really want to like this game more. the core gameplay is an improved and refined version of ys sevens, ost hits most the right notes but everything else? kinda disappointed with. especially the story and characters. dungeons weren't all that fun either, accompanied by some of the most uninspired bosses since ys 6.
Ended up liking this way more than I anticipated, given how much it inherits from Seven. The battle system feels weighty and snappy and I love it everytime I'm on a dungeon but dread arriving at a new town to 30 mins+ of cutscenes and boring dialog.
I should have known something wasn't right about Memories of Celceta by the one-hour mark. Looking back, I’ve now repeatedly picked up and shelved this game a grand total of five times over the past year, with my feelings upon the game becoming more mixed every time. In fact, it actually made me question whether or not I liked Ys Seven to begin with. Upon a quick replay though, I can confirm that the issue was not so much Ys Seven’s baseline mechanics but rather Celceta’s interpretation of said mechanics. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll refrain from poring over Celceta’s general background (since the core ideas have carried over from Ys Seven and have been thoroughly explained here) and treat this write-up more as a compare & contrast.
The first thing that comes to mind is that despite carrying over the baseline combat mechanics from Ys Seven, Celceta’s pacing feels far more sluggish than Ys Seven. This struck me as quite odd at first, because there’s no immediate culprit that would draw my ire as anything that was excessively grindy (as compared to Ys Seven, which really suffers from an end-game resource grind for the best weapons in the game). Upon further reflection, I came to realize that it was actually a mix of smaller factors that kept intrusively interrupting the flow of Ys’s traditionally frenetic bread-and-butter gameplay over the course of the entire run. For example:
- Celceta has tons of slow swimming thanks to all the different water bodies and water elevation puzzles scattered throughout the overworld and the dungeons. This gets even more obnoxious because there are tons of enemies present in the water that Adol and company have to fend off with a very committal thrust (since you can’t dodge or flash guard while swimming).
- The first half of the game doesn’t let you freely teleport between differently colored monuments, which becomes very tedious when backtracking for resources/side quests/healing. It’s not until the Primeval Lands are unlocked and you obtain the Gold Wing that backtracking becomes much more efficient.
- There’s some coding/binding oversight that doesn’t let you use your special attack bound to the Y button without expending your EXTRA attack/gauge if it’s completely filled up. The result is that I felt pretty reluctant to use the Y special attack most of the time, and accidentally threw away my EXTRA attack plenty of times, forcing me to engage in additional grinding to enter every boss fight with a full EXTRA gauge.
- There are some high-level enemies near the beginning of the game with tons of health that you’d think would be a good idea to avoid; however, it’s actually pretty easy to defeat them by flash guarding the telegraphed attacks and they're worth boat-loads of experience. The Golden Pikkard near the middle of the game functions similarly to this, in that it can grant multiple level-ups at a time and is otherwise a somewhat unengaging fight since it will just run away from you while tanking attacks. These opportunities feel too good to pass up since it’s often very little risk for significant reward, resulting in the player occasionally grinding to become over-leveled for a good chunk of the game.
- The game encourages you to go for “aerial combos” juggling enemies for extra damage, but most characters are incapable of using standard attacks to hit launched foes because there’s no jump and most standard attacks aren’t pointed upwards. This creates this gap in combat where after hitting enemies with launcher special attacks and running out of the SP gauge, you have to wait for enemies to return to earth before resuming your assault.
- Each of the six playable party characters has a “unique” action that requires you to switch to them to activate something in the overworld (ex: Adol is the only one who can access memories, Duren is required to unlock chests, etc). This wasn’t completely absent in Ys Seven, but it’s significantly more intrusive in Celceta because there are many more instances requiring character-specific context-sensitive prompts, so a lot more time is spent menuing to switch party characters on the fly if the ones you’re currently using for combat don’t correspond with those required for overworld actions.
- While there’s no late-game resource grind as previously mentioned, there’s something far more egregious that players may feel incentivized to do. Due to some developer oversight, Falcom misaligned the world map, which means that to achieve 100% map completion, you have to unintuitively “hug” walls of certain areas to register them as part of the percentage. This gets particularly grating because the game is very picky as to what has/has not been registered, to where unregistered parts of the map may not even appear to be visibly faded while looking at the map display. You don’t have to 100% the map to beat the game of course, but since the item you receive as a reward for doing so is extremely valuable (a sub-item that accelerates the accrual of your EXTRA gauge), most players will probably end up going through this laborious and unclear clean-up that was fortunately addressed in Ys VIII with far more generous guidelines.
