I just finished playing Ys VIII on switch. And boy, am I glad I did. I loved the story, the setting and the combat. However, I found that performance is not great in certain locations. Please beware that, I played the game on easy mode and I haven’t mastered the combat in any sense of the word. I sucked at the timing of Flash Guard and Flash Dodge. The game is balanced pretty well. I loved the dungeons and the feeling of first feeling lost and then, mastering them as you progress.
The game is also pretty decent in length. It took me about 50 hours to complete most of what the game had to offer. And there was almost no padding. However, it had the typical JRPG tendency of removing player from the control, for a story bit or something else and it could get annoying especially in the early game where you are constantly told to backtrack for a tutorial, etc.
Personally, my favourite part of the game was the story and the characters. Characters, especially the party members were well-written and well-realized. I was genuinely sad to see the story end because of them.
This was my first Ys game and now I am moving on Ys 9 and loving it so far.
It’s one of those older series I always looked at with a curious gaze without daring getting into it, is there any benefit from playing the older ones in terms of story/lore ? or should I just pick one that looks good and run with it without fear of missing elements ?
Ys 1 was pretty fun and short. It uses bump mechanics for combat which was fun. The final dungeon is like half the game and you are already max level when you enter so the challenge was pretty good. The random lore snippets gave me a sense of wonder the whole game. Ys 2 was more complex in its mechanics and it seemed to randomly get super hard so I gave up on that one.
Just want to drop this excellent resource here on everything Ys: https://www.digitalemelas.com
Ys 8 is a great entry point which got me hooked on the series. Each game is self-contained, however Ys 9 does reference previous games more as an easter egg/fan service than actually affecting enjoyment of the story.
oooh, got some reading to do
I’ve been doing the story path, and it’s really not necessary, though I appreciate it a bit. So far I’ve played 1, 2, Origin, Felghana, and Celceta, and there’s really not a lot of carry over from game to game. The most important is the first three, but even then you’ll still enjoy it if you play Origin first since the gameplay is still solid regardless.
I will say the final boss in Ys 1 isn’t worth the effort (I beat it, but it took hours), so if you get there and get annoyed, just watch the ending cutscene and move on to Ys 2. Absolutely do not play Ys 2 before Ys 1 though, that’s mostly for gameplay reasons.
While there are references to older games, they are not necessary for the enjoyment of the game. You will not miss much even if you don’t get the references.