Despite multiple playthroughs, apparently I never dared to write a review. In the hopes of catching one of my friends looking at this game tentatively over the upcoming Steam Sales, here goes...

This is the best narrative-driven CRPG in the last 25 years.

The writing feels so alive, every word of it. The art is evocative, as if Hieronymus Bosch reincarnated and painted a triptych depicting our modern broken world. The soundtrack by British Sea Power fits the game perfectly. The story and characters pull you in right away. The combined vibes are just off the charts. This is a real work of art.

The game gives you tools to shape your character with a one-of-a-kind skill system. In addition to typical skill checks it provides additional internal dialogue interjections and options. Thought Cabinet gives you further bonuses and maluses as you choose what kind of thoughts to internalize. These systems are mechanically perfect for this style of game. As in any good RPG, you roll a lot of dice. The failed rolls are often funnier than the successful ones. If you can't accept the outcome, most of the rolls can be retried later. Trying again fits the theme of the game perfectly. There are tons of hidden modifiers unlocked by exploring the world and engaging with the game. The game consistently rewards exploration and engaging with it.

The game lives and dies by its script. Over one million words, now fully voice-acted in The Final Cut, with delightful acting throughout. The game doesn't hesitate to be real -- it isn't at all afraid of confronting and calling out the player. Some of the topics it deals with are incredibly heavy, and not often encountered in games. There is a lot of black humor weaved in. It's very Estonian in character, something I bonded with right away as a Finn. The failures of communism, socialism, capitalism, fascism and centrism are all explored here in depth. The game gets crushingly sad at times, yet nonetheless it is permeated with a sense of vague hope. It can be a journey of healing.

The only reason to skip this game is if you're not a reader or suffer from attention span issues. The full voice acting only helps up to a point. It demands attention and rewards patience.

The only relevant point of comparison is to Planescape: Torment, an obscure CRPG from 1999 that was previously my uncontested favorite CRPG of all time. It is a similarly word-heavy story, with a similarly amnesiac main character, but if we are being real, Planescape suffers from its Dungeons & Dragons engine and combat. The setting is completely different and the story being told hits completely different beats. Clearly Planescape: Torment served as a faint inspiration, but the comparisons don't do Disco Elysium justice.

I'm frankly surprised that five years after release, this style and the mechanics haven't been copied by other games. Perhaps that is for the best. This is a unique masterpiece, and unluckily for us the studio that made it has disintegrated since, in a very Disco Elysium fashion. (Most negative reviews you see are kneejerk reactions to what went down.) Life imitates art.

This was my first Trails game, after almost a decade of hearing about the series here and there, even buying some of the games on Steam sales in preparation of playing it Some Day. The original PC version on Steam does not support Japanese or feature any voice acting added in the PS Vita version, although supposedly unofficial mods exist to add them in -- I never got around to fiddling with multiple mods on top of playing the game on Steam Deck. Now I'm glad I waited.

The game leaves a deep first impression: this is a good old-fashioned JRPG with an extremely impressive world-building and characters. Every NPC seems to have their own lives they're living, with frequent small updates. The world feels very lived in. You can get lost talking to NPCs for hours on end.

Our protagonist Estelle and her sidekick Joshua have a very good dynamic going on from the very first scenes onwards. The stakes are initially very low, with our duo being just fresh out of school and starting their internship as Junior Bracers. It felt like a refreshing change of pace from so many other JRPGs.

The game rewards patience and taking your sweet time with it, living in the different cities you come across on your journey and solving troubles faced by normal citizens of this kingdom Liberl.

The battle system is an evolution from the original, taking cues from the later games in the series. It feels great and the orbment system has enough depth in it to allow yourself to really tinker with the builds.

Once the story really picks up, it's hard to stop playing. A word of caution: this is by no means a self-contained game. It starts a trilogy and the soon-to-be remade second chapter continues directly from the events of this game. I am going to continue the story on PS Vita version of SC right away -- there is no way I could wait another year for Trails in the Sky 2nd.

Now that I've been dabbling with the PS Vita versions of the original games, it is very clear to me that this remake sets a new standard as to how to lovingly and faithfully recreate a 20-year-old game in a modern 3D engine. I honestly think this is the best way to enjoy this game right now: the facial expressions and animations add so much to the storytelling. The party banter is a new addition that really enriches the characters.

The voice talent has been almost completely recast from the PS Vita version; I don't yet have an opinion as to which version is better, but this new cast worked really well for me overall.

There is one small downside to this new remake that I have to mention: there are less voice acted scenes than in the PS Vita version. Initially it felt very jarring for voice acting to just drop completely at some points, especially when only one character is voiced in a discussion -- I don't think I've ever seen that before. Ultimately a small blemish in what is otherwise a masterpiece.

Overall, I now get it why people have been drumming up this series so much. I'm now fully on board -- I'm going to play through all of this series.