Looking past these pacing issues, Celceta does at least expand and often improve upon the toolkit from Ys Seven. For instance, dodge-rolling right when enemies attack performs a “Flash Move” that grants you temporary invincibility and temporarily slows the enemy down (as opposed to the Flash Guard, which is more of a “parry” that builds up your SP/EXTRA gauge), which should theoretically open up more avenues of combat. In addition, new special attacks for characters are naturally unlocked as the player progresses through the game’s fights; while Ys Seven ran the risk of players potentially not gaining permanent access to new special attacks if not used enough with new weapons, Celceta’s unlocks operate independently of purchasing new weapons to avoid this issue. Lastly, Celceta provides a stronger incentive for utilizing special attacks by allowing players to regain half of the expended SP if the special attack is used as a finisher, rewarding players for wisely timing special attacks to improve the flow of combat.
The more pressing issue then, is that the enemies and bosses are not scaled appropriately to match the player’s buffed toolkit, resulting in what is probably the easiest Ys game to date. Ys Seven at least ran the risk of punishing the player for mistiming the Flash Guard: if the player is hit during the end-lag after the active parrying frames, they would receive critical damage, thus balancing the risk vs reward. Meanwhile, Celceta not only removes this risk altogether, but in fact allows the player to mash the Flash Guard with no delay between inputs to quickly build up the SP/EXTRA gauge in practical invincibility, trivializing fights. Similarly, the charged attack is streamlined from Ys Seven to Celceta: Ys Seven forced the player to commit by holding down the attack button, while Celceta instead links the charged attack to a built-in timer (wait long enough without attacking and the next attack you launch will be charged). While this doesn’t appear to be a drastic change, there’s a lot less decision-making that goes into the latter compared to the former; the player is consciously making the decision to charge up an attack in Ys Seven, but in Celceta, it’ll naturally charge while dodge-rolling around anyways. Finally, remembered when I mentioned that most characters are incapable of hitting launched enemies with standard attacks for aerial combos? There’s one exception to this, and she’s the most busted character in the game: Karna can often infinitely juggle enemies with her ranged standard attack, and can in fact out-space the vast majority of mobs in the game. Couple all of these things with the activated flash-moves from rolling through enemy attacks, and Celceta’s combat often devolves into mindless hit-and-run strategies where you can dodge-roll/flash-guard through every attack in the game with little risk to the player.
As a result, Memories of Celceta lacks an engaging difficulty/learning curve compared to other games in the series; the same broken strategies that work at the very beginning are just as effective at running through late-game bosses, and there’s not much incentive for the player to experiment outside of their comfort zone considering how easy it is to fall back upon hit-and-run. I imagine that Falcom caught wind of complaints regarding spongey bosses in Ys Seven and thus toned down their health bars accordingly, but it feels like they went in the complete opposite direction because even the final couple of bosses absolutely melted in a couple of minutes from abusing flash guard critical-boosted EXTRA attacks. The game also lacks a satisfying payoff to justify the tedium: Memories of Celceta tries to place more emphasis upon the individual party members as opposed to the overarching lore (which is why Ys Seven’s limited storytelling feels more acceptable), but so much more time is spent mindlessly backtracking for side-quests that fail to provide interesting lore/character development, and the game abruptly grinds to a halt after an anti-climatic final boss fight that fails to provide any resolution or catharsis to any of the game’s party members. It really feels like Falcom phoned in Celceta's ending in comparison to the simple yet impactful narrative that Ys Seven provided, thanks to Ys Seven’s well-developed tragic villain and emotional climax.
Many have described Ys Seven and Memories of Celceta as a sort of “transition period” between the Ark-era isometric 2D-3D games and the “modern-era” party-based fully-3D games with broader scopes and longer runtimes, but I will go a step further: Memories of Celceta is the stepping-stone of the Ys stepping-stones. The short and thick of it is that while there is no single abhorrent quality or moment that makes the game unbearable, it's also the first Ys game that's struggled to hold my attention and I can’t think of any reasons to recommend it as opposed to its peers. If you want a tougher game with less developed mechanics but a tighter execution to fit its rougher toolkit, then Ys Seven is the way to go. If you want a more expansive and polished toolkit with a more engaging difficulty and learning curve to justify said toolkit, then Ys VIII is your weapon of choice. Finally, if you just want the tale of Celceta told to you in a more succinct and colorful manner, then I’d suggest playing through the original Ys IV via Dawn of Ys. Memories of Celceta loves to emphasize the importance of treasuring the past… but I sure as hell wouldn’t be surprised if this was the first Ys game that I ended up forgetting.
