So I FINALLY Finished Ys X. Quick review (possible trigger warning) + New game rankings tier list
Right so first of all quick disclaimer: I only played through the main story and saved the rest for the English release (due to... obviously not understanding much, I'm not fluent in Japanese but wanted to play this badly). Good game, but has flaws. Let's break it down.
Story and Characters
Now despite me not being able to understand Japanese much (only really the few words I learned from watching anime lol), a good chunk of the time I could clearly still understand what was going on, and it's very good. Starts off pretty slow but really takes off after like chapter 4. Idk if I'd put it in my top 5 Ys stories, could change with the English release. Characters are really nice, Karja especially. Each character had their own unique backstory which I couldn't really understand for obvious reasons, but yeah. Haven't even seen the full extent of their characters either due to not doing sidequests and such. Makes me hyped to discover stuff in the English release tbh.
And I won't spoil anything but this game's story has one of the darkest moments in the series.
OST
Very good, as per usual with Ys. Is it top 5 worthy for me? Idk, I'd probably have to listen to the songs more to get more addicted and such lol. But yeah, good stuff.
Ship Gameplay
It's bad lol. Naval battles are boring (if you've played any AC pirate game you know the gist of it, it's just a budget version of that really). Aside from combat driving the ship just sucks. You have this wide open sea with a ton of islands with not really anything inbetween. First starting off, the ship moves at a fucking snails pace... You get a boost that lasts like 2 seconds and takes forever to replenish. As you progress though the game, your boost will be upgraded once via story and you have the option to do more yourself (can add more boosts to it so you don't have to wait as long for it to recharge). It just fucking sucks it didn't START faster... Oh yeah and there are also wind trails you can ride that basically give you infinite boosting, but that's not the entire sea sadly. Worst part of the game for me the ship stuff honestly, big ass slog, and not looking forward to doing it again in the English release.
Oh right, and TOWER defense is back in the form of naval battles. But instead of definding stuff you have to destroy stuff (ship spawners, if you like), just using it for the lack of a better name. Then once that's done you enter a dungeon to take down multiple (3 mostly, but ramps up to like 5 later on) waves of enemies. It's... good exp, I guess?
You can also just jump on random ships to do enemy waves. I only did it once or twice cause I found it boring.
Mana Abilities
Honestly really well done. I won't spoil what there is other than the things from the trailers but... yeah. The grapple is fun, but I still genuinely prefer Crimson Line, it just feels cooler to use (think I might prefer the Monstrum gameplay in general tbh, but the Mana stuff is still fun). MANA SURFING THOUGH, OH BOY. How they didn't introduce this into the series sooner is beyond me, the most fun I've had with an out of battle ability since the Feather Boots in Celceta, really cool.
Other Movement
Running actually feels like running in this game, I'm surprised this wasn't a thing sooner, Falcom. That said they did nerf the air roll even more than they did in 9 (at least that's what it feels like), but it's still usable at least in certain situations.
Exploration
Right so what you get in this game isn't one massive island like in Ys 8, or a whole ass city like in 9, instead you get multiple smaller islands, each consisting of plains and dungeons (I lost count, I think it's all, but if not most). The plains stuff is pretty linear most of the time, sometimes splits off into 2 pathways. You get the gist. And dungeons... imagine Ys 9 dungeons but less black and different ability usage. It's nothing worthy of a masterpiece or anything, but still decent I guess. Kind've a middle ground for me. I still prefer Ys 8 for this and HONESTLY Ys 9, which I might get hate for since I know how torn people are on exploration in that game.
Other Points (before we get to combat)
- Biiiiiiiit of a nitpick but I'm not really a fan of how you have to HOLD the X button to execute commands now. I know it's just a split second but like... why change it from just a quick press? e.g opening chests now requires you to hold X rather than just tap. And in this game you actually have to purify those recovery crystal statue things by holding X most of the time, it's pointless and it annoys me. I get it's to fit the theme, but c'mon...
