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

Finished up the Finale and saw the ending video/song after 102 hours or so. I will have to take some time to organize my thoughts about the ending, but they took what I thought was a really good ending for the characters and threw it all in the trash. Kind of upset with what happened honestly.

I skipped some of your spoiler talk from earlier since I hadn't finished yet, will go and see what was posted.

Sounds like we have similar feelings.

Anyway, congratulations on beating the game. Such a huge time investment over this short timespan is no small feat!

Overall, I'm very mixed on the game but very happy I played it. Despite all the negativity, I'm genuinely excited about playing the 3rd entry.

I’m actually super excited to play more of the series but a little worried about how I will have the chance to do so. Hopefully the game ends up on Xbox at some point. Or maybe an x-cloud Windows title.

I’m also thinking now to invest myself fully in playing Trails in the Sky ch 2 and 3 and the two Crossbell games. I’m about 10 hours into Trails in the Sky 2nd and it’s interesting that a lot of references that went right over my head the first time are now quite familiar (in particular related to the Ouroboros organisation).

I'm eyeing off Trails in the Sky 1 after a failed attempt about 2 years ago. I'm just balking at the idea of going back in the series after getting used to all the nice additions in CS.

Turbo would be nice, and I do feel as though I should play it before CS3...

Took some time to gather my thoughts on the ending sequence and intro to Divertisment (which I have not completed yet). Sections will contain heavy spoilers for what they reference.

Finale dungeon prior to final boss (Spoilers up to Final Stratum)

Spoiler:

I agree with the point Bobbywatson brought up about all these fights. It makes sense with the way McBurn acts and thinks, that once he finds someone that might actually give him a challenge he will go all out, but before that he just "toys with his food." Duvalie is especially jarring as she takes everything so seriously, especially her job, that she wouldn't give it her all from the outset. If you get the bonus points for her at the end of Act 1 Part 3, you basically already see she's not that much stronger than Class VII at that point anyway, so it would make sense for you to overcome her at this point. Xeno and Leo don't get enough screen time to get a good read on whether they would have held back or not, but it does feel contrived, especially after you already saw it on the first floor. I get they wanted to give all your "supporters" a chance to shine, but it really does remove any kind of victory Class VII is achieving here. Especially with the post final boss reveal, it makes Class VII feel like nothing but pawns.

Final Boss Sequence (Spoilers up to just after final fight)

Spoiler:

Some really cool moments, but the whole "Crow your coming back and graduating" stuff is getting really old at this point. The man commit treason, murdering a top government official. The best he could hope for is life in prison, but would probably be executed. There is no way he is going to get to go back to his normal school life, no matter how justified the killing. Him dying to give Rean the chance to save Cedric is probably the best ending for his character arc, that if the situation had been different, he could have been a hero like Rean. Instead the Chancellor's evil caused him to make a different choice and pursue a much darker path.

I also like that when Valimar and Ordine team up for the final fight, the Divine Knights actually feel really powerful. They do a lot of damage and brought Vermillion down super quick. All the other mech battles never really portrayed Valimar as particularly powerful. They dialogue always referenced how incredible he was, but those regular soldats took way too long and dealt too much damage to feel like Valimar was leaps and bounds better than them.

Post final boss reveals (spoilers for scene post final boss)

Spoiler:

The Chancellor being alive is the stupidest, most aggrivating reveal I have seen in quite awhile. I was so happy when he died in CS1, I let out a shout of victory when Crow sniped him. I felt even more justified about rooting against him as we learned more about him throughout CS2. After Crow died, my thought was "at least he managed to take out the biggest evil before he died". And what do you know, he's back and apparently Rufus is his boot-licking pawn, just reinforcing that he will be the ultimate evil for this series. I feel like this also cheapens his last line in CS1 where he says something along the lines of "You win this one C." but apparently he doesn't! Because Osborne is still alive, and the Civil War was his objective all along. He wanted the Nobles to rebel so that he could beat them up and put them underheel so they couldn't stop his dictatorial rise. I am left wondering why Governor Regnitz and the Imperial Family do not do anything to stop this usurper. The complete lack of agency the supposed rulers of this nation have is not only baffling, but annoying.

