Welcome back to the Kingdom of Liberl. Darkness looms ahead for our great nation and wonderful people! The only thing that might save us are teenagers who are highly trained mercenary soldiers. Child soldiers will always save us!
SC starts the morning after game one ends, with Estelle waking up in her adopted brother/boyfriend's bed. She wakes up confused and rushes out of the room to be greeted by her mentor, Schera(zade), who teases her about sleeping with her brother/boyfriend, Joshua. Estelle then realizes Joshua is missing and runs to tell her dad, Cassius. He informs her of what happened; how Joshua left the family to rejoin his evil cult, Oroborus, and about how the two met one night. Five years ago, the greatest Bracer in the world was nearly felled by a child before being invited to join the Bright family and live a normal life. Estelle refuses to acknowledge any of that and rushes off to find her brofriend back at home.
She takes an airship home and meets a creepy priest, who ends up not being that creepy after all, named Kevin. Being the kind, wandering priest he is, Kevin gives her a shoulder to cry on, and oh boy, does she cry. They both admit it’s embarrassing for a trained child soldier to cry like a baby, but they bond over it, and he escorts her home, sensing something is amiss.
When they get to the Bright house, Joshua isn’t there. He’s not even doing anything with her underwear (I didn’t get it either). The two adults mentioned paragraph two appear, and everything ends on a somber note as the opening theme plays because this is a slice of life anime.
We skip ahead two months and see Estelle and Anelace, a minor character from game one, fighting in a way we can’t actually do in official battles. The prologue chapter is a training exercise for new Bracers, mercenaries, and teaches you proper field etiquette. I kinda wish there were more than two people, but I think there are enough characters to remember as is, so I’ll take it. We then tutorialize game mechanics and learn why all the orbal arts, magic, I collected last game are now useless. It’s still kinda the same, but with more potential. Everything else is exactly the same: battle system, food, character equipment, and craft techniques. I kinda like that everything is the same. I didn’t like how much Xenosaga changed over the saga and felt that they were changing for the sake of change. It's like Trails planned to be consistent, at least, over two games. I'm a bit annoyed I don't have a headstart from game one, but characters do start at the same level I was when I ended game one, so maybe that's it. I should test it out tomorrow and start a new game just too see.
Tutorial dungeon part one (re)introduces the battle system, and that dungeons have puzzles, chests, bosses, and plot twists. We then return to the house where, that night, it gets raided by an opposing mercenary band named The Jaegars. They wound the man in charge, Kurt, beat-up the girls, kidnap the cook, and leave the girls at a nice campsite nearby. They’re fine, but their equipment is missing. They still have all their items and non-equipped equipment. The Jaegers are terrible kidnappers. The girls fight through a forest, find their stuff scattered about, and get back to the house. Are you sensing something is fishy, yet? They investigate the area and come to some conclusion, which means nothing as the mechanic man shows up and tells them The Jaegars are probably at the nearby fortress. Estelle and Anelace head there to solve moving wall puzzles and fight the big boss at the end. After an easy fight, he reveals himself to be Kurt! It was all a ruse to see how much our young Bracers have grown in the last month of training. The two Jaegers who raided the house the night before reveal themselves as two other minor Bracers from game one. I don't know about you, but I could smell the fish from a mile away!
The next scene takes us to a band of clearly bad men planning their clearly bad plan. We learn somethings about why they staged the coup in the first game, and get an idea of what’s going to happen in the coming two games. Everyone has some mysterious edgy name, and there’s a reference to “he” at one point.
Another scene change, and it’s the sky pirates/mid bosses from the previous game looking over a burned down town. They met up, walk down a path, and talk to...Joshua. They have some dealings of unknown business, and Joshua tells the pirates, Josette, Kyle, and Don Capua that he’s changed. We’re then asked to save the game as we’ve reached the end of the prologue.
So far, the game feels exactly like the first game, with all of its pros and cons. There’s a lot of discussion between events and dialogue between not important NPCs, which, as this is a two disk game, is worrisome. I know the characters are teenage girls, but they’re still trained mercenaries in a life or death situation. Stop being so catty! All the tropes are here (Anelace loves cute things and Estelle is lacking in common sense), but we’re only three hours in, and I have no reason to be obnoxious about things yet. Have some patience, me, and trust the process. I’m looking forward to a massive amount of world building and character in this game, and I’m gonna try to be hopeful that it doesn’t interrupt the gameplay as much. Let’s get to the meat tomorrow!
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