Tse Tse Fly
Savant
- Joined
- Dec 26, 2017
- Messages
- 786
Finally completed Ys IX, after roughly 73 hours. Surprised it took me longer than Lacrimosa of Dana, considering the game world appeared smaller in IX.
Overall, it's a decent game, even though it decidedly concedes to Ys VIII in certain aspects, most notably the design of levels and exploration. Personally I would not mind the introduction of an open world with free exploration with activities outside of fighting, IF there actually was some challenge in exploring it. If it isn't the monsters that are opposing the player while he is mapping out the area, there still must be something for the player to overcome, but thanks to how the locations of new and unknown points of interest (quests, landmarks, graffitis, treasure chests, etc) get marked on your map right away, while you're still a good way off, there was little in the way of actually *exploring* the game world on your own. There rarely was a moment I could spend without another icon appearing on the map, the game immediately spoils everything without letting you properly look around for yourself, which defeats the purpose of exploration. I searched for a way to disable map icons for some types of points of interest or decrease the distance at which they get revealed to you by the game, but couldn't find any. That said, traversing the game world was fun (especially when I did get presented with a challenge of finding my way across the terrain to get to the point of the current destination), though some of the monstrums' gifts are underused.
Another thing with which I am not exactly pleased is that two of my least favourite gameplay elements from Ys VIII, namely side quests and tower defense nonsense, not only made it into the new game but became effectively mandatory in Ys IX. Side quests are still optional technically, but completing them is one of the two possible ways of obtaining "Nox points" (the other way is through farming lemures ad nauseum, which is even worse), accumulating which is necessary for getting access to new locations and progressing through the game. Still, I wouldn't say these two things ruined the game for me, because 1) side quests required little effort to complete and allowed you to acquire new characters and reveal more details of the game's story 2) Nox holes are better integrated with the narrative and you only have to do them from time to time.
Despite the points above, I cannot call Ys IX a bad game while staying honest to myself, because the button-mashing combat is as fun as it ever was (even though they managed to fuck up with Adol to some degree) and there is one specific thing Ys IX does better than the previous games, and that being the writing. This time the characters are actually interesting and you haven't to force yourself to pay attention to their stories. Besides, almost all of the major characters are related to the main story in some way, and I was really surprised how it all connected together in the end. The plot still goes places sometimes (the deal with Chatelard, for instance -- what was it even about???), some twists appear out of nowhere, but the writing is much more sensible and coherent than it was in Ys VIII. I think it wouldn't be much of an overstatement to say that Ys IX has the best story and characters of all Ys games (at least those currently available on Steam), for what it's worth. I'm really impressed, I wish the writing in the other Ys games was on this level or better.
So this concludes my initial introduction to the Ys series.
My final ranking of the Ys games I played:
Ys VIII > Oath in Felghana > Ys IX > Ys Seven > Celceta > Ys II > Ys VI > Ys I > Ys Origin.
I wouldn't call any of these games bad, all of them are pretty close to one another for me, but as they say, I have my preferences.
To be honest I haven't exactly *completed* some of those games (Ys II, Ys I, Oath in Felghana, Ys VI - stuck at the final bosses, Ys Origin - only completed Hugo's story IIRC), but I'm going to come back when I feel like it.
Now, has there been any news regarding the next Ys game?
Overall, it's a decent game, even though it decidedly concedes to Ys VIII in certain aspects, most notably the design of levels and exploration. Personally I would not mind the introduction of an open world with free exploration with activities outside of fighting, IF there actually was some challenge in exploring it. If it isn't the monsters that are opposing the player while he is mapping out the area, there still must be something for the player to overcome, but thanks to how the locations of new and unknown points of interest (quests, landmarks, graffitis, treasure chests, etc) get marked on your map right away, while you're still a good way off, there was little in the way of actually *exploring* the game world on your own. There rarely was a moment I could spend without another icon appearing on the map, the game immediately spoils everything without letting you properly look around for yourself, which defeats the purpose of exploration. I searched for a way to disable map icons for some types of points of interest or decrease the distance at which they get revealed to you by the game, but couldn't find any. That said, traversing the game world was fun (especially when I did get presented with a challenge of finding my way across the terrain to get to the point of the current destination), though some of the monstrums' gifts are underused.
Another thing with which I am not exactly pleased is that two of my least favourite gameplay elements from Ys VIII, namely side quests and tower defense nonsense, not only made it into the new game but became effectively mandatory in Ys IX. Side quests are still optional technically, but completing them is one of the two possible ways of obtaining "Nox points" (the other way is through farming lemures ad nauseum, which is even worse), accumulating which is necessary for getting access to new locations and progressing through the game. Still, I wouldn't say these two things ruined the game for me, because 1) side quests required little effort to complete and allowed you to acquire new characters and reveal more details of the game's story 2) Nox holes are better integrated with the narrative and you only have to do them from time to time.
Despite the points above, I cannot call Ys IX a bad game while staying honest to myself, because the button-mashing combat is as fun as it ever was (even though they managed to fuck up with Adol to some degree) and there is one specific thing Ys IX does better than the previous games, and that being the writing. This time the characters are actually interesting and you haven't to force yourself to pay attention to their stories. Besides, almost all of the major characters are related to the main story in some way, and I was really surprised how it all connected together in the end. The plot still goes places sometimes (the deal with Chatelard, for instance -- what was it even about???), some twists appear out of nowhere, but the writing is much more sensible and coherent than it was in Ys VIII. I think it wouldn't be much of an overstatement to say that Ys IX has the best story and characters of all Ys games (at least those currently available on Steam), for what it's worth. I'm really impressed, I wish the writing in the other Ys games was on this level or better.
So this concludes my initial introduction to the Ys series.
My final ranking of the Ys games I played:
Ys VIII > Oath in Felghana > Ys IX > Ys Seven > Celceta > Ys II > Ys VI > Ys I > Ys Origin.
I wouldn't call any of these games bad, all of them are pretty close to one another for me, but as they say, I have my preferences.
To be honest I haven't exactly *completed* some of those games (Ys II, Ys I, Oath in Felghana, Ys VI - stuck at the final bosses, Ys Origin - only completed Hugo's story IIRC), but I'm going to come back when I feel like it.
Now, has there been any news regarding the next Ys game?
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