Trails of Cold Steel II: A Sequel Done Right

Image from PlayStation Store

Game: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II

Developer: Nihon Falcom

Publisher: Marvelous USA (XSEED)

Platforms: ps3/ps4/ps5, PS Vita, PC, Nintendo Switch

Reviewed on: ps5

Release Date: ps3 & PS Vita version December 22, 2015 (North America), ps4 June 4, 2019 (North America)

(Click to expand Table of Contents)

Introduction

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II is exactly how a sequel should be done. I bought this game before I finished the first and I don’t regret it. The only potential spoilers are music and party members.

Story

The story picks up right where the first one left off. If you just finished the game then everything will be fresh in your mind. If it’s been a while since you’ve played, there is a summary you can read to refresh yourself. I think that the story continued to be good and built off of the first one well.

Game Play

In terms of game play the main difference is that you are no longer at a school. You will still get missions as well as side quests that you can complete. There are mandatory side quests needed to progress the story as usual. Just like the first one there are hidden missions. Since it’s a direct sequel you start out at level 40 with the skills you obtain in the first game. Things like items and arts do not carry over. You also have a bit more freedom when it comes to forming your party.

Just like the first game the battle system stays the same. Arts still function the same as well as combat links. The only difference is that slots, where you equip arts, can now be upgraded. Some arts have a level requirement in order for it to be used, for example a level two arts needs a level two slot.

Music

Just like the first one the music is great. I’d say the soundtrack in this is better than the previous game. Below are some of my favorite tracks. As usual don’t read the comments as they contain spoilers.

There are other songs I want to share, it they have spoilers in the thumbnail. Major spoiler if you have not played the first one. I like to keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible.

Positives

I think that this game is perfect as a sequel. It picks right back up directly after the events of the first game. I think that the way they did the levels and the skills worked perfectly as you’ll already be familiar with them since you just used them in the fist game.

The characters still work very well and builds off of their development in the previous game.

Negatives

The biggest negative is that at a certain point in the game there is a hard crash. From what I’ve seen people discussing, the crash appears to only occur on ps5. I would highly recommend not playing Trails of Cold Steel II on a ps5 if you have one. In order to get past the crash I had to change the voices to Japanese and skip through narration. It sounds odd, but it fixed the issue.

This is an issue that has existed for a year and has not been fixed. Because of this it will factor into my rating for the game. The game is listed as compatible with the ps5, so you would not expect to run into issues.

Other Thoughts

I would highly recommend playing the first game before playing this one. Even though there is a summary you can read of the story and characters, it’s hard to feel the full impact of the story unless you play the first one.

Conclusion

I think this game was a great example of how to do a sequel, at least when it comes to RPGs. What did you think of Trails of Cold Steel II? What did you like and not like about the game? As always thanks for reading and if you spot a mistake let me know. I’m currently playing the third one while also playing Tales of Arise.

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