Yeah, well, I'm not good at these kinds of games. For me, Celceta on Normal was one of the hardest experiences I've had in the entire series. If it weren't for healing items, I couldn't possibly have made it through most areas alive.
And really, I think stockable healing items are the culprit for Ys Seven and Ys Celceta feeling easier to a lot of people than Felghana and Origin. Take those out of the equation, and suddenly, the party system doesn't seem like nearly as much of an unfair advantage in the player's favor anymore.
As someone who didn't use healing items in either, I still felt like they were noticeably easier. Especially Celceta, I think I died one time legitimately (and again when I glitched through the floor in a dungeon).
As someone who didn't use healing items in either, I still felt like they were noticeably easier. Especially Celceta, I think I died one time legitimately (and again when I glitched through the floor in a dungeon).
I'll admit that the bosses weren't very hard, but those giant enemies on the map that you learn skills from killed me more times than I can count! You really had no trouble with them?
I'll admit that the bosses weren't very hard, but those giant enemies on the map that you learn skills from killed me more times than I can count! You really had no trouble with them?
I think I cheesed one or two of the early ones actually, but beyond that I don't remember having any trouble with them.
I also abused the ever loving crap out of Karna (and later Frieda) for a big chunk of the game though. I think it might be harder if you don't use Karna.
I think I cheesed one or two of the early ones actually, but beyond that I don't remember having any trouble with them.
I also abused the ever loving crap out of Karna (and later Frieda) for a big chunk of the game though. I think it might be harder if you don't use Karna.
Even disregarding her skills, the fact she can attack from a distance makes her easymode. Makes it much easier to avoid damage simply by dodging for the majority of the game.
Normal, fairly certain. Tom says he always picks normal/standard difficulty. IIRC I waffled and went with normal because I had read some impressions that the game was Felghana-tier challenging, but ended up regretting not going with hard.
Normal, fairly certain. Tom says he always picks normal/standard difficulty. IIRC I waffled and went with normal because I had read some impressions that the game was Felghana-tier challenging, but ended up regretting not going with hard.
Origin probably killed any chance of me ever playing Nightmare again. Got through the mobs just fine and thought I was going to enjoy it, then I spent like an hour or two trying to beat the first boss because I died in three hits and it took like 20+ to kill him.
I'll definitely start with hard in the new game though, I don't trust Falcom to make a reasonably challenging normal mode anymore.
Supposedly it's actually easier than Origin Nightmare but that just doesn't make much sense to me, given how Felghana's other difficulties compare to Origin. That is, Felghana is harder at equal difficulty settings.
So far I've only done hard if there's a difficulty option. I'll definitely try Nightmare when I get around Playing Ys VI, and maybe when I get the itch to replay one of the games.
How I rate the Ys games I've played:
Ys Origins: 9.5/10 - My favorite so far. It's also the first one I played, though I went back to it to do the other character.
Ys 1 Chronicles+ (PC): 7/10 - Well, it's the first one. There's some really cool boss battles, and some which get crazy hard (I struggled the most in the last two). It doesn't help there's a level cap you reach early on, so the option to grind a level or two isn't there like in most of the other games in the series
Ys 2 Chronicles+ (PC): 8/10 - This is really good, but the last dungeon soured my experience a bit.
Ys III (Genesis): 6.5/10 - I want to hate this game for the unbalanced mess it is, but there's something about it. Must be the music. It's also bite-sized. which is not a bad thing for me. The translation is the worst.
Ys III Oath in Felghana (PC): 9/10 - Don't think much needs to be said about this one. If you haven't played any Ys game, try this one.
Ys IV Dawn of Ys (PC-E CD): 9/10 <--- Definitive classic Ys experience. If you liked Ys II at all you must try this one.
Ys IV Mask of the Sun (SNES): 6/10 - Average. Only 4 direction movement, graphics are ugly for the time, the boss battles are very mediocre compared to the godly PC-E version. At a least the soundtrack is nice, as it's shared, but it can sound quite different.
