This game is, first and foremost, a dungeon crawler in the classic tradition. Though it's a spin off of the Legend of Heroes grandfather title Xanadu, do not expect anything akin to Trails in the Sky in terms of story. As an old-school classic Dungeon Crawler in the tradition of Diablo, BG: Dark Alliance 1&2, etc.this game shines. You are not going to get deep character arcs or lively conversations, for the most part. Instead, you'll get some mysteries, some lore dumps and some nice atmosphere. The hub town, the dungeons, the lore-dumps, all feel like you're playing an hack-and-slash heavy module from Dungeons & Dragons, or Sword World. Such as they are, I find the vibes immaculate. This is terse fantasy, though oddly cozy, in a way. There's an air of almost archeological mystery when exploring the ruins around and beneath the town of Harlech. There are some control issues when playing with a controller, which is to be expected since this game definitely feels primarily designed for mouse and keyboard. There are certain menu items that can only be accessed with the mouse and with a controller, your attacks will sometimes "lock on" to the wrong enemy--when they don't just careen off toward a cluster of grass or an errant vase instead. I didn't mind this much, but if you're used to games like Diablo or Torchlight, mouse and keyboard may be a better fit for you. The action itself feels "heavy". This is not the light and fast swashbuckling of an Ys game, but something a bit more akin to the aforementioned Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance series. Your attacks will have some windup and some weight to them, and each weapon type feels satisfyingly different from the others. The Guardian system and weapon proficiency mechanics can give players some customization to their playstyle and enough optimization to sink their teeth into. Overall, if the idea of a dungeon crawler with some charming quirks and an immaculate east-meets-west art style sounds appealing, give it a go
It's widely known that the developers of Ys I had originally envisioned it, and Ys II as a single game. Thus it tracks that many releases tend to package them together. Ys I feels like what it is, an early part of the full game that is rather difficult. The world feels small, and the gameplay puzzles, while employing some interesting tricks, are rudimentary. Ys II expands on the promise of Ys I with a bigger, more vibrant world, new mechanics (magic) and more clever puzzles. You can even talk to the monsters that populate this game, via the use of a magic item (to the delight of Edge magazine, I'm sure.) A word on the difficulty, though- If you've played Ys I on its default difficulty, you know have probably turned to guides in frustration and have probably found explanations of how the Bosses' movement/damage rates are tied to the framerate of the game. That said, Ys II is quite a bit more forgiving. If you switched to easy difficulty for Ys I, try leaving it on default for Ys II. I think you'll find the experience enjoyable this time around.
By the time I had finally got to play Cave Story, it was in the post-official-release times. I had heard rumblings of it on the internet and had gotten a copy on the Wii when it was available there, but had never decided to check it out in its true internet-culture era. When it wasn't just a game, but felt like the beginning of something. At the time, my heart had room for only one indie-platformvania with retro aesthetic, and that was La-Mulana, which would eventually get its own official release, which I would also end up getting on Wii and PC. As a game itself, I would say it's 4 or 4.5 stars. But I'm giving it the full 5 because it helped to set the bar for a lot of things we take for granted when it comes to independently-made games. A rating for importance, rather than pure merit. It's not the perfect 'vania, and some would argue that it only barely qualifies in that subgenre. But I would say it's a design that's lean on purpose. There's not so much that it will overstay its welcome, but there's more than enough for it to live in your head after you've put the controller down.
