Origin is an interesting entry in the Ys series, as it drops many qualities that I would generally expect from one. The biggest one is that instead of an adventure, we get a straight-up dungeon crawl exploring the tower from the first game. There are various biomes, although I still ended up missing some variety. The game also has to be completed 2-3 times to get to the canon ending with most of the layouts remaining the same - something I am also not a big fan of. It is quite short as is and I feel like making the paths more unique would have added a lot to the experience. The saving grace here is that the combat is damn solid. Very similar to Felghana, but just a tiny bit tighter. It just feels really good to play. It was nice learning more about the lore of Ys as well and getting to beat different incarnations of all the bosses from the original game was very fun. Not fun enough to be in contention for my favorites in the series, but a damn good game regardless.

There were a few things that I didn't vibe with in this game but its surprisingly one of the stronger game in the series thematically. I like the Sky the 3rd esque dungeon crawling and the idea of three routes (even if I think its done poorly). The story is pretty decent especially the true route, the way it recontextualize events in Ys 1 and 2 to the point I kinda gave a shit is commendable in itself.

Toal is a great character, not one of my favs in the series but he's pretty high up. Soundtrack is great as usual, bosses are cool callbacks. Its easily the bigger surprises in the series so far for me

A fine action RPG if you ask me, and I will say that even though I wish there were more defensive features, I prefer the Napishtim combat engine to the Seven engine in quite a few ways. I rate it so low because of this route's story. While there was a complete arc in Yunica's trek up Darm Tower that was executed pretty well, I just did not care for Yunica. She just seemed flat in most interactions, and her obsessive behavior regarding the goddesses really got on my nerves.

Oh also I forgot to add how good this game is when it comes to recontextualization, and nothing shows that better than the bosses. I really don't like a majority of Ys 1 and 2's bosses. I think a good chunk of them are awfully designed. However, every boss in this game is amazing and super tightly designed. While some bosses frustrated me a lot (and Pictimos gave me a lot of hand pain), I can't really say any boss is anything less than superb.

First Ys Game, only cleared with Yunica on Normal.

I had a fun time! Obvious highlights are learning the boss mechanics and patterns, but the in between floors of normal enemies was super satisfying to cleave through and jump around.

The story I'm sure has greater impact if you are familiar with the series, but there were enough beats for me to appreciate on their own with minimal context (some guy named Adol gets involved at some point).

Single gripe is that for a "climb the tower" type game the story beats put a substantial pause on the action. I can't harp on these spots too much because a game with good gameplay shouldn't be dinged for also having the gall to want to tell a story as well.

Also the final boss felt very silly strong to the point where the game gives you an auto revive once accessory as if to offer an apology/out for the fuck huge attacks, but once you learn the fight it's hardly even a blemish on this experience. Other characters sometime maybe.

definitely one of the best Ys games, there's something satisfying about games where you climb a tower, and you see your progress,

just Yunica's playthrough was what gave this game its initial score but the fact there's two more playthroughs you can do with different gameplay styles really scratches the old game itch of very arcade like games with unlockable characters,

the only issue for me is Hugo's gameplay just wasn't as fun as the other two but you do have to play it to unlock the third character. Hugo is great character wise and its fun to see how his story compares, but I just didn't have as much fun playing the ranged only character.

its not as cutscene story heavy as the next bunch of games after 7,celceta,8, and 9 but its got some lore mostly relating to 1 and 2, which may go over new peoples heads but I find you can enjoy this one on its own, I sort of let go playing things in a certain order and I just wanted to play whatever one interests me the most first, this game is on the same engine as 6 and the remake of 3(because og was a sides scroller not looked too fondly) I was told this game makes improvements to those games and going back would be harder but I feel you can be fine as long as you realize when you go back to the older games that you are playing an older game.

also music is great as always

Ys Origins : A Blast from the Past

2006 marked the 20th anniversary of the Ys franchise, since then the series has gone through a lot, sometimes succeeding in living up to the legacy left by the first game and sometimes failing miserably at doing so. Nonetheless, in the minds of many Ys only really exist through the prism of its first 2 original entries, in fact, you could easily say that the only two games in the franchise worthy of the title of “Ys” were the first two games. Not only were these the only games actually set in the land of Ys and its surrounding area of Esteria but Ys II also happened to be “the final chapter” as if out of all of Adol’s Adventure and in spite this one being the first, it was the single most important adventure, the one which defined Ys as a franchise and the one where all things return to in the end.