Osborne being Rean's father certainly came out of left field. It makes sense with all the sillouttes we've seen in Rean's flashbacks, and the fact the Osborne seems to be to some seriously shady business and McBurn mentions that Rean's "otherness" doesn't seem natural like his is. I am left thinking that Rean is some experiment (potentially gone wrong) by Osborne in making a super soldier or something.

Intro to Diverstiment (also spoilers for Trails in the Sky First Chapter)

Spoiler:

Why in the world is Rean helping in the war against Calvard? He must be under some kind of mind control. After the great lengths he and Class VII went through to not participate in the Civil War (and failing miserably at it, honestly), it makes zero sense that he would willingly join in this war. It does not suit his character at all, even if they end up going with some dumb "Defending his homeland" nonsense. If they end up saying he's helping because "his dad asked him to" I am going to be unreasonably angry. Also this reminds me a bit of the ending to Trails in the Sky First Chapter where an Ouroboros member triggers something in Joshua which prompts him to leave Estelle behind.

I really liked the game overall, even though the bosses at the end got a little too spongy/powerful. At one point a boss literally wiped my entire party with an S-Craft and I would have failed without Alisa's Angel MQ. I relied heavily on the "Canceler Rean" strategy to basically force the bosses to never even have a turn since they were so powerful. I think I was basically evenly leveled with all the bosses except the final confrontation as well.

Sounds like I still have a decent chunk of game to playthrough in the Diverstisment. I want to play CS3 at some point (after at least two more CS2 runs), but the ending leaves me wondering if I should play Trails in the Sky 2 and 3 first.

Malkroth wrote:

Sounds like I still have a decent chunk of game to playthrough in the Diverstisment. I want to play CS3 at some point (after at least two more CS2 runs), but the ending leaves me wondering if I should play Trails in the Sky 2 and 3 first.

After going through the Divertissement and the Finale, I'd argue you should play Sky 2 (a friend told me 3 is skippable), plus Zero and Azure. My understanding is that Zero and Azure in particular are going to help make more sense with what happens in the Divertissement (and some the parts with the Azure tree that are glossed over in CS2). (I haven't played either of them yet.)

Problem with Azure and Zero is that they are not widely available in English yet. I know Sundown has posted in the JRPG thread about how to get the Japanese version and apply the fan localization patch, but that is beyond the amount of work I am willing to put in. Hopefully they are next on their list of things to localize.

Malkroth wrote:

Problem with Azure and Zero is that they are not widely available in English yet. I know Sundown has posted in the JRPG thread about how to get the Japanese version and apply the fan localization patch, but that is beyond the amount of work I am willing to put in. Hopefully they are next on their list of things to localize.

The two games came out on PS4 in Japan earlier this year, so it's possible, but I would not hold my breath.

Congrats, Malkroth! I've leveled you up in the other thread.

I have me, you, A_Unicycle, bobbywatson, and Mr GT Chris as finishers so far. Have I missed anyone?

Made some progress!!!!

Just did a "catch some snow ghosts" stuff and had a scrimmage with Valimar.
That "boob" scene and chat with the girls was unexpected.... lol something... crazy... what was all that about?

Looks like it's a good thing I finished the finale when I did. The 8.0 update on my PS4 failed, so I had the great idea to try and install it using Safe Mode. Now my PS4 is stuck in an update loop in safe mode and I can't get the console to leave safe mode and just go back to normal on the 7.X patch with no PSN features. Thinking I may have to reinitialize my system at this point and hope that works. I have tried a bunch of troubleshooting things I found around the internet.

Anyone have any ideas on what I could do before I try a reinitialize or a way to contact a human at Sony support? Their support website is extremely unhelpful.

Luckily I backed up my saves to a USB device before trying safe mode.

Finished the Finale last night! I didn't check the game clock but I think I was just north of 80 hours.

It was a tense battle because my poor old PS4 has a habit of putting itself into rest mode, then immediately restarting, at random times during games. Of course, it did so just as I was about to deliver the coup de grace last night. Fortunately after a few minutes' rest it was able to resume where I left off, and we pulled through together for the "emotional" final revelations and song!

