Of COURSE my first Ys game is the black sheep of the franchise. You all know the drill.
It's a substandard action game; these hitboxes are sparse and the enemy behavior is rudimentary. It also underdelivers on exploration and social aspects you'd expect from this era's top-down JRPGs, so I get why series fans would feel alienated. It's also-also overly-grindy - but, I actually liked it for that. I'm always a sucker for the drastic take on JRPG leveling, where enemies knock you out in one hit but then you level up and trample them like ants. I was essentially getting my Maten No Soumetsu fix from a 6-hour game instead of an 80-hour game with game over RNG.
It's a very pleasant and comfortable vibe, too - wonderful music, a homely town you revisit between dungeons, nice background art, and characters that were easy to get invested in despite being 16 pixels tall. Even the bordered screen grew on me - it's like peering into the storybook.
I don't know why they felt the need to drop you into The Big Seizure Dimension in the final boss. It wouldn't be that horrible of a fight if not for that (and the shaking ground beneath you that randomizes your jump starting point and makes it really easy to scrape your head against the boss when you try to attack it).
I'm curious to try out the rest of the Ys games now
It's a substandard action game; these hitboxes are sparse and the enemy behavior is rudimentary. It also underdelivers on exploration and social aspects you'd expect from this era's top-down JRPGs, so I get why series fans would feel alienated. It's also-also overly-grindy - but, I actually liked it for that. I'm always a sucker for the drastic take on JRPG leveling, where enemies knock you out in one hit but then you level up and trample them like ants. I was essentially getting my Maten No Soumetsu fix from a 6-hour game instead of an 80-hour game with game over RNG.
It's a very pleasant and comfortable vibe, too - wonderful music, a homely town you revisit between dungeons, nice background art, and characters that were easy to get invested in despite being 16 pixels tall. Even the bordered screen grew on me - it's like peering into the storybook.
I don't know why they felt the need to drop you into The Big Seizure Dimension in the final boss. It wouldn't be that horrible of a fight if not for that (and the shaking ground beneath you that randomizes your jump starting point and makes it really easy to scrape your head against the boss when you try to attack it).
I'm curious to try out the rest of the Ys games now