The GWJ JRPG Club - Q3 2020 - The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II

A_Unicycle wrote:

Something that I remember from the first game (and something that is definitely returning) is how interesting the characters are mechanically. You don't really have a typical "tank/healer/mage" system, everyone has an intriguing mix of abilities that make them feel unique.

E.g, the third character has a gun so he doesn't need to be close to enemies, therefore he doesn't take hits. His master quartz gives him the ability to take less damage the higher his health is. He's not a tank, but he's uniquely positioned to not take damage to begin with - do you build him up as a support? Do you double down on his AOE abilities? It's really good!

I really like that aspect too, and I want to play with master quartz more in this game than I did in CS1. I ended up deciding to give my third party member Megalith for now -- the one that boosts XP. I was thinking of giving that to Rean, and may later. But having two people with earth spells didn't make much sense, and plus I find it really helpful to give Rean a quartz that boosts his CP recovery.

I have 5 guys in my party and going forward. I agree with how it is nice.. to not have the TANK, HEALER system, which has become boring imo. There seems to be ALOT and I mean alot of characters... hope it does not get confusing as heck! But so far so good.

Making Rean a CP monster is a popular build for him also because he is the second quickest character.

Question.... You know how each character has a main Quartz of a certin element. Is it suggested that I place smaller quartz of the same element? For instance.. Rean´s Quartz is fire BASED what happens if i keep adding earth or wind quartz?

I read you guys mention how to build your characters.. but I dont see how to do this just yet. So far, I have just been adding random smaller quartz, and this is obviously not the proper way to do it.

Until you start getting Rare (R) and Super Rate (SR) quartz, they basically function as slots to give your characters extra spells (arts) to cast. So Rean starts with a fire quartz that gives him a couple fire spells. Giving him a quartz that gives him the same spell does absolutely nothing, just wastes the slot. My general goal was to give physical attackers (such as Fie) more stat, debuff, or buff type skills, while the caster focused (Toval, Elliot) got the elemental attacks. I usually run two "caster" types (ones with higher base Arts Attack) and split the elements between them so that everything is covered, then the physical attackers get buffs/debuffs and maybe a couple elemental attacks in case something is really weak to them.

As for the factions and stuff, I will see if I can write up a little primer on the factions and people from what I remember from the first game. Seems like that would be useful to people. It may not be done until after I finish work today though.

Holy hell! That fight at Garrelia Fortress (with the apparent bosses of Act 1, Part 1) is tough. I had to try it 7 or 8 times before I could pass, and definitely was not able to trigger the special battle condition to gain bonus AP. I'm torn between just advancing, and going back to see if I can make it work.

Well, I made it through with the AP bonus! It only took about 7-10 more tries.

Here's a brief description of the fight, and what you need to get the bonus AP:

Spoiler:

You fight Xeno and Leonidas, two members of Fie's former Jaeger corps. Both of them hit hard, and can use their own S-Crafts; Xeno also deploys traps that inflict status ailments when they explode.

Your goal is not to beat them, but to survive for a certain amount of time -- 40 turns, I think. You get 3 bonus AP, and the battle immediately ends, if you can reduce one of them below 30% HP before the turn limit. The game doesn't tell you either of these things up front.

And the strategy that worked for me:

Spoiler:

First, I went into the battle with a full complement of 5 BP, so I could do a "burst" attack right away. I should also have entered with a full overdrive meter, but I neglected this.

I fielded a team of Rean, Fie, Toval, and Elliot, with Machias as backup.

I started with buffs from Toval & Fie (Chrono Drive), Rean (Motivate), and Elliot (Resounding Beat).

As soon as Xeno tossed out those trap arrows, I tried to destroy them right away. They tended to cause really bad status ailments like petrify, confuse, and faint, which basically meant an end to the battle right away. To dispose of them, it was helpful to do attacks with a big area of effect (like Rean's Gale, or Fie's sweeper) that also have a decent chance to unbalance. That would allow me good odds to use Burst to attack every enemy on the field, wiping out the traps. Alternately, S-Crafts can clear them. Toval's, Fie's, and Elliot's were especially good for this.

Prepping for this battle, I read that S-Crafts executed during an Overdrive don't incur a delay penalty before the character's action comes up again. I took advantage of this to pull out one of the super moves -- either Fie's or Elliot's. If I had been planning better, I would have stacked up two during an overdrive.

By the end, I had used every character's S-Craft. And near the end, as one of my characters lay dead, I called in Machias from backup so he could use his. It was clear that I almost had Xeno at 30%, and it was more important to end the fight than to heal.

