Easily one of the most wild and memorable experiences I've had with playing a game. The way it starts, the way the first couple requests go, I was thinking to myself "Hey this is really great, the setting is super interesting, these characters are fun, and this gameplay isn't nearly as convoluted or tedious as I thought" (ignoring the half an hour I spent trying to solve one of the insane math questions given through the optional lost and found items). But with each request, the game allows you to get a little closer to your goal, and as you get closer, it really starts to mess with you. Several of the chapters in this game felt like cruel jokes on the player, but the writing and execution is so spot on I still found myself laughing with the game, amazed at the audacity of several different moments. FSR definitely is as insane, occasionally bullshit, and patience testing as people say it is, but it never stops being incredibly compelling, quite a feat to pull off. Just when you think you're sick of it, it pulls you back in.

The way this ties into The Silver Case is also really cool, never really making clear what is and isn't related to the events of that game, but playing with the elements and characters of that game in a way that really kept me on my toes (apologies to the probably large percentage of people who played this port with no knowledge of TSC).

Lastly, obviously being able to play the PS2 version of this game would be great, but something about the way this game looks and sounds in order to be on the DS, as well as the fact that it's on the DS at all, it really adds something to it. Something might have been lost, but I feel like something else really good was gained, not smart enough to say what exactly. "That DS feeling", I guess is the only thing to call it. I mean, you should have seen how hard I popped off for the DS rendition of Tokio's theme.

EDIT: Coming in real quick because I forgot an entire paragraph of this review. Anyway, I mentioned earlier the way the game slowly becomes more and more cruel as the story goes on, and I love the way that's reflected in the NPCs. It starts off with everyone taking note of how kind Sumio is and how willing he is to help people out, and eventually everyone is telling him to his face that they're using him because he's a useful idiot, and tell him to fuck off to the other side of the island. Everyone goes "yeah it's hard, but you'll do it because I told you to, you piece of shit". That sudden hostility and anger that came out of characters every now and then in TSC shows up in full force. This coincides with more and more of the island's true nature being revealed, and it's quaint remote feeling being replaced by an unnerving artificiality. Good shit, in summation.