New Game+ - Worth?

[Aria]

I've just completed the game for the first time and I'm wondering to what extent is it worth going through a NG+? Bearing in mind what I am most interested in is the story content - I don't really care so much about achievements, raising the difficulty for a better challenge or stuff like the CSII crossover rewards. I mean they're goals I would target upon starting one but I'm not about to go through the game again unless there is worthwhile extra content. I'd just get extremely bored seeing & fighting what I've already seen & fought.

So, is there anything that would make it worthwhile for me or is it fine to just call it quits here and wait for CSII?

Thanks in advance.

[Oguzhan]

well there is an option for more bonding points soooo you can experience them all I guess. The rest is the usual new game plus stuff.

[Erpy]

Short answer: no. Bonding events were already viewable through the practice of saving/reloading and final bonding events can be viewed on Youtube if you're curious. There are no NG+ only quests.

The sequel does have a NG+ only bonus boss as well as a hidden quest with some major story significance, but replaying that one might be easier for you since it gives you a lot more control over your party makeup at all times.

[Stabbey]

Only if you want to see the story again, spot all the foreshadowing and realize what it meant.

That actually worked for Trails in the Sky FC where you could see all the hints which were dropped which you lacked context for the first time.

[Cold_Steel_IV]

Apologies for the long post.

Before answer your question, I would llike to suggest something that will most likely interest you if you haven't heard about it before. Since you are most interested in story content, and if you haven't already read it, I would highly recommend ready this Drama CD[www.trailsofcoldsteel.com]. The story of this CD was originally intended to be a chapter in the game that takes place in Ymir. If you remember, Rean states at the start of the Final Chapter that he would have to tell the tale of what happened there "some other time".

That particular part of the story was cut due to time restraints, but it was important enough for them to want to include it into the story in some way, thus the Drama CD. The events of the Drama CD are referenced in Cold Steel II so it is worth a read through. Otherwise you might end up a tiny bit confused when some characters mention the events of the Drama CD in CS II.

XSEED, deeming it important enough to buy and translate the scripts of, have provided an official translation of the 2 Drama CDs for the Cold Steel games (There is one Drama CD for Cold Steel, and another for Cold Steel II) on their Cold Steel II website for free for anyone to read. The site itself (excluding the CS II Drama CD) doesn't contain any important spoilers for CS II if you've already seen the trailer, however some people like going in completely blind without seeing anything about the game or even watching the trailer. The link I've provided below links straight to the first Drama CD. As long as you don't browse the site you are in no danger of being spoiled. Just make sure you don’t read the second Drama CD until you've played CS II.

There is one other thing I need to mention as well. And that is the Trails in the Sky Trilogy. Since you said you are interested in story content and it seems, seeing as you made this thread, that you are considering another playthrough of this game, I would also highly recommend playing through the Trails in the Sky Trilogy before Trails of Cold Steel II's PC port comes out (CS II's PC port is on track for a 2018 release as of now, in case you didn't know). The Trails in the Sky Trilogy take place 2 years prior to this game and to the south of the Empire in the small kingdom of Liberl. Liberl was mentioned a few times in this game and there were a few references to the events and people in those games as well.

The Trails Saga is an ongoing 8+ game series that tells an overarching story that spans all of these games. All these games take place on the same continent and take place within the same time frame of a few years of each other.

The games are divided into "arcs" where they star mostly different main casts and are set in mostly different nations. The first game or games in an "arc" are relatively stand-alone in that they do not rely too much on knowledge of past games as they are mostly there to introduce the new main cast and country.

And while this game's story does not rely on knowlegde from past games, later games in this series do. Cold Steel II will be even less friendly about references and spoilers, as there are much more of them in that game. And Cold Steel III will expect you to have played all the games in the Trails Saga up to that point.

The main reason I would recommend playing the Sky Trilogy (the only other games localized at this time) before CS II comes out is due to CS II containing more references to those games than CS I did, and because CS II contains a some spoilers for the Sky games. A couple of them pretty big. CS I also spoils an important character reveal for Trails in the Sky Second Chapter.

All that being said, you don't necessarily have to play the Sky Trilogy before CS II to enjoy the game. You should be able to understand the main story of that game fine without the previous games (aside from Cold Steel I which obviously has to be played before Cold Steel II). I just figured it was a good idea to let you know, in case you didn't already.

Now as for whether or not I think New Game + is worth it:

In my opinion: Yes, this game is worth a new game plus playthrough. But for me, I've always personally felt that these games were intended to be played more than once. In a second playthrough you can notice all the forshadowing, pick up on details you didn't notice the first time, and understand what some characters are really saying that you wouldn't have known on a first playthrough. And in Cold Steel II (and, from what I've heard, Trails to Azure) the new game plus does have important story content that is definitely canon as well.

There is one large incentive to playing new game plus, and that is for the unlimited bonding points. So if there is a character you wanted to do the final bonding event with, but couldn't due to not having a high enough link level with them or not doing enough of their events, you can now do so.

