tokucowboy
LeFish
I actually thought the end 1/3rd or so of the main gameplay loop was better as the fights became more interesting!
I agree that the reason you’re here is for the moment-to-moment running around and map uncovering, which remained fun through the entire game. My gripes are that a lot of the stuff wrapped around that interrupts the flow too much. About to head into a new area/dungeon? The fuckin bird flies in being like ADOL BEAST RAID BEAST RAID so you gotta trudge back to camp and then do this grindy fight and then go back to the thing you were doing before with all momentum lost. Repeat a dozen times over the course of the game. Interesting story beats are happening in the Dana sections? Gotta interrupt that to spend 90 minutes in a dungeon for no reason. Basically I think that all of the stuff they added to the PS4/PC/Switch versions that the Vita original didn’t have padded it out too much and broke the flow of what is otherwise a pretty phenomenal game. That stuff is the most prominent in the middle 3rd of the game too which is where I was feeling like a lot of the dragging started happening.
Anyway I finished it! Despite all my complaining I like the characters and felt the True Ending was very touching. Music was great in the last section and the little epilogue was wonderful. I’m interested in trying some of the game on Hard or something just to see how much that changes the moment to moment combat. But basically! I think that if you cut this game down and trim some of the stuff that feels like it doesn’t add anything you’re pretty close to having an all timer here. It’s so hard to describe just how good the movement feels. The acceleration on your character, the way they turn, the way the dodge feels. It’s all just so juicy and never stopped being fun. Gathering castaways was great and I loved seeing our base build up over time. The little stories with all of them are simple and sweet. The main adventure is classic deserted island stuff, very enjoyable. Just….cut down on the heft Falcom.
I took this screenshot in the epilogue because it made me actually laugh out loud:
Like, y’all. Come on. We really gotta have a dialogue choice to say exactly the same thing in two different ways? It encapsulates a lot of what Falcom writing is nowadays and why this game was so obviously the point where they really leaned into the Trailsification of their entire lineup. The endlessly wordy atmosphere of Trails is now the house style. This is honestly fine in Trails, it has always been this kind of thing(even though it’s also getting ridiculous there too). It extends past just text as well, the maximalist approach is how you end up with a game that feels hours and hours too long because it’s stuffed with extraneous content just to have More Stuff. From what I’ve heard Ys IX is also story heavy but is generally more breezy and less bogged down by extra stuff so I wanna see what lessons they learned here.
Anyway my official Ys Series Ranking so far is:
- Ys 1 Chronicles
- Ys VIII
- Ys Memories of Celceta
Next up in the journey is Ys VI!