It was important for me to note that once I scanned an enemy, I did not need to re-scan during a retry. Every turn was precious, and so scanning and then losing was necessary to get both the AP bonus and the notebook entry. Also, it was important for me to remember that all combat links are broken after a re-try, so I needed to re-link my characters, immediately, at the top of the battle.

My "survive to the end" strategy would have looked a little bit different. Here, I was trying to hit them hard, and fast.

Overall, the battle was frustrating but taught me a lot about the combat system. A lot of luck was involved. There were certain attempts I just could not win, whether because I couldn't clear a trap before it inflicted a terrible status ailment, or because the bosses used their super moves back-to-back.

Thanks for that write up, I will certainly use it!

I just fought the boss at the end of the prologue without much difficulty. I wonder how much of the bonus one gets from carrying over a save from the first game aids in that. Not complaining, either way.

So far, the game keeps a similar pace as the first as far as the mechanical rhythm, though things certainly started happening faster in terms of the story and events.

The bonus from carry over is a nice little bump, but does not make the game significantly easier. I nearly died at the end of the prologue, and did die a couple of times (not even trying to get the bonus AP, didn't know about it) on the battle LastSurprise just finished. This game is not pulling any punches. They expect you to have played through the first game and be familiar with the combat system to take on hard challenges right away.

As promised, here is the notables primer from what I can remember of Cold Steel 1. There should not be any spoilers for this game within it.

Spoiler:

• Noble Alliance - Lead by the Four Noble Houses (Albarea, Cayenne, Rogner, and Hyarms). Seek to keep the power within Erebonia concentrated with the noble houses, they despise commoners and are staunch anti-reformists. They have basically strong-armed all the nobles underneath them into supporting them or silence with Count Arseid being an exception. Duke Cayenne is the leader of the Alliance.
○ Provincial Army - Local military for each province in Erebonia. They are paid for by the taxes from the province and the assets of the Noble House that governs each province. They are basically the personal militaries of the Four Noble Houses.
• Imperial Liberation Front (IFL) - Lead by Crow. Citizens of Erebonia (both noble and common) that are unhappy with Chancellor Osborne and the militaristic expansion of Erebonian over their neighboring nations. All of the leaders (Crow, Scarlet, Vulcan, and Gideon) had their lives destroyed by Osborne's expansion and hold deep personal grudges against him.

• Reformist Party - Lead by Chancellor Osborne (deceased) and Governor Regnitz. They seek to reduce/eliminate the disparity between the nobles and common classes. They are also imperialistic and responsible for Erebonian conquest of neighboring nations (Jurai, aka Jurai Economic Zone (JEZ)).
○ Railway Military Police - Claire in their leader. Military force concerned with the railways that provide transportation across Erebonia. Considered an elite military force with better funding and equipment than the Provincial or Imperial armies, but with limited jurisdiction.
○ Intelligence Division - Leader by Lechter Arundel. Elite organization that works under Chancellor Osborne, the primary member Class VII interacts with is Millium, who acts as a spy for them.
• Imperial Army - The portion of the Erebonian army that is controlled by the government (ostensibly the emperor, but he has given control over to Osborne). They are broken up into several divisions, with the most prominent being the 3rd and 4th Armored Divisions. Craig the Red (Elliot's dad) is in command of the 4th Armored Division and the general from Zander Gate leads the 3rd Armored Division on the border of Nord. Instructor Neithardt is a member of the Imperial Armor (I forget which division exactly, he was at the gate to Crossbell when it was destroyed).