Ys V Lost Kefin (SNES) 6/10 - Not a bad game, it's just an average ARPG from the era. Just be aware that it has nothing of what makes Ys games awesome for most people: kickass music and boss battles. it's too damn easy and the music is orchestral wannabe Squaresoft.
I assume this is for Yunica or Toal. I beat every boss except the last two without Hugo's dash ability on Nightmare because I completely missed it.
Origins is definitely my favorite Ys game out of the ones I've played (I, II, Oath, Origin, Seven). Best bosses, best plot, most replayability.
For what it's worth, I enjoyed Seven a fair amount. I didn't really like a lot of the things they added (the crafting and grinding weren't very fun), the weapon types didn't feel necessary at all, and the bosses were a little lackluster. But I still really enjoyed my time with it. It's certainly not as great as Origin/Oath, but it's still pretty great nevertheless.
Hugo is there for after you want to slam your controller in the ground after playing with Yunica. He's broken as hell. Though Toal is the strongest character by far but he requires a bit more effort to play.
You're a badass. That dog was a pain in the ass on Normal but I found the final boss and the ice dragon fucker to be far more threatening. Who knows on Nightmare? Well, I guess you would.
Just like how in Felghana, the other bracelets are there, and enemy encounters are designed around them. Or how in Ys Origin, the other artifacts are there, and enemy encounters are designed around them.
While I do agree that solo Adol is somewhat missed, I also think it's entirely fair to say that switching characters really isn't any different than switching swords, bracelets or artifacts in Ys VI, Felghana or Origin. They're people instead of things, but functionally, it's more or less the same idea.
Counterpoint: you don't have to buy and stock equipment for bracelets/swords/artifacts. Game economy in Seven and Celceta ballooned due to having to manage a party instead of just a stable of usable relics. Didn't need a loot system either.
Counterpoint: you don't have to buy and stock equipment for bracelets/swords/artifacts. Game economy in Seven and Celceta ballooned due to having to manage a party instead of just a stable of usable relics. Didn't need a loot system either.
Well, that was actually another thing I liked in Seven: learning skills from weapons. Falcom basically took that system directly from Xanadu Next, and I loved it just as much in Ys Seven as I did there -- it's a brilliant way to make collecting new armaments into something fun as opposed to the simple chore it often is in other games, and I really lamented its removal from Ys Celceta (where not only were new weapons irrelevant to learning new spells, but practically irrelevant in general since you could just craft any old weapon into a powerhouse that was well beyond whatever you'd find in treasure chests along your way).
Celceta made up for that with its badass mega-overworld, though, which was incredibly fun to explore!
Both games were definitely huge changes from the Ys we've all come to know and love -- but then, Ys VI was a pretty jarring change from Ys V, which was a pretty jarring change from Ys IV, which was a pretty jarring reversion from Ys III, which was a mindblowingly huge change from Ys I & II. So I think if there's one constant in this series, it's that it never stays constant for long. It's honestly a fairly recent trend that we get even two games in a row that use the same engine, much less the three we got with Napishtim, Felghana and Origin -- that was a fluke beyond flukes.
I like it when companies shake it up and try new stuff even if certain stuff doesn't work out. So I like the big differences between Ys games.
As much as I love Origin and think it's a real masterpiece of a game, I wouldn't want them to create Origin clones for the rest of time. I like to be surprised! Even if I get frustrated with the new systems and such at first. I may have liked Ys VI the least, but I liked the idea of having a single really powerful spell that takes a long time to charge just as much as skills that you can use freely.
Just like how I enjoyed Persona 4 and hope that other companies don't start making Persona cl- oh fuck
Wind attack. Try to attack him whenever he's waiting and dodge his attacks. Go on the offensive whenever you see him waiting, strike with charged wind if you can, though normal wind is fine too.
Yo dawg I hear you like dat TO MAKE THE END OF BATTLE with dat PC-XX synth goodness.
