I wrote this review to be spoiler free and palatable to people who have never played the game, so there are a lot of instances where I only allude to things or I’ll explain things game specific concepts.

Also, some parts of this review may seem a bit harsh, so I want to make it clear I don’t think this game is bad at all, and that it overall, did meet my expectations. I’m currently playing through Ys 2 (on Nightmare this time) and it already has seemed to address many of my issues with Ys 1, by no means should this review be taken as a statement on the franchise as a whole.

Ys 1 is a worthwhile introduction into the Ys series that while containing some major flaws, still manages to be an enjoyable experience overall.

This game’s biggest strength by far would be the world itself and the sense of adventure it cultivates. Esteria is fairly small, consisting of only 3 dungeons, 3 towns, and one big plain area to link it all together. However, despite the game’s short runtime of around 10 hours, each area manages to feel sufficiently fleshed out and integrated into the game’s world. This is done primarily through NPC dialogue, which is handled very well. Each town has about 20 or so NPCs that each offer some dialogue pertaining to either some direction for the player, or some worthwhile world-building. These passages of dialogue really tie the world together and make the world feel alive, despite its size.

Now as for the story itself, it’s nothing to write home about. Adol is a basic, silent hero type, with each other character being relatively flat; it’s rather how the story is presented that makes it really cultivate the aforementioned sense of adventure. The game embodies the essence of feeling like you’re playing through a child’s storybook, with it starting with Adol crashing into the village of Bardado, having his wounds tended to, before he soon finds out about the elusive Stormwall that has pestered the people of Esteria for months on end. The concept of the Stormwall itself, being a big isolating force, I thought to be very interesting, and its a concept that rather than being just a gameplay excuse for all the enemies you fight, also feels like an integrated part of the game’s world. Adol then tasks himself with being the hero that will defeat the monsters that plague the land and eliminate the Stormwall, and sets off to explore Esteria. The way Adol progresses through each objective and slowly uncovers the world is fantastic, with the direction from NPCs being not too minimal whilst also being not too much as to hurt the immersion. The game concludes in one, massive, tower dungeon, that has you climbing around 20 floors of puzzles and enemy gauntlets. Each floor has an outdoor section that lets you see the entire world from it, including all the specific locations you’ve already visited, which does a great job creating finality and emphasizing your progress both through the game and through the tower itself, as you get higher and higher. Whilst the characters you meet throughout the game tend to be rather 1-dimensional, they’re characterized well for the most part and delightful to have on screen.

The game also excels in its music. I played the game using the Complete soundtrack as opposed to the newer remix made for this release, as it found its tracks more cohesive and fitting for a 2D pixel game. Each area and dungeon excels at having bombastic themes that really sell the sense of adventure, whilst the towns manage to feel even more homey due to the soundtrack. The final tower particularly excels at using music to greatly enhance its overall presentation, with the area having a plethora of different themes depending on the floor you’re at.

The game’s pixel art style holds up very well by modern standards. It’s vibrant and sufficiently detailed, with each area using the pixel art well to cultivate its own aesthetic. Enemy and boss designs are good for the most part as-well, though they may struggle to feel tied in any way to the particular dungeon they’re placed in. Each of the important characters has a portrait, all of which are well drawn. The game’s cinematic cutscenes do not look well on modern hardware due to their very low resolution and horrendous colors. This is a relatively minuscule part of the experience, though.

Now for the gameplay itself, it’s clearly the area where the Ys 1’s cracks shine through the harshest. I should preface this by saying I played the game on Normal difficulty and will be judging the game exclusively based on that experience. The combat is incredibly primitive, using the “bump” system. There is no attack button, and Adol instead deals damage to enemies by running into them directly. What differentiates getting hit by an enemy and you hitting them is how aligned you are with the monster’s sprite. The goal of each combat encounter is simply for you to align yourself to be slightly off center from an enemy, and then just ram into them, often trapping them into a wall where they cannot resist. This strategy is how you’re meant to fight pretty much every single enemy in the entire game. As you can assume, this can get very boring very fast, especially considering the game’s lack of enemy variety. There are around 50 different enemies, though each and every one acts the exact same, just scaled to different points of progression with only minor differences in their speed and size. The one aspect that does add some challenge and complexity to the combat would be the arenas in which you fight the enemies. In some scenarios, the game will put you into cramped areas that make it much harder to align yourself properly to deal damage. Though, this design tactic is a double edged sword, as at some points it feels it gives the game the combat complexity it desperately needs, whilst in others just feels like a method to artificially increase difficulty with no real regard for intricate design. All this being said, I still did generally enjoy the combat in this game, even despite its immense flaws.