- SKILL TREE - YES, this game has a skill tree! Which is used to learn skills and... I assume power other skills up, idk. Couldn't understand shit with this tbh lmao. I just leveled stuff up randomly. But yeah, it's a thing. Still not sure how to feel about this feature, was never massive on skill trees in general.
- Graphics are really nice, love the art style. Still don't know which I like better between the old and the new tbh, they're both great.
- I'm actually kinda impressed how much voice acting their is this time around compared to previous games. Buuuuut that being said... there ARE Japanese dubs for games that didn't get dubbed to English in previous ones, so I won't be surprised if a bunch of VAing is cut in the English release, but we'll see.
- There are times where you only get 1 dialogue choice for story stuff, what's even the point? Just give Adol voice acting for the line or something (he does get a bit in this game tbf).
- Still not that big a fan of how the game takes place right after Ys 2 and not 9. Kinda screws with the canon if you ask me due to it not being referenced in later games. But oh well.
Combat
Ok sooooooo... This was the trigger warning I was on about, which is why I left it until last lol. You all know how it works from the trailers, idrc to explain it here. I did mostly try to use duo mode though just because it felt faster and cooler; made solo mode feel kinda useless tbh. Also, Karja solo mode feels clunky, I don't like it much. That said, I think this might be the first Ys game where I'm insanely mixed on the combat/don't like it as much as I could. Well it's not actually the combat itself, it's mainly how enemies are executed.
Ok so just before I go any further, quick disclaimer, I started the game on Nightmare and dropped it down to Normal at like chapter 4, for reasons I'll get into. The Flash system is also gone completely, but instead you have guarding/parrying now. Both of these will result in your next attack being a critical hit, and parrying will stun the enemy for a second, as well as give you a bunch of SP. It's a fun system but having to rely on parrying all the time can get old I'll be honest. Might get hate for this but I genuinely prefer the Flash System. Just found it more fun and made speedrunning bosses a whole lot better. Yeah I know I might get a bit of hate for this, I've seen quite a good handful on this sub lately hate on the Flash system lol. If you don't like it though, don't play, or just don't use it...
Now the reason I dropped it down to Normal? Well... enemies but mainly bosses have this shield bar gimmick they like to have which... honestly just exists to pad out fights. It's a bar you have to break before you get to their actual health. It's just SO tedious to deal with this all the time it's not even funny. And the higher the difficulty, the longer it takes to break, obviously. It takes FOREVER on Nightmare. High break skills do help a lot, yes, but the problem is, you don't really get any until mid game earliest, lmao. It's fucking stupid. And also the fact you basically have to rely on high break skills to break those bars otherwise they take forever, yeah... Just let me use whatever move I want without it being a slog, man.
And one last quick thing, when one of the character dies you have the option of reviving them with the other character at the expense of the other one losing HP upon recovery. You can basically do this indefinitely (well not exactly, but it's not really easy to properly game over with this) due to i-frames. One thing I HATE though, it's kinda unexpected when you die because there's no sound effect or feel to the move that actually kills you. REALLY irks me.
So yeah, really mixed on the combat stuff personally. But it wasn't bad perse.
Oh yeah and a quick thing about the bosses, there are some that will qualify for some of the absolute worst in the series and some for the better ones. I hate to spoil btw here but there's a triple harpy fight like in Oath, and it genuinely sucks in this game (around chapter 3 or 4). They can stunluck you to death basically and I had to use ranged moves to cheese it (this was back when I was on Nightmare mind you). So yeah, mixed on the bosses too.
Conclusion
But yeah, that's about it! Enjoyed my time with the game despite the glaring flaws I think it has and... KINDA excited (fuck you ship stuff) to play the English release in probably like 2 years or so. Best I can give this game though is like a 7/10. Definitely not my favourite Ys, lol. AGAIN THOUGH, ALL SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITH THE ENGLISH RELEASE.
NOW FOR THE ACTUAL NEW TIER LIST LETS GO (guess this can be part of the trigger warning too)
Have fun:
