And now come to an end within my backlog. Over my years on Steam I had collected Ys games after the first two had left a pretty solid impression on me, and this was the last one to have sat waiting to be played. It won't be the end of the series for me, but I think that speaks well for this and the rest of the games so far. How well? Why not come on in and see.
Story: Its been many years since the last adventure we had with Adol, and once again, he has found himself in a fine mess and stranded in a strange land. Nor is he doing particularly well, as he was found barely alive and washed ashore on the Caanan islands. It was sheer luck two young ladies would be there on the shore to find him and bring him back to their village for help... and even more that their uncle (and chief) didn't just toss him back out. You see, Adol is human, and has landed in a very touchy situation where the village taking care of him is not... and due to recent events, there is a bit of strain between the groups.
It doesn't get any better for our wayward adventurer either, as he is currently trapped here. These islands are separated from the rest of the ocean by violent storms acting like a wall that generally destroys all vessels that get too close. Nor can he easily reach the other humans in his situation just now. Their village resides on another island, but the bridge that once connected them has been destroyed and the people here (known as the Rehdans) believe the humans did this after escaping back to their island with a sacred relic their priestesses have protected for generations.
Indeed, something is afoot, and knowing our hero, he will waste no time getting involved and trying to set things right. He is a hero by nature, after-all... and who knows.... maybe he will be able to find a way off these islands while helping to bring peace between these two cultures.
From this basic starting point, your adventure will be a fairly linear event as you slowly go from an effort to bring peace between two peoples to the real and sinister reason it was threatened, for there are things on this island far bigger then the local residence. It will not throw you any real twists so much as trickle details to you of the real picture to culminate with a final confrontation to complete the story and the game. This is a fairly standard set of story beats for this franchise, but it fits together very well and the end result is a rather pleasant story.
7/10
Graphics: Once again we are back to Ys games that were ported from yesteryear to more modern hardware: not remade, but ported. In this case, the original release came out about 20 years ago for Windows PCs in Japan and for us here in the states on PS2. But that isn't to say it aged badly, choosing once again to use 3D worlds against sprites for characters and regular monsters you will face off with. You will play this one from a birds-eye view as you guide Adol round this world, and the world itself is actually very nicely done! True, the geometry of it is simple compared to what we see today, but it is a highly detailed and varied world despite that.
From the sandy beaches to open plains, brick-ruins and beyond, this game holds nothing back, and by using a fixed distance for the camera, it took the tech available to produce some truly amazing looking and highly detailed areas to explore.
And that world is WELL populated! Everything from killer bugs, to slimes to wolves and evil shadows will assail Adol before you are done, and they will all do so looking absolutely great, from color choices to animation. I just can not find a fault here. It even goes so far down the detail route as to let you stain the world with your enemies' blood when they are finally taken down that actually colors the area rather then a fake looking sprite to represent it. Throw in a few very nice views of the land from on high and this game can be one hell of a looker!
But we haven't even talked about the highlight set pieces of the game: the bosses. There are only a handful of these but they are instant highlights to behold. Giant 3D rendered goliath battles that will take up most of the screen designed to impress and remind the player this is a big moment! Enjoy the moment before the hectic action begins.
The characters of this game, however, are a bit more of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the profile work is every bit as awesome as one would expect, taking an anime-art style and running with it to it's absolute maximum. Every picture oozes the personality of the character it's for, sometimes as a small facial picture with the words they say, while others full profile shots (or even images specific to the danger they are in), it looks gorgeous and works perfectly to deliver that feel.
Unfortunately their sprite work is another story (Adol included). Where previous games used chibi-art style sprites like you might see in the original Playstation RPG days, this game opted for higher resolution work, but work made from CGI figures of the chibified art. They are still animated sprites, but they carry that plastic look such designs of the time would, and frankly I have preferred it if they had stuck to the older hand-drawn look over this. You get used to it, but it's just not on par with the rest of what this game brought to the visual table.
7/10
Sound: Unfortunately, there really isn't any voice talent to speak of in this title. It would have been possible, but the developers opted to let all the voices be in your head instead this time. So instead you will have only the sounds and the music to entertain your ears, but this still works out pretty well.
While the sound effects of your weapons are about what you would expect (you will be using a set of three swords through the entire game, but more on that later), the monsters you fight will have a lot more variety. Bugs skitter around while flying insects buzz. Wolf pups squeak as they try to attack you while lasers fizzle. It all sounds really good to to be quite honest.
But the music is going to be what stands out. Much of it is orchestrated to the feel of the place you are in giving each it's own theme that honestly feels right, even if most of it will not stay with you long... and then you get to those bosses. Once again, they are designed as the highlights as the metal cranks into high gear with the battle. This is the type of music this franchise is known for and it does not disappoint!
