Anime Ys series

[Tse Tse Fly]

Played through Ys 8 for the second time, took me about 60 hours. Doing so I am reminded once again that there's a real difference between just a lengthy game and a slog. Ys 8 is by no means a short game, even by JRPG standards, nevertheless I never managed to start getting bored with it, for the whole duration of my playthrough. You know, there are games that you can enthusiastically play for one or two sessions, and the next day feel dead inside just by thinking about launching them again. Ys 8 is the complete opposite of that - even after finishing the game for the second time very recently I am not content, and am eager to start another playthrough, but then I'm stricken by the realisation that there's really no point to do so, since I've already done 100% of the content (even fishing...).

I call this track "Too Bad This Game Has an Ending"



Ys X sure can't come soon enough

 

[Nutmeg]

I heard all the Ys after Origins aren't very good as action games but it's nice to hear that they may be good for what they are experiences nonetheless.

 

[Spike]

Played through Ys 8 for the second time, took me about 60 hours. Doing so I am reminded once again that there's a real difference between just a lengthy game and a slog. Ys 8 is by no means a short game, even by JRPG standards, nevertheless I never managed to start getting bored with it, for the whole duration of my playthrough. You know, there are games that you can enthusiastically play for one or two sessions, and the next day feel dead inside just by thinking about launching them again. Ys 8 is the complete opposite of that - even after finishing the game for the second time very recently I am not content, and am eager to start another playthrough, but then I'm stricken by the realisation that there's really no point to do so, since I've already done 100% of the content (even fishing...).

I call this track "Too Bad This Game Has an Ending"



Ys X sure can't come soon enough

Great to hear about Ys 8. Ys after 1 has been in the backlog for a while. Have you tried playing it on a higher difficulty or looking for difficulty mods?

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Great to hear about Ys 8. Ys after 1 has been in the backlog for a while. Have you tried playing it on a higher difficulty or looking for difficulty mods?

I was playing on Hard, it's somewhat on the easier side (except a couple bosses), but I wasn't in a mood for "Dark Souls" experience. There are 2 more difficulty levels after that (on PC at least). Maybe there are mods that limit how many healing items you can carry with you (or something like that), but I haven't checked.

 

[Spike]

Great to hear about Ys 8. Ys after 1 has been in the backlog for a while. Have you tried playing it on a higher difficulty or looking for difficulty mods?

I was playing on Hard, it's somewhat on the easier side (except a couple bosses), but I wasn't in a mood for "Dark Souls" experience. There are 2 more difficulty levels after that (on PC at least). Maybe there are mods that limit how many healing items you can carry with you (or something like that), but I haven't checked.

Well. Now you know what you must do. Play those difficulty levels one after another.

 

[Arthandas]

I heard all the Ys after Origins aren't very good as action games but it's nice to hear that they may be good for what they are experiences nonetheless.

Yup, the moment they married Adol to dumb AI controlled party members the series went to shit. While my personal favorite is Ys I & II Chronicles+, objectively Origin is probably the best.

 

[Spike]

I heard all the Ys after Origins aren't very good as action games but it's nice to hear that they may be good for what they are experiences nonetheless.

Yup, the moment they married Adol to dumb AI controlled party members the series went to shit.

Hard disagree.

 

[Arthandas]

Hard disagree.

Please keep your diary entries to yourself.
Zoomers don't have the capacity to appreciate the classics before the series went popamole.

 

[Spike]

Hard disagree.

Please keep your diary entries to yourself.
Zoomers don't have the capacity to appreciate the classics before the series went popamole.

Not a zoomer. I like old Ys too.

 

[spookyheart]

I just find the games to be eh ok thats really bout it honestly.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Popamole? Can someone explain this how Y's went to that and how/why?

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Popamole? Can someone explain this how Y's went to that and how/why?

Probably expressing discontent that the first 6 Ys games were gamey games like Doom or Mario, ie it was very much about the gameplay and the action with the story as little bit of set dressing on the side, but then by Ys 8 it had become an imitation of Trails story heavy JRPGs with loads and loads of long winded repetitive dialogues.

 

[Arthandas]

Popamole? Can someone explain this how Y's went to that and how/why?

