The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki II - Crimson Sin

released on Sep 29, 2022

A new, further polished story following The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki's first chapter, which depicts the people living between the light and darkness in the Republic of Calvard, with the young Spriggan Van Arkride as its protagonist.


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Acts 2 and 3 were horrific overlong slogs. An absolutely peak finale, a good start, and improved combat save this.

This is probably the first Trails game where the gameplay is just straight up full on better than the main story. All the side quests should've been replaced by what happens during the Connect Events, and Acts I and II could easily be cut since 90% of the plot happens during Fragments and the Finale.

Aside from playing the shitty pc port for the English translation (fuck CLE), the game is amazing. Gameplay is similar to Kuro 1 while the combat is just generally improved.
One thing that holds this down from being 5 stars is the fact that Fragments and Act 3 are insanely bloated, they could've taken out 1/2 of Fragments and 4 of the 6 routes in Act 3 and it would've made no change to the game. Although I think its bloated, they were still somewhat enjoyable at least.

Dear Falcom,
Less Garden Master, More Connect Events
Sincerely, a Calvardian Superfan

I need Van Arkride carnally
And I need Zin to die
Act 3 kinda mid but intermission and finale cook

It's my own fault, really, for thinking this series was picking up again. The story starts interesting and exciting and just falls away into the toilet as the stakes go down and down and down. In the end the writers' inability to just let characters go has become a millstone around the neck of the series and has been for a long while now. I'm just going through from habit now, and I can't recommend this series to anyone starting anew anymore.
And as a side note - a game that looks like this should not be performing this badly on a Playstation 5. This new engine really is terrible.