The first thing that comes to mind is that despite carrying over the baseline combat mechanics from Ys Seven, Celceta’s pacing feels far more sluggish than Ys Seven. This struck me as quite odd at first, because there’s no immediate culprit that would draw my ire as anything that was excessively grindy (as compared to Ys Seven, which really suffers from an end-game resource grind for the best weapons in the game). Upon further reflection, I came to realize that it was actually a mix of smaller factors that kept intrusively interrupting the flow of Ys’s traditionally frenetic bread-and-butter gameplay over the course of the entire run. For example:
- Celceta has tons of slow swimming thanks to all the different water bodies and water elevation puzzles scattered throughout the overworld and the dungeons. This gets even more obnoxious because there are tons of enemies present in the water that Adol and company have to fend off with a very committal thrust (since you can’t dodge or flash guard while swimming).
- The first half of the game doesn’t let you freely teleport between differently colored monuments, which becomes very tedious when backtracking for resources/side quests/healing. It’s not until the Primeval Lands are unlocked and you obtain the Gold Wing that backtracking becomes much more efficient.
- There’s some coding/binding oversight that doesn’t let you use your special attack bound to the Y button without expending your EXTRA attack/gauge if it’s completely filled up. The result is that I felt pretty reluctant to use the Y special attack most of the time, and accidentally threw away my EXTRA attack plenty of times, forcing me to engage in additional grinding to enter every boss fight with a full EXTRA gauge.
- There are some high-level enemies near the beginning of the game with tons of health that you’d think would be a good idea to avoid; however, it’s actually pretty easy to defeat them by flash guarding the telegraphed attacks and they're worth boat-loads of experience. The Golden Pikkard near the middle of the game functions similarly to this, in that it can grant multiple level-ups at a time and is otherwise a somewhat unengaging fight since it will just run away from you while tanking attacks. These opportunities feel too good to pass up since it’s often very little risk for significant reward, resulting in the player occasionally grinding to become over-leveled for a good chunk of the game.
- The game encourages you to go for “aerial combos” juggling enemies for extra damage, but most characters are incapable of using standard attacks to hit launched foes because there’s no jump and most standard attacks aren’t pointed upwards. This creates this gap in combat where after hitting enemies with launcher special attacks and running out of the SP gauge, you have to wait for enemies to return to earth before resuming your assault.
- Each of the six playable party characters has a “unique” action that requires you to switch to them to activate something in the overworld (ex: Adol is the only one who can access memories, Duren is required to unlock chests, etc). This wasn’t completely absent in Ys Seven, but it’s significantly more intrusive in Celceta because there are many more instances requiring character-specific context-sensitive prompts, so a lot more time is spent menuing to switch party characters on the fly if the ones you’re currently using for combat don’t correspond with those required for overworld actions.
- While there’s no late-game resource grind as previously mentioned, there’s something far more egregious that players may feel incentivized to do. Due to some developer oversight, Falcom misaligned the world map, which means that to achieve 100% map completion, you have to unintuitively “hug” walls of certain areas to register them as part of the percentage. This gets particularly grating because the game is very picky as to what has/has not been registered, to where unregistered parts of the map may not even appear to be visibly faded while looking at the map display. You don’t have to 100% the map to beat the game of course, but since the item you receive as a reward for doing so is extremely valuable (a sub-item that accelerates the accrual of your EXTRA gauge), most players will probably end up going through this laborious and unclear clean-up that was fortunately addressed in Ys VIII with far more generous guidelines.
Looking past these pacing issues, Celceta does at least expand and often improve upon the toolkit from Ys Seven. For instance, dodge-rolling right when enemies attack performs a “Flash Move” that grants you temporary invincibility and temporarily slows the enemy down (as opposed to the Flash Guard, which is more of a “parry” that builds up your SP/EXTRA gauge), which should theoretically open up more avenues of combat. In addition, new special attacks for characters are naturally unlocked as the player progresses through the game’s fights; while Ys Seven ran the risk of players potentially not gaining permanent access to new special attacks if not used enough with new weapons, Celceta’s unlocks operate independently of purchasing new weapons to avoid this issue. Lastly, Celceta provides a stronger incentive for utilizing special attacks by allowing players to regain half of the expended SP if the special attack is used as a finisher, rewarding players for wisely timing special attacks to improve the flow of combat.
