I played Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana.
This game was originally released on the PlayStation Vita in 2017. It has since been ported to PlayStation 4, Steam, Switch, PlayStation 5, and some mobile platforms.
I played the Nintendo Switch version.
This seems to be the largest and most popular game in the Ys series, so I was very much looking forward to finally getting to play this one.
And it did not disappoint! I really enjoyed this game a lot.
This game is an action RPG set on the mysterious deserted Isle of Seiren. Adol finds himself shipwrecked along with the other passengers of the ship, and together they unite to try and find a way to escape from the island ...but that's not all there is to this story - it goes in some unusual places. ...Why does this island have so many supposedly-extinct dinosaurs roaming around? And why does Adol keep having dreams about a woman named Dana?
There are many strange happenings on this island, and it's up to Adol and his friends to figure out these mysteries.
The presentation of the game is mostly nice. The graphics come from the PS Vita, so you can't expect everything to be super high-fidelity, but everything does look nice all the same. The English script has many problems, though - there are many, many, many noticeable typos and errors all throughout the game. It doesn't hurt the game too badly all things considered, but it is very distracting to see a character being called by the wrong name occasionally. ... :/
The gameplay is expanded and refined from what was seen in the previous game, Ys Memories of Celceta.
The combat system has the same basic structure, with the same learnable skill system, SP meter, EXTRA gauge, Flash Move, Flash Guard - all returning from Celceta. There are some minor changes here and there, but on the whole, it feels very similar to the previous two games.
The party member system also returns - Adol meets up with a new cast of playable characters that will help in combat. Just like in the previous games, the characters have one of three attributes: "Slash", "Strike", and "Pierce", however there is now a new mechanic called Break - if an enemy is hit with its weakness enough times, its armour will break and now all attacks can deal effective damage to it. This system gives you a bit more freedom in your combat options, as you now can use the "wrong" damage type to attack enemies, as long as you make sure to Break them first. Just like in the previous two games, the computer-controlled characters can't die by themselves and are pretty good at dodging attacks, so you generally don't need to worry about them.
They've given your characters the ability to jump this time. You can do some aerial attacks, including Adol's classic downward stab. And the aerial attacks are useful in combat, too, as enemies can sometimes have weak points that can't be reached from the ground.
The addition of jumping also means that the environment design has been made with jumping in mind - so this game has a lot more verticality compared to the mostly-flat Seven and Celceta environments. The world is still made up of various mazelike pathways, but due to the added verticality and the overall increased scope of the game, it all feels a lot bigger and more involved. There are a lot more wide-open spaces to run around in, with hills and ledges to clamber over - plus they included a few platforming sections here and there for good measure.
I'm glad they put jumping back into the game - it really does make the traversal feel more dynamic.
The game has five levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, Hard, Nightmare, and Inferno. You can change the difficulty at any point whenever you like, except for Inferno, which cannot be selected again if you decide to go lower. I like this system - I played on Hard for the most part to get a nice challenge from the bosses, but occasionally when I felt like doing a bit of grinding, turning it down to Easy for a moment was a good way to save some hassle. I also like that you cannot adjust the difficulty if you plan on playing Inferno - a super-challenging mode like that loses its integrity otherwise. But for the lower difficulties, I'm glad they let the players adjust them however they want.
The boss fights in this game are really good. Definitely up to the standards of great bosses that Ys is known for. While playing on Hard, some of them really took some practice to beat. Learning how to Flash Guard is essential. And this process of learning the bosses' moves was very satisfying.
One thing I found interesting about the combat in this game was that, unlike previous Ys games, it absolutely does not restrict you from using healing items at all. You can stock up on revives and brute-force your way through any encounter if you want.
I'm personally okay with this.
