Absolutely amazing game, This was one of the first YS games I have ever played and ever since I started I have fallen in love with the game. The combat is fast-paced and filled with actions and the ability to switch characters for whatever suits best. I have always been a fan of the instant blocking mechanic and the instant dodging mechanic, But thats it for the combat the story of the game was really interesting and I could go hours playing without even realizing and I had fallen in love with the cast of characters with their personalities and their stories. It felt like this game was pieced together amazingly and it will be one of my favorite YS games

YS Memories of Celceta terminado. Ha sido todo un viaje con el bueno de Adol por todo el bosque de Celceta y sus cosas, esta curioso pero me tirare un tiempo sin tocar un ys hasta que me den ganas otra vez. En lo jugable bien, ta bueno, falta 1 cofre y una pet y no la encuentro! La música como siempre con este grupo increíble, y sabiendo que este juego es un remake de uno antiguo lo hace jugable y agradable, aunque estos juegos no son precisamente gráficos. Jugabilidad buena y lo de las lapidas de transporte ayuda, pero el bosque ha sido pesado.

I have never been much into Ys but I have played past games. Memories of Celceta is the biggest Ys yet and the best traditional JRPG available on Vita right now. You play as Adol Christin, a red-haired boy who loses all his memories and must find them again. Of course, the story is much deeper than that. A god named Eldeel ends up creating a mask called Mask of the Sun and other people want it for its powers. The story gets pretty deep, yet the characters are completely uninteresting. They all have generic dialogue and their personalities all feel stereotypical for JRPGs. While the game isn’t anything new it does what has been done before really well.

The combat in Ys has always been real-time and this helps alleviate the boredom that has come in JRPGs over the decades from random battles. The combat is fast-paced and fun with skills you can use, guarding, dodging, and switching between 3 characters on the fly adds a bit of strategy and depth. Each character has a weakness it can deliver to enemies so you will always change up who you put in your party. Aside from fighting regular monsters, the bosses are a lot of fun and quite challenging, but not so hard you can’t beat them. Honestly, the game is perfectly balanced in which you will acquire the strongest weapons and armor by the end of the game so you’re always one step ahead of enemies.

The whole point of Celceta is exploration. Your main secondary goal is to discover the entire area and complete the map 100%. The sense of exploration is one of the greatest assets of Celceta and you have a hard time putting the game down just to explore one more dungeon. When you’re in towns you can buy items and exchange stuff you find in the wild. Minerals, beast and plant materials can be exchanged for larger and higher quality items to reinforce armor and weapons. You can also craft items out of these materials as well. There are quite a few towns in this game and each one has 3 quests you can complete. Some are hard some aren’t, but they aren’t hard to figure out. In fact, I never really got lost that much in this game which is normally common in a JRPG. There was a sense of direction without having to hold your hand which is wonderful.

On another note there are a few puzzles thrown in but nothing that really takes advantage of the Vita’s features which aren’t expected in a JRPG. I do wish the game had local or online c0-op for up to 3 people, but that’s all right. The graphics look detailed but are dated even for the Vita. It looks like a decent PS2 game at best and could have used some more detail. The textures can look really muddy and grainy which is unacceptable on the Vita. At the end of the day, you will just love Celceta for the engaging story and fun gameplay and combat. There are a good 20 hours just in the story alone and another dozen if you want to get 100%.

Overall, Memories of Celceta isn’t perfect but it has some great combat, bosses, and the sense of exploration will keep you glued to your system. The graphics are dated, the voice acting is awful, and the characters are uninteresting but that’s expected from a JRPG. Could Celceta have broken this trend it may have been one of the best JRPGs in a long time? What’s here is solid and well worth a purchase for any JRPG fan.

That's it, no Dogi?

