2 more screenshots here: https://twitter.com/Hansuke21/status/1471358630318518272

EDIT: Official website is now up: https://www.falcom.co.jp/kuro2/

EDIT 2: A small correction. The subtitle seems to be "CRIMSON SiN" with a lowercase "i". You never know if that'll be important!

Also, the Gematsu article is up (there are Kuro no Kiseki spoilers in the article): https://www.gematsu.com/2021/12/the-legend-of-heroes-kuro-no-kiseki-ii-crimson-sin-announced-for-ps5-ps4

A few details from it: Katsumi Enami will return as character illustrator. The game will inherit and polish its battle system and LGC Alignment system. It'll also include "numerous unique content such as a wealth of side content that utilizes its Calvard setting", which sounds like we'll be getting those promised minigames!

EDIT 3: As an aside, Nayuta no Kiseki Kai (The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails) will be having its Switch port released Spring 2022 in Japan. Also, all of these announcements are coming about due to Falcom's shareholder meeting currently going on.

Nayuta's website is up as well and the port has the rather fitting subtitle 'Ad Astra'. Personally I was still holding out some hope for them to slip an Ys game into the lineup as well since 2022 is a big(ish) anniversary year for the franchise, but oh well. Fingers crossed for next year there.

Kuro II's already sounding interesting with the obvious elephant in the room that the screenshots reveal. Also, other people have already gone over the details and have spotted that Elaine is getting costume tweaks. I'm expecting her to be a full party member by the end of the game. Bonus points if she 'joins' Arkride Solutions Office with the same pattern as everyone did in the first game, including Van's reaction. Imagine how glorious that scene would be. xD

What'll it be; 4 years of Kiseki, since Ys9, when Kuro 2 comes out? I was kind of hoping we'd get Ys(or maybe even TX2?????) if for no other reason than to give NISA a ghost of a chance to claw back a little ground, but alas.

Three, we got Hajimari and Kuro back to back and now Kuro II. Assuming the Calvard arc goes to three games (which is sounding likely) it would be darkly amusing for them to have a gap between II and III following an evil cliffhanger just so they can give some other franchise some time, instead of putting the gap where I was kind of expecting it prior to the investor's report (ie, 2022) where there isn't a cliffhanger. The salt would be pretty entertaining.

Hansuke has some comments on the Kuro II interview from the artbook (along with some snaps of concept art) though it's not complete yet. Based on that, Elaine sounds like she's going to be doing some things outside the oversight of the guild and this is related to her costume change. There's an oddly worded comment about how not all the main cast will be 'playing their main roles'. I assume that means some of them might be either playing different roles than before or have reduced importance, but I'd like the exact wording of the Japanese first. Also, Hermes is apparently confirmed to be a new character and not somebody we've met before hiding their identity.

Oh, and the biggest takeaway? Confirmation that Gaius is a lying liar who lied to us; he knew Barkhorn was alive the whole time.

Is there any other Dominion whose pants are on fire as much as Gaius? We better get the rest of that story next game or someone's getting a clip 'round the ear!

Posted by: @jumpyjunpei

Is there any other Dominion whose pants are on fire as much as Gaius?

I guess that depends on what else Celis can set on fire other than her templar sword.

Oh yeah, a bit belated but we had a big livestream last week with a teaser video, some gameplay footage and high-quality shots of the art from the Dengeki issue. The whole stream can be found here and the teaser can be found on its own here.

- In a nice touch, Elaine at the start of Kuro II mirrors Agnes at the start of the first game. No doubt Van's having awful deja-vu and wondering how his life is going to get turned upside-down this time.

- Red Grendel has its own Red Mare and whoever they are, they're clearly holding the final Genesis prior to their transformation.

- S-Craft cutins are back, using the models rather than separate art.

- Field Battles are smoother and Arts are now available for use. It seems to work like a charging attack and while some form of selecting your Art will be available we don't know what it is.

- Command Battles have a new EX-Chain ability that looks like an upgrade to the standard SCLM Chain with a cutin effect.

- Celis shows up in a combat shot but we don't know if it's as a guest or an enemy. She's definitely using her Stigma and based on the scene in Finale I'm going to assume her S-Craft will be Prominence (H)Agion.

- The Creepy Twins feel like they're linked to D.G. in some way, as whatever that is behind them in the one shot has some similar designs to the cult's iconography. Also, Renne is confronting them in another shot. The likelihood of her being a guest party member is high, I think. xD

- Agnes is seen in a new location with palm trees that suggest it's in the southeast but also high mountains.

- Elaine can be seen running around one of the mentioned but unseen wards of Edith, Centre Marche. Based on this I won't be surprised if each Chapter opens up a new section of Edith like the first game did.