The battle itself was a little disappointing, just a prolonged version of most other boss battles in the game. I spent a lot of time tweaking equipment and orbments beforehand, but in the end it was the usual delay/haste tactics that seemed to work best. I did enjoy the final twists and how it sets the stage for the next game. I'll probably dive into the divertissement (?) and epilogue later this week too, curious about those.

Responding to Malkroth's post-final-boss spoilers:

Spoiler:

In CS1, I didn't pick up on the Chancellor's supposed evilness at all, and was shocked when Crow shot him. Sure he's running a secret police force and plotting against his enemies, but that's just politics in Heimdallr! Or so I thought. I did assume he was Rean's father though, just based on the depiction of him in the memory scenes. What struck me as odd was how quickly Rean arrived at the same conclusion based only on Rufus's "you may figure in his plans more than you think" comment.

The first seeds of suspicion for me were during the intermission of CS2, which made me start to think the game was being "biased" in its presentation of the evil Nobles vs plucky imperials. So the reveal at the end of the game was pretty effective for me.

I also find the passivity of the Imperial family and Governor pretty frustrating. Actually the Imperial family in general are all annoying and unnecessary as far as I can see. I suppose Governor Reignitz is just an administrator, and in CS1 he seemed to be good at his job, but also he saw carrying out the will of the Chancellor as part of that job. Maybe they will improve in the next games...

I'd have to revisit the first game but I definitely thought the Chancellor was super shady in CS1. To the point I was cheering Crow on at the end of the game.
CS2:

Spoiler:

And I did feel the moment of betrayal after Crow died when the Chancellor revealed himself.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out because you have a lot of "good" people acting on the behalf of an evil dictator. Reignitz, Claire, the various military officers. Which has certainly been true many times in history. I'm playing Trails in the Sky SC at the moment and Erenbonia really doesn't look that rosey through the eyes of the nation of Liberl. And this is pre-CS1 in the timeline.

Following up Mr GT Chris:

Spoiler:

I can't remember if it was Osborne or Ouroboros that instigated the war between Liberl and Erebonia. I have in my mind that they reveal Osborne did it, but I can't say that for certain. If so, that just puts another feather in his "ultimate evil" cap, since as we see in Trails in the Sky, Liberl is the independent diplomatic nation just trying to not get conquered by larger neighbors.

... and last night I finally wrapped up the epilogue!

Did anyone else get the impression this was meant to be the final game in the Cold Steel arc? The epilogue felt like a farewell tour for Class 7. It was nice to have the closure I suppose, but knowing there's a CS3 and 4 it felt a bit unnecessary.

I'll be interested to see how different CS3 is... after a bit of a break of course.

So, I think I'm finally about halfway through the game, after having gathered the original party, sort of. For a while there I felt like the first Act was taking forever, but then I looked up the amount of Acts/Parts and from what I found, it's basically all divided in two. It seemed like an odd structure, but I guess it makes sense... It's just that it feels a little too long, like there aren't enough bookends for milestones and the player (i.e. me) feels like they're on some Mobius loop of narrative and RPG battle.

Or maybe that's just me.

I know what you mean, but to me that was a positive! It felt like a meandering adventure even though at the end of the day you're just collecting your party one by one.

Act 2 is much more structured BTW.

ComfortZone wrote:

I know what you mean, but to me that was a positive! It felt like a meandering adventure even though at the end of the day you're just collecting your party one by one.

Act 2 is much more structured BTW.

That's good to know. The way it's looking, I'll be playing a Trails of Cold Steel game per year... Though now that I have III and IV, I might stick them both in one after the other - with some smaller palate cleanser in between - so that I can get the full story arc.

I hope to finish it this month... Hope it still counts!

Darkhaund wrote:

I hope to finish it this month... Hope it still counts!

Clubs run for six months, as long as you finish by December 31st, you'll be fine!

In other news... I'm supposed to be on videogame break and, while I have reduced the amount of time I play games significantly, I still bought Trails From Zero yesterday, applied the translation patch, and will start playing it soon. Assuming I can figure out what the hell is wrong with my in-home streaming.

I'm close to the end of Trails in the Sky SC. Have quite a bit to say about it, will probably end up putting it here as it relates closely to Cold Steel.