I think allowing unrestricted use of healing items makes for a less frustrating game overall, though it does mean that there is no actual necessity to learn the bosses any more. I decided to learn the boss patterns in Ys VIII because I liked the challenge, but it was never necessary in order to proceed. That's the difference between this and a game like Ys Origin that has absolutely no healing at all during fights. In Ys Origin, you have no choice but to actually sit down and figure out each fight. In Ys VIII, you can either do that, or just use a whole bunch of healing items. It's just a different design philosophy I suppose.
...
As you progress through the game's story, it gradually starts to introduce more and more new gameplay mechanics.
The first of which is the castaways. As you explore the island, you occasionally come across fellow passengers who washed up on various other parts of the island. Whenever you find one, Adol invites them back to Castaway Village at the southern corner of the island, and they will from then on provide a service in the village. It's interesting to note that this game does not contain any money at all, so any villagers who open a shop will trade their goods for various materials instead. Rescued castaways will also unlock new sidequests.
Each castaway who comes to stay at the village is a unique person with their own character and personality - there's not a generic NPC to be found here, which is something I always love to see.
After every story event, everyone's dialogue in the village updates to reflect the current story. As is usual for Ys, there's a lot of detail in the NPC interactions. You get to learn everyone's backstory, and it helps make the deserted island setting feel more real. I think it's very nicely done. I especially like how the camera zooms in on the NPC whenever you talk with them - you get to see them more clearly as you talk to them, it's a really nice way to feel more connected to them.
There are some areas of the island that are blocked off by landslides, fallen trees, or other natural obstacles, and they can only be cleared by enlisting the help of the entire village. The number of castaways you have recruited into the village determines which kinds of obstacles you're able to remove - so there's a nice extra incentive to find everyone, as it will grant you access to explore more and more corners of the island. And it feels especially rewarding when these bonus areas contain optional mini-dungeons to explore! It gives such a cool sense of discovery, and it's a great reward for a player who is paying attention to their map.
Just like in Memories of Celceta, Adol is tasked with mapping out the entire island, and for every 10% of the map you uncover, you gain a reward. Thankfully the mapping is nowhere near as finicky as it was in Celceta, so there's no more need to rub against every wall in the game trying to find the last 0.1% of map completion. That fixes the biggest complaint I had with Celceta. :D
In order to make traversal around the world easier, you can fast-travel to any Crystal you have visited. In this game, you have the ability to save and load anywhere, so Crystals are not really "save points", but they do still act as instant full-heal points and fast-travel points.
Interestingly... in Ys Seven, fast-travel was unlocked after Adol gains the blessing of one of the ancient dragons... in Celceta, fast travel is a power bestowed to Adol by the Silver Wing artifact... But unlike in those two games, in Ys VIII, there is no in-universe justification for fast-travel. You can just do it from the menu at any time..... EXCEPT! Around 40 hours into the game, Adol gains a new power called "Warp", which suddenly justifies the ability to fast-travel. ... It's funny to see everyone marvel at this new teleportation ability in the cutscenes, when the player has been spending the whole game casually fast-travelling around like it's no big deal. ...It does make sense in the context of the story, but it's still funny that they do it this way.
The next new gameplay mechanics they introduce are the Raids and Hunts. These are missions that pit you against an onslaught of monsters. Raids take place in the areas nearby Castaway Village, and the goal is to wipe out wave after wave of enemies before they break through your town's defenses. You can upgrade your defenses beforehand by spending materials.
Hunts, on the other hand, take place in the dungeon areas - and they play a little bit like a miniature Warriors-style game, where you need to defeat enemy-spawning nests, place down torches to mark your team's territory, and lure out the boss monster and defeat it. It's interesting to see a game include a bit of "Warriors-like" gameplay in a side mode like this... it's not a kind of gameplay you normally see outside of actual Warriors games. (I'm specifically referring to Koei-Tecmo's "Warriors" or "Musou" games btw).
I definitely like the Hunts more than the Raids. Raids can feel like they drag on and on for a bit too long, and there's not really much going on other than "keep killing stuff". I dunno, it's nice to have a different gameplay style, but the Raids do get a bit tiresome after doing so many. Hunts, though, I think are cool. There are fewer of them, and since the only objective is to kill the boss, you can end it quickly if you know what you're doing.