While you said you didn't care much for the carry over for CS II, there is a couple story related things that carry over. One of the things that carry over is the choice you made bonding-wise. You will be able to have a little more dialogue with the person you chose in CS I in CS II.

Another thing you'll be able to use the NG+ for is to try and do all quests and talk to all npcs every time their text updates, since all the npcs have their own stories going on throughout the game that will update after every story beat. I believe there is also npc dialogue changes to some of the npcs if you helped them out in the first game. I know this was the case in Trails in the Sky Second Chapter when you carried over your save data from First Chapter, but I can't remember off the top of my head any differences in CS II to the npcs based off your actions in CS I, so I can't be sure. Playing through this game after playing through the Sky Trilogy, should you choose to do so, will also change how you see a lot of events in this game.

All that being said, most of this can be seen on just a second playthrough rather than a new game plus playthrough and not all of the things I've mentioned may interest you enough to justify a NG+ playthrough. So while in my opinion, it is worth a NG+ playthrough, you, yourself, may not find it worth it.

So in short: If you are only interested in spending your time on raw story content, then I would not recommend a New Game Plus playthrough. However, I would recommend reading the Drama CD and playing through the Trails in the Sky Trilogy, as these will offer you at least 100+ hours of raw story content. It's also a good time to do play through them, since you can play them while waiting for Cold Steel II to come out in 2018 (most likely early 2018). If you are interested in wanting to learn more about the Sky Trilogy, allow me to provide you a link to an FAQ I made here on Steam for the first game in the trilogy: Trails in the Sky FC (First Chapter). Here is the FAQ for Sky FC.

I don't know whether or not my post sufficiently answered your question, but I hope this post proved helpful to you in some way and I hope you enjoy Trails of Cold Steel II once it's released. :)

[Erpy]

Oh, right, forgot to check your profile. Yeah, you DEFINITELY want to play the Trails in the Sky games.

[Monterossa]

This game doesn't have any endgame challenge, so it's very pointless to grind your characters.

Optional challenges are in CS2, and everything you gained in CS1 will not be carried over. So you should just save your time & effort for CS2 instead. That game worth doing NG+ & grinding your characters.

[Dr. Gori]

Първоначално публикувано от oguz.gungor96:

well there is an option for more bonding points soooo you can experience them all I guess. The rest is the usual new game plus stuff.

Just youtube them and wait for CS2 Steam release.

[Kyle G]

My man Cold_Steel_III back with another lengthy info dump.

[Aria]

Cheers for the responses everyone. I'll just wait for CS II then since it seems I can access most things I'd have missed on a NG+/new playthrough anyway.

Първоначално публикувано от Cold_Steel_III:

Apologies for the long post.

Holy sugar I was not expecting this level of depth. Props to you. Yeah, I'll definitely check out the first Drama CD. As for Trails in the Sky I'll definitely get into that series at some point but I'm not sure it'll be before CS II is released here. I can't afford to spend a lot of money on games for the next 2-3 months so buying the Sky trilogy isn't really an option right now.

Yeah, I knew the bonding choice carried over so I made sure to go all out on that. I had almost 10k bonding points on her and only barely scraped level 5 on two others. I also completed every quest apart from the Chapter I hidden quests since I didn't realise hidden quests were a thing at the time. So it seems like the biggest incentive for replaying in that case would be the foreshadowing and seeing other character events but I can do the latter without spending hours replaying the game and it's probably not worth it solely for the former.

Thanks for such a detailed response - it answered the question and more lol.

[Evan]

Първоначално публикувано от Cold_Steel_III:

Apologies for the long post.

Before answer your question, I would llike to suggest something that will most likely interest you if you haven't heard about it before. Since you are most interested in story content, and if you haven't already read it, I would highly recommend ready this Drama CD[www.trailsofcoldsteel.com].

Damn, how i missed this?
Thanks for the link!

[Croy]

Quick NG+ question. If I want to replay and choose a different partner at the end as well as obtain the higher levels to get the gold medal in CS2, will I have to redo every single bonus AP point and side quest and hidden quest again? My save file has my normal play through where I did all these things, but to get the extra CS2 bonuses I need to be a higher level.

Hopefully somebody can let me know and it will perhaps help me decide if I do a nightmare run of this game or not.

[Stabbey]

If your save file at the end missed AP, I'm quite sure you'll still need to get all the things on your NG+ run, not ONLY the things you missed. This is one reason why I'm saving frequently and going back if I ever miss things.

Luckily it's much harder to miss things in this game because the flags for "do this thing and the main story advances" are pretty big and well posted. There were some in the Sky series which were not very well posted at all.

[Croy]

I didn't miss any AP on my first run, so if I do a nightmare run I'm not sure if I have to do it all again or if my save file will show one of runs having completed every bit of AP and whatnot. I am looking for an excuse to skip side missions and hidden missions the second time around lol.

[Stabbey]

I'm quite sure that if you want a second run with full AP and everything, you need to do all the quests even if you already did them all the first time..