Ys X: Nordics (2023)

Got to Chapter 5 today and really liking it a lot, the deep gem chart is a bit confusing but I think i re-made my characters better, breaking more and tanking more , ONLY bad part i did not like was the stupid worm, it was the dumbest fight ever and a gimmicky one at that

ALSO i can dodge well but wanna try to practice blocking ive tried many timings but it seems it doesnt work, does anyone have tips on blocking/practicing it? or any way you can stop your character from attacking so u can practice on an ad enemy?

13th Game Completed in 2024

So this is a bit unorthodox for me, but I'm going to review this one before I'm finished it because, frankly, I've been discussing this one so much with other Ys fans that I kinda already know what my opinion on this one is, and finishing it will be more of an obligation than a passion.

It's very, very rare that I am so on-the-fence with a game, usually I can find pretty strong opinions, but Ys 10 is so flat and boring while also being fun to play that it's really hard to feel anything. Like I am compelled to play it. I enjoy my time with it. But the story isn't very good on the whole, the combat is a step back from Ys 8 and 9, and it never really excites the emotions one way or another.

Ys 8 is a masterpiece. Like. I genuinely recommend that game to everyone who likes JRPGs and adventure stories. Ys 9 is... Flawed. The gameplay gets a big upgrade, traversal in particular is SO much fun, but the story makes very little sense. Ys 10 is a step back in both regards. If you told me the story as a synopsis, it would be really interesting, but the way it's paced and told is so slow, and so emotionally flat, that it's really hard to care. Where Ys 8 made me cry multiple times and had me thinking deeply about the nature of the universe, Ys 10 has me picking up my phone to check notifications during 90% of cutscenes, while the characters prattle on about the details of ship repairs. Even during plot exposition, Revelations are delivered so matter-of-fact and without nuance, and then explained so lifelessly, that I just don't care.

Despite that though, I will say that (most of) the English voice acting is actually excellent. Karja, the second protagonist's, actress is absolutely outstanding, and should have been nominated for Supporting Actor at every awards show. She delivers her performance with such nuance, with careful inflections and strong, emotive acting, that she really impresses. Trouble is though, the animations are not very good outside a few important cutscenes. So while the performance is great, it's held back by budget issues. The rest of the cast is pretty great too, using a number of well-known anime actors to great effect. The one consistently bad actor here is actually Adol, the main character. This isn't a big issue, because he has very few voiced lines, but his delivery is poor and doesn't seem to emote correctly in the context of these scenes. It's very odd.

The gameplay... Hmm. In any other game, I would say it's quite good. But as I mentioned before, it's a downgrade from the previous games in the series. A big part of this is because there's fewer playable characters - only two compared to six in Ys 8 and seven in Ys 9. To compensate, these two characters have more skills each, and more menus and mechanics supporting, but actually playing just doesn't feel particularly great, and it kinda suffers from doing too much, spread too thin. You also lose the really cool mechanics from Ys 9, like the wall-running, and the gliding, and just zooming all over the map like a squirrel... You get some neat tools like a grappling hook and a magic surfboard, but these aren't used particularly well.

Added here is a large-scale sailing and ship combat system, and this is actually a really positive addition. If you've played Assassin's Creed 4 and onward, or Skull and Bones, you probably have a sense of how this works, but it's simplified here in ways that make it way, WAY more fun. This is something Ys as a series is actually quite good at - taking complex systems from other games and simplifying them in ways that make them better.

There's also a really great set piece moment involving a whale that I shan't spoil, but if this game has more stuff like that, it would be better for it.

Music is another place the game takes a step back. The Ys series is well-known for having some of the best high-energy OSTs in gaming, but this one... Meh. A lot of the really powerful synth work that made the series famous is gone here, replaced with what Coury from MyLifeInGaming described to me as, "noodling on a guitar". And... Yeah. A lot of the guitar-heavy tracks here just kinda become annoying, with high-pitched notes seemingly assembled in a program rather than played. The tracks generally feel less emotionally complex and more repetitive than they have in past games.

I mentioned it a bit earlier in review, but I feel like the budget for this game really holds it back. The animations are canned and stiff, the sidequests are mostly basic, and while the graphics look very good on the whole, there's a certain cheapness I attribute largely to low-quality assets and animation that hinders it. That being said though, the game runs LASER-fast on PS5, with a framerate at or higher than a steady 60fps with no stutters and great frame pacing.

Overall, I dunno man. I like it enough to finish it, but I can't recommend this game. It's nowhere near as good as 8, and it actually makes 9 feel a bit better in retrospect. It's a perfectly adequate action JRPG, and better than most. But I wouldn't prioritize it.

Adol has better adventures than this one.

I'm quite liking this game overall, but the constant interruptions (tool tips, tutorials and dialogue outside of cutscenes) are really making this game difficult to keep focused on. There are so many pauses I wind up picking up my phone and checking all my notifications, then I forget the game is on.

Part of the reason Ys 8 works SO well is that the story gets interesting right away, and you're just sorta left alone to go exploring. In this one, I feel like I've been playing 4 or 5 hours and had maybe like 30 minutes of gameplay? Like I love a game focused on narrative, but MAN I want this game to stop taking control from me so I can get invested.