Ys X initial impressions:
I’ve reached chapter 4 out of 9, at about 15 hours played. So this isn’t gonna be a terribly long game. Figured I’d write a little bit about how I’m feeling about it so far.
The gameplay formula has finally been changed up from how it was in the past many Ys games. There are now only 2 playable characters, with a much bigger focus on how they play, rather than large character parties. You also get a “real” jump now, not that “jump dash” thing from the last games, which I think makes for more fun exploration. Other exploration tools such as a grappling hook and a hoverboard become available as you progress too.
The “pacing” of the combat is now quite a bit different. It’s a bit slower, heavier. Still has a fast pace, but you’ll notice a difference from Ys VIII or IX. The systems of getting invincibility for perfect guards and dodges are also gone. Now, enemies can have blue “speed” attacks, that you can evade by dashing and follow up with a counterstrike, or red “power” attacks, that can be perfectly guarded and followed up with either a cinematic attack or with a strike from your “revenge gauge”. A gauge that builds up a damage multiplier for your skills as you block attacks.
An early boss fight there, I was still getting used to how the game played. I’m playing on Nightmare from the get-go, it’s pretty difficult, but I’m managing!
Boss fights with this new system are awesome, maybe some of the best Ys boss fights ever. I’m hearing that they get really incredible in the later half of the game, so I’m looking forward to that.
As you may know, new to this game is ship sailing. The game has still not really let me use this too much though. The ship battling so far is kind of… eh… The only thing that does any real damage is the X button super attack. Just line up with the enemy ship and fire. The ship exploration has also been extremely railroaded so far. Ys has always been a very railroaded experience, but I’m a little surprised that the game hasn’t yet let me see if there’s at least any optional islands or something.
The story is enjoyable so far. I won’t go too into it, but some stuff goes down, Adol is now bound to a new heroine named Karja by a “Mana Cord”, there’s some villains called “Greagers” causing havoc, and all of your allies are scattered around the various islands, waiting for you to get out there and explore to save them. It’s pretty typical Ys, which I like. The “adventurous” feeling is very much there, which was lacking in Ys IX.
The game’s visuals, I’m mixed on. It looks “cheap” in some areas, and I mean cheap for Falcom, when you compare to how Kuro no Kiseki looked (which I’ve heavily praised it’s visuals in this thread before). I guess this was to get it to run as best it can on Switch, which I can say it -mostly- looks and runs very well! It’s mostly locked 30FPS (apparently so on PS4 as well, only PS5 runs it at 60), though the intro section and a small few sections dropped it pretty bad. The visuals -can- look good while exploring a town or in certain dungeons though. A complaint I’ve been seeing is that very much of the game is just grassy hills. That doesn’t bother me too much personally, it’s what comes to mind when I think “Ys adventure”, but I understand the complaint.
So far, the gameplay changes have been very positive. I really look forward to every boss fight. Still need to see the “ship gameplay” open up though. Visuals, I’m a little shaky on. The soundtrack hasn’t been anything that noteworthy so far unfortunately. The great gameplay is making up for other shortcomings however, I am enjoying the game a lot!
. It’s cool that it’s there though. I don’t know if I’ll actually use this bag for anything however lol.
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. This one folds out to show all the characters and the world map.
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