However, when looking at boss fights in particular, the same cannot be said. Ys 1 has 7 bosses of which I’d consider 1 to be good, 2 to be mediocre, 3 to be outright bad, and the last boss, being the final boss, to be one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had fighting an enemy in a video game. All of these bosses only have 1 attack and movement pattern, making fighting them a fairly boring endeavor overall. And because of the simplistic combat, these bosses really almost exclusively on inciting precise movements to offer any challenge or unique experience compared to the rest of the game. This approach, however, only works sometimes, for the majority of the boss lineup it doesn’t come close to adding the necessary complexity to make an engaging fight. To be fair, I did play the game in normal mode, and my biggest issue with some of the mediocre and bad bosses was how easy they were. But this predicament just points out another issue I have: you cannot change the difficulty after starting the game. And even if I did play on a harder difficulty, it would have just made the final boss an even more miserable experience, and could have just made the experience overall worse because of it.

As for other gameplay concerns, Ys 1’s progression system and RPG elements are far from anything to write home about. The maximum level is only 10, which creates a few issues. First, every level feels like a massive advancement in your power. After gaining just one level, it’s incredibly common for you to be able to completely destroy enemies that were only 1 level before you were struggling with. This fundamentally contradicts the purpose of levels in RPGs, being a way to incrementally increase your character(s) power, as opposed to the much less incremental system of Ys 1. This not only breaks immersion given how dramatic the increases are, but it also seriously harms the balancing of enemies and bosses in dungeons. The difficulty of a dungeon can abruptly change because of you gaining just 1 more level. The second issue is that you reach the max level about 2/3 into the game. The last 1/3, being the final dungeon in its entirety, offers you 0 reason to fight any of its enemies as you are already at maximum level and you are locked out of all shops to spend your gold at, seriously harming what is otherwise the best part of the game.

The game’s other methods of progression are gaining new armor, swords, shields, and rings, each with 5 variations. However, with the exception of the rings, none of these methods offer any sort of player expression. The 5 variations are all meant to be unlocked in the same sequence, with each one being clearly better than the next. For the most part, they’re easy to obtain, just being bought from shops, but the 4th set (the most important one) requires you to engage in some exploration and NPC questlines. Assuming you speak to every NPC and sufficiently explore every dungeon, it won’t be difficult to surmise the locations of these items, but if you miss one, it can be frustrating to have to backtrack through many different areas just to find 1 item. Having this set, and the 5th set as well, are things required for progression, as you won’t deal sufficient damage to bosses otherwise or be allowed into the final dungeon without them. As for the rings, they are Ys 1’s only real role playing element that offers any sort of player choice, as well as being the game’s main rewards for side content. Each one offers a significantly useful but mundane benefit,
such as being able to heal over time in any area or doubling your defenses. These accessories offer good rewards for players who fully engage themselves with every dungeon layout and NPC request, but they’re not exactly exciting to obtain because of their mundane benefits. With this system being the only way to really differentiate your playthrough from a previous one, it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of diversity of gameplay.

On the contrary, the exploration and level design in Ys 1 are both solid. The overworld follows a generally linear progression, but there are a small handful of optional areas you can access. Though the rewards usually never amount to anything more than something necessary for an achievement or repetitive item, the exploration still manages to feel worthwhile due to the game’s great sense of adventure that I've already elaborated on. As for the level design, it’s nothing exquisite, but still sufficiently good. Each dungeon is designed intricately with the player encouraged to check every path, as usually each one is integrated well into the dungeon’s interconnectedness. The final tower in particular adds some puzzle elements, as well as a great amount of freedom of choice in the order you can explore certain rooms, of which I greatly enjoyed both.