So we took dat PC-XX synth goodness and played it live before an audience and added a violinist to the mix to make it more awesome https://youtu.be/m8uO2FdvhgI?t=922
Yo dawg I hear you like dat TO MAKE THE END OF BATTLE with dat PC-XX synth goodness.
So we took dat PC-XX synth goodness and played it live before an audience and added a violinist to the mix to make it more awesome https://youtu.be/m8uO2FdvhgI?t=922
So I just finished Ys Seven after cracking it out over the past two weekends. Longest Ys game I've played so far.
Overall I'm not so down on this game. It had some great highs and some serious lows, as opposed to Ys VI where I only felt strongly on the boss design, dash jump and some weird missing story elements. I'll write some opinions with spoilers marked. Long post incoming!
Enjoyable stuff:
- Dash. I can't believe it, but they actually gave Adol a Sonic dash. Well not just Adol but any character can now step/backstep/roll 20m at the press of a button. Crazy but it works with the battle system and really makes the game unique in an awesome way. Hilarious to see Dogi doing these huge leaps and for
Mishera to do flip rolls
.
- Parries. Don't listen to what any silly Street Fighter 4 scrubs tell you. Parries are fucking hype. Multi-parrying an energy wave and building levels of SP during it is the height of awesome. I can't believe it's not in the tutorial list, Q had to tell me it was in the game, because parries are an awesome mechanic, why hide it? Taking critical damage and a knockdown for missing a parry is fair.
- Skills. Holy crap there are a lot of skills in this game. Not only that but there are tons of diversity in skills and interesting balance around how much a skill costs to use and distance from the opponent.
- Bosses. The bosses I felt were properly designed (more on this later) and the diversity of them was good. Every battle was unique and challenged you to read the patterns properly. Really, this game has fun bosses with very few exceptions.
- Music. Superb. Special mentions go to the theme where you fight against
Scias
and many of the area themes. Most area themes in games are forgettable with everyone citing the boss and battle music instead, but this game has great themes all-around for every part of the game.
- Leveling. Character leveling and the leveling caps are fair and that's all I ask for. The amount of times you can purchase equipment upgrades is just way too high, but you usually have enough money to handle it, so I wasn't bothered.
- Dungeons. Even though these dungeons are heavily reduced in scope compared to Ys predecessors, I thought that the relative speed in which you can beat them while still retaining their unique styling was good. Special mentions go to the
lava dungeon and the ice dungeon
.
- Story. It's not as good of a story as Oath's or Origin's, but it was enjoyable and had a good premise for building up the hype. I like how Dogi basically just says whatever the player is supposed to be thinking and Adol's extremely slow nod (lol). Some dialogue was good, some bad and cliche, but overall satisfied. I will say that outside of the hype twist that happens with Adol and co. midway through the game, the other twists were exceedingly obvious through process of elimination, which kind of killed the surprise. There's one small cutscene they really shouldn't have shown which basically spoils the last 40% of the game if you take the time to think about it for a few seconds, but OH WELL.
Unenjoyable stuff:
- 30fps and framerate. I don't care if you're the biggest PSP fanboy that mother nature has ever spawned but 30fps for an action game will always be unacceptable. During many boss fights or frenetic moments in particular the animation was very headache-inducing. Call me an elitist if you like. Framedrops against the
dragon battles
were a huge downer, especially against the
bird boss and the Moon Dragon
because it turned battling against them into a huge mess. It also makes dodges and parries and other things harder to time. I know there was likely no way to guarantee 60fps given the way this game is presented but I'm allowed to be annoyed by this, dammit!
- Skill leveling. I don't know why they chose to do this, but level 0 skills being unselectable after switching weapons is the dumbest possible balancing decision I've seen in Ys yet. I really want to try out all sorts of different skills, but not at the expense of doing pathetic damage to enemies and bosses. Leveling skills takes far too long (at the time of me beating the game, I believe I don't have a single skill above level 3, and that's with Adol), SP takes ages to generate, parries have a hard limit on SP generation (max 30 on multi-parries) and the Blue Jewel barely helps, and you don't get Battle Bandanna until VERY late into the game.
