Anime Ys series

[Sarathiour]

Checked mine, all I have from Chapter VI is on nightmare and a while further in, but let me know if you want it.

Difficulty can be changed, the only exception is inferno, and I'm not after achievements anyway. Would prefer something taking place before dana's segment, in order not to miss anything. Also yeah, saves should be compatible, but you'll have to do a bit of digging through steam data's folder.

 

[Ebonsword]

Yahtzee reviewed Ys IX and, amazingly, seems to actually have liked it.

 

[Rean]

Shadenuat adolF is the least interesting character in the series. Do you STILL not understand why there's a playable party? Do you still not get that even if Adol is the supposed recurring protagonist the series is about everyone else but him?

 

[infidel]

Looks like even Falcom could not withstand the charms of them F2P shekels:
https://mmoculture.com/2021/08/ys-v...hrough-the-mobile-mmorpg-based-on-classic-ip/

Such a weird choice, though. Six is based on an archipelago, a finite and small place. I wonder how do they intend to expand it. Also it looks like for the first time Adol's lines are voiced.

 

[Endemic]

Looks like even Falcom could not withstand the charms of them F2P shekels:

They already published a Trails MMO/gacha type game though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Heroes:_Akatsuki_no_Kiseki

 

[Sarathiour]

Replayed Ys 8 from the beginning, finished it without hiccup this time.

Great game, honestly the plot was better than what I was expecting. My only complain would eventually be the difficulty : it's certainly not difficult, or at least, the difficulty is highly modulable given how many consumable you can bring to a fight. It's more like it got those weird spike, few area where you get dogpiled by primordial are way harder than the following boss, because they hit like a brick, got quick attack with less obvious tell. Also the late one got some move that are absolutely BS, like stunning you trough a scream, which they follow into an unavoidable attack.
Also, I know the boss at the top of baja is supposed to be some sort of references from previous title, but I have no idea how to cleanly do this fight.

 

[Rean]

Yeah, the balancing has always been whack in the series. Dana is ridiculously OP.

 

[Valestein]

For you gents that want Classic Ys(ie no party) or Zelda action, you might want to look into "Death's Door", shit's pretty tight homie.

 

[HoboForEternity]

For you gents that want Classic Ys(ie no party) or Zelda action, you might want to look into "Death's Door", shit's pretty tight homie.

I have been eyeing that for a while, just there's so much games coming out (archolos, then finally have time to play trudograd, then expeditions and weird west next month)

 

[Riumedis]

Ys IX has a now Co-op and 16:10 aspect ratio support, so far they have not published these changes to the GOG version.

Ys IX Patch 1.1.2 - Introducing Local Co-op
As well as 16:10 Aspect Ratio Support, and a Slew of Minor Fixes



It has been a while, but today we are very happy to announce a major update to Ys IX: Monstrum Nox. The most important new feature this update introduces is local co-op. Two players can join together to not only fight monsters and explore dungeons (as in Ys VIII), but also explore the city of Balduq. Beyond co-op, this update also brings support for aspect ratios narrower than 16:9 -- which is particularly useful on e.g. the Steam Deck's 16:10 screen -- and a number of more minor bug fixes which we have accumulated since the release. These will be detailed at the end of this announcement.

Local Co-op
The local co-op feature allows two players to play Ys IX together, at every point in the story where more than one character is available.

Note that there is an in-game co-op setting which you need to enable in order for co-op to be available. Once this setting is enabled, the co-op player can drop in and out of the game using the "Start" (or equivalent) button on any non-primary controller, while the "Select" button on the secondary controller toggles the player ID indicators ("P1" and "P2") on and off.

Unlike Ys VIII, where co-op was mostly limited to combat, the second player is largely equivalent to the primary player in terms of capabilities in Ys IX, including movement and combat abilities, using Monstrum Gifts, discovering and triggering landmarks, enemies and events, opening chests, picking up collectibles, and initiating dialogue. Only interacting with menus and the map is restricted to player one.
Another significant improvement over the co-op feature in Ys VIII is that character switching is implemented individually for each player: that is, if there are 3 characters in the current party, players one and two can both independently switch to the currently-unused character without affecting each other.

