The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 - PS4 Review

Welcome back to Erebonia, a land once yours to explore with your classmates, now embroiled in a civil war. Participate in intrigue, side-questing, monster extermination, and giant mech fights. Join Rean in his adventure to reunite his fellow classmates, and maybe scrounge together some form of resistance against the heavy handed generals participating in the civil war.

Before getting into the game itself, for those returning to Trails of Cold Steel 2, you can like in Trails of Cold Steel import your data from the PS3 or Vita for some bonuses. For those looking for their clear data of Trails of Cold Steel, the original import bonuses are back though they are nothing really ground breaking. After talking with PY who loaded data from Trails of Cold Steel before going into the second chapter, it seems like there's a bigger bonus for returning players than new ones going through the series for the first time.

The story of Trails of Cold Steel 2 picks up right after the ending to Trails of Cold Steel. For those unfamiliar with the first game, there is a plot summary for you to get caught up with the previous events though you may not be as invested in the characters. Continuing from where the previous game left off, Rean awakens in the mountains alone after escaping at the end of the first game. Striving to reunite with his friends, he embarks on his journey to bring the butcher squad *cough* party from the first game back together, meeting new people along the way, as well as some memorable faces, whether that be a good thing or not.

The battle system from the first game is largely unchanged, at least for the most part. You still have your turn based battle system starting up after colliding with enemies on the field map. You have your normal attack, your character specific craft skills that take CP to use, which you recover through attacking enemies, and your magic art skills that take EP, which doesn’t naturally regenerate. You still have your link attack follow ups and “bonus actions” when you’ve stored up enough points from follow-up attacks.

What is new is the overdrive ability. When first starting out, anyone linked to Rean is able to go into an overdrive mode with him, which gives three attacks inserted into the turn order for the two partners that are assured to unbalance the enemy, allowing you to perform follow ups. You can unlock this for other party members by finding these blue chests scattered throughout the field. Beating the boss from these chests allow other party members to use overdrive when linked with each other instead of Rean.

Additionally, the “rock, paper, scissors” mech fights have now become more prominent, with a few additional features. While the main concept of choosing an area to attack that will unbalance your opponent is the same, you now have more skills available to you. Your teammates are now also recognized as party members for the fights, and can cast spells and will allow you to use a special finishing move if you stock up enough unbalance points.

In the long run, not much has really changed from the original game in terms of how you play. You still play in “chapter” installments, although this time they’re sort of grouped together in chapter halves. You have a portion spent in the town you use as your base of operations. Here you can interact with your party members, building your bonds and learning more about your friends. You can help out the townsfolk, do some snowboarding minigames, or explore the monster infested mountain out back, and maybe get some fishing in.

When you’re all set to head out, you journey out to either find your missing classmates or complete whatever you have set as your objective. Generally this means visiting a location from the first game now changed by the war, and helping out the locals while trying to get Laura the Obliterator and Fie the Ninja, er, I mean, your classmates back together. So off you go, fighting the monsters in your path, fishing in unlikely locations, and general side-questing while exploring the familiar and new at the same time locales. If you recall areas from the first game, they may have changed from what you remember, with some new areas to explore and collect all the treasure chests from.

Good news for those who found the cheese strategies from the first game, most of them still work. The quartz system is still around, only instead of unlocking nodes, now you upgrade them to allow you to use higher rarity quartz, and most of the Master Quartz have also made a comeback. Those new to the scene, Master Quartz act as a sort of “class mod”, enhancing some of your stats and giving you some arts and skills that you can use. The Master Quartz can be upgraded by having them equipped during battle. As they level, the skills they provide will increase or get better, and you are given access to more arts.

The normal quartz act as sort of “equippable magic”, as you can slap quartz on your “grid” to allow the character to use the associated spells in battle. Some quartz have passive effects as well, such as giving stat boosts, or allowing you to see treasure chest on the field map. This provides a lot of customization options for your party, as you could technically make your warrior into a healer if you really wanted, as ill-advised as that may be. As I mentioned earlier, most of the cheese strategies involving quartz set-ups are still available, so all you (myself included) who turned Laura into a walking death tank, or Fie into a ninja that never got hit and got seven turns to the enemies’ one, you can still do that if you want to make some of the bosses a joke.

So are there any differences in the PS4 version? Compared to the PC version, which I also played, not really. In terms of content and key gameplay, nothing has been added. The console port does, however, feature additional voiced lines, a Japanese language option, and the function that should have promoted someone ten times over say, the turbo function. For those of you on console who didn’t get this option previously, turbo mode allows you to move four times as fast in battle and two times as fast on the field map. This also applies to cut scenes, so those going for a new game plus run on nightmare will appreciate this mode.

