Final review (15-18 hours) - 3/5
Alright, so now that I've gotten more into the game I'm going to abandon it as much as I like Ys. The sea exploration was an interesting idea but it's a bit slow, there's also a lot of other little systems that feel like checklist padding - the many items that upgrade your stats in hard to notice ways, constantly buying new equipment, etc. They're time consuming but barely meaningful. Ship battles are hard to control and a bit clunky, mostly feels like waiting for ammo to reload.
I like some of the movement options (the skateboard and grapple), the idea of holding defend to avoid red moves and dashing to avoid blue is neat, but felt underutilized. It's also hard to make 'work' with how cameras work in these games.
Characters are okay... I liked how the story started with the town but then they kind of scrap the town and everyone ends up on this ship. It kind of becomes typical Falcom story fare since their Cold Steel days, which is like... eh, it's okay in small amounts but it's hard to sit through in a game that seems like it's gonna be 40+ hours.
Level design sometimes becomes fun (weirdly, in an early dungeon), and seems to make use of multiple enemies attacking with interesting level geometry, but a lot of times has that typical "Falcom Filler Feeling" of really big stages, random enemies that don't really stand a chance against you, tons of things to smash to gain items.
I like the idea of the partner combat, but with the skill cooldowns there's just so much information to keep track of that it feels really clunky. Run out of SP on one character? Press Y after a weird delay to swap to the other. As usual there are too many skills and they all kind of feel the same, not much utility difference. There's a mastery system with unknown usage other than adding another number to fill to 100%...
Overall it feels really obvious that Falcom doesn't seem to get enough time to really rethink their systems - it's all these old, stale ideas that didn't really work in past Ys games kinda crammed together. There's a bit of some new ideas shining through that DOES kind of work - finding new islands to explore is fun (until the level shapes start to feel kinda similarish and limited), the idea of the partner system is cool, even if the implementation is bloated.
---
Review update 1 (15 hours) - 4/5
I'm downgrading this to 4 mostly because the gameplay isn't really there. I think there are some good ideas they were trying out but it could have used more time in the oven / there's all this other 'compulsive' systems and the flashy character-action skill attack explosions that kind of water down what is working.
It shines at some moments but at other times it's kind of the compulsive 'fill in the blank' stuff (like S-ranking the ship invasion missions) or the normal ys 8/9-esque 'walk through an area of enemies you can mostly avoid'. Lots of re-used minibosses and accessories that don't really have much of a use, the stat/orbment-esque system is also kind of weird because you don't need it on easy difficulties and on higher difficulties it's yet to be seen how useful/required it is.
The tricky thing with stat upgrade systems in fast-paced combat games is that playing at higher difficulty well means you're needing to basically not even getting hit.. so defense trees don't help much. I guess increasing attack means your DPS goes up, but I'm not sure how much time that shaves off a boss fight.
Original review (5-10 hours)
angeline era is delayed because i'm playing Ys X! ha ha
I've yet to really get the ensemble cast together (I just finished the 3rd or 4th major boss) but so far the game focuses on Adol and Karja. It's a welcome change to me as it's both reminiscent of my favorite SK (Since Kondo) Falcom game, Trails in the Sky 1 - seemingly focusing on Adol/Karja and then other characters coming and going. We'll see how that lasts, but it seems like they're the only playable ones, so hopefully there aren't too many of those 'everybody has a turn to say something insignificant' jrpg ensemble dialogue scenes.
It's a little hard to say how the overall feel will come out, but the first 2-3 hours feel very Trails-y with a focus on worldbuilding/visiting towns/minimal combat, although nearing hour 8, it's shifted to more of a normal cadence of town stuff/long dungeon with exposition now and then that feels more reminiscent of recent Ys. I haven't seen a quest log yet (yay!) but we'll see how long that lasts Ha Ha Ha. It feels more 'true' to the pulpy adventurer feel of Adol in a way that Celceta/8/9 didn't really to me.
--
But what excites me more is that it seems like Falcom is actually Trying To Do Level Design again. Ys 9 and maybe 8 had a little of this, but ultimately their combat systems were so fast-paced that they still felt like weird adaptations of Ark-era Ys, with the awkward integration of parries/timed dodge rolls.
