Ys: Memories of Celceta

I played the SNES version (Mask of the Sun) quite a few years ago, and I remember almost nothing about it, aside from a cool dark forest village, some winged god guy, and that STUPID bump system. I don't think I'll have that problem with this remake, because it's very well done. This plays similarly to 7 and 8 (leaning more toward 8), with fast, fluid combat, and competent team members. Skills are learned and mastered quickly, so that's been fixed from 7. Challenge and pacing were also just right; the only real issue the gameplay had (and it's a fairly minor gripe) is that the bonus from perfect guarding and perfect dodging didn't have a time gauge, so it was difficult to tell when they were about to run out. The visuals were lovely, but this is from THAT era, so you'll probably want to turn the bloom all the way down; fortunately, there are tons of options to customize the game, so you can do exactly that with a little tweaking. As for the story, characters, and music, if you've played any of the Ys games before (particularly the newer ones), you know exactly what you're getting; if you haven't, the series puts action first and foremost, but still does well enough with the writing.

I'm on my journey through the Ys Saga, and if there are any comparisons they will be to Oath in Felghana, but I digress, what really keeps me playing these games is the combat, it's very active and fast paced, with both a block and dodge to gain a temporary buff if executed perfectly, althhough I gotta say I didn't find the block very useful, I prefer the invincibility from the dodge, plus, there are many combat skills to further the power of the characters. Graphics are good (I'm not picky, I'm more about style consistency than realism), character designs are alright, it's a shame only the weapon changes in the character model, but is not a deal breaker, music is good, there are some forgettable tracks and then there is the credits song that goes so hard I'd expect it to come from a dark fantasy tale like vagrant story, not this saturday morning adventure. Talking about the characters, there are a lot of tropes and cliches, , but at least they tried to give some voice to Adol by including dialogue choices, they have no impact in the outcome, but can offer some amusing flavor text. Unfortunately that's pretty much the extent of the positives I have to say, because good lord this game is a grind, combat skills are useless unless they are at max level, so get ready to grind, reinforcing gear not only costs ridiculous amounts of gold, but you also have to get the materials for it, so get ready to grind , It took me like 45 hours to get to the end and I swear at least 12 were grinding for gold. And beleive me, I cheesed the hell out of this game to minimize grinding, you can save after killing a monster, load the game and they'll respawn, but still, by the last dungeon I was sick of it. Here I go onto the next (I'm still conviced Adol is a dog that's leaving fatherless kids left and right, no adventurous 18 yo is gonna say no to that woman in the back alley of Casnan, but we can keep pretending that's not true, after all, Adol wouldn't lie to us, would he?)

Definitely toward the upper echelon of Falcom games, in my humble opinion. The gameplay is fun, I love the added character customization via all the different options you have for equipment enhancements and wish it had stuck around on the future Ys titles. The characters are decent, not great, and certainly nowhere near as cringe as the ones in this game's successor - Ys VIII. The combat is Ys (if you know, you know - more of what you love if you're a fan of the franchise). Falcom's dungeon designs are peak and the dungeon crawling experience is as much a spectacle as it is a compelling gameplay experience. 7.5 - 8 out of 10 seems like a fair rating to me because I think it's overall a very good game. Another 0.5 to 1 points could've been earned by a better ending but the "ending" here is actually extremely lazy. It's like reading a Stephen King novel lol, but that comparison does mean the first 99.5% is great so overall it's still worth playing.

Im only about 6 hours into the game but in general i enjoy this game. But its not as good as most other Ys Titels i played so far like Origin, Oath in Felghana, Ys 6 and 7. Music is fine but except a few tracks nothing to special. Combat is pretty much the same like Ys 7 with easier flash guards i think. Overall the bosses and difficulty is very easy so far compared to especially 6 and oath in felghana. Story is also good but not too interesting so far but that can stil change. overall i would recommend the game. It runs on pretty much all PC's right now and looks still pretty decent. If you like Ys or want to have an easy introduction its a good choice i think.

Ys: Memories of Celceta is definitely one of the best of the new Ys games. It provides all the mechanics and a similar control scheme that you'd find in Ys 8, yet it's quite a bit cheaper. The story is as usual with Falcom Ys games superb and well told, the character selection colorful and interesting. If you like a good action jRPG this game is for you, great controls, fast combat and a story that stands out even among other Ys games.