- Swin is back with a new outfit, so Nadia and the rest of the Imperial Picnic Group can't be far behind. Given that 'C' sent a warning to Van in Finale and Garden is still around, it's not surprising they're showing up. Though the confirmation this early is kind of surprising and makes me wonder what else they're saving for a later reveal.

- Fishing returns with a new system that seems to involve more activity on our part, as the left stick is apparently going to control the angle of the rod.

With game 2 in the last arcs bringing back the previous MC, I wonder if the pattern will hold true here. I'd like to see a Rean/Shizuna rematch, since their first encounter was a bit lopsided in her favour. Also, I hope this releases in a more complete state and not require a post-release patch like with the first. Framerate aside, it was weird looking at some of the before/after comparisons of certain cutscenes and seeing how improved they were.

With the announcement of the art competition, I'm going to shoot my shot and send in my magnum opus. Wish me luck, guys, here's hoping this will win me the fire shark poster!

I'll be cheering for your Fireshark. xD

Oh yes, Falcom just subtly teased a returning character.

Sooo, Yotaka, are you getting the super special edition? Looks like quite a few goodies (the 1000 page book sounds kind of wild), but boy it'll put a dent in the ol' wallet.

Interesting to see them go back to a Hajimari-esque story progression system. After how well it worked there, I'm glad to see a return, although I wonder how much the party are going to be split up over the course of the game. Perhaps the second selection will be mostly for guest-type characters.

Not sure how I feel about tailing stealth missions. It's kind of been done to death in games and usually gets a little frustrating when you get spotted and have to start over, but I guess we'll see. It's kind of funny to see Endwalker and now this game introduce these kinds of modes. What's with JRPG devs suddenly discovering tailing missions!

I admit I'm kinda tempted by that Grendel plamodel from Dengeki's limited edition, and that scenario book is also kinda tempting...

Another interesting thing to come from the LE goodies is the tease that there's a 'free dungeon' that's associated with MTSC in some way called Marchengarten, and we can apparently play around with its music because one of the bonuses is a pack of songs from the Sky games.

And yeah, we'll see how the stealth missions work out, along with the hacking minigame (which looks like QTEs) but something floofy has said seems very apt: Falcom feels like they're using Kuro II to test out things that may go into the Ys games later. We've seen the two franchises work like that before and field battle magic and stealth are both things that would fit well into future Ys games, especially once they remake V.

A few other neat things to come out of the new footage:

I suspect most of those are 'work in progress' because everyone having the exact same CP and Damage values for their normal Crafts is pretty hard to imagine, and most of the special properties aren't filled in aside from Swin's but several visibly have them. Van's Craft list shows his pre-upgrade moves (Stun Slash instead of Magna Slash for example) which may also be a work in progress since they don't usually revert things like that.

Swin's S-Craft got bumped down to a regular Craft (Nadia didn't get the same treatment) and his old buff got replaced by an attack that also grants the same buffing effect as before.

One curious thing missing in those Craft lists is any appearance by the moves that Celis and Rion used at the end of Kuro when they helped the team Get Over The Barrier, Prominence Agion and Murgleys Pain respectively. We didn't see them but Falcom had them call out attack names during the cutscene while invoking their Stigmas so the obvious implication was that those were their S-Crafts. I doubt they simply forgot about them, so we'll just have to wait and see what's up with the missing moves.

Unrelated to the gameplay, they were even worse about the 'unknown individual R.A.' than they were in Kuro when everyone knew that Bergard was Barkhorn but they weren't saying it. It's awfully hard to pretend with a straight face that you don't know who it is when some of your promo shots including the one advertising the XIPHA voice show the guy, unmasked. xD

Also unrelated to the gameplay, they showed off a statue of a winged woman in flowing garb. I'm guessing it's supposed to be a stylized Sheena Dirke as the representation of Liberté or somesuch. Aidios is also possible, but maybe a bit less likely. And of course the outside chance (as they joked on the stream) is that it's Feena.

Unrelated to the gameplay, they were even worse about the 'unknown individual R.A.' than they were in Kuro when everyone knew that Bergard was Barkhorn but they weren't saying it.

Ah yes, R.A, clearly referring to R&A Solutions, by which I surmise (don't call me) Colonel Richard is making his triumphant return. I can read Falcom like a book!

They really outdid themselves with Celis and Rion's crafts. I honestly thought Celis's Ogun Orisha was her S-Craft at first for how flashy and nicely animated it was. Definitely feels like a step up from the last game. Hopefully the main crew get a bit of spit and polish so they don't get too left behind in the flashiness stakes. I swear if Barkhorn's second S-Craft isn't him revealing his Stigma I'm gonna riot.