Weird yet fitting game to end my Ys streak on. Exemplifies the best and worst traits of the series.
To start with the good: this has my favorite core combat in the series, due to a more manual and deliberate style of combat. In Celeceta, 8, and 9 they automate SP and make spamming moves a lot easier. Flash guard is performed with a button combination rather than one button, and offers less invincibility so it doesn't trivialize the combat as much and flash move isn't in the game at all. In addition to the controls the equipment and items are more limited in selection and amount allowed respectively. I also think the bosses were closer to actually pushing me really learn their patterns on Nightmare, which I haven't had to do for any of the other modern games. You can argue that the classic approach is better since there's not anything to abuse, but I do think the additional mechanics have potential when stripped back like this. Seven also offers the most sensible approach to including Adol in a party by allowing him to use multiple damage types with different basic attacks.
The dungeons have a nice sense of following through on mechanics, rarely is a key item ever used only once and often they appear in interesting puzzles and the like. Sounds like fairly standard RPG affair but it's preferable to enemy spam.
Seven's ost is one of the stronger in the series, although the audio mixing can feel off at times. Environmental noises like waves and volcanos feel like they don't scale with the in-game audio sliders and your slashes will always be significantly louder than anything else.
Enami Katsumi's art is a treat as always, truly one of the GOAT illustrators.
Unfortunately, this game has the worst story in possibly any game I've ever played. Most of the older Ys games had fairly generic and by the books stories, but they would use their very little screen time to show charming characters or interesting lore. Seven opts to waste far more of your time for a less valuable, soulless elemental artifact hunt with overly stoic and motiveless characters. I love RPGs, I've played hundreds and I love most of Falcoim's games but if you HAD to incapsulate everything wrong with RPG and Falcom writing this game would be the result. Honestly irredeemable in my opinion.
The sidequests are dogshit fetch quests with trash rewards and no interesting lore or character details. To add one final complaint, this game shares some of 8's material grind and 6's grinding so it can end up feeling padded.
Ultimately, I still enjoyed the game because of the combat and bosses because that's what I enjoy about these games but I can definitely understand why its divisive and it's a shame that Falcoim kinda corrupted what made the combat so good in subsequent titles with mechanical fluff. This game will always remain in kind of a weird spot for me.
To start with the good: this has my favorite core combat in the series, due to a more manual and deliberate style of combat. In Celeceta, 8, and 9 they automate SP and make spamming moves a lot easier. Flash guard is performed with a button combination rather than one button, and offers less invincibility so it doesn't trivialize the combat as much and flash move isn't in the game at all. In addition to the controls the equipment and items are more limited in selection and amount allowed respectively. I also think the bosses were closer to actually pushing me really learn their patterns on Nightmare, which I haven't had to do for any of the other modern games. You can argue that the classic approach is better since there's not anything to abuse, but I do think the additional mechanics have potential when stripped back like this. Seven also offers the most sensible approach to including Adol in a party by allowing him to use multiple damage types with different basic attacks.
The dungeons have a nice sense of following through on mechanics, rarely is a key item ever used only once and often they appear in interesting puzzles and the like. Sounds like fairly standard RPG affair but it's preferable to enemy spam.
Seven's ost is one of the stronger in the series, although the audio mixing can feel off at times. Environmental noises like waves and volcanos feel like they don't scale with the in-game audio sliders and your slashes will always be significantly louder than anything else.
Enami Katsumi's art is a treat as always, truly one of the GOAT illustrators.
Unfortunately, this game has the worst story in possibly any game I've ever played. Most of the older Ys games had fairly generic and by the books stories, but they would use their very little screen time to show charming characters or interesting lore. Seven opts to waste far more of your time for a less valuable, soulless elemental artifact hunt with overly stoic and motiveless characters. I love RPGs, I've played hundreds and I love most of Falcoim's games but if you HAD to incapsulate everything wrong with RPG and Falcom writing this game would be the result. Honestly irredeemable in my opinion.
The sidequests are dogshit fetch quests with trash rewards and no interesting lore or character details. To add one final complaint, this game shares some of 8's material grind and 6's grinding so it can end up feeling padded.
Ultimately, I still enjoyed the game because of the combat and bosses because that's what I enjoy about these games but I can definitely understand why its divisive and it's a shame that Falcoim kinda corrupted what made the combat so good in subsequent titles with mechanical fluff. This game will always remain in kind of a weird spot for me.