The more pressing issue then, is that the enemies and bosses are not scaled appropriately to match the player’s buffed toolkit, resulting in what is probably the easiest Ys game to date. Ys Seven at least ran the risk of punishing the player for mistiming the Flash Guard: if the player is hit during the end-lag after the active parrying frames, they would receive critical damage, thus balancing the risk vs reward. Meanwhile, Celceta not only removes this risk altogether, but in fact allows the player to mash the Flash Guard with no delay between inputs to quickly build up the SP/EXTRA gauge in practical invincibility, trivializing fights. Similarly, the charged attack is streamlined from Ys Seven to Celceta: Ys Seven forced the player to commit by holding down the attack button, while Celceta instead links the charged attack to a built-in timer (wait long enough without attacking and the next attack you launch will be charged). While this doesn’t appear to be a drastic change, there’s a lot less decision-making that goes into the latter compared to the former; the player is consciously making the decision to charge up an attack in Ys Seven, but in Celceta, it’ll naturally charge while dodge-rolling around anyways. Finally, remembered when I mentioned that most characters are incapable of hitting launched enemies with standard attacks for aerial combos? There’s one exception to this, and she’s the most busted character in the game: Karna can often infinitely juggle enemies with her ranged standard attack, and can in fact out-space the vast majority of mobs in the game. Couple all of these things with the activated flash-moves from rolling through enemy attacks, and Celceta’s combat often devolves into mindless hit-and-run strategies where you can dodge-roll/flash-guard through every attack in the game with little risk to the player.
As a result, Memories of Celceta lacks an engaging difficulty/learning curve compared to other games in the series; the same broken strategies that work at the very beginning are just as effective at running through late-game bosses, and there’s not much incentive for the player to experiment outside of their comfort zone considering how easy it is to fall back upon hit-and-run. I imagine that Falcom caught wind of complaints regarding spongey bosses in Ys Seven and thus toned down their health bars accordingly, but it feels like they went in the complete opposite direction because even the final couple of bosses absolutely melted in a couple of minutes from abusing flash guard critical-boosted EXTRA attacks. The game also lacks a satisfying payoff to justify the tedium: Memories of Celceta tries to place more emphasis upon the individual party members as opposed to the overarching lore (which is why Ys Seven’s limited storytelling feels more acceptable), but so much more time is spent mindlessly backtracking for side-quests that fail to provide interesting lore/character development, and the game abruptly grinds to a halt after an anti-climatic final boss fight that fails to provide any resolution or catharsis to any of the game’s party members. It really feels like Falcom phoned in Celceta's ending in comparison to the simple yet impactful narrative that Ys Seven provided, thanks to Ys Seven’s well-developed tragic villain and emotional climax.
Many have described Ys Seven and Memories of Celceta as a sort of “transition period” between the Ark-era isometric 2D-3D games and the “modern-era” party-based fully-3D games with broader scopes and longer runtimes, but I will go a step further: Memories of Celceta is the stepping-stone of the Ys stepping-stones. The short and thick of it is that while there is no single abhorrent quality or moment that makes the game unbearable, it's also the first Ys game that's struggled to hold my attention and I can’t think of any reasons to recommend it as opposed to its peers. If you want a tougher game with less developed mechanics but a tighter execution to fit its rougher toolkit, then Ys Seven is the way to go. If you want a more expansive and polished toolkit with a more engaging difficulty and learning curve to justify said toolkit, then Ys VIII is your weapon of choice. Finally, if you just want the tale of Celceta told to you in a more succinct and colorful manner, then I’d suggest playing through the original Ys IV via Dawn of Ys. Memories of Celceta loves to emphasize the importance of treasuring the past… but I sure as hell wouldn’t be surprised if this was the first Ys game that I ended up forgetting.
5.5/10
I feel kinda bad cuz on one hand when the game is good its really good, some of the tracks are almost top tier Falcom, I like all the party members and Adol had some great content here. On the other hand I just don't care anymore man, it felt cumbersome playing through the last stretch of the game, this game is not for me.
Pretty good game, especially considering it's a vita game. Exploration is rewarding and the story is solid. Still one of the weaker Ys games though but worth playing if you can find it on sale.
Really fun action RPG ! It’s an old game that it’s still good to play nowadays.
I was kind of in between 3 and 4 for this - I was more of a 4 early on but as the game went on the repetition really set in and I watched the last bits on YouTube. I think my biggest disappointment was that the game wasn't actually set in the forest of celceta..only like the first 25% was. And I feel that setting was wasted for various reasons.
+ Gorgeous art - actually great color choices at times
+ The 6 characters felt tied to the story well and I liked the reveals, especially Duren/Frieda's hometown
+ It was a fun set-up to explore the forest at first
+ Cool to learn a little about Adol's backstory
+ Really great fast pace, although the combat was pretty repetitive, there were occasionally some fun situations with enemies zipping around, although camera angles/excessive VFX made it hard to see what was going on and react properly
- The whole Celceta forest was set up as this huge mysterious setting - and then by the end like, everyone and their friend is just easily walking through it!