Of course, given the experimental nature of this feature, there are some constraints and restrictions to keep in mind:

• You need two controllers to play in co-op (or one controller each for Steam remote play together), and it is not possible to re-bind the controls for the second player.
  
• There is shared camera control, and while the co-op camera code does its best to keep both players on screen, this takes some getting used to and requires a different approach to camera control than the single-player mode.
  
• The co-op mode is experimental, and in select situations sequences of specific actions could lead to a softlock (e.g. triggering some device which closes doors with the character controlled by player 2, and then logging that player out). Please keep this in mind.

We have completed 100% of the game in co-op at Nightmare difficulty during testing, and I personally think that it is an incredibly enjoyable way to experience Ys IX.

16:10 Aspect Ratio Support
Previous versions of Ys IX used letterboxing for any resolution aspect ratio narrower than 16:9. In this version, all 3D scenes render at full resolution for aspect ratios such as 16:10 (even down to 4:3). 2D elements such as the menu or map screens will still be letterboxed as, just like for ultrawide, the effort to redesign all of these to be aspect-ratio-independent is prohibitive.

As you can see above, the Steam Deck benefits from this change with its 16:10 screen.

Full Changelog
New Features

• Local co-op support
  
• Support for narrow aspect ratios
  
• The "Equip Screen Supersampling" graphics setting now also applies to the "Ritual Relics" screen

Fixes and Improvements

• Make sure that traps behave functionally the same at high framerates (>>60 FPS) as they do at the default framerate
  
• Fix timing of fades after video playback before Grimwald battles
  
• Fix spikes at Dry Moat Ruins boss not being shown with some settings
  
• Fix crash on startup when no audio devices are available
  
• Fix UI animation speed of Grimwald result screen at high FPS
  
• Fix a long-standing bug causing NPCs to get stuck on some ceilings after wall run
  
• Fix some English spelling issues

I am personally very much a fan of local co-op in games, and feel like too few RPGs in particular offer the option to play their main campaign in co-op. I hope this update brightens the day of my fellow co-op aficionados out there, as well as anyone playing on a 16:10 monitor or who is planning to get a Steam Deck of course.

- Peter "Durante" Thoman, PH3

PS: As always, you can use the "Betas" feature on Steam to revert to a previous version of the game in case something goes wrong on your system with this patch.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Hello,
So I finished Ys Seven the other day on normal difficulty, and having also played Ys I+II Chronicles+, Ys Origin, Ys: The Oath in Felghana, Ys VI before that, I noticed Ys Seven was somewhat lacking in challenge compared to the other Ys games I've played. Today I have started Memories of Celceta, also on normal difficulty, and I made it past the tutorial section, now do you think it's worthwhile restarting it on hard/nightmare while I haven't got too far into the game? How does Celceta's difficulty compare to that of the previous Ys games? Is it going to be even easier that Ys Seven? Same question for Ys VIII and IX to which I will get eventually. The only thing that really hinders me from just restarting my playthrough is the prospect of having to endure the tutorial section again, and I want to hope that there is a good reason for that, that hard/nightmare difficulty would actually allow for a more enjoyable and rewarding experience. Normal difficulty in the new Ys games which came before Ys Seven was about ideal for me.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