In the Falcom community there seem to be this common consensus that Trails is the “story and lore” focused franchise while Ys is the “gameplay and action” franchise boiling down Ys as nothing more than just a simple past-time between two big episodes of the Trails series which have more meat to their bones while Ys has this much “rawer” approach to storytelling which doesn’t speak to the common youth of today. Ys stories aren’t worth analyzing because they’re not wordy enough, they’re not deep enough and they’re quite derivative of each other. In fact, the main storyline set by Ys 1 and 2 has been reused countless times throughout the series. Adol crashes on some island, has some adventure involving one or two girls with blue hair and it always ends up with him uncovering the mystery of an ancient civilization which fell to ruin because of the folly of man.

But why ? Why has Falcom tried to recapture the magic of Ys 1 and 2’s story either through re-releases or new games with similar premises if the story in those games were only meant to be a “motivator” for your quest and nothing more ? Well maybe it’s because Ys 1 and 2 in all of their 80’s sensibilities had something to stand out from the crowd and that something was its rich and interesting story as well as its lore ! Back in the first review, I said that Ys 1’s main objective was to make an accessible RPG for newcomers and while it was successfully done through its game mechanics, I also want to believe this was achieved through its storytelling even in the older version which had less memory for text and all that jazz.

In the 80’s most RPG’s would only have maybe like a text scroll to establish the setting and maybe some NPC trying to talk about some prophecies or wtv, Final Fantasy I will try to have more ambitious storytelling with the whole time-traveling which as iconic of a twist this was, it was a rather messy attempt even for the standard of the era. Falcom were different however, as far as Dragon Slayer and Xanadu they wanted to tell stories through the complex medium of video games and integrate that story inside of the game design loop. That’s how you end up with Ys which became the culmination of that philosophy, where by exploring the world, talking to NPC’s, reading the manual and watching the various attempts at cutscenes even in the older versions you would be experiencing a story and a world worth giving a shit about.

In the original Zelda for exemple, everything was very mechanical, there were no towns, only caves full of old men giving cryptic hint and monsters offering you rubies, the wonder of Zelda came mostly from its freeform explorative approach to game design while in comparison Ys was much more restrictive in the areas you explored and in which order you were supposed to explore them.
Ys 1 and 2 told a story, much more developed than those of the era, it had books that you can read and learn about the lore of this world, it had an on-going storyline about some guy stealing silver which culminated in a puzzle to the scale of the entire game and was the key to defeat the final boss, it had iconic characters with arcs some of which returned in the other titles.

Feena and Rheah from their design to the way you speak and interact with them have this aura of mystery surrounding them that makes you want to learn more about their circumstances and how tragic their fate ends up being in the end. It also had cutscenes to introduce the plot of the two half and Lillia fucking tilt her head in glorious 80’s animation and made every 10 year old boy wet their pants at how fucking impressive that was at the time that Lillia became the icon of the series all throughout the 80’s (she even had her own freaking song !!!!).

Everything about the original Ys 1 and 2 were iconic, for today’s standard it might be hard to understand the appeal or the magic of these few elements but combined together and you have a game with some of the most effective storytelling in the medium. It’s so iconic that Ys 1&2 iconography and characters are pretty much the one thing Falcom keeps reusing in all of the series promotional material. It even had an anime, a manga adaptation, an extended Korean remake of the 2nd game (that I wish I could play because it makes me very curious but alas I don’t speak Korean) and even to this very day when you look up at Ys tags on various websites, Feena is the one character to pop up the most in fanarts while you’d think more recent heroines from games which sold much better like Dana would dominate the leaderboard on the waifu wars.

With such cult classic status, it’s only natural that the new team at Falcom wanted to take their piece of the Ys pies by adding their own flavor and their own interpretation of it much like Hudson did in the 90’s when they got the opportunity to work on an original entry for the franchise. This started with “Ys 1&2 Eternal”, the latest version of the game at the time which set out to completely overhaul the script to fit Falcom’s modern standard of storytelling set by the Gagharv trilogy. A bigger emphasis was put on fleshing out the characters and especially fleshing out Adol and Feena relationship (Lillia was always kinda mid and Kondo basically erasing her relevance in the modern canon was the right decision imo) but also make the towns more alive and the world bigger much like they did with Oath in Felghana later down the line.