- Wasn't as about Adol as much as I thought it would be
- Status effects were a nuisance and not that interesting to work around
- Some of the stuff in this feels really overly tied to Trails lore? The records, causality, big mecha people.. people coming out of mechas
- Kind of disappointing the game wasn't actually entirely set in a large forest
- The ending was so sudden with like no conclusion for the characters?? What's up with that
- Perfunctory level design and puzzles
- Formulaic level and story progression
- Boss fights feel messy and camera angles move too much. Rather than fights they all feel kind of repetitive - memorizing sounds/animations to know when to bash Flash Guard
- VFX make the screen really hard to read at times
- Item progression and upgrading are repetitive
+ Gorgeous art - actually great color choices at times
+ The 6 characters felt tied to the story well and I liked the reveals, especially Duren/Frieda's hometown
+ It was a fun set-up to explore the forest at first
+ Cool to learn a little about Adol's backstory
+ Really great fast pace, although the combat was pretty repetitive, there were occasionally some fun situations with enemies zipping around, although camera angles/excessive VFX made it hard to see what was going on and react properly
- The whole Celceta forest was set up as this huge mysterious setting - and then by the end like, everyone and their friend is just easily walking through it!
- Wasn't as about Adol as much as I thought it would be
- Status effects were a nuisance and not that interesting to work around
- Some of the stuff in this feels really overly tied to Trails lore? The records, causality, big mecha people.. people coming out of mechas
- Kind of disappointing the game wasn't actually entirely set in a large forest
- The ending was so sudden with like no conclusion for the characters?? What's up with that
- Perfunctory level design and puzzles
- Formulaic level and story progression
- Boss fights feel messy and camera angles move too much. Rather than fights they all feel kind of repetitive - memorizing sounds/animations to know when to bash Flash Guard
- VFX make the screen really hard to read at times
- Item progression and upgrading are repetitive
fun
This review contains spoilers
When compared to its predessor, Ys Seven, this game is a marked improvement in numerous ways. Combat is more fluid than before with better boss design than seven. Exploration is more fun and encouraged with more unique landmarks and a map completion system. As a standalone game, I quite liked this entry and believe the combat to be better than Ys VIII due to the fixed camera and more encouragement to learn enemy patterns.
I recently, however, watched my friend play through one of the original versions of Ys IV for the pc engine. What became apparent was how much the story in the game was altered for the worse. The story was okay on its own merits but ends abruptly. The original Ys IV heavily expands on the lore of previous games while delivering a narrative with fun characters and villains. Celceta seems to do away with most of this in favor of telling an amnesia plotline that fails to majorly build on Adol as a character as is hinted at the beginning of the game. The characters feel watered down, especially one of the main villains who no longer is a villain in Celceta. The game being twice as long as the original does not help matters as it feels like less happens despite the game being longer.
Overall, i think Celceta is a fun game, but knowing what the story was like original really puts a damper on my appreciation of it.
I recently, however, watched my friend play through one of the original versions of Ys IV for the pc engine. What became apparent was how much the story in the game was altered for the worse. The story was okay on its own merits but ends abruptly. The original Ys IV heavily expands on the lore of previous games while delivering a narrative with fun characters and villains. Celceta seems to do away with most of this in favor of telling an amnesia plotline that fails to majorly build on Adol as a character as is hinted at the beginning of the game. The characters feel watered down, especially one of the main villains who no longer is a villain in Celceta. The game being twice as long as the original does not help matters as it feels like less happens despite the game being longer.
Overall, i think Celceta is a fun game, but knowing what the story was like original really puts a damper on my appreciation of it.
I bought Ys Memories of Celceta on a whim, not expecting to get much out of it, but it ended up being one of my favorite games on the Vita. It was a truly fantastic action RPG! with loveable characters, a good storyline, and seriously addictive gameplay. I loved it so much that I started a second run immediately after finishing the game. I ended up sinking 68 hours in MoC and getting the platinum trophy. I loved this game!
A solid entry in the Ys series. This was the first modern Ys game I've played with the action on-the-fly character change mechanic and I enjoyed how seamless this feature is and the variety it provides in terms of fast-paced action combat system.
The story is solid, although a bit convoluted compared to earlier Ys games but this is a trend with modern Ys games. Exploring the forest of Celceta was fun all the while trying to figure out what exactly occurred with Adol and his memories.
