Definitely an improvement over Ys III, but overall kind of mediocre nonetheless. The plot feels pretty run of the mill for the genre, but the game is short enough and the fan translation is written well enough for it to still be somewhat engaging. Music is weaker than it was in III, though I did play III on Genesis in which it sounds kind of insane. Definitely a bit of a high bar to clear.
The combat is the real weak link here. I've heard it's just implemented particularly poorly in this game, but the bump combat system it uses is miserable. At least grinding becomes much shorter than it is in a typical RPG, but since you have no invincibility frames (much like in III), you're dead meat if you slip up more than maybe once. This style of combat doesn't really work out in the game's boss battles either, they were mostly trivial but when they weren't (such as Gruda) they were needlessly tedious and aggravating. No in-between, no bosses that really piqued my interest.
Would I recommend Ys IV on SNES (not to be confused with Ys IV on TG-CD)? Probably not. I didn't hate my time with it, but it didn't really do anything for me that I didn't get more enjoyment of somewhere else. I'm glad to see an RPG that only takes a single digit number of hours, but what I got here could certainly be better. I do hear the Ys games I've chosen are kind of black sheeps, so maybe I should see some other entries if I ever find myself interested. Maybe I'll play Ys V or the other Ys IV one of these days, but the other games aren't really in the timeframe and console era I tend to gravitate towards.
The combat is the real weak link here. I've heard it's just implemented particularly poorly in this game, but the bump combat system it uses is miserable. At least grinding becomes much shorter than it is in a typical RPG, but since you have no invincibility frames (much like in III), you're dead meat if you slip up more than maybe once. This style of combat doesn't really work out in the game's boss battles either, they were mostly trivial but when they weren't (such as Gruda) they were needlessly tedious and aggravating. No in-between, no bosses that really piqued my interest.
Would I recommend Ys IV on SNES (not to be confused with Ys IV on TG-CD)? Probably not. I didn't hate my time with it, but it didn't really do anything for me that I didn't get more enjoyment of somewhere else. I'm glad to see an RPG that only takes a single digit number of hours, but what I got here could certainly be better. I do hear the Ys games I've chosen are kind of black sheeps, so maybe I should see some other entries if I ever find myself interested. Maybe I'll play Ys V or the other Ys IV one of these days, but the other games aren't really in the timeframe and console era I tend to gravitate towards.