Today I have a sequel for you, Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2, and boy does it deliver in a big way!!! Now, the first thing I need to get out there is if you haven’t played Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel and are planning to, I tried not to give any spoilers but there may be a couple of things so if you’re a hardcore “NO SPOILERS AT ALL” type of person you might want to stop!!!! There is literally no way to get any of this game across without giving away anything from the first game. So… without further dudes, I give you my review!
Starting off you have the option of going through the story up to this point via a selection in the main menu. I had to do this as I haven’t gotten time to completely finish the first Trails of Cold Steel. It does a very good job of explaining the entire plot sequence and twists of the first game. It almost seems like they took all of the major cutscenes and compiled them into a story. That may in fact be what they did since, as I said, I haven’t finished the first one.
Trails of Cold Steel 2 picks up after Rean flies away with Valimar and Celine. He awakens to find he has been asleep for a month. Valimar is also quite damaged and barely made it out of there as well. You are in the mountains near Rean’s hometown of Ymir and head down to get your quest started. You begin around level 50 if memory serves and are quickly greeted by Toval, a former bracer, and Rean’s sister, Elise, who show up just in the nick of time. The story continues as Rean heads out to find his classmates from Class VII and reunite to stop Crow and his band of misfits and nobles from destroying everything, you know, your typical JRPG plot.
This game has some wonderful graphics, especially to be a remake. The visuals are nice and even on the Vita seem to make the game come alive.
As far as the gameplay, I can’t say enough good things about Trails of Cold Steel 2. I wondered if this would be a completely different game, save a few characters, and have few ties to the first. How ecstatic I was when I found out that while it isn’t necessary to have played the first one, it is heavily tied into the story. If you skip to Trails of Cold Steel 2 you may find yourself a little behind on the story. There are certainly some new gameplay elements to this combat system and it makes it fun and gives it a sense of new over the first Trails.
Final Thoughts
I gave a very good rating for the first Trails and this one will be no different. While there are a few things that could’ve made this game better, overall what I’ve played is one spectacular game that lives up to being the sequel of Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel. So, with that said I have to give this game an 8.5/10. It doesn’t get a lot better than this for a Vita JRPG. If you’re looking for a new series to sink your teeth into, trust me when I say that this game will certainly not disappoint. Let me know your thoughts on it in the comments below!!
Thanks for reading guys and as always… HAPPY GAMING!!!