• Ouroboros - Mysterious faction that is basically an Illuminati type organization. Known members including Blueblanc, Vita Clotilde (Misty), and Sharon Krueger. Very little is known about this organization, although the members you encounter do state that as long their personal goals do not conflict with Ouroboros' larger plans, they are free to do whatever they want. They have influence throughout the entire world and have played a part in starting conflicts everywhere (instigators in the war between Erebonia and Liberl, fueled the events that started Trails in the Sky First Chapter's conflict).
• Prince Olivert and the Courageous - Bastard eldest son of the Imperial Family, he is seeking a path forward for Erebonia outside of both the Reformists and Noble factions. Count Arseid (Laura's father) is the captain of the Courageous.
• Thors Military Academy - An independent military school founded by Emperor Dreichels 250 years ago after the end of the War of the Lions. It is an institution meant to train the future leaders of Erebonia. Classes are divided into noble and commoners. Currently under IFL control. Decisions regarding the school are made by council composed of Rufus Albarea, Irina Reinford, Governor Regnitz, and Prince Olivert, though Olivert is more a figurehead without any real power in the council.
○ Class VII - a strange new class with mixed noble and commoner heritage. Each of them was selected to participate in the class because of their natural affinity for the Arcus unit, a new type of battle orbment.
orbment.
Class VII (pilot group) - The year prior to the official start of Class VII, the idea and curriculum was tested with a group of four year one (now year two) students: Towa Herschel, Crow Armbrust, Angelica Rogner (daughter of Marquis Rogner), and George Nome. Towa and George were at Thors during the final battle, Angelica had been forced to return home by her father due to her actions in the Saschen Iron Mine, and Crow is the leader of the ILF. George is an orbal genius and Towa is hardworking and compassionate. They are all fast friends of each other and the new Class VII.
• Bracer Guild - Basically non-existent in Erebonia thanks to Chancellor Osborne. The one known remaining branch is in Legram and headed by Toval. The Bracer Guild is an organization of citizens dedicated to protecting and helping the ordinary citizenry. They normally have free reign to operate, but are forbidden from engaging in political matters to maintain their neutrality and independence. Sara is an ex-Bracer.
Reinford Corporation - Massive industrial and technological corporation led by Irina Reinford (Alisa' mother). She split the organization into four divisions and gave them self-governance to make the massive corporation more nimble. The Noble Alliance took advantage of the situation and took over the first division which they started funneling money and resources into to produce their Soldat units based on the Divine Knight design.

Edit: Added a note to the end of Bracer Guild and included the pilot group for Class VII.

Thanks for this! I just came up against Altina, who I apparently fought in the first game but do not remember at all. She has a robot buddy like Milium but is kind of sullen? And is apparently not an Ourbouros member but hanging with them for now. I do remember her partner though, that dastardly villain

I must have zoned out for a while in CS1 because I don't remember visiting Ymir before either but the party references it when they first arrive.

It was a tough fight too, I just scraped through but didn't get the AP bonus. I don't think I can face doing it all again. Both the main boss fights so far have been way harder than anything else in the game, to the point that I wonder if I'm doing something wrong.

You never encounter Altina in Cold Steel 1. When you run into her in Nord it is the first time you see her.

As for the Ymir stuff, there is a section of Cold Steel 1 that was cut due to budget/time limitations. It's the section between Chapters 6 and 7 where Rean mentions they took a holiday after completing the big thing in chapter 6 and went to visit his hometown. The Japanese releases of the game got a drama CD, which you can find on YouTube if you speak Japanese. Otherwise you can read the transcripts here. Story 2 is apparently another drama CD for Cold Steel 2 (according to the header, I have not read it).

Oh OK, maybe I'm not sinking into decrepitude as fast as I thought Weird that the party members all seem to remember her.

Thanks for clearing that up, I've been scared off looking stuff up online since I always seem to get spoilered (?)

Yeah, looking stuff up for this game is quite easy to get spoiled on other things. I found out something I didn't want to know when I merely looked up the Intelligence Division so I could remember Lechter's name. I think he is much more involved in the Crossbell arc than Erebonia so it probably was not worth it to dig his name up, but since he has a strong connection to Claire and Millium I thought I should.

Correction to my statement on Altina above (spoiler for end of Prologue):

Spoiler:

You technically see her for the first time at the end of the prologue when she kidnaps Elise and Alfin. You have no idea who she is at this point though. Act 1 Part 2 is the first time you have a meaningful encounter with her.

ComfortZone wrote:

Oh OK, maybe I'm not sinking into decrepitude as fast as I thought Weird that the party members all seem to remember her.

Thanks for clearing that up, I've been scared off looking stuff up online since I always seem to get spoilered (?)

I only knew of it / remembered it because Mr GT Chris posted it in the other game's thread. I read it, and was glad it was cut for time -- it didn't really seem to add anything noteworthy to the plot, and would have provided a lot of text at a time I was already losing steam. That, and it contained yet another squicky "step-sibling love" moment.

I forgot to chime in when we were talking about skills and arts earlier.

Class: The higher the grade, the more damage it deals. So a Grade S does more damage than a Grade A skill or spell. I am not certain, but I think Grade C does slightly more than a normal attack would.

Attack (Set) means you can target the skill anywhere. Without the (Set) it means the skill will always center on a target (ally or enemy)

Line/Area (size)/All: The effect area is either a straight line or a circle with a designated size. Small means it's really hard to get more than 2 enemies in it without repositioning them (or they are super clumped). Large will tend to target nearly everything with good positioning unless they are very spread out. All hits everything.

