Words cannot even begin to describe what I feel for this game.
If you have ever been in love - that's the closest it gets to describe it <3.
I may sound like a game-addict, but that's just not it, you have to play this game to comprehend it.

For those who don't feel brave enough to face the wall of text (warning: this game is like a wall of text itself and the Second Chapter will be even more so ;-)), still have a look at the verdict, please.

Over 50h in length (it took me 52h) spans a grand story which isn't even over after this but leaves you craving for more.

• Basically, it is a quest to find your father, who was on an airship, which suddenly vanished from the skies. So you try to achieve this by stepping into your father's shoes and start your job as a so-called 'Bracer' - a kind of unofficial law enforcer. Therefore, you start out with your pair of siblings as 'Junior Bracers' and try to fill the hole left by your Father. This brings you closer to him and the mystery of his disappearance.
  
• Sometimes slow, just like a walk through forests and mountains with your friends,
  then rapid at others like zillion things suddenly making sense, events you thought might happen, come about and people do things you never thought they would do.
  
• Breath-taking and like magic keeps you in the world for hours without letting you go

It's a big, living world; there are interesting quests, NPCs and locations everywhere.

• The NPCs were very special to me - some already know things about you (yeah, sounds blurry, but I don't want to spoil anything), some might remember you if encountered before. I have to add, that I really tried to speak to every NPC - whether he would sell me something, give me a quest or just chat with me.
  
• That I did every quest possible (though I failed once or twice - since you always have a timeframe depending on your main questline to do sidequests) was just natural - I was motivated to do my 'job' and help the people of the country.
  
• Ancient towers, beautiful lakes, magnificent towns, military buildings, rocky mountains, dark forests, misty valleys make up the scenery around you and there is even more to see.

Very different individuals but every one of them loveable and enjoyable.
The two lead characters are Estelle and Joshua Bright, with Estelle being the main character, so to say. On your journey, you encounter multiple other characters who will join your fellowship. It was always hard for me to lose old comrades and gain new ones as I didn't know those and just got to love the ones I used to have with me (looking at you here, little T <3). After all, that's one of the things that makes this game very special to me.

• First of - I hate turn based games. The second thing is - I loved the combat in this game.
  Sounds strange again? - I know, but manipulating the flow of the fight by using crafts {1} or arts {2}, just focusing attacks on the next enemy, deciding whether to heal or attack when between a rock and a hard place - it makes the turns feel exciting and gets your heart racing.
  
• Additionally, this game also features elemental-based advantages, so if you fight against a plant-like monster, fire attacks will most likely 1-hit the cabbage. Naturally, this works both ways, so don't think about attacking the water-guys with fire attacks and be wary of their attacks in case you modified your defense to fire. Nevertheless to apply this, you either need the knowledge, where the Monster Book comes in handyor a quartz {3}, that lets you see enemy stats (I used the latter for the whole game).
  
• Sadly here is one thing I didn't like, i.e. that moving your character costs you the full turn, It was really annoying and I ended up using the moving in only 1 or 2 fights across the entire game, which is a bit sad but makes you try to position your characters by attacking certain areas.
  
• The 'Retry Offset' (downscaling on losing fights) is another nice feature for those who don't like dying over and over again without seeing any light in a difficult situation. On the whole, this game is about the story and not the combat so you shouldn't rage about it and dislike the game because of one single fight.

Definition of Terms

1. Crafts are unique special abilities of each character, they use 'CP' (Craft Points) which you get by attacking or being attacked. At 100 CP you can use an even more powerful S-Craft, which gains power as your CP-bar rises, up to 200 points.
   
2. Arts are the magic in this world, you gain access to magic depending on the quartz installed in your 'Orbment' (a device for using arts).
   
3. Quartz is made of so-called 'Septium Crystals' (a secondary currency/resource), they come in different elements and strengths and feature bonuses to your basic abilities like Attack and Defence and grant you access to arts.

I won't call it graphics, this game is old and you can certainly see this. However this is the PC version, so you won't have problems playing it on 1080p, the text is easy to read, the graphics of the faces (only for important characters) are magnificent and most importantly - the style matches the game and enhances the atmosphere perfectly.
You can certainly see that much thought and love was put into designing the whole world and every interior. Well, to be honest, the trees in the forest don't exactly look hand-placed, but who cares about that anyway?

Yeah, this gets an extra bullet-point, because every time I start up this game I immediately get goosebumps - I think that's enough to describe it.
Moreover 'The origins of light' (or 'of the stars') is just a beautiful soundtrack and by far not the only great one in this game.
The sound really adds to the atmosphere in the game.

Last but not least, the game is extremely fun and at the end of the day, that's what matters in a game - having fun.
I finished this game with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry - the best ending ever in the video games I've played.
I advise everyone to get this game and enjoy the magicical journey of the Trails in the Sky[www.trailsinthesky.com] :-)

If you have read this far - thank you.
I hope this review helped you in deciding to buy this game and if it did, I would be grateful for a 'thumbs up', if you didn't like it, you can give me a 'thumbs up' but I would be glad to hear your opinion on what you didn't like.

My review for Trails in the Sky Second Chapter.