This was a first step towards (war) the modernization of the classic Ys tale with the new team releasing Ys VI two years later in 2003 which set out to do what Dawn did 10 years ago by creating a new yet familiar story set in a distant land which holds the answer to many of the unanswered mysteries of Ys 1&2 and whether or not you might prefer Hudson’s take or this one, today Ys VI and its story of ancient technologically advanced civilization and magic reality warping metal is now the current canon of the franchise even if we could be regretting that it kind of takes away a lot of the “mystic” of Feena’s and Rheah’s origins. Oath tied Ys III to the wider lore of the franchise and now to solidify the new lore once and for all, Falcom was going to go back to the origins of the franchise, for the first time in over 20 years, Ys was going back to Ys to explore the origins of this legendary tale in a game set 700 years before the event of the first game and that game which will end up as one of the most popular entry in the franchise for a while will be simply known as Ys Origins !
Ys Origins released in 2006 set to re-explore the mythical Origins of Ys, the game takes place roughly after the ancient city of Ys took off into the sky and the demons born from the Black Pearl built a Tower in order to try and reach it. The two Goddesses worried about what might be happening on the surface one day disappeared and thus an investigation team was set on the surface to retrieve them and explore the Demon Tower. Since the game takes place roughly 700 years before Adol’s birth you obviously won’t be playing as him for this adventure (though two different version of him is playable in the game boss rush mode) but rather as 3 different protagonists each taking turns in climbing the wretched tower each with their own gameplay style and differing storylines.

This is the main difference between this game and Oath when it comes to mechanics, since Oath pretty much perfected the Ark style of gameplay this one simply just builds on top of it by proposing different playable characters as its central main gimmick. The only real change from Oath to Origins is the addition of a shop in which you can spend points in order to buy upgrades for your equipment or helpful permanent perks for your character. So let’s go around and take a look at each of these characters, see how they play and analyze their storyline because for once, Origins script actually has a lot more meat to it than previous entries thanks in no small part to not having a mute protagonist as the main lead this time around.

Yunica Tovah is the daughter of Sage Tovah, every citizen of Ys have some affinity for magic but Yunica was born without any magical power which ostracized her from the rest of society and gave her severe anxiety over not being able to live up to her prestigious lineage. However she shared a deep friendship with the Twin Goddesses who pretty much served as close friend and surrogate mother to them and in spite of her inaptitude in wielding magic she still took the pledge to protect the two goddess by becoming a knight and likely lifting up massive amount of weight because this tiny woman sure can wield a big ass ax as her main weapon. When she heard that the goddesses left for the surface, she immediately joined the investigation team to find them and bring them back on the floating island to fulfill her promise to the two of them.

Yunica is the closest this game gets from classic Adol gameplay, she pretty much has almost all of the same moveset as Adol and her wielding an ax doesn’t seem to affect her swinging speed whatsoever, Yunica doesn’t have many options to deal with enemies at a distance and only gets a projectile near the end of the game with the trade-off being that she has to switch from using her ax to using a flaming greatsword making her damage output bigger but slowing down her movement significantly, this stance only slightly being compensated by being able to finally shoot projectiles.

Yunica is a character which doesn’t really stray away too far from classic Ys gameplay, even her two additional elemental magic power are a circular wind attack vaguely similar to the ones found in Oath, the fire spell we mentioned works like the fire sword in Napishtim and only her thunder spell is slightly different being a slam on the ground which create a vertical shockwave in front of her. However I still had fun playing as her because if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it and that’s how Yunica feels like as far as gameplay goes but what about her storyline ?


As you climb Darm’s Tower, Yunica comes to question her own abilities and even her reasons for going into the tower in the first place. She experiences self doubt and there’s some really touching moment where she wonders if she’s even fit to be a knight or be the goddesses protector when everyone around her is seemingly more capable than her at dealing with this situation. You can feel that Yunica’s reason for getting up the tower is mostly a personal one, it’s a reason for her to confront her fear and insecurities as well as reinforce her devotion to her cause ! I personally really love Yunica, I feel she’s pretty underrated as far as Ys heroine goes and it’s a shame she’s not talked about that much in the wider Falcom community as the only character equal to her in my mind is Estelle from Trails in the Sky and that’s high praise coming from me.

However, I do understand why most people don’t really feel for Yunica that much, it’s a classic journey of self discovery with the tower being a metaphor for overcoming a big obstacle in her life, it’s the classic shonen anime story of a character starting weak and full of insecurities but through trials and tribulation rise up from her condition to become a badass. It’s the type of story that works well in the context of an RPG or even a videogame because as much as you the player get stronger and become better at the game so does Yunica in her story, it’s a very easy way to have a bit of ludo-narrative in the game without thinking too much. But it’s also a story you’ve likely seen somewhere else, it’s still effective, it’s still well executed but it isn’t exactly novel either and whether you’ll find yourself inspired by Yunica or just think of it as just another story in the pile is really up to you.