Raid and Hunt missions are largely optional, and they are unlocked gradually as you play through the story.
It's actually a little bit annoying - very often when you enter a new dungeon, you'll get about a third of the way through it, only to get interrupted by an emergency raid warning, which marks a new raid being available back at the village, only for a "limited time". I don't know what happens if you decide to ignore these - I'm always worried about missing out on raid completion rewards, so I always dropped what I was doing and did each raid right away.
After completing a Raid or a Hunt, your performance is ranked, from C-rank to S-rank. If you get a bad rank, you can select the "Practice Raid" option to try again any time. Getting an S-rank usually gives you a very nice reward, so it is worth it to go for them, for sure.
Honestly, though, some of the late-game raids are so tight with their rank requirements, and I didn't really find the raid gameplay to be interesting enough to figure out how to beat them well... so for these I just decided to lower the difficulty to Easy just to nab a quick and easy S-rank. Heh, whatever works, right?
The next feature the game introduces is "Night Exploration". There is no time-of-day system in this game - it's normally always daytime. However, some dungeons have an extra "night mode" available, which tasks you with re-exploring the whole dungeon all over again, but this time it's populated with a TON of extremely tough monsters. Additionally, the available materials found during night are more valuable, and the night versions of all these dungeons have their own treasure chests to open too.
It's an interesting way of getting more mileage out of the level design. And I think it's cool to see a bonus "hard version" of the dungeons. Though I also won't argue with someone who thinks this kind of thing is just pointless filler. I think it's cool personally.
...
At around halfway(ish) through the game... just when you think the game is done introducing new gameplay concepts, it takes this opportunity to introduce the biggest and most interesting one of all:
That mysterious woman Dana that Adol keeps seeing visions of in his sleep... suddenly the story perspective shifts, and now we get to play as Dana herself!
Dana's story is seen in multiple installments throughout the game, similar to how Final Fantasy 8 handles the Laguna sections, if you know about that.
During these sections, Dana has her own entire optional dungeon to explore, the Sanctuary Crypt. Every time the story shifts to Dana again, you get to explore one additional floor of the Crypt.
Exploring the Crypt as Dana feels a lot like a throwback to the Ys Origin style of gameplay. It's room after room of enemies, platforming, and light maze-solving, with a new boss at the end of each floor. There are no extra party members, Dana has a predefined set of skills, and she can unlock two additional weapon styles that can be instantly swapped between, which reminds me of Ys VI. It's such a cool feature to see in this game! I was actually starting to miss the more old-school style of Ys dungeon-exploration...and I was seriously not expecting to see that Ys VIII actually included an entire dungeon of this style, just for me. :D
It's honestly one of my favourite parts of the game.
After completing the game, you unlock the standard Boss Rush Time Attack and New Game Plus features. I did not play these modes (Unlike in Celceta, you can get 100% item completion in one playthrough), but their inclusion is definitely appreciated for when I potentially feel like getting back into this game in the future. You also unlock two postgame areas: a super-challenging Raid (meh), and a big bonus dungeon (yay). Was fun to have one last dungeon to play through, though it is always a little awkward when there's stuff you can only reach by loading up a save file after seeing the ending cutscene.
Haha. What a cool game. It's the biggest and most feature-rich Ys game of all, so far. It's really impressive how they truly expanded everything about Ys and made it into something really special. I love how the adventure keeps expanding and unfolding more and more as you keep playing. It's always introducing a new concept into the mix to keep things interesting, and it all comes together in a way that feels very cohesive and satisfying. I really really enjoyed this game. I think it could be considered the "definitive" modern Ys experience.
Well, next on the agenda is Ys IX I suppose.
It took me two and a half weeks to play through Ys VIII, though, so I may take a small break from Ys before I dive into IX. But I am definitely looking forward to it!
