Trails of Cold Steel II is a direct sequel to the original Cold Steel game and as usual with these Trails games reviews, talking about the story without spoiling elements from the first game is nigh on impossible so if you haven’t played Cold Steel I to the end, the best avoid reading this review for now.
Right with that out of the way, Cold Steel II (CS2) is the second Trails entry originally released for the PlayStation Vita. Its story picks up directly from where CS1 finished and in typical Trails fashion, this game heavily reuses assets and elements from the first game and builds on top of that with a few things to keep the game interesting and change things up a little.
The regular battle system now has the Overdrive mechanic, similar to the burst mechanic from Azure where once you build up a gauge, you can unleash a series of attacks without response. In CS2 it also guarantees unbalancing the enemy and allowing a follow up attack to happen as well as eventually giving you two Overdrive gauges to fill.
For those who finished CS1 you’ll know about a special kind of battle introduced right at the end of that game and here in CS2 we get to experience a lot more of them! Divine Knight battles sees Rean piloting a giant mech and clashing with other giant mechs in battles that are pretty simple in nature but something I loved because I am weak for giant mechs. Divine Knight battles basically boil down to figuring which part of your opponent to hit depending on what stance they’re taking. You can target the head, body, arms and if you pick the right part you can unbalance the enemy and hit a follow up attack but if you choose wrong you can end up missing and being hit with a counterattack. Eventually you’ll gain access to having a character assist you by using Arts and powering up your mech, Valimar, with his own unique Orbments but ultimately as I said, the battles are pretty simple and basic in nature.
Other new aspects include new towns like Rean’s hometown Ymir (a place where an event took place during the first game but only covered in a Drama CD and referred to multiple times in this game), plenty of new and well crafted dungeons to explore, and the best thing of all - A SNOWBOARDING MINIGAME! No joke, I beat every course for it because it’s probably one of my favourite minigames in an RPG ever. Aside from that, this game is more about continuing the narrative they built from CS1 than doing a bunch of new things.
So story, after C revealed his true identity, killed Chancellor Osborne, and occupied Thors Military Academy by kicking Rean’s ass so bad he had to flee for his life, the tensions in Erebonia have boiled over into civil war breaking out. The Noble Alliance led by Duke Cayenne has teamed up with the Imperial Liberation Front, Ouroboros, and Jaeger group Zephyr in an attempt to wrestle control of Erebonia from the Reformist Faction and in the month that Rean has spent out cold after fleeing Thors, the Noble Alliance have managed to occupy a large portion of eastern Erebonia as well as take the Imperial Royal family hostage.
It’s a very interesting set up to the story and one that sees many of Class VII’s families on opposing sides and leading to our characters having to make tough decisions. Jusis in particular has it tough with his brother being one of the key figures in the Noble Alliance and his father pushing his luck in trying to become the leader of the group.
As for Class VII themselves, they’ve ended up split up after having to flee Thors and the first portion of the game is centred around regrouping with Rean’s classmates. This is where the very long build up of the first game started to pay some dividends for me as I found a lot of the reunions to be very touching because of how much time I had spent with Class VII. Seeing Rean bear hug Machias put tears in my eyes and Alisa pouring her heart out to Rean was such an emotional moment. It’s also nice seeing Class VII out of their school uniforms and in unique clothing, being free to show off their own styles and personalities a bit more.
Aside from gathering all of Class VII, Act 1 of the game shows off a few clashes between the two armies at places like Garrelia Fortress (spotting a lovely new destroyed look after Crossbell annihilated it) and the Nord Highlands, and Ymir village gets attacked by some Jaegers. We also get to have some clashes with Ouroboros and the Noble Alliance as the game spends time introducing a lot of new characters like Ouroboros Enforcer McBurn who exudes a massive amount of power and Zephyr’s Xeno and Leonidas who are part of the Jaeger group that Fie was once a part of.
After the whole of Class VII have reunited we get an Intermission chapter which serves to let us find out a little more about the many people working with the Noble Alliance as well as get Rean to a point where he can control his unique power the game lovingly dubs “ogre power”. We caught a glimpse of it in the first game but it’s more prominent here. Ogre power basically changes Rean’s appearance to have white hair and red eyes and essentially it gives him a few turns of having boosted stats in battle.