And so, I started a new playthrough of Celceta, this time on nightmare difficulty, and it seems in doing so I ended up trying to bite off far more than I could chew, because this nightmare difficulty turns the game into some ultra sadistic variation of Dark Souls. I was struggling to overcome the first boss for maybe an hour (I did succeed, though my hands are still twitching nervously) and my working tactic was just -- roll the fuck away in the opposite direction whenever you see the boss make a swing, because if you get hit just once or twice, it is the end, you might as well restart the battle immediately, because it is almost guaranteed that you will fuck up once again and the game will truly be over. The companions are not particularly helpful either, they often end up getting their asses in trouble while you're not looking (because the AI is utter shit), so your only viable way of utilising them is to run the 'evasive' combat mode at all times and switch to your companion only when Adol gets incapacitated or there is an enemy which can't be effectively damaged by Adol's weapons, basically turning Celceta into a single character game (well, it's not like it was much different in Ys Seven, to be honest), for your companions being comically useless (they can't even dodge enemies' blows properly, still getting brutalised time after time like the pathetic wimps they are). Consumables, like healing potions etc, you have to use sparingly, and it doesn't make much sense trying to resort to them outside of boss battles, since they're rather expensive and sooner or later you're going to get knocked out along the route anyway, like by being one-shot by some random hit from a particularly powerful foe. I don't know for how long I will be willing to continue, it seems reasonable to me to try lowering the difficulty to hard and seeing how it goes, since I do not expect this to get any better.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Started Ys 8 yesterday. I must say, the game looks and sounds rather luscious, in particular the soundtrack is a noticeable upgrade over Celceta (still not as good as Ys I-II or Seven, but I haven't listened to all the compositions yet). Combat feels distinctively better and smoother than in Celceta as well, though I do not appreciate that characters and monsters now move somewhat sluggishly, coming from the previous games it feels like I'm drowning in kissel, everything has slowed down like by 1.5x (is there a mod or whatever that increases the speed of animations without breaking the game?). It is disappointing to see that the trend of cas00lisation that started in previous games has continued to persist in Ys 8 -- Ys Seven added the possibility to use healing consumables during boss battles, Celceta allowed the player to carry an unlimited number of each consumable, and now Ys 8 introduces more kinds of healing consumables at your disposal -- in addition to the usual healing potions you can now use foods to restore health, and you can easily get a decent number of them from cooking and searching around the locations. Regarding the design of levels, puzzles and exploration (gameplay elements not related to combat) it's too early to judge, but reintroducing the ability to jump (dashing is also there) seems a rather promising change to me. Though I cannot say I particularly care for some of the new mechanics and systems they added, such as fishing (!!!) and raids (???), I hope that these are entirely optional. Other than this, I'm rather liking the game, my Steam stats say I managed to log 7 hours on a single day but I couldn't tell that, I simply wasn't noticing time fly by as I was playing it, shame I still have to make occasional breaks for work, food, sleep and other annoying stuff, I'm looking forward to playing it again as soon as I'm back home from work.

 

[Ysaye]

Started Ys 8 yesterday. I must say, the game looks and sounds rather luscious, in particular the soundtrack is a noticeable upgrade over Celceta (still not as good as Ys I-II or Seven, but I haven't listened to all the compositions yet). Combat feels distinctively better and smoother than in Celceta as well, though I do not appreciate that characters and monsters now move somewhat sluggishly, coming from the previous games it feels like I'm drowning in kissel, everything has slowed down like by 1.5x (is there a mod or whatever that increases the speed of animations without breaking the game?). It is disappointing to see that the trend of cas00lisation that started in previous games has continued to persist in Ys 8 -- Ys Seven added the possibility to use healing consumables during boss battles, Celceta allowed the player to carry an unlimited number of each consumable, and now Ys 8 introduces more kinds of healing consumables at your disposal -- in addition to the usual healing potions you can now use foods to restore health, and you can easily get a decent number of them from cooking and searching around the locations. Regarding the design of levels, puzzles and exploration (gameplay elements not related to combat) it's too early to judge, but reintroducing the ability to jump (dashing is also there) seems a rather promising change to me. Though I cannot say I particularly care for some of the new mechanics and systems they added, such as fishing (!!!) and raids (???), I hope that these are entirely optional. Other than this, I'm rather liking the game, my Steam stats say I managed to log 7 hours on a single day but I couldn't tell that, I simply wasn't noticing time fly by as I was playing it, shame I still have to make occasional breaks for work, food, sleep and other annoying stuff, I'm looking forward to playing it again as soon as I'm back home from work.

Fishing and raids are optional. Reputation needs to be 200 (maybe 150) to get the true ending.

 

[Sarathiour]

Ys 8 introduces more kinds of healing consumables at your disposal

There is indeed a shitload of consumable, but if you're masochistic enough to play on inferno, it limits considerably the number you can bring to a fight.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Fishing and raids are optional. Reputation needs to be 200 (maybe 150) to get the true ending.