Any status effects the attack inflicts will finish off the top line. Crafts maybe have on the second line something like "Unbalance +20%" which means the skill has an additional 20% chance to unbalance a target, which is what lets you make link attacks.

The Insight status is actually a really powerful buff. It increases accuracy and evasion by 50% and adds an additional 10% chance to Unbalance an enemy. This is only explained in the Help section of the notebook. There is actually a lot of good information in there.

Little update!!!

Got my 6th member and things are lookin goood! Game seems very enoyable. Still confused about all the factions etc. Wished I HAD PLAYED the 1st game

Darkhaund wrote:

Little update!!!

Got my 6th member and things are lookin goood! Game seems very enoyable. Still confused about all the factions etc. Wished I HAD PLAYED the 1st game

So, I played through the first one and I'm still having trouble telling them apart, so don't worry about it. I generally just try to not worry about it and enjoy the bigger goings-on and the interpersonal relationships of the party characters and those closest to them.

Is there any faction I missed in my little primer up thread? The game is a political drama so there is a lot going on and there is a high probability I missed something...

Wonder if it would help if Bobby quoted it into the first post.

I thought your primer was super helpful. The only thing I can think of that wasn’t covered was Class VI (the predecessors), but they’re kind of defunct after the Crow’s treachery. And I haven’t seen them pop up in this game yet.

Malkroth wrote:

Wonder if it would help if Bobby quoted it into the first post.

I just did Thanks for putting it together!

I've now re-united with six of my nine classmates! Really glad to be getting the gang back together, and I'm also enjoying the pacing of revisiting an area from CS1, seeing how it's changed, meeting one classmate, then finding the other two. Although it's funny, the three people I was most excited to see again will be the last three I connect with.

Spoiler:

Specifically, Emma, Laura, and Jusis.

Although the dialogue writing remains very similar to CS1, the pacing of story segments seems to be moving faster. I'm probably 13-15 hours in but it doesn't feel like I've spent that much time with the game, and it's always really easy to dive in and do a quest or advance the story slightly.

Combat-wise, there hasn't been anything as challenging yet as that fight at the end of Celdic. Part 2 had a fun fight against some Jaegers who would revive each other, and against a big monster that hits hard and is a callback to one of the CS1 Old Schoolhouse bosses.

About 10 hours in now, and I wanted to mention 2 things:

1) The fight with 2 of Fie's old crew members was a lot of fun and showed off what that combat system is capable of. I was a bit disappointed that it was a scripted fight, but I'm excited to tackle more bosses if they are going to do cool positional stuff like that!

2) How do you all feel about the scaling EXP system? Essentially, each zone has a recommended level and you will gain less experience the closer you are to that. On one hand, I like that it lets you skip battles and makes you less concerned about attacking every enemy you see. On the other, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel a bit deflated when I learned I didn't have full control over my leveling.

I guess it makes gear and quartz management a lot more important, but sometimes you just want to get overpowered and bust some ass.

As I tend to overfarm as I go (fight every encounter I see), I like it that it keeps me from over-leveling and making the boss fights boring HP sponges. It also lets me know when fighting is not going to be useful and I should start avoiding encounters instead.

My play time says I am 31 hours into this game already and I am just about to wrap up Act 1 Part 3. The game clock is probably a little off due to it counting when you go to the Sony menu and stuff. So I add up a decent amount of time going out for walks or swapping over to my Crunchyroll app to watch anime. I am going fairly slow, so 25 hours sounds about right since I am talking to every person then checking back on them after major events.

I agree with LastSurprise though. The reuniting with Class VII basically went in ascending order for me, with the characters I cared most about being the last ones I found. I did get at least one person I really liked per chapter though which was nice.

Spoiler on reunite order and how I rate Rean's classmates:

Spoiler:

In Act 1, I only really care about Fie. Elliot is a nice neutral, and I dislike Machias, even though he redeems himself ever so slightly in the first game. For Act 2 you find Alisa as the character I care about with Gaius as a trending upwards, and Millium a fairly neutral like Elliot. She suffered from being added to the party so late that I never really bonded with her. Then in Act 3 you finally get the two best classmates, Laura and Emma. Jusis is a nice tag-a-long, in the same realm as Elliot and Millium for me.

A_Unicycle wrote:

About 10 hours in now, and I wanted to mention 2 things:

1) The fight with 2 of Fie's old crew members was a lot of fun and showed off what that combat system is capable of. I was a bit disappointed that it was a scripted fight, but I'm excited to tackle more bosses if they are going to do cool positional stuff like that!