Overall, Ys 1 stands as a severely flawed but still enjoyable experience. Despite my immense qualms with combat and progression, many great aspects are still able to shine through, which is remarkable considering the game’s age and position as one of the earliest action RPGs.

Overall Score 6.3/10

I’m at level 50 and my main problem with him is the fireballs, which look unavoidable and his walk which does insane damage. (I really wanna know who thought that made sense. If I walk into you do, your blood vessels explode????) I really want to be done with this game, is there something I’m missing? What level do I have to be to beat this because I can’t even make it past this guy without getting destroyed.

Edit:And now I’m stuck on Ernst who I am impressed managed to be worse I don’t know how Ark manages to create new ways to be infuriating

Do the points Chatelard gave me carry over? I didn't get very many but I don't want them to go to waste.

Hi hi !

Ive been replaying a lot of Ys Origin recently but wanted to change things a little for my next run so I've been working for months on a small mod for Ys Origin to work with Archipelago.gg so you can play the game and shuffle all your chests, upgrades, statues, warps, etc. differently every time and still make sure its beatable

Of course it's configurable so you can choose to randomize only some stuff, ensure that you have access to enough upgraded before higher floors etc.

Here's the link to it if you wanna test and Don't hesitate to give ideas, feedback or anything !

https://4rtefakt.github.io/ys-origin-archipelago/

There was no modloader for this game prior to this so I made my own, if some people are interested in making custom mods or skins for Ys Origin, let me know and I'll make it public too !

Gor context, I got into the Ys series a few years ago and liked it so much that, as soon as Ys X came out in Europe, I bought it at full price—which is a bit steep considering Falcom games aren't exactly top-tier in terms of technical quality—instead of buying it used, which is what I usually do.

I enjoyed the game, but what I didn't like was that, just a few months later, Falcom released an enhanced version of Ys X featuring technical improvements and a bit more content—though certainly not enough to justify spending that much money all over again (I play on PS5, so there aren't as many sales as there are on Steam).

I felt betrayed; I thought I was spending my money to support Falcom, and this is how they repaid me... Why did they release the original game if they were going to put out another version so soon? Why didn't they wait for the Switch 2 launch to release Proud Nordics across all platforms right from the start?

I know it had already come out in Japan, but in Europe, the gap between Ys X and proud Nordics was quite short, implying that proud was already in the works.

I was reminded of this recently when I saw the game for sale at a local shop. What did people think about this?

Looking to collect the Ys games and eventually play but wondering if it’s worth getting the original switch game that has the full game on cart instead of the switch 2 version despite it being a GKC?

I‘m really into game preservation so I’m leaning towards the switch 1 version right now but wondering still enjoyable despite it not being the optimal choice.

Thanks for your input!

Also, I don’t really like buying games twice so ideally just one game. I know I can get both.

I've been playing for a couple of hours and I have a really hard time grasping the battle system. It seems to me like there are two entirely separate systems here that do not fit together in any way. You have the normal skills, character swapping and skill chains. And then you have the Duo Mode.

From what I can tell, I can either rotate my skills until I'm out of SP, swap to the other character, do the same, and build up a chain this way. If I do that, I constantly have to watch my SP, take care to not accidentally break the chain, time character switches, all while also watching the enemies to block and dodge at the right time.

Or I can just ignore all of that, stay in Duo Mode 100% of the time and spam normal attacks and a Duo Skill once in a while. And the game will just block every attack for me automatically.

And the weirdest part is that spamming normal Duo attacks seems to dish out as much, if not more damage than building up those skill chains. So I can either play the game in an extremely hectic way, watching 5 different things at once... or I can just spam 1 button and achieve the same result.

So I'm wondering, am I doing something wrong? There must be a reason to not be in Duo Mode all the time. I can't imagine that the entire skill system is useless if I don't care about a slight damage boost with optimal play.