The dungeon/levels design is a bit all over the place in this game and while the fast-paced combat is fluid and fun for the most part, it can start becoming a bit repetitive and mindless once you equip your characters appropriately.
The story is solid, although a bit convoluted compared to earlier Ys games but this is a trend with modern Ys games. Exploring the forest of Celceta was fun all the while trying to figure out what exactly occurred with Adol and his memories.
The dungeon/levels design is a bit all over the place in this game and while the fast-paced combat is fluid and fun for the most part, it can start becoming a bit repetitive and mindless once you equip your characters appropriately.
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.
Me gusta ligeramente menos que Felghana, pero es un juego entretenido.
Buenos diálogos y banda sonora con temazos.
Buenos diálogos y banda sonora con temazos.
mmhmm
Divertido, pero chicloso hacia el final
I dont hate it as much as other people do, but I do wanna play dawn of ys out of curiosity. soundtrack is fire
Mesmo com a progressão de cenário pra cenário repetitiva (não é como se os anteriores não tivessem isso também), todos os outros elementos principais da saga me prenderam muito bem aqui mais do que os outros jogos da série.
Let's get the negative out of the way first. Terrible poorly paced first half that contributed almost nothing to the narrative and had large empty areas with repetitive enemies, one of the least interesting plots in the series I've experienced, and combat that's overly exploitable by flash guard.
Once the second half began with the Primeval lands the game instantly improved as around 70% of the total bosses and actual meaningful interesting content comes around. The dungeons start presenting interesting mechanics and the towns don't overstay their welcome or bring progress to a halt. You also start getting some actually useful artifacts. If this game were solely this half I'd probably give the game a 4/5 instead.
Worth playing if you're a fan of the other Ys games or want an action rpg on the vita. On PC it's a drop of sand in the desert.
Once the second half began with the Primeval lands the game instantly improved as around 70% of the total bosses and actual meaningful interesting content comes around. The dungeons start presenting interesting mechanics and the towns don't overstay their welcome or bring progress to a halt. You also start getting some actually useful artifacts. If this game were solely this half I'd probably give the game a 4/5 instead.
Worth playing if you're a fan of the other Ys games or want an action rpg on the vita. On PC it's a drop of sand in the desert.
This is the third Ys game i've played and while it is the best one, it's still just decent for me. I mean, i'll cut the series some slack, Atelier wasn't wowing me either for the first few entries i've played and now it's my second favorite JRPG series.
Anyways, this game plays similarly to Ys 7 but it's better because the bosses don't take three trillion years to get down to half-health, so the game is infinitely more enjoyable. However, the game has a worst economy than current day America. Like damn, Adol should go on strike for this, the quests pay jack shit compared to how much everything costs in this game.
Speaking of, Adol is a Link-tier silent protagonist so i'm cool with it. I didn't feel his silentness was a detriment to the plot like Byleth in Three Houses or Joker in Persona 5. The other characters are nice too and they all go through their own little arcs, except the last one, who's just here cause i guess.
What i'm not cool with is the villains. Just a whole trio of nothing-people. Now, as a rule of thumb, what makes a good Saturday morning cartoon villain is one who is either entertaining to watch (however this manifests) or fits with the game's themes. This game's villains do neither. The main villain Gruda is a discount Vaati, a lad from a hidden village who becomes obsessed with darkness but is not given any motivation until the end. His motivation is revealed at the end to be "humans suck so i will become a menace so that humanity can prove that it's worthy" which to me, sounds like Malos. Gruda is a discount Vaati and also a poor man's poor man's Malos (yes i intentionally repeated it twice to get the point across). I don't even have anything to say about the game's other villains, they hardly mattered.
The soundtrack is good, if samey. Me thinks this is a series-wide problem. Ys: Memories of Celceta as a whole is probably the most 7/10 game i've played, solidified by the game's ending of all time.
Anyways, this game plays similarly to Ys 7 but it's better because the bosses don't take three trillion years to get down to half-health, so the game is infinitely more enjoyable. However, the game has a worst economy than current day America. Like damn, Adol should go on strike for this, the quests pay jack shit compared to how much everything costs in this game.
Speaking of, Adol is a Link-tier silent protagonist so i'm cool with it. I didn't feel his silentness was a detriment to the plot like Byleth in Three Houses or Joker in Persona 5. The other characters are nice too and they all go through their own little arcs, except the last one, who's just here cause i guess.