I'm someone who can immensely enjoy even the sloppiest Ys' offerings, and oh boy this might just be the bottom of the gilded barrel! There's an undeniably rushed quality that permeates the whole of Memories of Celceta's journey, I can't shake the slightly cynical notion that it might've just existed to get an early foot into the (at the time) exciting, new PS Vita market and not much else; the game releasing only 9 months after the original Japan launch of the console. Also the fact it's a remake of Ys IV and the gameplay along with general structure not making any big changes of note from the previous Ys SEVEN, so the foundations where already firmly there. Something I really appreciated though was how immediately Celceta drops the collar and leash, letting you roam free in its world with the basic premise of literally having to fill out the map as a plot vehicle whereas SEVEN felt quite a bit more regimented in it's guided path. Now, this can lead to aimlessness on more than a few occasions but sometimes that's fun, never distracts or frustrates too much.

Speaking of Ys SEVEN, that jump button introduced 5 games prior with Ys V and made a mainstay of the series' combat for each game following it (sans Ys Strategy) is still noticeably absent here and it's never not felt! The decision to remove jumping for these two portable entires which felt like such a boon the first time I had experienced it within Ark of Napishtim is mindbogglingly asinine. As I already mentioned in my SEVEN review it just makes the combat feel so much more one-note, even with all the new playable characters. It simply always feels missing, here more so than even it's predecessor as Memories of Celceta loves to reward you for what it calls "Aerial Combos" with extra item drops, SP, and money divided out from monsters slaughtered while they're airborne. But all that really means is unleashing an upward skill attack, hoping that launches them, and positioning your chosen character under them while they're sky-high to get some slashes in from the ground level. So odd to push you towards that style of combat but not allowing the player to juggle or follow them into the air like previous, and indeed future games. Such a wonky midpoint in the series with these two, but forgiveable as all fumbles along the roadwork laid by SEVEN & Celceta led to the masterful, inevitable Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA.

So I had my fun, it's hard not to with Ys it's just so euphoric in it's simplicity. Video games stripped down to the bare necessities of what makes discovery and combat fun. I think another thing that frustrates me with the portable duology however, is how overwritten and faux-ambitious the storys are here. Ys is best when concise and lightly written, not when it's trying to cover up its paper thin, clichéd, and tropey macguffin hunt plots by bogging the player down with a swath of text; little of it interesting. I think Falcom would do well, and did do well with Ys VIII, to recognise that and not try to hit on the levels of their other RPG line 'The Legend of Heroes' because I have no shame in admitting I skipped a great deal of exposition and story in this as I did with SEVEN. It's just not an engaging plot whatsoever unfortunately, on top of there being altogether too much of it. Neither have anything on the level of VIII's tale of perfect strangers across a plethora of class divides, equalised by the ominous, unexplored Isle of Seirin. Or the to-the-point, effective plots of the earlier games that know how to exercise brevity and not overstay their welcome.

edit: Im a bit confused as to which Backloggd entry I should publish this review under as the 2012 Vita version also lists Windows PC as a platform like the remaster does so I'm just going to cover my bases and do both. Apologies!

At times, had fun.

At other times, however, i could not find any of the charm and wonder that the other games i have played in this series so far had entranced me with.

Yet it did deliver me enough joy with its music, some of the characters, lore and concepts to still be a considerable good experience overall.

Ys is good.

Es el primer Ys que me animé a jugar en nightmare y me pareció divertido sin más. No es que sea tan memorable como otras entregas aparte de dar info sobre Adol, se siente bastante meh la mayor parte del tiempo aunque me gusto cerca del final. Lo que me invita a darle el 2,5 es puramente el gameplay, me gustaron bastante las mejoras respecto a seven y lo siento más rápido. Me gustó el dungeon final por lo variado que es, no es que el fuerte de Falcom sea crear dungeons variados en primer lugar, así que le doy el visto bueno por lo menos en ese dungeon en específico. Los jefes se me hicieron muy básicos en su mayoría, bastante alejados de lo desafiantes que podían ser los de Felghana u Origin incluso en dificultad normal (principalmente los 2 últimos son una risa). Disfruté el juego porque le encontré el gusto al gameplay, pero no puedo decir que se me hizo algo destacable para lo que venía jugando en la franquicia.