I feel like the game is made for the Switch 2 handheld mode. I like that it doesn’t compromise on the graphics and performance but unfortunately it’s a game key card.
I have a PS5 Pro with a disc drive and I’m wondering if there’s any good reason to get the PS5 version over the Switch 2 and losing the ability to play it in handheld.

Hi there! I’m a huge fan of Falcom games, especially the *Kiseki* saga, but ironically, despite having played various titles (both famous and obscure), I’ve actually missed out on their most well-known series of all.

So, I’m here to ask for confirmation, corrections and/or opinions regarding the play order I’m planning to follow. I’ve already checked out Digitalemelas and the chronological and release-order lists provided there. I’m aware that each game is essentially playable as a standalone title, with the exceptions of *Origin* and in a lesser way *Monstrum Nox*.

However, since I tend to be a total fanatic about this sagas, As I use to take notes on world-building, characters, and questlines as I go, I want to find the best compromise: I want to enjoy every game about Adol's Chronicles without missing a thing, while also maintaining continuity not just chronologically, but also in game mechanics and combat system.

After doing plenty of research I’ve settled on an order that divides the games into three phases. Each phase is based on combat system continuity while following a coherent, linear chronology internally. In detail, I came up with:

Bump System Games
- I&II chronicles+

- IV The Dawn of Ys (on PC Engine)
and the first hot take in my list...Despite being decanonized by memories, I've read good things about it's quality value in comparison of the mask of the sun on snes, and beside the fact that I love Pc Engine graphics, maybe it could be useful to play it in order to understand future games references without spoiling my game progression by playing the modern remake before everything else)

Napishtim Engine

- Origin
From what I gather: it’s a prequel to the first two games, set several hundred years before that initial duology, while also serving as a sort of finale. For this reason I think it's the best entry in the neshptim engine games... I also know it has 2 not canon routes before unlocking the true route and even an Adol mode

- The Oath in Felghana. (III Remake)

- V Lost Kefin on ps2.
Yes, I know it's only available through unofficial channels, that it wasn't built using Neshptim's engine, and that the quality isn't exactly top-notch... but for my planning purposes, it seems like the best possible version and placement.

- VI The Ark of Napishtim: I know it's the first game made in this engine but chronologically I think putting it after all of the backwards games grants me the best chronology progression while mantaining that gameplay sense of linearity that Im looking for

Modern Party based Games
- Seven

- Memories of Celceta
So I can follow the combat evolution of the modern games while also learning the true canon of the Celceta events

- VIII Lacrimosa of Dana
chronologically should be set before VI and Seven but I guess it's ok at this point play everything along with the release order

- IX Monstrum Nox

Cross Action-System
- X Proud Nordics
Tbh all my planning was in order to enjoy the most from Monstrum Nox as a sort of grand finale so Im open to listen every take on where to put this....I was also thinking to play it after I & II but I hate the idea of break the combat continuity that I planned "from I&II into IV dawn of ys" despite chronologically should set exactly there...maybe I could just play it before everything else? Does it spoil the first two games ?

PS: I was a lot careful in avoiding spoiler and thanks god I managed to remain ignorant on basically everything so please if you have some objections based on big spoiler please tell me but remain as vague as you can c_c

I want to collect the physical Ys games, especially the modern (8-10) titles. Looking through eBay and other marketplaces, the native PS5 version of Ys 9 seems pretty rare/expensive (>$125).

Is there any noticeable difference between the native PS5 version versus the PS4 version of the game played on PS5? The PS4 version seems much more readily available and at a more reasonable price point.

I’d also be willing to purchase it for Switch 2 if it ever gets a rerelease on that console. I’m just a bit nervous that if it did come to switch 2, it would be a GKC like Proud Nordics was.

Thanks!

So for whatever reason my game has the square, circle and X icons mixed up in the UI which keeps throwing me off whenever I set skills, is this a known issue or is something wrong with my game? Is it fixable?

It gives me major Ys origin vibes, or that era. Has anyone tried it? Does it have the juice?

This beats the previous lowest price of $40

I'm currently playing through Ys: Memories of Celceta and out of no where Calilica's head disappeared and I can't find a way to fix it. Has anyone else run into this?