The bigger issue with Yunica’s story other than its lack of originality is just that it’s super disconnected from the rest of the game for reasons we’ll get into when discussing the other two characters which happen to have a deeper relationship and to one another as far as the wider story goes. Yunica’s story just kinda feel isolated and probably the least canon or least worth experiencing if you’re here to mainly experience the story of the game (even if it’s not likely the reason why you’re playing an Ys game in the first place, but this one is kind of an exception to the rule and also deeply tied to the lore of the franchise). Combine that with her play style being really similar to Adol and the redundancy and irrelevance of the character becomes quite hard to ignore as much as it pains me to say this because Yunica is a pretty cool gal all things considered and my second favorite character to play as in the game.

But enough about women wielding axes, it’s time to talk about the man, the myth, the legend, mister Sigma Male incarnate himself Hugo Fact. Hugo is a descendent of the house of Fact, a prestigious family of mages which excels in all things magical and accept nothing less than perfection when it comes to their teaching. Each member of the Fact family is molded from birth to always strive to be better than everyone else even sacrificing your humanity if it means achieving greater power. As such Hugo is the polar opposite of Yunica, he’s confident to a fault, cocky, ambitious, abrasive, egotistical, he thinks of himself as better, smarter, stronger and superior to everyone else and he’s also the CEO of misogyny (seriously this guy level of women disrespect is OFF THE CHART). Heck, the guy really hasn’t any personal reason to join the investigation, he doesn’t do it out of moral obligation and he couldn’t care less about the well-being of the two goddesses which he has some r/atheism opinion about (despite them literally existing within the canon). The reason he decided to climb the tower was because he was given a mission to find and kill a man who happens to be on the surface on behalf of his father and he just sees this mission as just another fun way to pass the time and flex his skills.
And you will be flexing a lot because Hugo Fact is fucking BROKEN AS SHIT. Unlike Yunica, Hugo plays very differently from your typical Ys game. His gameplay mostly focus on shooting projectiles than dealing with enemies with close combat, it makes the gameplay of the game feel closer to that of a shmup than that of a typical action RPG, and by the end of his run you start to feel like someone who just got an absurdly good pool of power ups with the most perfect synergies in the Binding of Isaac.Instead of attacking with a regular weapon, Hugo has two orbiting artifacts known as the Eyes of Fact which constantly shoot little pellets as long as you keep mashing that attack button. To compensate with the absurd advantages of shooting a shit load of projectile at an incredibly fast rate, Hugo has to stop in his tracks whenever he’s shooting which makes it harder to dodge upcoming attacks, assuming the enemies would even get the luxury of counter attacking you (and even then, his lunge attack is a big fuck you thunder with a wider range and which even debuffs any enemies it touches like wow !).

And his three spells you obtain throughout the course of the game are nothing to shy on about either : His wind spell produce a shield around him which slows down his descend to clear huge gaps but most importantly can tank one or multiple hits before breaking depending on whether you charged it or not and even grants you the power of bump combat in case you missed that shit since 1993 ! His thunder spell are remote bombs which when fully charged deal so much fucking damage it kills pretty much any ennemies in one hit even when you’re underleveled, the charge time isn’t even that long actually so you can pretty melt freaking bosses faster than climate change melts the artics. And lastly his fire spell produce two orbiting fire orbs dealing damage around hugo at a really hit rate and when charged can even launch two big fuck you lasers. Add to this the fact that his boost mode doubles his fire rate by adding a second pair of Eyes and you have a recipe for disaster.

Look as much as I can see the fun in going “random bullshit go” and “Press X to win” type of gameplay, I feel Hugo is a bit fucking overkill in that department, you’re literally a freaking unstoppable god, even on higher difficulties Hugo’s run is a freaking walk in the park to the point that I found his gameplay to be mostly boring rather than fun. When the game presents to you any form of challenge it kinda goes against the purposes of an action rpg where you have to properly use your toolset to handle different situation and maxing your combat efficiency, here everything usually die so fast and your bonus gauge make you so strong and tanky that the gameplay becomes a formality and you really shouldn’t be feeling that when playing an Ys game. It’s one thing to make you feel powerful through the gameplay, but simply making you broken beyond belief isn’t really gonna cut it buster.