- Difficulty. Because of the sheer number of variables in which I can improve my team, Normal was just way too easy most of the time. I'm not a fan of Nightmare because I know that gaining money and SP such is way slower and that makes the game not fun. I died twice; once on the first boss and once on the
bird boss
, the first time I was unfamiliar with controls and underleved, and the second time I was severely underleveled (rushed through the boring wind dungeon) and didn't stock up on healing items. But once I took the time to level up, I didn't die again. Because teammates take heavily reduced damage, and you can merely switch away from teammates who are under bad status effects, and you can take an unbelievable level of healing items into battle, the game was a supreme cakewalk.... minus the final boss, which
forced me to level up characters I never used, so I just reset until I went back and got their levels using EXP rings. Not to mention that in the "surprise fight" against Scias, I actually managed to lop off 30% of his health before dying, despite being woefully unprepared... kind of sad for a battle which you are supposed to lose
.
- Overworld. Talk about an extraordinarily bland series of open areas. Combine that with the badly balanced difficulty (Ys games should "normally" be challenging!) and the fact that enemy encounters don't get interesting until the very end of the game and moving between areas and leveling up is really really boring. Given how much time you spend in these places this is a real downer. Also, it is 100% bullshit that
your warp points get reset, adding a huge god damn time slog for no adequately explained reason since you're just going to the altars anyway!
- Materials. When I fired up this game, my very first thought was "please don't copy Monster Hunter like every other PSP title." Unfortunately my thoughts betrayed reality. Material gathering is just honestly a big waste of time and felt very tacked on but unfortunately it's the easy way to get great armory selection for cheap. Around 1/3 of the way through the game I said fuck it and stopped collecting materials and decided to focus on money with Bandit Gloves and that Urn instead. Stupid grindy nonsense with bait and hooks and the even dumber "rare drops". How do we go from the simple leveling of past games to RNG padded on junk like this? Unacceptable.
- Story. First; what the hell happened to
Geis? Yeah he was a bit unapproachable in Ys VI but he was also the sporty type. They turned him into a whiny edgelord with a short temper. Also Mishera's implementation in the game was extremely boring and cliche, and basically only served to make "wise" statements during cutscenes. Aisha was cliche but her dynamic with her father and Dogi was well done. The dialogue that Dogi uses could've been way better timed too.
Some cutscenes took way too long, and many times the cutscenes kept repeatedly and annoyingly interrupting the combat. I don't mind watching cutscenes at all (see avatar) but when you spend time on properly equipping every party member all the time (I spent more time in the menu than I ever thought possible), only to traverse through an extremely boring overworld, from long cutscene to long cutscene, to somewhat-acceptable dungeon, until you can actually fight the most fun part of the game (bosses) means that even though the story was good it contributed this game into being a big slog.
- Party System. After thinking about it for a while, it's a negative. Greatly eases up the difficulty, slows down combat because you're constantly dealing with monsters that resist damage from 2/3 types, makes equipping and setup way longer. You can't switch out Adol (naturally) so you only have 2 slots for 5 characters and you have to pay attention to all of them. It's fun to try different fighting styles, but because the Skill system is so limiting, you don't really get to see these characters shine as much as you like.
- Controls. So this might seem like a minor complaint but this annoyed me many times. Why on earth does holding down the right trigger not lock out any other commands but the combination ones? I can't always pay attention to my skill gauge when dodging, and if I hit, say R+O when I don't have gauge, it will switch party members! What an oversight!
- Voices Adol talking? Bullshit! Plus, Mishera's voice was so painfully voiced I had to turn the voices off.
--------------------
So my thoughts on "modern" Ys games for anyone that cares about the opinions of someone bad at games like myself...