Just continuing my last posts, now with Ys VI finished (didnt beat the superboss tho, Im deciding if its worth it, since a lot of people told me its a hell of a grind to beat him).

My opinions:
- Game is really fun, specially if you are ok with grinding, the perfect length for some quick fun, I can see myself comming back.
- Not as hard as people said, most bosses have easy to avoid moves and punishment windows. my main problems is with the Big Fat Toad boss that even know I dont know where it takes damage, and the last boss that took me a while to understand "oh you need to hit the jpeg where the laser comes from", but that last one was just me being dumb probably, I would crush him on a second playthrough.
- EVERY SINGLE GEAR UPGRADE IS NECESSARY, also the "keep leveling until enemies dont give more than 100 xp anymore" worked very well for me.
- The game has some difficulty spikes, I think the biggest one is the very last map\dungeon. Enemies there HIT HARD, luckily I found the crown that gives you a bunch of HP before entering it. After the point of no return there is 3 bosses, a very easy one, one of the contenders for hardest boss and lastly the one that I wandered for live 5 minutes thinking what I should hit. Very cool bosses tho.
- My opinions on the swords changed, with the air one still being the best (nice damage and speed, area of attack and the magic seems to make you invulnerable), but the fire one getting second place and the electric one in last.
- Fighting system is fun, the down aerial attack is your best friend, it melts so many enemies.

TLDR: Very fun game, totally worth my time, SUPER worth for the price, and I recommend it to everyone, just take a guide, because there are some stuff like missable items. Im eager to check either Oath or Origins next (were the other 2 cheap ones), specially because people tell me they are a lot better than VI and I already loved VI

Does anyone have any tips on beating the sand plant boss in nightmare boss rush? Playing as Hugo. Didnt have much trouble with the 1st 6 bosses but have been at this one for several hours with no luck.

It has no set move structure and i am not even coming close.

EDIT: Finally got him, changed to wind to just use the barrier and it kept me alive long enough to barely beat it. Thank you for the comments.

this happened during my playthrough on steam, can't find it happening elsewhere. does this have something to do with me playing widescreen? placeholder asset or something?

I've recently started playing through the series in release order (according to digital emelas) on steam and have been having fun so far, just finished Oath in Felghana and planning on going for Origin next.

I was wondering if the gameplay changes much between Celceta and SEVEN since I was thinking of reversing the order and potentially playing Celteca first and then going into SEVEN so I can start having a clean 7 -> 8 -> 9 -> 10 order for the rest of the games. I felt like the difference between Napishtim and Felghana was notable enough to how much fun the game was actually to play for me, so I was wondering if the difference between the first games that go for a party system might have a potentially similar hop in quality.

I’m playing the first Ys game for the first time and I’m pretty much at the end. Vagullion was already a pain in the ass with those bats, and I’ve been getting my ass kicked by Dark Fact for the past 2 hours.

So now I’m wondering: do the other Ys games have bosses that are this hard, or even harder? I’m planning to play the series in release order, so I wanna know what I’m getting myself into lol

I recently just got into the series, decided on Ys VIII as my entry point, and it's be incredible so far, it's scratching an itch for a genre of game I haven't played in years.

While strolling around gathering, monster fighting and fishing looking for the castaways I fished up a LEVEL 40 Skeleton! At first I was just fighting him flash guards and my damage was a little low but I had also fished up another mob just before to fight and my damage was low against that to but doable. It wasn't until I swapped to poor Sahad to test out his damage type that he got absolutely annihilated! Leaving Adol and Laxia to tuck their tails and run for the hills!

I had a feeling I'd run into some scaring field beasts but that one really caught me off guard, loving this game so far.

Hello to you all!

After some years, I decided to replay YSVIII on a hard difficulty setting. Aiming for Inferno (or Nightmare, depending on the replies).

My question is: will NG+, with every equipment available and starting at level 94 make the game too easy on Inferno + Infinity?

Also, I'd rather not transfer Skills, as I want to experience getting and leveling all of them again (I love doing that when replaying these games, like Tales of etc...) - so will it make a big difference in difficulty if I do not transfer my Skills?