The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II – PC Review

Genre: RPG
Developer: Nihom Falcom
Publisher: XSEED Games, Marvelous USA, Inc.
Release Date: Feb 15, 2018
Edited by KnightAvenger

JRPGs are like wine in this modern day of gaming, in the sense that they are all over the place, and where you may want a simple red, that red may come in ten to twenty different varieties. This stated, fans of The Legend of Heroes series got their wine in many ways, with the follow up to the fairly acclaimed follow up to Trails of Cold Steel: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II is an anime JRPG developed by Nihon Falcom, later released by XSEED Games and Marvelous USA, Inc., that stepped up its game with subtle improvements across the board, throwing even more twists into the picture but bringing a few new issues alongside it.

Being flown away to safety when not wanted, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II kicks off soon after the ending events of the first game, but I will admit there is some loose stuff, story wise, I wish had been explained better. We, the player, take back the role of Rean Schwarzer, who has been asleep for a month’s time, as we are given some backstory from a cat familiar. This cat is known as Celine, a familiar to Emma from Class VII, who is apparently a witch, but, nonetheless, Rean immediately wants to take off and find his friends to end the battle from the last game as a true team. Celine quickly shuts that thought down, as she explains that it has been one month since that battle, with over 60% of the empire now in control of the hands of the Noble Alliance, including the academy. Rean, still stuck in his ways, continues down the mountain with the familiar Celine in tow, until a mysterious magical knight comes down upon them. The two are able to hold it off, but in the nick of time, an arte ability from a bracer by the name of Toval saves them from certain doom and brings them to the village known as Ymir. It is not long, though, before the magic knight wants a round two, as Rean, Toval and younger sister Elise give it what it wants, with Rean giving it the final blow in the mechanical knight known as Valimar. This does not stop evil from knocking at Ymir’s door, though, as when Rean and the others return to town, they find it has been attacked by a Yeager corp, leading to the kidnapping of Elise and remaining royal blood who was staying in the village. Rean uses this as fuel to drive forward, agreeing it is time to resume action, as Toval decides to follow along, begin the hunt for the remaining members of Class VII and start our world-saving tale. I will end my synopsis here, as the story can be very spoiler heavy, with a few twists and turns you won’t see coming which I want to leave hidden.

While I, ultimately, found the story here pretty well executed in terms of pacing, action and sequence building, the few loose ends left hanging there did leave a slightly sour taste in my mouth. These loose ends, while not world ending in any way, do tie into some story segments in the game and felt like they are leaving them open, with intentions of the third game in the series to come. My only other complaint would be the silence issue between some talking scenes still present but with a vengeance that makes it more noticeable than the prior story.

Jumping into combat, sword in hand, the gameplay of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II follows nicely from the first game, while trying to make a few subtle improvements to the formula that I will talk about as we go on. First, let us talk about the ARCUS system and the biggest change to that, being the ability to power up the slots on your unit. These upgrades are a new feature, and while their effect isn’t very useful early on, it makes a major difference late in the game. As the more powered up the sockets are for each quart, the bigger benefit you get for using that socket. Following this is the combat system, which, while is relatively unchanged, did get one nice upgrade, the UI. The UI is much more manageable now, with a rotating wheel to go through your various actions, including the ability to cast Artes on a whim. The Artes still have a time delay on them, which some might consider an issue, but there are items in the game which can reduce that timer, like the accessory Toval has from the start of the game. Finally, let us talk about the Artes as a whole. I feel like I talked about the changes to the Artes system fairly spot on in my prior review of the first game, but something I felt they improved upon was the linking system. The linking system affects both Artes and combo attacks in the game, using a special type of resource that allows you to attack as a secondary strike or an all-out attacking, similar to that of Persona three or four.

The last form of combat that is all new to this system from the beginning of the game is the Valimar combat. Sometimes, in the game, you will be put into battles where you can use the knight Valimar in combat to fight knight units. While most early game fights with Valimar are in the unarmed form, armed form becomes available later and is a ton of fun, as your move set can become limited, at the exchange of being able to shell out much stronger damage per auto attack and any attack dodged allows for you to counter-attack for additional damage.

Bringing in the reigns, the presentation of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II stays true to the anime-style 3-D graphics and catchy, but sometimes, lacking music. Visually, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II is quite impressive, as you can tell they tried to improve facial movement during some cutscenes to feel more realistic and more variety in the backgrounds. The backgrounds, while mostly snowy at the start, become more varied with forests, fields, and old ruins, just to name a few choices. This, along with the camera controls to see the world around you to help find items or generally explore, made for some interesting and fresh locales. The character models follow suit from the prior game, being very animated and giving expressions as the event is happening but now feel less stiff in some facial expressions.

Keeping with the more modern music scheme, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II, soundtrack wise, keeps many songs from the prior game, with a few new ones added in for good measure, but still misses the simplicity mark. Musically, I enjoy the soundtrack given in this game because the more modern twists of some classic songs does grow on you with the piano and winds carrying the musical score. However, I would have liked to see some throwback pieces added in, if only just to change the tempo of combat up, as the one song used for combat does start to grow old after some time. The sound effects stack up as well as before, adding one or two new effects to add to the variety and making for a nice change in some scenes.

Overall, I found The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II to be a great follow up to a game that put so much on the line with its changes although it does not perfect anything in any given way to be fair, which helps the game stand out from other JRPGs on the market. The excellently written and told story, push for more emotional impact on the characters, continuous improvements to the combat and ARCUS systems, care of use with the more modern anime details, continued usage of the detailed backgrounds and character models, and semi well-fitting soundtrack for the score make this a sequel worth its grain of salt.

Pros:

• An excellently told and written story
• More impact emotionally from the characters across the board
• The continuous upgrades to the combat and ARCUS systems
• Solid forty hour plus long play time
• Usage of the more animated, 3-D art style
• Usage of a semi well-fitting soundtrack

Cons:

• Still some fighting among characters but less irritating
• The story leaves a few loose ends I would have liked to see resolved

DarkLunarDude gives The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II a Drastik Measure of 9.0 out of 10.0 (90)

For the price of $39.99 (USD) on Steam, I can heavily recommend this game to most JRPG fans, as the game and story are memorable and a welcome addition to any collection. I do recommend having played through the previous game, though, first, as the game takes place right after the first one ends, so you might be confused.