#21
Change YoY: = My Rating: 9.4 / 10
And now we come to the best game in the Trails of Cold Steel series, though still not quite the best The Legend of Heroes game. Trails of Cold Steel II is one of the very few games I've ever rushed to buy the moment I finished the previous game in a series. I remember quite vividly watching the end credits to the first game, and immediately afterwards ordering the second game from an online store. Can't say I regret that decision. This was the perfect follow-up to the first game, with an exceptional sense of escalation in the story, raising the stakes and eventually wrapping up many of the main plot threads from the first game while also putting many new ones in motion for the next two games in the series.
I like the increased variety in the gameplay, especially when it comes to the battles, because in addition to the normal weapon-based combat, the game properly introduces mech combat as a significant element going forward, something the later games would further expand massively on. The characters are given more depth as their backstories are explored further, the world feels vast and varied as we are introduced to many new locations, and the music is excellent. Anyway, I've already talked about five different entries in this series during this event, and I still have two more to go, so maybe I'll save something for later. To put it simply, I'm a huge fan of this series, I've played nine different games in it, seven are in my top 50 games of all time (more than any other series), and none of them have been anything less than great.
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