2) How do you all feel about the scaling EXP system? Essentially, each zone has a recommended level and you will gain less experience the closer you are to that. On one hand, I like that it lets you skip battles and makes you less concerned about attacking every enemy you see. On the other, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel a bit deflated when I learned I didn't have full control over my leveling.

I guess it makes gear and quartz management a lot more important, but sometimes you just want to get overpowered and bust some ass.

To be fair you could use positioning to your advantage for many bosses in the first game too, but yes I like that element of the combat system.

I didn't know about the scaling EXP! I guess I wasn't paying attention but it does explain why some characters were getting more xp than others. I like the idea, because I'm not a fan of feeling like I have to fight every enemy in an area to make progress.

I still dont quit get the positioning... Meaning if you stand behind a Boss it will take more time/truns to hit you? Can you develop on that please

I don't think positioning affects how quickly the bosses will take their turns, but many of them have line attacks and area affect attacks similar to yours. So, spacing characters out can affect how many will take damage / incur status ailments from an attack.

Spacing your characters out can also make it harder for you to buff multiple people with one art or craft, though.

I seee i seee... makes sense now... strategy....

Malkroth wrote:

Spoiler on reunite order and how I rate Rean's classmates:

Spoiler:

In Act 1, I only really care about Fie. Elliot is a nice neutral, and I dislike Machias, even though he redeems himself ever so slightly in the first game. For Act 2 you find Alisa as the character I care about with Gaius as a trending upwards, and Millium a fairly neutral like Elliot. She suffered from being added to the party so late that I never really bonded with her. Then in Act 3 you finally get the two best classmates, Laura and Emma. Jusis is a nice tag-a-long, in the same realm as Elliot and Millium for me.

I have a few different takes on some of these:

Spoiler:

I disliked Machias for most of the first game, but am enjoying him more in this one, and found that I was actually really happy to see him. This despite the fact that he would have been at or near the bottom of my list of who I'd like to see first.

I'm neutral on Fie. She has a lot of useful skills, but I've never found her compelling for some reason.

I ended up maxing my bond with Elliot in CS1, although I feel like that's more because he was my first friend at Thors, and because he's so damn useful in combat, than that I find him truly compelling.

Gaius, on the other hand, did not get maxed. I often had someone else I chose to hang out with instead, but felt badly about it. I feel like he is a really interesting character, and an all-around solid and dependable guy. I remember commenting in the first game that it was weird to me to see none of my classmates dating or crushing on anyone, and that's especially true of Gaius. I feel like everyone would be after him.

I'm kind of neutral on Millium.

I like Alisa, and maxed out my bond with her in CS1. I actually like her a little more in this game. She seems more versatile, and Falcom must have had Alisa's actor re-record some of her commonly-used phrases, because she sounds a lot less chirpy and annoying when she says things like "Turn to flames!"

A_Unicycle wrote:

About 10 hours in now, and I wanted to mention 2 things:

...

2) How do you all feel about the scaling EXP system? Essentially, each zone has a recommended level and you will gain less experience the closer you are to that. On one hand, I like that it lets you skip battles and makes you less concerned about attacking every enemy you see. On the other, I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel a bit deflated when I learned I didn't have full control over my leveling.

I guess it makes gear and quartz management a lot more important, but sometimes you just want to get overpowered and bust some ass.

Didn't even know it existed! I tend to fight most enemies I encounter, but I've never really felt that my XP gains are slowing down. And most recently, I was a little bit under-leveled for the Aria Shrine: there was a challenge chest at level 65, but I was at around 60.

I don't tend to mind these systems. The only one that really bothered me was in DQ VI on the 3DS.

Spoiler:

There, you didn't gain less XP, but if you were over an area's level threshold, you'd stop advancing in your class and thus stop getting new skills or spells. I hated this because I got Carver, at least, over the level threshold by accident. I ran out of MP in Murdaw's castle and had to evac, then died at or near the end (but elected to keep my XP, lose half my gold, and press on). So the castle took about three attempts and that was enough to set Carver over the threshold for most of the rest of the game.

I've been plugging along steadily, just completed the Aria Shrine, and am doing some side quests in Nord. More to come later, but I don't want to deluge everyone with text.

Wrapped up chapter 1 last night and all I have to say is (just in case anyone would consider this a spoiler):

Spoiler:

They sure do love their unwinnable fights in this one. Really trying to hammer home the point that Class VII is way out of their depth here. I am a little concerned on how they are going to bridge that power gap satisfyingly...