Trust me when I say the turbo mode is one of the most beautiful additions to the PS4 port. I almost always have it on, not because battles are boring or I want to speed through the game, but sometimes you just REALLY don’t want to spend two hours farming money to buy that new weapon or to level enough to beat that boss that’s been rolling you over for the past forty minutes. You can also “skip” actions in battle to speed up the fight, but I found I didn’t notice if my characters got status infliction if I did that, although the option is nice. The graphics are also all nice and crisp, which I really noticed coming from my PC version that for some reason refused to display the “blurred” effect correctly. So now I can see all of the anime-esque stylized character models in HD instead of “ugh”.

Is it worth getting the PS4 version if you already own another version? Probably not unless you’re a hardcore collector aiming for a special edition. Is it worth getting in general? I’d definitely say yes. The game runs smoothly, the music is still as great as I remember, with some of my favorite battle and field themes, the characters are interesting, and the battle system is both traditional enough to not give someone a meltdown, but also has enough unique properties for me to not call it a clone of another game. The game also blatantly tells you each time you hit a “point of no return”, which is super handy for finishing everything you want to do and not getting peeved because you can’t get back to a town. Overall, I would definitively recommend giving this JRPG a shot, even if you haven’t played the first installment.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation 4
Developer(s):
Nihon Falcom
Publisher(s):
XSEED Games
Genre(s):
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 3
PC

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Richard

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

After much waiting, the sequel to Falcom’s Trails of Cold Steel has arrived to PC in North America. Continuing exactly where the first game left off, it’s time to take up your sword once more, as you do like Ike and “fight for your friends”.

Fair warning, Trails of Cold Steel 2 assumes you at least know about the events from the first game, but does give you a “synopsis” if you don’t. That being said, this review will probably be full of spoilers if you haven’t played the first Trails of Cold Steel. The second game picks up right after the end of the first, with our main character, Rean Schwarzer, waking up on a mountain outside his hometown of Ymir a month after he lost what was basically a Gundam battle and got separated from his classmates. With a civil war going on, Rean vows to find and reunite all his lost classmates, with the help of a few new faces, his new mech Valimar, and the talking cat Celine.

Cold Steel II, like its predecessor, is a very staple JRPG, with anime style graphics, a turned based combat system, and a lot of leveling to do. Not too much has changed from the gameplay choices from the first game, as both the flow of the game and combat remain largely unaltered. Gameplay will consist mostly of “rest days” in Ymir, where Rean can improve his affection rating with his comrades and complete some sidequests, and action days where whatever your current goal is will dictate where in the country of Erebonia, or perhaps beyond, you set off to, helping the locals, beating up monsters, and finding your friends.

If you have clear data from the first game, you can get some bonuses at the start of Cold Steel 2, and it will actually affect some of the cut scenes as well, giving flashbacks or comments on things you’ve done. There are a couple of nice quality of life changes, such as the log book that keeps track of your quests, character notes, food recipes etc. It’s been refined to make viewing its contents a lot easier.

In terms of field exploration changes, it feels a lot easier to get strikes on monsters to perform advantage attacks, and you now have a double attack in case you miss, or you have multiple boxes to break. Combat has also remained largely unchanged, although there are some additions and new combat types, and the quartz and orbment changes had me a little disheartened. As in the first instalment, combat is turn based, with an indicator for when your turn is and when your turn will come next based on your actions, and you still have your scroll wheel for: attack, crafts (which still use cp that you get from attacking), arts (which still use EP), items, running, and movement (for changing your position on the battlefield).

Two changes that have been made are evolving crafts and overdrive mode. Evolving crafts are pretty straight forward, as it just means that your previously learned crafts will get better as you level. Overdrive mode is a gauge that will fill up from combat and post-battle bonuses. Once full, you can activate it to get three turns back to back, all of which will “unbalance” enemies, allowing you to chain attacks. Additionally, you heal a portion of your health, EP, and CP. It’s really useful to get rid of enemies quick, or if you’re having boss problems.

About the quartz and orbments, no longer do you have to unlock slots, but now you have to “enhance” slots, thereby allowing you to set rare or super rare quartz, depending on slot level. While an interesting revamp, I felt as if you also get a lot less useful quartz in this game, and I found a lot of the time the “specific element slots” that characters have would be largely a hindrance early game, since the associated quartz that you have access to aren’t all that useful to start off with. I did find the bosses and enemies to at least start off a little harder than the first Cold Steel, although I got hit with status effects a lot less in Cold Steel 2. By the way, whoever decided to change what the Evergreen gives you when equipped, I’m not happy with them.

