If you think you may be interested I’d suggest you check out our review of the first title and jump on board at the beginning because coming into this without any prior knowledge of the world or characters will leave you bewildered. The good news with this swift release of the second is that we are now caught up, part three has yet to be released in Japan despite the first game coming out in 2013. The game ended on a cliff hanger and this picks up straight after. This is pretty much a ‘part 2’ to The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, the game released in Europe earlier this year. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 is a tough game to review. But it is wholeheartedly recommended that you play Trails of Cold Steel first.Novemin Vita tagged cliff hanger / jrpg / legend of heroes / links / sequel / skies of arcadia / trails of cold steel by Gareth But all in all, this is a decent remaster with some welcome new features and if you haven’t played the game yet, it is a lovely adventure to embark on. There also is a cross-save feature, but I do think that the lack of cross-buy is a missed opportunity. There’s also a feature to weaken bosses, which can be a great help, but I don’t know if this was already present in the normal version. Trails of Cold Steel II doesn’t exactly look bad, but don’t expect Final Fantasy XV or Dragon Quest XI levels of graphics here.Īside from this, the remaster comes with some nice additional features such as the Turbo mode, which speeds up the game and the Japanese voice track. Especially if you look at the areas and more specifically what are supposed to be the dungeons in the game. While they did improve the resolution and the textures of the game, the graphics of the game seem somewhat outdated. As such, the PlayStation 4 is a remastered version. One thing to note about the series, is that they were originally released on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. One thing I missed though, was a sense of progression early in the game, as you immediately start with a level 45 character (or your character from an imported save file) and you don’t really get that feeling of leveling up from the start. And it is certainly advised to do this, as the bosses in this game can by very though. It certainly isn’t the easiest system, once you invest in it, you’ll discover how rewarding it actually is. This is somewhat comparable with Materia from Final Fantasy VII, and by equipping different orbs your characters get different abilities and stat boosts. To improve you characters, you will have to gather XP to level up, but also equip them with better gear and use the Master Quartz.
Linked characters can also go into overdrive which, when activated, heal them and let them unleash their attacks several turn in a row without interference.
Each character also has an ultimate attack and when creating links between 2 characters they can assist each other during battle. The game has two types of special attacks, Arts and Crafts, each utilizing its own action point system. Positioning is very important however, as many special attacks target a certain area, so you’ll want to position your characters to have them target as much enemies as possible.
The combat takes place on a 3D terrain but follows a traditional turn-based approach. When looking at the gameplay, Trails of Cold Steel 2 is a classic JRPG pur sang, but they tried to give the game its own flavor.
So Rean sets out with his mecha Valimar, and two companions, one of them a talking cat, to reunite with his friends and to find a way to end the civil war that has befallen Erebonia. At the end of the previous game, they got scattered all around the country. The story centers around Rean and his friends of Class VII.
Trails of Cold Steel II is a direct sequel to the first game in this particular series and it continues the story a few weeks after the events of the game’s finale. On second thought, this might not have been the best game to start with. While I’m familiar with Ys, I knew nothing about The Legend of Heroes, and thus I made my acquaintance with the franchise through Trails of Cold Steel II. Developer Falcom might not ring a bell, but they’ve been creating memorable JRPGs since the eighties, most notably their franchises Ys and The Legend of Heroes, most also having moderate success in the West. But aside from the big boys, there’s a whole world of smaller indie games that often don’t even get published outside of Japan. When we’re talking about the genre of Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs), franchises like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Tales of, Persona and Star Ocean often take front seat in the conversation.