To compensate for his relatively lackluster gameplay, Hugo’s story is actually pretty damn good, I think I started to got a knack for absolutely chaotic protagonist which are the embodiment of problematic, an entire life-time of being raised on anime and manga where protagonist archetypes aren’t the most varied will do that to you but Hugo’s story feel like you’re playing as that rival character who succumbs to darkness before eventually getting his shit together and help the heroes. Hugo’s interaction with the rest of the cast whether they’re allies or foes are so thoroughly entertaining thanks to his snarky ass behavior and some well delivered punchline which will either make you scream “yoooo” or will make you punch his fucking face and I think it makes for some really interesting dynamics. He even has some sort of a will-they won’t-they romance with one of the antagonists and it’s pretty fun and strangely wholesome to see that relationship evolve and sadly end in tragedy…
Because the path to power comes with many sacrifices mostly of your own humanity, whereas Yunica’s quest is all about overcoming her shortcomings, Hugo’s quest is to learn how to empathize with other people again and breaking from the conditioning left by his father and become his own man free from the ambitions of the house of Fact. As you progress through the game Hugo loses himself more and more getting drunk on all the power he’s been accumulating until he realizes that he’s turning into more of a demon than the demons he’s fighting. Hugo’s story is really damn cool, if only to see a second more unique perspective on the different story segment covered in Yunica’s route but I have two issues with it imo.

One and this is linked to Yunica, I do think that both characters should’ve had more of a confrontation which is the entire purpose of a dual narrative like this. But sadly, it’s never the case, when you’re playing as Hugo, Yunica is a tertiary character at best and vice-versa and instead of their arc paralleling each other, they’re treated as just separate interpretations of the same events. And while I guess that works for the main series where the story is based on Adol’s diaries, here the story is just “how they remember it” and none of the two tales are even that canon.

My other problem with Hugo’s campaign is how it ends. I don’t think giving a last minute redemption arc to the guy was the best course of action. Everything in Hugo’s route leads me to believe the initial plan for his character was to completely lose himself to the power of his demon essence and become Dark Fact, the antagonist of the first game and with this game being a prequel it only makes sense that this was a possibility. Heck even one of his leitmotiv shares some similarities to Dark Fact’s theme so what was all that bait and switch all about. I would’ve absolutely pog out of my damn mind if they turned Hugo into Dark Fact and make him some sort of tragic victim of his own hubris as he was close to regaining his humanity and break from his father’s will, it would’ve make for quite the amazing tie to the first game in my opinion.

If you consider the wider story however it’s even messier. Because as cool and kino Hugo’s entire arc in this game is and it’s still a relatively ok conclusion in the end, making the entire point of Hugo’s story about breaking the traditional thirst for power of the house of Fact only for his direct descendent 700 years down the line to just undo all of his ancestor’s effort and just be a generic Dark Lord McDoucheBag is pretty freaking lame. Especially since now it leaves Dark Fact as this iconic villain but one which has no real layers to him, I mean his name is literally Dark Fact (not Sieg like in Dawn) probably because his parents fucking hated him or something and since the OVA’s aren’t canon, he doesn’t have the tragic villain schtick of that version of his story either. Dark Fact will forever remain dark and I do think it’s a fact that this entire thing is just a huge missed opportunity that could’ve given both Hugo and the main antagonist of Ys 1 a lot more layers even if retrospectively (à la Jack Garland from FF Strangers of Paradise).

But while Hugo doesn’t have much parallel to Yunica within the story, he has with the man he came to kill in the first place : Claw which will reveal to Hugo that the House of Fact definitely needs counseling more than any sage family on this goddamn island. Once you finish the story of both Yunica and Hugo, the surprise plot twist of the game is that a third playable character unlocks and this time it’s the actual main canon storyline of the game which ties deeper into the worldbuilding, lore and continuity with Ys 1&2.
The mysterious Claw is a recurring antagonist you fight throughout the course of Yunica and Hugo’s campaign but definitely has more ties to Hugo than he does Yunica (who sure as hell is starting to feel like a filler character the more lines I type). He used to be a man but chose the path of becoming a demon joining the Darklings a mysterious organization that you may or may have not heard of from a little game known as Ys VI but are also for the most part the generals of Darm from Ys II which is pretty neat. Now Claw’s story is perhaps the best part of this entire anthology story and there’s so many cool things they do with him and his connections to the goddess, specifically Rheah, who gets much more development in this game than she ever did originally. It’s also the only story chapter with a unique intro featuring our two favorite goddesses explaining why they’ve descended upon the surface in the first place.

