even when it seems like some of them may fall into traditional tropes, they add so much more to that to make them stand out. Rean is a natural-leader all-loving goodie-too-shoes in a lot of ways, but he’s also a snarky sarcastic kid who groans about constantly being overworked and used by his lazy alcoholic instructor. Fie looks like a standard token loli, but has a knack for napping in random places any chance she gets, grows a flower garden, and being humorously lacking in proper social skills. You’d think Elliott is just you typical soft-spoken, timid best friend, but put him in charge of a musical setup and he’s a bona-fide slave driver. A major reason this entire cast works so well is that each character doesn’t just exit will their own backstory and personality, but instead have meaningful relationships with each other as well as the various NPCs you encounter throughout the game. It’s this level of detail that makes a setting and story feel as if it could actually exist, it’s that believable, even with all the magical clockwork and purple-haired individuals that populate the world.

I’m also thrilled to say my one major issue with Cold Steel 1’s narrative, it’s low start and inconsistent have been completely rectified. There is not more exploring a generic Tarturus like dungeon every chapter for the sake of the formula that drags the game out several hours more. Right from the word “go” Cold Steel II launches you right into into the plot and continues without any substantial (at least mandatory) detours along the way. Heck the one time that the game does have you spend an extended period of time dungeon crawling, it A. doesn’t last very long, and B. the dungeons themselves are interesting enough with plenty of cool loot to find, that I really did not mind it one bit. Now keep in mind the overall pace of the story is still rather subdued for the most part, but I still say that works in the game’s favor.

The actually moment to moment story events are all relevant and interesting in their own right, even if there isn’t something extremely intense happening every 5 minutes. And because of this deliberate pacing choice, when the more serious and extreme moments do occur, their impact is far more impactful because they constantly overloaded onto the audience. Instead of a world of constant despair or melodrama, this is suppose to be a setting that is fairly well off but suddenly engulfed in a large scale war without warning. Thus the people don’t know how to react to it, and it can take a while for the full effects of the conflict to be seen.

And that’s not to say that everything is all doom and gloom. Even in the midst of this large scale conflict, there is still plenty of clever humor personality and just heartfelt interactions between the characters. And that’s why ultimately this story is so powerful. It creates a world full of life, lovable and relatable characters that act like real people, puts all that risk and then gives the player the opportunity to help set everything right. A treat challenge that you want to see overcome.

The only thing that kind made me raise an eyebrow about the story was how it ended. To be fair, the ending itself is excellent and does a great job at pulling the heart strings in all the right ways. The thing is, though, is that, without giving anything away, there is a point at which the games seems to be over, and yet it them continues with a Epilogue that lasts for upwards of five hours. And I just feel regarding what happens in the epilogue, with a few tweaks, it would probably have worked better as a prologue to Trails of Cold Steel III. Or at least, the first half of it definitely would have. But as I said the ending itself is great so this is an incredibly minor thing.

Gameplay wise, this game is virtually unchanged from Cold Steel 1. It’s still turn-based combat in which you have to properly utilize your character’s positioning, as well as unbalancing enemies to gain follow up attacks, striking enemies on field for a preemptive buff, as well as things like the new overdrive mechanic. You’ll even engage in mech duel at certain points in the story which keep the fundamental combat the same, but add a new flavor to how you go about fighting, making each other feel like a well earned reward to look forward too. Cold Steel’s combat still one of the deepest and most brilliantly designed tactical battle systems in an RPG ever. Every single character has their own skills or “crafts” unique to them alongside their personal stats making every character feel unique and useful to some extent. It creates a real dilemma as to who to bring along with you from both a story and a gameplay perspective.

Of course, you still able to equip characters with orbment gems which will increase certain stats or grant them new combat as well as passive field skills. This is on top of the single “Master Orbment” that every character can equip, creating an almost pseudo job system with it. Similar to games like Final Fantasy VI or Suikoden II, this kind of system creates a perfect blend between every character feeling unique and useful in their own right, and still giving the play a grand amount of customization and personalizing their playstyle.

And now, we arrive at the game’s aesthetics, and I get to rectify and earlier mistake. You see when discussing Cold Steel one’s audio, I made two major points. One the localization was absolutely fabulous, and it still is. The amount of life, personality, and clever humor as well as the voice acting that was, if not carried over from the Japanese, at least added in after the fact are a humongous part of why this world and these characters are as wonderful as they are. However, when discussing the soundtrack, I made the claim that I thought the music, excluding a few tracks, was, while not bad, mostly humdrum and unimpressive. And maybe it was because I was just coming off of Xenoblade Chronicles X and it’s amazing score, but I honestly have no idea what I was think. TheTrails games as a whole, and especially Cold Steel 1 & 2 have some of the best music out of any in the genre, period. Maybe not the “absolute best” in the JRPG genre, considering all the heavy competition it has, but it’s definitely in the higher tiers.

The only real notable major issue I have with the Trails of Cold Steel II is a carry over from the first game, and that is the artistic direction. Initially I thought my lack of enthusiasm was due to most everything looking kinda like a generic shounen fantasy anime. I still think that may be a small factory, but even then, the designs themselves are rather distinct and creative. I think my main issues is how everything is rendered in game. Putting aside the fact that graphically this looks like it could run on the PS2, (which incidentally made my occasional framerate drops on the PS Vita version all the more confusing) the way most of the character models and world assets appear in the game just doesn’t seem to mesh very well. artistically.

The colors seem to lack and flow and a lot of the environments lack the creativity or uniqueness that say Xenoblade Chronicles offered. Maybe going for a cel shaded look or using more simplistic color palettes and textures would have helped, but as it stands now, there just exists this weird almost uncanny valley like effect with the artistry. Combine that with the rather unremarkable designs and I could understand why first visual impressions might turn some people off.

But honestly, that is about as insignificant as a complaint can get, and When the worst thing about your game is that it just looks a bit visually impaired, that’s quite a feat. The Legend of Heroes Trails of Cold Steel II is an absolutely unequivocally masterpiece, and you have no idea how thrilled I am to finally be able to, without qualifiers, say that about a game.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II is available on Playstation 3, PS Vita, and via Playstation Now for PC.