What i'm not cool with is the villains. Just a whole trio of nothing-people. Now, as a rule of thumb, what makes a good Saturday morning cartoon villain is one who is either entertaining to watch (however this manifests) or fits with the game's themes. This game's villains do neither. The main villain Gruda is a discount Vaati, a lad from a hidden village who becomes obsessed with darkness but is not given any motivation until the end. His motivation is revealed at the end to be "humans suck so i will become a menace so that humanity can prove that it's worthy" which to me, sounds like Malos. Gruda is a discount Vaati and also a poor man's poor man's Malos (yes i intentionally repeated it twice to get the point across). I don't even have anything to say about the game's other villains, they hardly mattered.
The soundtrack is good, if samey. Me thinks this is a series-wide problem. Ys: Memories of Celceta as a whole is probably the most 7/10 game i've played, solidified by the game's ending of all time.
Dropeado, me parece muy aburrido
A bit longer than I expected and the story was kina weird for me, but the combat and boss fights was worth it.
It doesn't take long after starting this that it appears to be another Ys Seven. Lord give me the strength to push through another Ys game!! It was ages ago when I've played through the the ones on PSP and my energy toward completing games have vastly diminished as of late, especially average ones like these are.
My interest took a nosedive as early as the first boss. There is literally a tutorial box telling you how to play. Almost like those flowchart memes deconstructing a game's gameplay with the intent of making it seem more shallow than it appears at first glance. 1) Use charge attacks to fill up skills. 2) Use skills to fill up L button. 2) Use L button. Hell, why am I even playing in that case? Where exactly does the player fit into to all this, seeing as the game has it all figured out already. I'm merely along for the ride, I suppose- to make myself present only to be able digest the story as a reward for being able to follow directions.
My interest took a nosedive as early as the first boss. There is literally a tutorial box telling you how to play. Almost like those flowchart memes deconstructing a game's gameplay with the intent of making it seem more shallow than it appears at first glance. 1) Use charge attacks to fill up skills. 2) Use skills to fill up L button. 2) Use L button. Hell, why am I even playing in that case? Where exactly does the player fit into to all this, seeing as the game has it all figured out already. I'm merely along for the ride, I suppose- to make myself present only to be able digest the story as a reward for being able to follow directions.
8/10 it's not xanadu next but it's pretty good
Probably my least favorite of the party-based Ys games, but it's still worth playing.
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.
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.
I'm finding it really hard to enjoy this game. It's failing to engage me in any shape or form. The map is too big, but nowhere as in-depth in terms of enemies, treasures, traps, secrets, and biome themes. This game is simply painfully average, which is a huge bummer, because I really enjoyed Ys I + II.
I hope the latest entries in this series won't disappoint me.
I hope the latest entries in this series won't disappoint me.
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!
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!
This game is really good. The combat is really fun, the story and the characters are interesting, the pacing is good and the soundtrack is stellar, as is to be expected from an Ys game. However, since I am a trophy hunter, a lot of the trophies in this game are insanely tedious and a huge waste of time. That can also be said for some of the side quests too.
I think I'll try my hand at briefly explaining from my perspective why this game doesn't do that much for most people.
Compared to the Ark system games and Ys Seven preceding it, the Action-game gameplay elements are notably weaker. Namely the dungeon design and bosses just don't stand out in the moment and in retrospective as much as most other Ys games. They're just alright. There's usually at least a few bosses fans like to talk about from any game but there's nothing here that I've noticed gets discussed. The final dungeon as well as Lake Tolmes Ruins were the only dungeons that I felt reached the nuance that most dungeons had in Ys Seven for example. A few other ones had an alright atmosphere as well but for the most part there's not much to remember.
Compared to Ys 8 and Ys 9, the party system games that came right after it, the world and lore is pretty uninteresting. There are also far less prettier or memorable locales, ones where the camera angles would slowly unravel and amaze you a ton in Ys 8/9. There's not as much variety in things to do (especially compared to Ys 8 with fishing, raids, more optional areas etc.). Despite Ys 8 and Ys 9 being relatively longer games, I personally felt as if they were paced better than Ys Seven and Celceta (especially in their latter halfs, but particularly because of their unique premises). Ys Seven had a cool main story but it's also 90% full of a ton of McGuffin hunting. Celceta has a more plot driven approach in comparison but it manages to feel even more forgettable than the McGuffin hunting chapters in Ys Seven (those had generally stronger gameplay and music to make up for it).
I don't think I really have anything to say about the specific story and characters, I forget nearly all of it already. The memories of Adol were charming for sure, and I kind of wish more of them had playable segments, while trimming some other fat the game has down. Some of the sidequests also felt more soulful than anything in the main story. I feel it's easy enough to point at the cliche characters and character motivations and the fact that this is a remake of an old game to explain why the story is whatever for most people. Perhaps it's just expected. But nevertheless comparing it to the other party games' stories just proves why it's relatively so unmemorable. Seven's main story (outside of the McGuffin hunting) built a stronger sense of mystique and arguably has the best main antagonist in the series. 8 and 9 had their own interesting story concepts and executed them well enough. Celceta's was just a really typical adventure plot with a really typical antagonist and supporting cast, nothing more or less.
