After waiting sometime since completing my first playthrough(playing NG+ in the meantime) I’m ready to finally log my thoughts on Ys Monstrum Nox.Ys has been a series I had my eyes on for awhile and among a time of wanting something new and it being apart of the switches eshop year jumpstart sale I decided to grab it though in my opinion this game would’ve been worth a full 60 had I payed it.

First the story because I don’t want to go deep into details as there are many twists and turns to a well mostly written plot but I will say the main party of the monstrum”s are enjoyable characters who are well developed and the human cast of the Dandelion bar are fun and enjoyable as well.I say mostly well written as there are times when the plot will pause on one moment and drag it out for awhile and had me begging to just get on with the rest of the game already but that’s really the only issue I had and moving on to the gameplay now because like I said going further with the plot would involve spoiling said plot and I dare not do that with all the curves it throws our way.

The gameplay I found quite fun the action combat was easy to pick up and satisfying to master.From the flash move and guard rewarding you with extra time to get attacks in for timing evades/guards just right to the variety of skills each character learns for combat to the fact each of the monstrum”s unique gift can have use in battles and not just exploration.Raging Bulls Valkyrie Hammer breaking enemy shields,Hawks Hunters Descent letting you get some aerial combo time,Crimson Kings crimson line letting you get in close to far away enemies it’s just a fun time all around.

Speaking of exploration this game also nails that the prison city of balduq is big but it doesn’t feel to overwhelming at any point and there’s plenty to see and do! From collectioning azure petals hidden quite literally everywhere,to finding graffiti with a variety of messages and finding land marks and chests hidden in the city(those first three you also get rewards from npcs for hitting collection milestones) combined with how every npc has something new to say every chapter with some even having their own arcs that progress throughout the game(seriously tak to everyone everytime)and the the usual sidequests I was never bored in balduq.

Now I mentioned earlier I got this off the switch Eshop which means I played the switch verison and being honest for an action game port I never had any major performance issues at all except for some slow down when there was a ridiculous amount of enemies on screen. So if you have a switch I’d say go for it for some action on the go or at home.

Overall I loved Monstrum Nox and I’m glad I finally took my first steps into the Ys series and I’ll definitely be going back on previous games to see what other adventures and characters Adol had run into.

Thanks for reading if you looked at this!