Ys IX: Monstrum Nox
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox was released in 2021 for PlayStation 4, Steam, Nintendo Switch, and then on PlayStation 5 in 2023.
I decided to play the Nintendo Switch version.
And... hey! This is the final Ys game for the moment! I started Ys Book I&II in February of this year, and now just before Christmas, I've finished with Ys IX. That's the entire series played within the span of one year! :D ...for the moment. Gotta wait for when Ys X gets an English translation. But for now, it's time to talk about Ys IX.
In Ys IX, Adol travels to the city of Balduq - a historical city most known for its long history of war, and also for its huge prison fortress. The city is under occupation by the invading nation from the previous wartime, so tensions are high between the city's holy knights and the occupying army's soldiers. ...Sounds like the perfect place to visit for an adventure, doesn't it? Well, surprise surprise, Adol finds himself immediately thrown into prison upon arrival, for being a "suspicious" individual, according to the soldiers.
Inside the prison, Adol meets a mysterious stranger named Aprilis who afflicts Adol with the Monstrum curse, allowing Adol to escape, but also trapping Adol under her command. The curse turns the bearer into a Monstrum, a superpowered persona who is given special abilities, but becomes unable to leave the city, and is forced to fight demonic creatures who live in the realm between dimensions known as the Grimwald Nox. Adol as a Monstrum becomes "The Crimson King", and throughout the adventure, Adol teams up with the five other Monstrums who roam Balduq: The White Cat, The Feral Hawk, The Doll, The Raging Bull, and The Renegade.
Each chapter of the story focuses on one of the Monstrums. Adol learns about who they are, and about how the strange goings-on at the prison have affected their friends and families. As the story progresses, Adol gets closer and closer to uncovering the prison's dark secrets.
Ys IX takes place almost entirely within the city of Balduq. At first, you only have access to a small area, but as you complete more chapters of the story, more of the city becomes available. As you befriend the Monstrums, each one adds a new traversal ability, including running up walls, and gliding around on a pair of wings. These abilities make exploring the town of Balduq more fun, as you can glide across buildings and run along rooftops. There's lots of little collectibles to find around Balduq, and after every story scene, all of the NPC dialogue updates as well. So there's lots to do around the city!
The city also has small black spheres of dark energy scattered around - stepping into one will summon a few demons, which occasionally give a small reward upon defeating them. It's good to have small monster encounters in the city like this, as it gives you a way of earning EXP here and there... since there's a lot less overworld exploration in this game compared to other RPGs.
I have to say, the overall pace of the story is very slow, and the story can get a bit overwhelming. There are a lot of cutscenes, much moreso than in the previous games, and I felt like it was a bit too much at times. I feel like this story gets a little difficult to follow too - I don't know if my comprehension skills are lacking, but throughout the story there are a lot of mentions of various different people within the Knights, the Soldiers, the prison guards, and a resistance force, and... and I find myself forgetting who's who, or which names are important. Maybe it's just my personal preferences - a lot of this political drama stuff regarding the city and the war just interests me a lot less compared to all the monster-fighting and dungeon-exploring stuff. That being said, I won't say the story is boring - there's a lot of nice characters with good character arcs and personal storylines to see through, and I did enjoy getting to know all of them. But yeah, sometimes I would unintentionally gloss over some of the scenes because I didn't remember something important about the political situation in the town and really just wanted to get back to the dungeoneering... heh.
The main gameplay mechanics are very similar to the previous game. The combat is mostly the same, except that they re-introduced the Boost gauge that was first seen in Ys Oath in Felghana. There are a few other minor tweaks to the combat, but nothing that makes it feel fundamentally different.
The difficulty is very much on the easy side, though. I have the game set to "Hard" mode, and I did not struggle against anything the game was throwing at me. I think this game's "Hard" is actually easier than Ys VIII's "Normal", which is a little ridiculous. Ys IX does include "Nightmare", "Inferno", and "Lunatic" difficulty options too, but I didn't opt to use them for my first playthrough. Maybe I should have, I dunno. But yeah, something weird is going on with the difficulty in this game, and it kind of made the combat feel a bit more button-mashy and less strategic than before.
Additionally, the Switch version I'm playing seems to suffer from some bad slowdown when a lot of special attack animations are happening at the same time. It's way worse than it was in Ys VIII. It's unfortunate, but it doesn't make the game completely unplayable.
The game keeps several of the other gameplay elements first introduced in Ys VIII - namely the base-building and the raids. Just like in Ys VIII, you can recruit more characters to join your hideout, who will then set up shop as helpful NPCs. It felt a little less personal in this game, though - the deserted island theme of Ys VIII really helped in bringing everyone together for the fight to survive. Meanwhile, the bustling city setting of Ys IX doesn't really lend your hideout that same sense of community. And the raids... well, they're okay. I was getting a bit tired of them in Ys VIII, and they aren't really different here. There is a new type of raid though, where instead of defeating waves monsters, you have to instead break all the crystals within a time limit. I liked these ones, actually - it felt less like an drawn-out affair, and more like a navigation puzzle. And that works quite well with all the cool traversal abilities the Monstrums have.
The dungeon design in this game is pretty fun. The Monstrum traversal abilities are put to good use in creating interesting spaces to explore. Some of the later dungeons introduce some wide-open spaces, so the gliding ability really gets some nice use in these parts. The dungeons never get difficult to navigate though - it's all smooth and easygoing the whole way through.
The game doesn't have much in the way of bonus content outside of a couple optional sidequests - there is no extra postgame dungeon like in Ys VIII, and there are very very few optional areas to explore. It's a little bit of a letdown compared to how big Ys VIII felt. ...it actually just makes me appreciate Ys VIII more in comparison, haha.
Overall... the game is good, but it's unfortunately not as good as Ys VIII was. Ys VIII really felt expansive and like it kept introducing more and more stuff as the game went on - while Ys IX on the other hand felt very by-the-numbers and a little repetitive. There weren't really any particularly stand-out moments in this game, and each chapter played out in a very formulaic manner - there wasn't really anything thrown in to disrupt the established structure at any point. And the sheer amount of cutscenes can make the game feel like a drag at times...
The new traversal abilities are cool, and I like all the Monstrum characters, but the game itself didn't really impress me all that much aside from these few things. It was certainly not a bad game by any means, though.
So yeah. I had fun with Ys IX. I'm glad to be done with the whole Ys series in time for the new year! (that is, until Ys X comes out) Let's see which games I play in 2024, then. :D