In X, the pace has slowed down. Instead you are in one of three states:
- Guard (holding R2)
- Attacking/Vulnerable
- Dashing (holding L1)
There are Blue attacks which you auto-dodge when holding L1, and Red attacks which are only guardable with R2. Any other attack is auto-guardable when holding R2. It sounds really simon-says-y on paper but I think it's the best modern Ys combat yet:
Because there's a little delay going from one state to another, I find so far that (on Nightmare, the 2nd-hardest default difficulty) there's an actual interesting friction to fighting. You can't just whip out a dodge or parry at any moment, you have to be just careful enough to look at the enemy and get a few hits in before getting ready for a guard. Multiple enemies can stand at different points on the map and ranged attacks actually hurt, so there's a fun level of awareness you're expected to maintain.
Of course, I think a lot of this friction vanishes if you're playing on easier difficulties, but I think the way difficulty scales here is more interesting than Ys 8/9 with the heavy focus on move memorization/etc. In X you're thinking more about how many attacks it's safe to get in before playing more defensively - and the result is that it feels similar to Ark/6/Origin-era Ys in some ways.
What's narratively nice is that you only have 2 characters to control - and a gimmick is that when you hold R2, you enter 'combination state' - which auto-guards by default, but also lets you use what are basically heavy attacks. The result is that it really does feel like Karja/Adol are fighting as a team, which goes great with the pulpy feel of the story.
Another fun touch is that, while you don't need to 'perfect' dodge or parry, it seems like if you DO time it well enough you get to do a powerful counterattack. Maybe my timing just sucks but I couldn't seem to trigger these more than once during boss fights, but it's fun to see them come out.
There's skill customization and equipment, but so far they don't seem super important - and I like it that way. The point here isn't really roleplaying as it is just seeing the duo grow stronger.
Overall I'm glad Falcom has managed to design a combat system that feels a bit more on-its-own and suitable to the kind of stories they want to tell. Excited to play more!
Alright, so now that I've gotten more into the game I'm going to abandon it as much as I like Ys. The sea exploration was an interesting idea but it's a bit slow, there's also a lot of other little systems that feel like checklist padding - the many items that upgrade your stats in hard to notice ways, constantly buying new equipment, etc. They're time consuming but barely meaningful. Ship battles are hard to control and a bit clunky, mostly feels like waiting for ammo to reload.
I like some of the movement options (the skateboard and grapple), the idea of holding defend to avoid red moves and dashing to avoid blue is neat, but felt underutilized. It's also hard to make 'work' with how cameras work in these games.
Characters are okay... I liked how the story started with the town but then they kind of scrap the town and everyone ends up on this ship. It kind of becomes typical Falcom story fare since their Cold Steel days, which is like... eh, it's okay in small amounts but it's hard to sit through in a game that seems like it's gonna be 40+ hours.
Level design sometimes becomes fun (weirdly, in an early dungeon), and seems to make use of multiple enemies attacking with interesting level geometry, but a lot of times has that typical "Falcom Filler Feeling" of really big stages, random enemies that don't really stand a chance against you, tons of things to smash to gain items.
I like the idea of the partner combat, but with the skill cooldowns there's just so much information to keep track of that it feels really clunky. Run out of SP on one character? Press Y after a weird delay to swap to the other. As usual there are too many skills and they all kind of feel the same, not much utility difference. There's a mastery system with unknown usage other than adding another number to fill to 100%...
Overall it feels really obvious that Falcom doesn't seem to get enough time to really rethink their systems - it's all these old, stale ideas that didn't really work in past Ys games kinda crammed together. There's a bit of some new ideas shining through that DOES kind of work - finding new islands to explore is fun (until the level shapes start to feel kinda similarish and limited), the idea of the partner system is cool, even if the implementation is bloated.
---
Review update 1 (15 hours) - 4/5
I'm downgrading this to 4 mostly because the gameplay isn't really there. I think there are some good ideas they were trying out but it could have used more time in the oven / there's all this other 'compulsive' systems and the flashy character-action skill attack explosions that kind of water down what is working.