Ys Origin > Ys Oath > Ys VI > Ys 7
Ys VI might have felt weak, but Ys 7 really drops the ball in so many areas. It's inherently limited by the hardware in a way that unfortunately really affects gameplay and the audience they were aiming for with Monster Hunter worsened the gameplay too. Some great core elements remain but it's not enough for me to recommend the game. Didn't mention graphics but graphics are whatever in the context of these games as long as you can tell what's going on.
Hype moments to parry in Ys Seven
1) Parrying projectiles with variable timing
2) Multi-parrying an attack that has 1000+ active frames
3) Parrying a giant windup boss swing at the perfect time
4) Blind parrying an attack you can't even see
Works great in the game. I'd say the window for parrying is *just* about right, not too wide of a window or too short.
The real crime is not telling anyone! Especially since it's one of the most positive points I have about the game.
I agree with most of your points. Unfortunately, MoC carries over a lot of VII's issues (including the stuff you dislike). Definitely don't play it on Normal because it's embarrassingly easy on that mode.
I agree with most of your points. Unfortunately, MoC carries over a lot of VII's issues (including the stuff you dislike). Definitely don't play it on Normal because it's embarrassingly easy on that mode.
That is extremely disappointing to hear...
I'll see what to do about that.
If this is the case my anticipation for any future Ys is really low though. If MoC really lets me down hard then I'm not going to give Falcom any benefit of the doubt for the next game like I've done with their titles so far.
Seven is my favorite and I agree with some of the downsides you said. On the other end of things.... it was not too easy at all LOL Parry this attack? no? LOL YOU ALMOST DEAD NOW.
MoC nerfed parries, you only get 1 but it slows down time thing is if it's a lingering move you will still get hit if you dont gtfo or time it right.
That is extremely disappointing to hear...
I'll see what to do about that.
If this is the case my anticipation for any future Ys is really low though. If MoC really lets me down hard then I'm not going to give Falcom any benefit of the doubt for the next game like I've done with their titles so far.
I liked MoC more than 7 but mostly because the story wasn't as cliche. Not that I'm saying it's terribly original but it felt like it had more twists and turns.
The next Ys game looks like it'll use the party system but who knows after that? The series has a tendency to redefine itself.
Seven is my favorite and I agree with some of the downsides you said. On the other end of things.... it was not too easy at all LOL Parry this attack? no? LOL YOU ALMOST DEAD NOW.
MoC nerfed parries, you only get 1 but it slows down time thing is if it's a lingering move you will still get hit if you dont gtfo or time it right.
I'm not badass like you Q ;_;
A lot of those difficulty increases I like, but I really don't like nerfed gold. Now that you take 1.5x more damage and regular enemies are harder to kill, is it really necessary to nerf the rewards from them? Plus just thinking about leveling Skills with that reduced SP gain is making me feel ill inside. Difficulty is one thing, grind walls are another IMO. It's kind of a problem with the "core" of the game's design.
I liked MoC more than 7 but mostly because the story wasn't as cliche. Not that I'm saying it's terribly original but it felt like it had more twists and turns.
The next Ys game looks like it'll use the party system but who knows after that? The series has a tendency to redefine itself.
I will give Falcom credit for innovating 100%. I think they were really aiming for something new and cool and I respect that. Still though, in this instance, I think it just makes the game not fun to play and takes me out of the moment (fighting against that one particular boss with Dogi and co. following me around like pets is weird when I'm in the middle of being chased by a crazed lunatic). When you remove the stakes of holding onto one life in a battle, it makes it far less dramatic.
Bring back Hyper Mode (X-Factor). Teams of 3 with assists... X-Factor... wave dashes... air dashes... double jumps.... level 3s.... with pushblock (parry)... IT'S MARVEL BABY ADOL WHERE YOU AT
I never worried about leveling skills past unlocking them xD Just use what lets me get in, what does a ton of stun, what launches and what lets me do infinite air juggles on stuff that can be juggled.
That ogre in the cave with the light crystal... LOL poor bastard never got to touch the ground.
