Right off the heels of Trails in the Sky FC, Second Chapter is as direct as you can get from a sequel. The story picks up right where they left off and the combat skills have been scaled and rebalanced to match the new level cap. The combat changes aren't totally for the better - it's rare to find a boss fight where you can even hit the mooks with status effects - but the mandatory fights are fair enough that you should be able to charge on with your favourites and take in the story.
The story, on that note, really starts to shine from the setup in FC. Some characters I had absolutely no interest in ended up becoming my favourites, and some of the new characters have a lot of punch despite their late introduction.
The main things I took issue with were the side quest bosses, which almost always had a difficulty spike that made the following story boss feel like a cakewalk, and a later section of the game where you do a lot of walking. Like, a LOT of walking. So much walking I had to set my map turbo to 6x speed and I still felt my sanity slipping away. If you walked all the way through FC, though, you can surely walk a bit more for SC. Even with all the padding, it's worth it.
The story, on that note, really starts to shine from the setup in FC. Some characters I had absolutely no interest in ended up becoming my favourites, and some of the new characters have a lot of punch despite their late introduction.
The main things I took issue with were the side quest bosses, which almost always had a difficulty spike that made the following story boss feel like a cakewalk, and a later section of the game where you do a lot of walking. Like, a LOT of walking. So much walking I had to set my map turbo to 6x speed and I still felt my sanity slipping away. If you walked all the way through FC, though, you can surely walk a bit more for SC. Even with all the padding, it's worth it.