Musically this doesn't stand out much from Falcom's other '00s and '10s OSTs. My two favourite songs happen to be from Kamikura from the jdk band ("The Morning After the Storm" and "Gust of Wind". god damn those guitars). Unisuga, Sonoda and Okajima's contributions otherwise are solid, sometimes great, but they don't stand out too much overall compared to all the other stuff they've done for me and most people.
Other various small things generally felt unremarkable that kind of add up. There's some underwater combat here and it's pretty dull, it's slow and you can only do a basic attack while fishes swerve all around you. Some upgrades such as the Dwarf Bracelet which is really cool at first never get used in interesting ways as some of Ys Seven's powerups did. The Dwarf Bracelet solely exists to let you get through a handful of small spots, it's never used in boss fights (like TLOZ: Minish Cap's often does) or any other interesting ways in dungeons.
There's probably a lot more nitpicks I can make, or more elaboration on major points. Ultimately though this game is just one of those that finds itself in a middle ground lacking the strengths of its predecessors (in this case tight action gameplay) and successors (interesting story, characters and variety).
Compared to the Ark system games and Ys Seven preceding it, the Action-game gameplay elements are notably weaker. Namely the dungeon design and bosses just don't stand out in the moment and in retrospective as much as most other Ys games. They're just alright. There's usually at least a few bosses fans like to talk about from any game but there's nothing here that I've noticed gets discussed. The final dungeon as well as Lake Tolmes Ruins were the only dungeons that I felt reached the nuance that most dungeons had in Ys Seven for example. A few other ones had an alright atmosphere as well but for the most part there's not much to remember.
Compared to Ys 8 and Ys 9, the party system games that came right after it, the world and lore is pretty uninteresting. There are also far less prettier or memorable locales, ones where the camera angles would slowly unravel and amaze you a ton in Ys 8/9. There's not as much variety in things to do (especially compared to Ys 8 with fishing, raids, more optional areas etc.). Despite Ys 8 and Ys 9 being relatively longer games, I personally felt as if they were paced better than Ys Seven and Celceta (especially in their latter halfs, but particularly because of their unique premises). Ys Seven had a cool main story but it's also 90% full of a ton of McGuffin hunting. Celceta has a more plot driven approach in comparison but it manages to feel even more forgettable than the McGuffin hunting chapters in Ys Seven (those had generally stronger gameplay and music to make up for it).
I don't think I really have anything to say about the specific story and characters, I forget nearly all of it already. The memories of Adol were charming for sure, and I kind of wish more of them had playable segments, while trimming some other fat the game has down. Some of the sidequests also felt more soulful than anything in the main story. I feel it's easy enough to point at the cliche characters and character motivations and the fact that this is a remake of an old game to explain why the story is whatever for most people. Perhaps it's just expected. But nevertheless comparing it to the other party games' stories just proves why it's relatively so unmemorable. Seven's main story (outside of the McGuffin hunting) built a stronger sense of mystique and arguably has the best main antagonist in the series. 8 and 9 had their own interesting story concepts and executed them well enough. Celceta's was just a really typical adventure plot with a really typical antagonist and supporting cast, nothing more or less.
Musically this doesn't stand out much from Falcom's other '00s and '10s OSTs. My two favourite songs happen to be from Kamikura from the jdk band ("The Morning After the Storm" and "Gust of Wind". god damn those guitars). Unisuga, Sonoda and Okajima's contributions otherwise are solid, sometimes great, but they don't stand out too much overall compared to all the other stuff they've done for me and most people.
Other various small things generally felt unremarkable that kind of add up. There's some underwater combat here and it's pretty dull, it's slow and you can only do a basic attack while fishes swerve all around you. Some upgrades such as the Dwarf Bracelet which is really cool at first never get used in interesting ways as some of Ys Seven's powerups did. The Dwarf Bracelet solely exists to let you get through a handful of small spots, it's never used in boss fights (like TLOZ: Minish Cap's often does) or any other interesting ways in dungeons.
There's probably a lot more nitpicks I can make, or more elaboration on major points. Ultimately though this game is just one of those that finds itself in a middle ground lacking the strengths of its predecessors (in this case tight action gameplay) and successors (interesting story, characters and variety).