Do I get it correctly -- you DON'T need to do fishing or raids to get the true ending, only the reputation thing? Now have I to do fishing or raids to be able to gain enough reputation for the true ending?

There is indeed a shitload of consumable, but if you're masochistic enough to play on inferno, it limits considerably the number you can bring to a fight.

Can you enable this limit on hard difficulty?

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Also, WTF is going on with this game's controls. For some reason it can't recognise my gamepad's L3 and R3 buttons (on the sticks), and control setup is as much of a pain in the ass as ever -- just WHY have I to SELECT the button to which I want to assign an action, instead of just PRESSING the button I desire? It does not fucking help that my gamepad's buttons (except for a few) are all labeled as '1', '2', etc -- how would I know which label relates to which specific physical button? The default control scheme is a mess as well. But at least this time my gamepad is recognised by the game consistently, I haven't to reconnect it or restart the game and perform some weird magic rituals for gamepad to start working again. Though some of these problems might have to do with my specific gamepad and not the game itself.

 

[Ysaye]

Fishing and raids are optional. Reputation needs to be 200 (maybe 150) to get the true ending.

Do I get it correctly -- you DON'T need to do fishing or raids to get the true ending, only the reputation thing? Now have I to do fishing or raids to be able to gain enough reputation for the true ending?

There is indeed a shitload of consumable, but if you're masochistic enough to play on inferno, it limits considerably the number you can bring to a fight.

Can you enable this limit on hard difficulty?

Only reputation point scoring through doing NPC quests, filling out the map (% exploration I think?) and finding NPCs.

 

[Sarathiour]

Can you enable this limit on hard difficulty?

Just don't use them lol, there is a save point in front of any boss anyway.

Only reputation point scoring through doing NPC quests, filling out the map (% exploration I think?) and finding NPCs.

Actually, doing raid also contribute to reputation point, not sure for fishing. Getting 200 is relatively easy, you're going to reach it far before 100% the game.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Why do the male playable characters in the party-based Ys games (Seven, Celceta, 8) turn out to suck so much? Apart from Adol of course. I mean playing them is always such a bore. Like in Celceta, where Ozma was slow as fuck and Duren was too close-range, which is why I always went with some two girls + Adol. Ys 8 is no different in this regard. I've just dealt with that serial killer dude or whatever, so how long is until new playable characters become available?

Also for how long are we going to continue to fight mere wild animals? I'm about 14 hours into the game, it's about time we ran into some great ancient evil or something.

And the writing has been some truly embarrassing anime cringe so far, it's like the plot and characters were written by a 10 years old. It wasn't as bad in Seven and Celceta, at least not to the point of actually making me angry.

 

[Sarathiour]

Sahad is probably the worst of the six, it's some kind of "noob character" for people who play in normal and easy. Hummel learn counter trick later on, which is absurdly strong. His attack range is also quite good, so I would not say he's trash.

Ys 8 is no different in this regard. I've just dealt with that serial killer dude or whatever, so how long is until new playable characters become available?

next one :

Spoiler

chapter 3

last one :

Spoiler

chapter 4

Also for how long are we going to continue to fight mere wild animals? I'm about 14 hours into the game, it's about time we ran into some great ancient evil or something.

Chapter 3 is going to make clear what's the main opponent are going to be .

Spoiler

you've already encountered a few of them

It also introduce a change of pace because you're going to start playing Dana.

And the writing has been some truly embarrassing anime cringe so far, it's like the plot and characters were written by a 10 years old. It wasn't as bad in Seven and Celceta, at least not to the point of actually making me angry.