It shines at some moments but at other times it's kind of the compulsive 'fill in the blank' stuff (like S-ranking the ship invasion missions) or the normal ys 8/9-esque 'walk through an area of enemies you can mostly avoid'. Lots of re-used minibosses and accessories that don't really have much of a use, the stat/orbment-esque system is also kind of weird because you don't need it on easy difficulties and on higher difficulties it's yet to be seen how useful/required it is.
The tricky thing with stat upgrade systems in fast-paced combat games is that playing at higher difficulty well means you're needing to basically not even getting hit.. so defense trees don't help much. I guess increasing attack means your DPS goes up, but I'm not sure how much time that shaves off a boss fight.
Original review (5-10 hours)
angeline era is delayed because i'm playing Ys X! ha ha
I've yet to really get the ensemble cast together (I just finished the 3rd or 4th major boss) but so far the game focuses on Adol and Karja. It's a welcome change to me as it's both reminiscent of my favorite SK (Since Kondo) Falcom game, Trails in the Sky 1 - seemingly focusing on Adol/Karja and then other characters coming and going. We'll see how that lasts, but it seems like they're the only playable ones, so hopefully there aren't too many of those 'everybody has a turn to say something insignificant' jrpg ensemble dialogue scenes.
It's a little hard to say how the overall feel will come out, but the first 2-3 hours feel very Trails-y with a focus on worldbuilding/visiting towns/minimal combat, although nearing hour 8, it's shifted to more of a normal cadence of town stuff/long dungeon with exposition now and then that feels more reminiscent of recent Ys. I haven't seen a quest log yet (yay!) but we'll see how long that lasts Ha Ha Ha. It feels more 'true' to the pulpy adventurer feel of Adol in a way that Celceta/8/9 didn't really to me.
--
But what excites me more is that it seems like Falcom is actually Trying To Do Level Design again. Ys 9 and maybe 8 had a little of this, but ultimately their combat systems were so fast-paced that they still felt like weird adaptations of Ark-era Ys, with the awkward integration of parries/timed dodge rolls.
In X, the pace has slowed down. Instead you are in one of three states:
- Guard (holding R2)
- Attacking/Vulnerable
- Dashing (holding L1)
There are Blue attacks which you auto-dodge when holding L1, and Red attacks which are only guardable with R2. Any other attack is auto-guardable when holding R2. It sounds really simon-says-y on paper but I think it's the best modern Ys combat yet:
Because there's a little delay going from one state to another, I find so far that (on Nightmare, the 2nd-hardest default difficulty) there's an actual interesting friction to fighting. You can't just whip out a dodge or parry at any moment, you have to be just careful enough to look at the enemy and get a few hits in before getting ready for a guard. Multiple enemies can stand at different points on the map and ranged attacks actually hurt, so there's a fun level of awareness you're expected to maintain.
Of course, I think a lot of this friction vanishes if you're playing on easier difficulties, but I think the way difficulty scales here is more interesting than Ys 8/9 with the heavy focus on move memorization/etc. In X you're thinking more about how many attacks it's safe to get in before playing more defensively - and the result is that it feels similar to Ark/6/Origin-era Ys in some ways.
What's narratively nice is that you only have 2 characters to control - and a gimmick is that when you hold R2, you enter 'combination state' - which auto-guards by default, but also lets you use what are basically heavy attacks. The result is that it really does feel like Karja/Adol are fighting as a team, which goes great with the pulpy feel of the story.
Another fun touch is that, while you don't need to 'perfect' dodge or parry, it seems like if you DO time it well enough you get to do a powerful counterattack. Maybe my timing just sucks but I couldn't seem to trigger these more than once during boss fights, but it's fun to see them come out.
There's skill customization and equipment, but so far they don't seem super important - and I like it that way. The point here isn't really roleplaying as it is just seeing the duo grow stronger.
Overall I'm glad Falcom has managed to design a combat system that feels a bit more on-its-own and suitable to the kind of stories they want to tell. Excited to play more!