20 minutes into Trails from Zero and... welp, this is as chatty as the other Trails games I've played. Despite the fact that it's a fan translation, the overall package looks very professional so far!

Also: The music in the first dungeon is exactly the same music as the dungeon in Cold Steel II's Divertissement. Despite playing games not in order, I do appreciate the nod...

December 31st here i go

Darkhaund wrote:

December 31st here i go

I'm still pretty early into Act 1 due to projects at work so I'll be shooting for finishing by the end of December as well.

Oh, I expect to spend a good chunk of December getting this one down. I might actually finish Chrono Trigger before I do Trails of Cold Steel II

Well if anyone cares

Last Saturday (Nov 14), while making me a coffee at morning, I had this little itch and slight pain on my left groin... I have had this before and I thought it was my "regular Cramp" and that it would go away by just walking or doing some movement. WRONG!! The pain the followed was like nothing I had ever experienced in my 42 years of life.

Long story short... double strangled hernia and I had emergency surgery.
I will get out of the hospital tomorrow, and well SURPRISINGLY I asked my parents (wife is pregnant and does not leave the house) to bring me my PS VITA. Thus made some good progress.

I am at the end of ACT 2. All my characters are level 100+ And while I am enjoying this game ok, there is alot I dont understand. There are a ton of NPCs, characters, factions... Jaggers, Bracers, Ouroubours (sp), Chupacabras and what not. Hard to keep up with everything. I have a general idea of what is going on with this war, but it is very very confusing. Let me remind you guys that I DID NOT finish the 1st game. I have a better understanding of the battle system (thanks to you guys here) And will most likely finish the game. I do not care if i loose fights, I just select the "weaken and retry".

I think I WILL try Trails of Cold Steel III in the future and try to understand the game mechanics better. I am liking the "Divine Knights" thingy... and just saw the "Crimson Knight" and this huge TREE appear.

Still have some hard days ahead, strictly in bed, so I can get away with playing and slacking at home! wooot.

OMG, so sorry to hear about that. A good opportunity to progress but still!

Completely understand. I just finished Trails in the Sky 2 (the second game in the first trilogy set in this world). I finished Trails in the Sky 1 a long time back and that did set me up a little bit for the Cold Steel series, but more so in terms of gameplay. On the other hand, Trails in the Sky 2 has tons of story exposition and introduces characters that appear in Cold Steel 1 and 2. To the point it almost felt spoilerish! Specifically, there's one character in Cold Steel 1 that starts out as a bit of a cypher but if you know them from Trails in the Sky 2 you'd want to put a knife in them the first time you meet them. Anyway, planning to post more at some point.

Darkhaund wrote:

Well if anyone cares

Last Saturday (Nov 14), while making me a coffee at morning, I had this little itch and slight pain on my left groin... I have had this before and I thought it was my "regular Cramp" and that it would go away by just walking or doing some movement. WRONG!! The pain the followed was like nothing I had ever experienced in my 42 years of life.

Long story short... double strangled hernia and I had emergency surgery.
I will get out of the hospital tomorrow, and well SURPRISINGLY I asked my parents (wife is pregnant and does not leave the house) to bring me my PS VITA. Thus made some good progress.

I am at the end of ACT 2. All my characters are level 100+ And while I am enjoying this game ok, there is alot I dont understand. There are a ton of NPCs, characters, factions... Jaggers, Bracers, Ouroubours (sp), Chupacabras and what not. Hard to keep up with everything. I have a general idea of what is going on with this war, but it is very very confusing. Let me remind you guys that I DID NOT finish the 1st game. I have a better understanding of the battle system (thanks to you guys here) And will most likely finish the game. I do not care if i loose fights, I just select the "weaken and retry".

Yikes! Glad that you will be getting out of the hospital and were able to make some progress. Definitely don't feel bad. I DID finish Cold Steel 1 and the first Trails in the Sky and I'm mostly lost right now outside of the main Class VII group (I'm at the end of Act 1--slacker I know).

Glad you're safe and sound Darkhaund!

For what it's worth, I finished the first game and still find myself checking resources outside of the game sometimes just to refresh my memory about who is what and for which faction.