Posted on: November 11, 2018
KainKlarden
Games: 767 Reviews: 59
Unforgettable adventure
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana might be that game to finally get the attention the series deserved all this time. Ys are best known for great gameplay, so I’ll start with the unexpected - Ys VIII has an amazing narrative. I’d say that this isn’t just the best narrative in the series but one of the best examples of how to make an adventure story in an action RPG game. It smartly borrows from different classic sources on its story concepts, with story having unexpected, but welcome, twists and turns. It never feels static, never feels like pointless padding. Ys VIII is also very welcoming to newcomers to the series, with Normal being just perfect in difficulty, requiring you to learn the game, but never grind. And some of the super optional things you can simply postpone to new game plus, since it has a lot of helpful options for starting a new playthrough. Even the music feels especially amazing this time around. It’s expected for a game from Falcom to have stellar music, but Ys VIII might have the best soundtrack since the originals. And it’s not even afraid to experiment and at one particular activity even uses a drum and bass track which manages to still fit the tone and sound of Ys music. Important to mention, though that I did encounter some crashes and few weird performance drops as even after lots of updates the game port became "playable", rather than good and can still have issues. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana is an amazing example of how adventure action RPG games can and should be made and a perfect game to get introduced to Ys series. But even if you don’t plan to play the rest of the serious, you simply owe it to yourself to play Ys VIII.
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