Act 2 of the game focuses more on gathering up all the other students from Thors Military Academy and liberating places like Celdic and Roer from the Noble Alliance. These missions were my favourite part of the game as it was great seeing characters either rescuing their families from being held captive or standing up to their families for the atrocities they’ve been causing. It’s not perfect, the clashes with V and S sum up the Imperial Liberation Front as the biggest set of underwhelming villains I’ve seen so far (C is the only interesting about that group for me) but ultimately the freedom introduced from being able to go anywhere in the east of the country and liberation missions made this portion of the game a lot fun for me. I also really liked that the game allows you to walk from one town to another if you want to. You could see that the world was designed to be connected in CS1 but the field trip limitations meant the world felt disjointed while in CS2 as you progress further and further, the limitations on where you can travel are loosened and it really starts to make Erebonia feel a bit more like Crossbell and Liberl when you can walk (or use the motorcycle introduced as a transport option in this game) from place to place.
It ends on a high note with a great set of battles between Rean and C as the two fight for their ideals and we have to deal with Duke Cayenne’s mischief as he ends up feeling a little bit left out because he’s another kinda meh and backgroundy villain. The revelations and twists in the finale are once again fantastic and memorable for the most part (though I’m still struggling to take the revelation of Rean’s biological father seriously right now) and it quickly rearranges the whole civil war and the whole point of it in one fell swoop.
On top of that there’s a pretty meaty post game section that is a delightful treat for long time fans that have been playing the games in release order. The Epilogue is a nice send off for Class VII as they go their separate ways but that portion of the game drags on a bit longer than it needed (I’m not sure why they felt the need for a bunch of quests and another dungeon). By the end I had a few moments where tears had filled my eyes and when games can do that to you, they are a bit special. I loved my time with Class VII and I will miss seeing them all together as a group.
So the broad strokes of CS2s story on the surface is pretty solid and one I largely enjoyed but once you dig a little deeper there’s a lot you can pick apart here so this section is going have a lot of complaints about things that do kind of matter but at the same time didn’t stop me from loving the game.
CS2 is about a civil war but for the most part it feels kinda of…. Like a background thing? In the east of Erebonia the Noble Alliance have so much already under control that aside from a few skirmishes, there’s little to actually indicate a war is happening. One burning down of a town results in a grand total of 1 fatality and ultimately does little to sell the fact a war is happening. The Noble Alliance end up letting Class VII liberate so much of the territory they’ve claimed with no retaliation that it’s unbelievable until the bigger picture comes into view at the end. The war is apparently much more violent in the west of Erebonia and a few of the more powerful characters are off fighting over there but like CS1 that is something more interesting happening somewhere else that we don’t get to see. It’s just incredible how out of the way the game goes to limit the fact a war is happening.
Cast bloat. CS2 like CS1 has a cast of important characters to the point it doesn’t know what to do with them. Bardias and Le Guin are introduced in Act 1, leave a strong impression on Class VII and then don’t show up again until near the end of the game by which point you’re like who are these two again? Cedric, an Imperial Prince is almost completely forgotten about by the cast and even his own sister Alfin, as no one seems to care that he potentially needs to be rescued all the while Duke Cayenne is getting him ready for his schemes. Laura fades so much into the background in this game that she’s basically a talking sword. It’s just too many characters for the game to deal with.
Olivert, someone who is a very important character to Erebonia and plays a large part in the Liberl arc, is so underutilised here to the point he barely shows up in the game at all which is shocking to me. He spends most of his time fighting in the west off screen and has a couple of dramatic appearances but in a game with 17+ playable characters, HOW IS HE NOT ONE?
Class VII are supposed to be a third faction in this war but that only works if both the Noble Alliance and the Reformist Group are factions that need to be opposed, instead the Noble Alliance are the aggressor force in this war and as such Class VII is almost always working alongside the army to stop them that the whole third faction thing holds so little weight. We’re working alongside characters like Claire who has direct ties to Osborne while claiming to be neutral and having no one from the Noble Alliance side helping us outside of Rufus using us to help him deal with out of control members with the Noble Alliance.
For all the build up and importance given to the liberation of Trista and Thors Military Academy it is probably the most underwhelming moment in the game.
I understand Crow being a classmate and friend to Class VII but there's nobody wanting to hold him to account for his terrorist actions while Rean makes a big deal about trying to save Vulcan and Scarlet to make them atone for what they've done.
The story does well with what it explores and the cast of characters are fun enough to help carry it through the cracks that appear throughout. Yes, I have a lot of issues with how certain aspects were neglected but ultimately it didn’t detract from the fun I was having with the game.
On the soundtrack front this is largely the same OST from CS1 returning with a handful of new battle themes and a new opening song. The vocalised ending song was very powerful and was subtitled when it played to help drive home the emotions it was portraying.
So all in all, despite a few missteps with its story here and there, Trails of Cold Steel II was a step back up in quality after Cold Steel I for me. It manages to keep its narrative exciting and engaging throughout as well as throw in some really nice surprises for the long term fans. It manages to carry off its emotional moments well and use the foundation that Cold Steel I left for it to push most of its characters in interesting directions and leave an impact on the player.