It sort of get better toward the end, though it's still anime trough and trough.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Finished Ys 8 yesterday, it took me about 52 hours. Awesome game, the only major downsides are the schizo plot (literally batshit insane, especially towards the end) and bland and cliched anime characters (maybe except for Dana, such a sweet girl). In terms of combat it's the best Ys game so far, it felt too slow at first, but over time I came to terms with it and it didn't bother me too much. Locations became more expansive and interesting to explore compared to Seven and Celceta, but I still miss those obscure (to a certain degree) puzzles and hidden optional content like in some of the earlier Ys games (or maybe I did miss it in Ys 8). The soundtrack is nice, but still inferior to that of Ys I&II and Seven. I couldn't force myself to take my time and do the side quests to get the true ending, watched it on youtube instead. All in all, wonderful game (on one of the days I managed to play it non-stop for almost 14 hours, which never happens to me with CRPGs), if only the writing could match up to the rest.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Now I can't decide whether or not I should play Ys IX now. How is it? Are the plot and characters better than in Ys 8? If I already owned it on Steam/GOG/whatever like the other games, it would be a no-brainer, but the price is rather steep (and I don't think I would be able to buy it at all due to the sanctions), and torrenting involves its own set of inconveniences, so maybe I should consider other options from the 700+ games I already have (such as CrossCode -- how is it similar to Ys games, gameplay-wise?).

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

It didn't take too long for me to make up my mind and go and get Ys IX after all.

I must observe that controls setup is fucked up again. Had anybody else any issues regarding the controls too, or is it just me? I've got a 8bitdo sn30 pro+ for a gamepad, and for some reason the game thought my A button (the right one) was actually the B button (the bottom one), and my B button was the A button, and because of this, the right skill would erroneously get assigned to the bottom button, not to the right one, which was counter-intuitive and required some extra effort on my end to adapt to. Then I found out that apparently it was my gamepad that was at fault after all, since it does have the A and B buttons swapped with one another (compared to the Xbox One controller, for example), and after a fair bit of fidgeting around I managed (involuntarily) to trick Steam into thinking I'm using the Swtich pro controller, which has the same action buttons layout as my actual gamepad, and the game seems to agree with this as well, so the problem seems to be gone for now (though I still had to spend an entire hour trying to find a solution to it).

Now I can't believe the raids thing from Ys 8 has made it into Monstrum Nox as well (even though without the tower defence element, it seems), are they for fucking real with this? How often have I to go though this shit in the new game? I dread to think they could actually make it a core game system this time (I read about this in a review on Steam), not just a (mostly) optional side activity like it was in Ys 8.

And why does everything look so drab and pale this time, compared to the blooming and vivid sights we feasted our eyes on in Lacrimosa of Dana? Even disregrading the fact the game now doesn't take place on a tropical island, it looks awfully boring, a major downgrade from the previous game.

 

[Ysaye]

It didn't take too long for me to make up my mind and go and get Ys IX after all.

I must observe that controls setup is fucked up again. Had anybody else any issues regarding the controls too, or is it just me? I've got a 8bitdo sn30 pro+ for a gamepad, and for some reason the game thought my A button (the right one) was actually the B button (the bottom one), and my B button was the A button, and because of this, the right skill would erroneously get assigned to the bottom button, not to the right one, which was counter-intuitive and required some extra effort on my end to adapt to. Then I found out that apparently it was my gamepad that was at fault after all, since it does have the A and B buttons swapped with one another (compared to the Xbox One controller, for example), and after a fair bit of fidgeting around I managed (involuntarily) to trick Steam into thinking I'm using the Swtich pro controller, which has the same action buttons layout as my actual gamepad, and the game seems to agree with this as well, so the problem seems to be gone for now (though I still had to spend an entire hour trying to find a solution to it).

Now I can't believe the raids thing from Ys 8 has made it into Monstrum Nox as well (even though without the tower defence element, it seems), are they for fucking real with this? How often have I to go though this shit in the new game? I dread to think they could actually make it a core game system this time (I read about this in a review on Steam), not just a (mostly) optional side activity like it was in Ys 8.

And why does everything look so drab and pale this time, compared to the blooming and vivid sights we feasted our eyes on in Lacrimosa of Dana? Even disregrading the fact the game now doesn't take place on a tropical island, it looks awfully boring, a major downgrade from the previous game.

Yes the inclusion of the raids again is a bit sad; it is almost like the programmers are so proud of being able to have setup different algorithms for raids that they feel they need to keep feed us that kind of thing.

It is set in a prison so..I guess the colours make sense. One of the more incongruence bits with it being a Ys game is that Adol is supposed to always be off exploring so for him to have one set where he is in prison...I suppose that is why Adol has minimal actual involvement in this game and paints his hair blue?