I'll start off by saying that having played through the first one, this game is SOOO LONG with more than double the playtime of the original. That being said, I don't regret a single hour of this beautiful sequel.

Although the gameplay hasn't significantly changed much from the original, the magic (orbment) and skills (crafts) system has been expanded upon tremendously. The original three pages of magic has been expanded to five; introducing newer strategies to the abundant amount of character choices. The new skill, chains, finds itself to be useful in some scenarios. These additions made the gameplay always refreshing, seeing that I've played more than 100 hours fighting shiny pom poms.

The team system has significantly improved since the first chapter. This shouldn't be a surprise since the entire game revolves around changing teammates and parties, but first let me explain the difference. (Minor Spoilers) In the original game, two characters (Joshua and Estelle) would always be playable characters while each chapter offers two other characters that make up the rest of your party. Each chapter changed the party and thus your team strategy. The game struck a nice balance of difficulty and adaptation except for the last chapter. The chapter which allowed you to make your own team with all the characters you've met along the way wasn't very balanced. The enemy encounters grew extremely repetitive and boring, and the final boss could be described in the same manner.

However, the second chapter struck a good balance while letting the player create a team themselves. Although the first chapter was pretty repetitive since your options were limited, I found difficult monsters and interesting monster attacks that kept the combat intriguing. In general, bosses were more interesting and carried a 'mood' about them. Again (minor spoilers), but the last chapter's boss fights were beyond amazing. By far the bosses and 'road monsters' are the best thing about Trails in the Sky SC's gameplay.

Now a small paragraph about the OST. I read on a forum somewhere that the OST for SC was supposed to better than FC. For the majority of the game, I questioned this opinion since it reused alot of songs from the first game. But all of a sudden near the end of the game, the soundtrack dramatically improved with new songs. The credits song gave me chills. Good job music writers, although I'd appreciate if the same songs weren't used every single time in the first few chapters.

Retrospectively, I should've talked about the graphics/textures of the game in the first paragraph. If you've gotten used to the graphics in Trails in the Sky FC, then this game should be no problem. Although walking through the same landscape as Trails in the Sky FC is a bit boring, some of the new landscapes introduced are beautiful and well worth it.

Story and characters. Amazing. Marvelous. Hella GOOD JOB Nihon Falcom. Pretty much every character gets their back stories introduced and expanded upon. Some scenes are so fantastic that they definitely should've made a scene select option in the menu. The hidden nature of the Society and some of the plot twists make the game so much more interesting and hooks you back in the next day even after you've spent one entire day playing the game. Afterall, story and character development feels like such a lovely reward after defeating bosses with a sliver of health remaining. By far, Estelle's character development was done beautifully well. My only complaint is that you have to switch around characters in your party to obtain extra dialogue which sometimes can't be done without grinding character levels (looking at you, last area last chapter). Otherwise, the story is great if you enjoy anime stories with a touch of the shounen genre.

Honestly if you enjoyed Trails in the Sky FC, then this game is a must buy. As anyone does, I EXTREMELY HIGHLY recommend playing through the first game first. This game assumes you've already played through FC, so there are many spoilers and the difficulty curve is quite steep in the beginning. If you haven't tried either, I'd recommend buying the FC on sale and testing the waters before you delve deep into this trilogy.

I'm writing this review as I just finished this game and it feels great. However, I can see in the future I'll be impatient and sad waiting for the third chapter. Xseed, you better deliver the damned third chapter or I'll be coming over there with a Bo Staff.