New to the game is the mech battles, which function kind of like rock paper scissors where you generally have the advantage in. Enemies in mech battles have a “weak point” depending on their stance, which is the head, arms, or torso. Hitting the weak point allows you to perform a follow up move. After three successful follow ups, you can use a finisher. Your allies can help out your mech in battle as well, and while you don’t get experience, you will get link exp.

The story line was engaging, and the characters all have their own unique quirks and aspects that you can grow to like or hate them at your leisure. The only real complaint I have about the story is that no one seems to care that you’re bringing a talking cat around. I guess it’s done off screen, but I was REALLY hoping to see people’s reactions to Celine. While you still aren’t given enough free time to see all the friendship events on your first playthrough, like the previous game, the new game plus option lets you spend points based on number of times cleared to carry over stuff or get bonuses for your subsequent playthroughs, including maxing out the potential bonding points.

I found the soundtrack for the first game to be great, and Cold Steel 2 hasn’t let me down. With crisp graphics and less clipping polygons from the first game, I’m really pleased with the improvements, especially the fact that I no longer have a weird box with the shadow effects stuck in the upper left corner of the screen. With solid graphics, a great soundtrack, interesting characters, and an interesting story, Trails of Cold Steel 2 is a great addition to the trilogy.

Game Information

Platform:
PC
Developer(s):
Nihon Falcom
Publisher(s):
XSEED Games
Marvelous USA
Genre(s):
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 3
Sony PlayStation Vita

Source:
Provided by Publisher

Article by Richard

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Memorable Music in Gaming #32

I don't do these very often but lately I keep finding myself returning to The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel OSTs. These latest in the series have some incredible music tracks and more often than not I would find myself prolonging a battle just to hear the track start to repeat itself.

Battle music in an RPG can either make or break it. Now while that may come across as a bit of a melodramatic statement, do you really want to spend the next twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, so on and so forth hours listening to a track that drives you nuts? I didn't think so.

Trails of Cold Steel

Battle Theme 1 - The Glint of Cold Steel

The main battle theme of Cold Steel the first time I heard it I just let it run and still found myself doing so hours later down the line. It's a track that picks up and lets off in appropriate amounts while switching it up and not being overly repetitive on the same few notes making you want to simply end it as fast as possible or mute it. I swear I don't have the repeat fifteen minute version in my favorites...

Battle Theme 2 - Tie a Link to Arcus

With the length of Cold Steel I was surprised (though shouldn't have been) to see that there was more than one battle theme. Taking a different tone from the first, this second theme makes the point that things have become more serious and is used to emphasize that point.

Risking Everything, Here We Stand

Finally from the first entry is my favorite of the musical tracks which starts off the adventure before going back to the beginning. Risking Everything, Here We Stand was just as epic at the beginning with no knowledge as it was thirty of forty hours into it when you get back there and have all the details.

Trails of Cold Steel 2

Battle Theme 1 - Heated Mind

Having moved over to the second entry the first battle that picked up I remembered asking myself what the hell was this? I had honestly expected the original battle theme to continue though after a few battles it grew on me and also showed that the music can change to accompany the rest of the changes.



That's it for now! Hopefully a bit of battle music was enough to get you through the last day of the week before jumping into the weekend!

Article by Pierre-Yves

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The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II - PS Vita Review

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold II takes place a month after the end of Trails of Cold Steel. Civil War has broken out with the Nobles and the provincial army wanting to take control away from the Imperial Family and have launched an all-out attack in order to take it by force. Caught in the middle is the once experimental Class VII of Thors Military academy that have been split up to the four corners of the empire. Armed with nothing but his sword, a black cat named Celine, and the Divine Ashen Knight, Rean makes his way across the lands in order to find the rest of the class in order to hopefully help restore the peace for the sake of the people caught up in it.

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The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II - PS Vita Preview

The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II takes place a month after the events of the first. Waking up on the cold hard ground of a mountainous region, Rean's memories of the previous events slowly come back to him. Rushing off to find his classmates who were left behind, Rean slowly recalls the previous adventures that led to this point and the picture they paint is not a pretty one.