Right with that out of the way, Cold Steel II (CS2) is the second Trails entry originally released for the PlayStation Vita. Its story picks up directly from where CS1 finished and in typical Trails fashion, this game heavily reuses assets and elements from the first game and builds on top of that with a few things to keep the game interesting and change things up a little.
The regular battle system now has the Overdrive mechanic, similar to the burst mechanic from Azure where once you build up a gauge, you can unleash a series of attacks without response. In CS2 it also guarantees unbalancing the enemy and allowing a follow up attack to happen as well as eventually giving you two Overdrive gauges to fill.
For those who finished CS1 you’ll know about a special kind of battle introduced right at the end of that game and here in CS2 we get to experience a lot more of them! Divine Knight battles sees Rean piloting a giant mech and clashing with other giant mechs in battles that are pretty simple in nature but something I loved because I am weak for giant mechs. Divine Knight battles basically boil down to figuring which part of your opponent to hit depending on what stance they’re taking. You can target the head, body, arms and if you pick the right part you can unbalance the enemy and hit a follow up attack but if you choose wrong you can end up missing and being hit with a counterattack. Eventually you’ll gain access to having a character assist you by using Arts and powering up your mech, Valimar, with his own unique Orbments but ultimately as I said, the battles are pretty simple and basic in nature.
Other new aspects include new towns like Rean’s hometown Ymir (a place where an event took place during the first game but only covered in a Drama CD and referred to multiple times in this game), plenty of new and well crafted dungeons to explore, and the best thing of all - A SNOWBOARDING MINIGAME! No joke, I beat every course for it because it’s probably one of my favourite minigames in an RPG ever. Aside from that, this game is more about continuing the narrative they built from CS1 than doing a bunch of new things.
So story, after C revealed his true identity, killed Chancellor Osborne, and occupied Thors Military Academy by kicking Rean’s ass so bad he had to flee for his life, the tensions in Erebonia have boiled over into civil war breaking out. The Noble Alliance led by Duke Cayenne has teamed up with the Imperial Liberation Front, Ouroboros, and Jaeger group Zephyr in an attempt to wrestle control of Erebonia from the Reformist Faction and in the month that Rean has spent out cold after fleeing Thors, the Noble Alliance have managed to occupy a large portion of eastern Erebonia as well as take the Imperial Royal family hostage.
It’s a very interesting set up to the story and one that sees many of Class VII’s families on opposing sides and leading to our characters having to make tough decisions. Jusis in particular has it tough with his brother being one of the key figures in the Noble Alliance and his father pushing his luck in trying to become the leader of the group.
As for Class VII themselves, they’ve ended up split up after having to flee Thors and the first portion of the game is centred around regrouping with Rean’s classmates. This is where the very long build up of the first game started to pay some dividends for me as I found a lot of the reunions to be very touching because of how much time I had spent with Class VII. Seeing Rean bear hug Machias put tears in my eyes and Alisa pouring her heart out to Rean was such an emotional moment. It’s also nice seeing Class VII out of their school uniforms and in unique clothing, being free to show off their own styles and personalities a bit more.
Aside from gathering all of Class VII, Act 1 of the game shows off a few clashes between the two armies at places like Garrelia Fortress (spotting a lovely new destroyed look after Crossbell annihilated it) and the Nord Highlands, and Ymir village gets attacked by some Jaegers. We also get to have some clashes with Ouroboros and the Noble Alliance as the game spends time introducing a lot of new characters like Ouroboros Enforcer McBurn who exudes a massive amount of power and Zephyr’s Xeno and Leonidas who are part of the Jaeger group that Fie was once a part of.
After the whole of Class VII have reunited we get an Intermission chapter which serves to let us find out a little more about the many people working with the Noble Alliance as well as get Rean to a point where he can control his unique power the game lovingly dubs “ogre power”. We caught a glimpse of it in the first game but it’s more prominent here. Ogre power basically changes Rean’s appearance to have white hair and red eyes and essentially it gives him a few turns of having boosted stats in battle.
Act 2 of the game focuses more on gathering up all the other students from Thors Military Academy and liberating places like Celdic and Roer from the Noble Alliance. These missions were my favourite part of the game as it was great seeing characters either rescuing their families from being held captive or standing up to their families for the atrocities they’ve been causing. It’s not perfect, the clashes with V and S sum up the Imperial Liberation Front as the biggest set of underwhelming villains I’ve seen so far (C is the only interesting about that group for me) but ultimately the freedom introduced from being able to go anywhere in the east of the country and liberation missions made this portion of the game a lot fun for me. I also really liked that the game allows you to walk from one town to another if you want to. You could see that the world was designed to be connected in CS1 but the field trip limitations meant the world felt disjointed while in CS2 as you progress further and further, the limitations on where you can travel are loosened and it really starts to make Erebonia feel a bit more like Crossbell and Liberl when you can walk (or use the motorcycle introduced as a transport option in this game) from place to place.