[h1]My Impression[/h1] Words cannot even [i]begin[/i] to describe what I feel for this game. If you have ever been in love - that's the closest it gets to describe it <3. I may sound like a game-addict, but that's just not it, you have to play this game to comprehend it. [h1]Summary[/h1] For those who don't feel brave enough to face the wall of text (warning: this game is like a wall of text itself and the Second Chapter will be even more so [b];-)[/b]), still have a look at the verdict, please. [table] [tr] [th]Positive[/th] [th]Mediocre[/th] [th]Negative[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]+ Great story[/td] [td]~ slow at times[/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]+ Living world[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]+ Interesting NPCs[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]+ Fun quests[/td] [td] [/td] [td]- easily missable[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]+ Breathtaking locations[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]+ Loveable characters[/td] [td]~ you have to part with[/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]+ Enjoyable combat[/td] [td]~ moving is mostly a waste of your turn[/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]+ Beautiful artdesign[/td] [td]~ old textures[/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]+ HD Graphics in dialogues[/td] [td]~ for important characters only[/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]+ Goosebumps music[/td] [td][/td] [td] [/td] [/tr] [/table] [h1]The Story[/h1] Over 50h in length (it took me 52h) spans a grand story which isn't even over after this but leaves you craving for more. [list] [*]Basically, it is a quest to find your father, who was on an airship, which suddenly vanished from the skies. So you try to achieve this by stepping into your father's shoes and start your job as a so-called 'Bracer' - a kind of unofficial law enforcer. Therefore, you start out with your pair of siblings as 'Junior Bracers' and try to fill the hole left by your Father. This brings you closer to him and the mystery of his disappearance. [*]Sometimes slow, just like a walk through forests and mountains with your friends, then rapid at others like zillion things suddenly making sense, events you thought might happen, come about and people do things you never thought they would do. [*]Breath-taking and like magic keeps you in the world for hours without letting you go [/list] [h1]The World[/h1] It's a big, living world; there are interesting quests, NPCs and locations everywhere. [list] [*]The NPCs were very special to me - some already know things about you (yeah, sounds blurry, but I don't want to spoil anything), some might remember you if encountered before. I have to add, that I really tried to speak to [u]every[/u] NPC - whether he would sell me something, give me a quest or just chat with me. [*]That I did every quest possible (though I failed once or twice - since you always have a timeframe depending on your main questline to do sidequests) was just natural - I was motivated to do my 'job' and help the people of the country. [*]Ancient towers, beautiful lakes, magnificent towns, military buildings, rocky mountains, dark forests, misty valleys make up the scenery around you and there is even more to see. [/list] [h1]The Characters[/h1] Very different individuals but every one of them loveable and enjoyable. The two lead characters are Estelle and Joshua Bright, with Estelle being the main character, so to say. On your journey, you encounter multiple other characters who will join your fellowship. It was always hard for me to lose old comrades and gain new ones as I didn't know those and just got to love the ones I used to have with me (looking at you here, little T <3). After all, that's one of the things that makes this game very special to me. [h1]The Combat[/h1] [list] [*]First of - I hate turn based games. The second thing is - I loved the combat in this game. Sounds strange again? - I know, but manipulating the flow of the fight by using crafts {1} or arts {2}, just focusing attacks on the next enemy, deciding whether to heal or attack when between a rock and a hard place - it makes the turns feel exciting and gets your heart racing. [*]Additionally, this game also features elemental-based advantages, so if you fight against a plant-like monster, fire attacks will most likely 1-hit the cabbage. Naturally, this works both ways, so don't think about attacking the water-guys with fire attacks and be wary of their attacks in case you modified your defense to fire. Nevertheless to apply this, you either need the knowledge, where the Monster Book comes in handy[spoiler]or a quartz {3}, that lets you see enemy stats (I used the latter for the whole game)[/spoiler]. [*]Sadly here is one thing I didn't like, i.e. that moving your character costs you the full turn, It was really annoying and I ended up using the moving in only 1 or 2 fights across the entire game, which is a bit sad but makes you try to position your characters by attacking certain areas. [*]The 'Retry Offset' (downscaling on losing fights) is another nice feature for those who don't like dying over and over again without seeing any light in a difficult situation. On the whole, this game is about the story and not the combat so you shouldn't rage about it and dislike the game because of one single fight. [/list] [u]Definition of Terms[/u] [olist] [*]Crafts are unique special abilities of each character, they use 'CP' (Craft Points) which you get by attacking or being attacked. At 100 CP you can use an even more powerful S-Craft, which gains power as your CP-bar rises, up to 200 points. [*]Arts are the magic in this world, you gain access to magic depending on the quartz installed in your 'Orbment' (a device for using arts). [*]Quartz is made of so-called 'Septium Crystals' (a secondary currency/resource), they come in different elements and strengths and feature bonuses to your basic abilities like Attack and Defence and grant you access to arts. [/olist] [h1]The Visuals[/h1] I won't call it graphics, this game is old and you can certainly see this. However this is the PC version, so you won't have problems playing it on 1080p, the text is easy to read, the graphics of the faces (only for important characters) are magnificent and most importantly - the style matches the game and enhances the atmosphere perfectly. You can certainly see that much thought and love was put into designing the whole world and every interior. Well, to be honest, the trees in the forest don't exactly look hand-placed, but who cares about that anyway? [h1]The Sound[/h1] Yeah, this gets an extra bullet-point, because every time I start up this game I immediately get goosebumps - I think that's enough to describe it. Moreover 'The origins of light' (or 'of the stars') is just a beautiful soundtrack and by far not the only great one in this game. The sound really adds to the atmosphere in the game. [h1]The Verdict[/h1] Last but not least, the game is extremely fun and at the end of the day, that's what matters in a game - having fun. I finished this game with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry - the best ending ever in the video games I've played. I advise everyone to get this game and enjoy the magicical journey of the [url=http://www.trailsinthesky.com/]Trails in the Sky[/url] [b]:-)[/b] [h1]Note[/h1] If you have read this far - [b]thank you[/b]. I hope this review helped you in deciding to buy this game and if it did, I would be grateful for a 'thumbs up', if you didn't like it, you can give me a 'thumbs up' but I would be glad to hear your opinion on what you didn't like. [spoiler][url=http://steamproxy.net/id/Bash7/recommended/251290/]My review for Trails in the Sky Second Chapter[/url].[/spoiler]