For anyone who hasn't finishing Trails of Cold Steel reading ahead may be a tad spoilerific. Actually it'll contain extreme spoilers, so if you are still in the middle of playing or finishing the first, then come back unless you really want the ending spoiled as it is a huge part of the beginning of Cold Steel II. Loading up from the main menu however for anyone planning on jumping in now, or if it's been too long since they finished it, every chapter of the original are available through recap session with screenshots and narrated text in order to catch up . Having only recently finished it, I was good to jump right into the main story with my save data from the first which granted me some starting bonuses which was nice.

Tiny Recap

Since the beginning it's been six months. Rean and those of the experimental Class VII which put both Nobles and Commoners together have seen good times, bad times, hellish situation, and heartwarming ones. Each month saw practical exams, Rean running around for the student conseil, exploration of a mysterious school house, hanging out to improve friendships, and field studies that split up the class into two and sent them on learning exercises throughout the empire.

All that is gone now with civil war having broke out and the imperial army getting pushed back by the Noble faction, as what better way to deal with "mundane" tanks than with bipedal mechs that no one has seen before? Betrayed by one of their own who the whole time was the leader of a terrorist organization, Crow slacker extraordinaire and second year that became part of the first year Class VII, leads the charge with an sentient ancient mechanical knight who puts all the new shiny toys to shame. Trying to fight him with his own that was discovered on the bottom floor of the old school house Rean stood no chance and one of the classes' familiars a black cat known as Celine orders Valimar, Rean's Ashen Knight, to get out of there as fast as possible before he is destroyed and Rean is killed.

Now

Waking up on the cold hard ground isn't pleasant for anyone, especially when they don't know that an entire month has passed. The Ashen Knight is out of energy, Rean isn't in the best of shape either as whatever damage the Knight feels, so does the pilot. Taking back up his blade and setting off regardless of what Celine says, Rean heads down the mountain towards his hometown which isn't overly far. At least not in the grand scheme of things.

Trails of Cold Steel II, like its predecessor, is a huge title in the ways of older JRPGs which is great. At the same time however because it is huge, to properly cover it, we are giving you a taste before the main dish arrives. Coming straight from the first title there were some changes and improvements that were immediately noticeable while others I had to think… was that there? The interface has changed slightly and the overall performance is just a bit smoother than the first was.

Arts and Crafts both make their obvious return into play but not without a bit of a change themselves. Starting at level 40 regardless of what your level was at the end of Cold Steel, all Orbment Slots in your Arcus have been opened and characters have access to the crafts that you would have finished the first with. Having all the slots opened however means that something new needed to take its place. Instead of having to unlock them, slots can now be upgraded to allow for higher level orbs to be "used properly and unleash their full potential". This means that all the higher level orbs need to be put into upgraded slots instead of simply slapped in and they work. Being that the basic leveled ones are really all that are available for the first few hours, that's something that we can live with.

Ending Cold Steel with the Ashen Knight was something that I may have squeed over as I am a huge Mech fan. Being out of power due to having saved Rean's life I didn't expect him to make an appearance any time within the first few hours but I was pleasantly and happily surprised that Rean gets to pilot him. Combat even for Mechs is still dual leveled turned based. The first has all the characters according to their speeds and then the delays of their attacks while the second is possible bonuses such as Craft and Health Point recovery or guaranteed critical hits that you want to make sure you either get or have an S-Craft ready for.

When it comes to the Mechs however, it becomes a bit of a game of rock paper scissors. Enemies can take different stances and knowing where to hit them becomes important. There will be some trial and error in order to get it right but once you do it's basically a critical hit adding in the original concept of the bravery points, which are still present for non-mech battles, into effect. Once three of these have been acquired the next strike attack on a weak point will allow for one hell of a massive attack helping your enemy along to oblivion that much faster.

The first dozen hours alone have shown many improvements over the first in which only some were touched, we need to save something for the review don't we? But so far Trails of Cold Steel II is definitely an improvement on the already great Trails of Cold Steel. I've you've played the first and were on the fence about picking up the second? You shouldn't be. It may not start off with as much as a bang as the first, but with the hours already invested being able to continue this tale is great.

Game Information

Platform:
Sony PlayStation Vita
Developer(s):
Nihon Falcom
Publisher(s):
XSEED Games
Genre(s):
RPG
Mode(s):
Single Player
Other Platform(s):
Sony PlayStation 3

Preview by Pierre-Yves

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The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II Release Date Confirmed in North America

We have our soft spots for Trails games (PY Note: especially me! Go check this afternoon's review of the first one), and for good reason. Which makes this announcement a welcome one.

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