It ends on a high note with a great set of battles between Rean and C as the two fight for their ideals and we have to deal with Duke Cayenne’s mischief as he ends up feeling a little bit left out because he’s another kinda meh and backgroundy villain. The revelations and twists in the finale are once again fantastic and memorable for the most part (though I’m still struggling to take the revelation of Rean’s biological father seriously right now) and it quickly rearranges the whole civil war and the whole point of it in one fell swoop.
On top of that there’s a pretty meaty post game section that is a delightful treat for long time fans that have been playing the games in release order. The Epilogue is a nice send off for Class VII as they go their separate ways but that portion of the game drags on a bit longer than it needed (I’m not sure why they felt the need for a bunch of quests and another dungeon). By the end I had a few moments where tears had filled my eyes and when games can do that to you, they are a bit special. I loved my time with Class VII and I will miss seeing them all together as a group.
So the broad strokes of CS2s story on the surface is pretty solid and one I largely enjoyed but once you dig a little deeper there’s a lot you can pick apart here so this section is going have a lot of complaints about things that do kind of matter but at the same time didn’t stop me from loving the game.
CS2 is about a civil war but for the most part it feels kinda of…. Like a background thing? In the east of Erebonia the Noble Alliance have so much already under control that aside from a few skirmishes, there’s little to actually indicate a war is happening. One burning down of a town results in a grand total of 1 fatality and ultimately does little to sell the fact a war is happening. The Noble Alliance end up letting Class VII liberate so much of the territory they’ve claimed with no retaliation that it’s unbelievable until the bigger picture comes into view at the end. The war is apparently much more violent in the west of Erebonia and a few of the more powerful characters are off fighting over there but like CS1 that is something more interesting happening somewhere else that we don’t get to see. It’s just incredible how out of the way the game goes to limit the fact a war is happening.
Cast bloat. CS2 like CS1 has a cast of important characters to the point it doesn’t know what to do with them. Bardias and Le Guin are introduced in Act 1, leave a strong impression on Class VII and then don’t show up again until near the end of the game by which point you’re like who are these two again? Cedric, an Imperial Prince is almost completely forgotten about by the cast and even his own sister Alfin, as no one seems to care that he potentially needs to be rescued all the while Duke Cayenne is getting him ready for his schemes. Laura fades so much into the background in this game that she’s basically a talking sword. It’s just too many characters for the game to deal with.
Olivert, someone who is a very important character to Erebonia and plays a large part in the Liberl arc, is so underutilised here to the point he barely shows up in the game at all which is shocking to me. He spends most of his time fighting in the west off screen and has a couple of dramatic appearances but in a game with 17+ playable characters, HOW IS HE NOT ONE?
Class VII are supposed to be a third faction in this war but that only works if both the Noble Alliance and the Reformist Group are factions that need to be opposed, instead the Noble Alliance are the aggressor force in this war and as such Class VII is almost always working alongside the army to stop them that the whole third faction thing holds so little weight. We’re working alongside characters like Claire who has direct ties to Osborne while claiming to be neutral and having no one from the Noble Alliance side helping us outside of Rufus using us to help him deal with out of control members with the Noble Alliance.
For all the build up and importance given to the liberation of Trista and Thors Military Academy it is probably the most underwhelming moment in the game.
I understand Crow being a classmate and friend to Class VII but there's nobody wanting to hold him to account for his terrorist actions while Rean makes a big deal about trying to save Vulcan and Scarlet to make them atone for what they've done.
The story does well with what it explores and the cast of characters are fun enough to help carry it through the cracks that appear throughout. Yes, I have a lot of issues with how certain aspects were neglected but ultimately it didn’t detract from the fun I was having with the game.
On the soundtrack front this is largely the same OST from CS1 returning with a handful of new battle themes and a new opening song. The vocalised ending song was very powerful and was subtitled when it played to help drive home the emotions it was portraying.
So all in all, despite a few missteps with its story here and there, Trails of Cold Steel II was a step back up in quality after Cold Steel I for me. It manages to keep its narrative exciting and engaging throughout as well as throw in some really nice surprises for the long term fans. It manages to carry off its emotional moments well and use the foundation that Cold Steel I left for it to push most of its characters in interesting directions and leave an impact on the player.