It's when they decided to renounce the old formula of tight, challenging gameplay with Adol as the only controllable character and slapped dump NPCs you need to babysit through entire games. They're basically running around doing your job in combat, and you can often freely slap distracted enemies. Ys Origin is probably the peak of the series, I couldn't force myself to play anything after that, and I've tried.

 

[Jinn]

You can turn off party member auto attack, which I've done in every Ys game with party members I've played.

 

[Arthandas]

Having your party members run around doing nothing is even dumber, just a visual clutter. Not to mention the series have become pretty easy, which is a direct contradiction with the old-school titles.

 

[Lucumo]

It's when they decided to renounce the old formula of tight, challenging gameplay with Adol as the only controllable character and slapped dump NPCs you need to babysit through entire games. They're basically running around doing your job in combat, and you can often freely slap distracted enemies. Ys Origin is probably the peak of the series, I couldn't force myself to play anything after that, and I've tried.

Well, it goes hand in hand with them abandoning the PC market/players. Despite their backstab, I still played Ys Seven and it was utter garbage. And everything after that looked at least as bad. And that's apart from the decline of the character design.
I don't know about Ys Origin being the peak. It's obviously very good but it's a long-running series and I would argue that the different titles were great at the time of their release. Back in the day, I even created a thread/wrote a review about The Ark of Napishtim but nobody really cared about the series at the time.

Having your party members run around doing nothing is even dumber, just a visual clutter. Not to mention the series have become pretty easy, which is a direct contradiction with the old-school titles.

Is it? Personally, I've never found the series difficult but they did release different difficulty modes for different games, making it harder or easier. Kind of weird but Falcom always tried to go for everyone...and not just in the Ys series.

 

[Arthandas]

I've never found the series difficult

Well, obviously it doesn't apply to normies playing on normal, but nightmare difficulties were pretty hardcore.

 

[Lucumo]

I've never found the series difficult

Well, obviously it doesn't apply to normies playing on normal, but nightmare difficulties were pretty hardcore.

Kinda pointless to cut the relevant part though. Like I said, harder/easier modes were released later. So it's questionable how they (the newer games) are "a contradiction with the old-school titles". If anything they went from "not difficult" to "easy" or "very easy" (no clue, since I'ved not played any past Seven).

 

[Arthandas]

So it's questionable how they (the newer games) are "a contradiction with the old-school titles".

No, it's not. Old games were all about your skill at controlling Adol. Now it's a party based bullshit with crafting and semi open world.
Not to mention they're just badly designed, here's some peak gameplay from LoD:


Literally standing in place while mashing the attack button and abusing flash guard.

 

[Lucumo]

No, it's not. Old games were all about your skill at controlling Adol. Now it's a party based bullshit with crafting and semi open world.
Not to mention they're just badly designed, here's some peak gameplay from LoD:


Literally standing in place while mashing the attack button and abusing flash guard.

Well, it looks pretty boring, especially with that flash guard stuff.

Difficulty aside, where I disagree: Party-based nonsense and crafting has definitely nothing to do with the older games, that's for sure. I think I wrote on this forum before that the series was about a lone adventurer who at best meets some characters or has some recurring characters but never acts in a party. Crafting was, too, just added bs. It's one of the reasons why I found Ys Seven so appalling...apart from its crappy implementation (and it not being on PC). They turned a pure adventure series into something which it shouldn't be, at least from how I see it.

Now that I think about it, I maybe wrote about this stuff on NeoGAF actually. At least I do remember asking an XSEED employee about The Ark of Napishtim which they were releasing in the West. IIRC, his comment why I should buy it again is because they added features like being able to teleport and other completely useless crap, lol.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

So uh random....

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I'm actually excited for Ys 10 mainly because I see it as a relaxing comfort-food game and not something I'll have to get too invested in to enjoy.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I got that video from an Y's enthusiast. I should have just posted the play list. He gives his take on Y's and the ones he liked. What I really laughed about was this anime short in the vid that had Adol bumping into a guy or it was someone. I wish he sourced that because I find some anime adaptations of the old games interesting. Wizardry takes the cake for damn good but the Babylonia series (i forget the name of the anime) looks interesting and the tower in Y's makes me think of that game. Obviously bump combat is superior in Y's than in say Hydlide.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Demo is out

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Putting Adol in charge of a ship seems remarkably irresponsible.