8/10
Gameplay: You will play this game running around the Caanan islands from a top-down view, exploring them as you progress through the plot-beat supplied goals of the game, giving the whole thing a fairly linear feel, even as you are allowed to pretty much go anywhere you want that you have unlocked access to yet. This will usually occur by items you pick up along your way, but on occasion the very plot itself will open spaces up.
But just exploring on it's own in a game like this would be very boring, so thankfully this is a very combat heavy title... and the controls behind this are incredibly tight. Unlike other games, however, that tight control and combat is enhanced by a more detailed melee that will require you to think a little bit different about how you fight then other adventure games. You will not get hurt by running into an enemy, nor will you hurt them by slamming into them head first. All damage done is by actually attacking and hitting the target properly... by you or by the monsters you face. As a result, combat can get much more close and in person then most adventure titles, and you will want it to. For all the options available in play, your actual arsenal boils down to three swords, each representing an element with their "super attack," a move that will require you to have to charge by fighting monsters with it for most of the game. Each sword also represents a different balance of range, speed, and power, further allowing you to customize how you wish to play. Add to this the game lets you swap between blades on the fly and you can really mix up your style to do anything you want!
But be warned, this doesn't make the game easy, just flexible. If you don't keep yourself aware of what's going on, the monsters in the overworld or dungeons can and will put Adol under the ground much faster then you will expect. You are basically only invulnerable while taking a hit and either the push back from it or, potentially if you are hit hard enough, have been knocked down and need to get back up. The important thing to note, though, is until you've fallen back or get back up, Adol is not in your control and the instant you are, the enemy can hit you again, resulting in you being juggled and really paying for your mistake. There is no moment when you are forced to get into this situation, but you can expect a few where you will be in over your head and panicing that you might not get the chance to recover.
Thankfully this is also a game that rewards your hard work more then most. Sure, as you gain levels the same enemies will offer less and less experience to make the climb ever slower till you move on, but they never actually stop giving it out. And more importantly, those levels actually mean something. It only takes a few to go from an enemy type giving you serious trouble to being on par with your ability to take and dish out more damage... and only a few more till you are the dominant force. You still need to be careful with crowd control, but the odds become officially evened and pushed to your favor very quickly.
You will also have a chance to upgrade yourself with better gear you will find and buy in your adventures. Armor, shields, and equipment will come, but unlike other games in the series what you get is what you get. There is no upgrading any of these. That feature is reserved for those three swords. You see, in the human city, there is a smithy who specializes in the metal these swords are made of (a special mineral used to contain their elemental power) which, if you can bring more of it to her, she can level these up for you, boosting their attack power as well as granting them new traits like the ability to auto-generate power for that sword's super attack, making each sword better over the course of the game... and you will want to boost them all since like levels, elements also mean something: particularly when fighting bosses.
But while these fights are impressive to see and hear, the battles can be a bit more of a mixed bag. Most of the time, they are pretty good, but there will be moments that will make you wonder what is going on. In essence the late-game bosses tend to not be designed with a comprehension of what a difficulty curve is. There is one in particular which late in the game will hit like a brick wall, requiring you to go back to grind with particular zeal before you can proceed... only for the every remaining boss to being so easy compared to the levels before them, you can basically walk all over them when you get there. It just seems that the design here was all about flash and not so much about challenge.
But despite not understanding what difficulty is, the end package is a very solid playing adventure that makes up for these last moments with the entire journey before it, only sub-par because of the pedigree of series it's a part of. In a vacuum, this is an incredibly playing game.
7/10
Bugs: This is another game that ran just about perfectly. I will say just about because like Ys Origin and Oath in Felghana, the setup suffers from it being a game to release after controllers started to get complex, but before there were a few dominant form factors and button layouts to finalize what those controls should be on PC, so you may need to spend some time in setup before you can begin playing. To save you some time, you can base this layout around what was offered here by the steam community, although this time may not be an exact match.
Overall: If I were to rate this game according to the standards of Ys games, I would put it on the lower end of the spectrum, basically just about the original flawed classic. It is a very solid game, but it flies just short of the other members of this series I've played. If you are a fan of the series, you absolutely should step forward to experience it. Hell, if you are a fan of games like The Legend of Zelda, you should still grab this classic and play it. It may not be the absolute best of the best, but it is different enough from what other adventure game series offer to be fresh, and still stand well above the standard of the genre.
Score:
System Requirements:
- Pentium III 800 Mhz
- 1 GB RAM
- Any 3D Accelerator that can run DirectX 9.0c with 32 MB VRAM
- Windows XP
- 1 GB hard drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 5 5600G running at 3.9 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Windows 11
- PDP DX Wired Controller (Crimson)
Source: Steam
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