Gameplay wise, Claw is pretty much a glass cannon, he hits hard but also takes a lot more of a beating. To compensate for his demonic power somehow giving him glass bones syndrome, he’s probably the most fast and agile character of the three in fact very early on his first spell is literally a dash that gives him a bit of invincibility and allows you to quickly get out of tough situations. In fact because he is the third playable character you’re probably familiar with the overall structure and level design of the game by now and the dash makes clearing areas much faster so Claws campaign is about half as short as the other two. But outside of his dash spell, the other two leaves kind of a lot to be desired : The Thunder spell is a powerful thunder punch which locks you into place and has a miserably small hitbox and the fire spell is just a tornado jump and let’s just that in a game where it’s impossible to juggle enemies into the air, it’s only situationally useful in terms of combat.

Claw is probably the character I like to play as the most out of all 3 characters mostly because dashing through the corridors of the Darm tower at Super speed dealing with enemies along the way brings that constant exhilarating sense of motion which has become titular of the Ys series core identity. And even tho the rest of his toolkit leaves a lot to be desired, I was more than satisfied with his base moveset as well as his boost mode which fully turns him into a demon dealing a truck load of damage but making you even more prone to ass-beating, an interesting risk vs reward mechanic in my opinion.

But the icing on the cake for me is definitely the story of Claw, if you played Hugo’s campaign there isn’t any mystery towards his identity as it is revealed right from the onset that he is Hugo’s brother who mysteriously disappeared after the demon invasion on Ys a couple of years before the events of the game. What led this man to shun his previous identity, his weapon and the pledge he gave to the goddess to join the demons in their relentless assault against the city of Ys ? And how does his story tie to the wider lore of the franchise up to that point ?

Well that’s for you to discover, I think Toal is perhaps one of the only story worth experiencing blind in this game especially if you’re familiar with the original two titles as its doing some pretty interesting thing with the continuity and tying up what you’re doing to stuff Adol will eventually interact with in the future game. The ending of that route is the type of ending to give a complete boomer who got hooked on playing Ys as a kid a complete full hard-on at how everything comes back together in the end and even though I’m not a boomer who played these games as a kid (I only discovered them in 2022), the ending of that route and the game as a whole gave so many fucking chills god I love Ys OG setting.
As you can probably guess by now, I think Ys Origins is one of the few Ys games with a remarkably well told and interesting story thanks in no small part to its tie to the original two games to which I have a lot of appreciation for especially its lore. The game often throws retro-active reference to the first two games either through its story moments, puzzles or even the items you come across which are artifacts Adol eventually uses himself in Ys 1&2 which just has a nice bit of continuity which reminded me a lot of what Dawn of Ys did. But whereas Dawn, as awesome as it was, could seem like fanfiction in the way it retcons a lot of stuff into its own plot, here the team at Falcom did a valiant effort to respect the sanctity and the mystic of the original game essence.

So many times prequel mostly exist to ruin the magic of the original title of which they’re supposed to pay homage to but not Ys Origins, Ys Origins is a fantastic companion piece to Ys 1&2, you could imagine they would’ve shoved more of the modern canon stuff into the main storyline but I’m glad they didn’t push it too hard especially if some people are just interested in these games. While the side-cast is kinda there for the ride with not many of them standing out, Feena and Rheah got some much needed amount of extra characterization and background added to them and It’s done in a way which only reinforced my love for these iconic characters rather than ruining them with pointless details or some stupidly subversive plot twist like it’s often the case in way too many productions. I should give a special shoutout to Rheah in particular who didn’t really have much as far as character goes in the original 2 games but here got a lot more presence in the narrative and even a pretty cute romance story with Claw which was surprising to see.

Setting the entire story inside of Darm’s Tower might probably sound like a bad idea as far as visual variety goes especially in a series which thrived on exploring varied and mysterious environments but I found that they did a really solid job reimagining one of the most iconic location in the series for the modern age. Which makes me realize that in all of my fanboyism, I forgot to talk about the overall level design of the game as well as the different bosses you confront throughout your ascension of the Darm Tower.

In my Oath in Felghana review, I’ve mentioned that one of the unfortunate side-effects of basing the game on a game which had a more rigid level-based structure kinda took away from the feeling of adventure and freedom that the previous game offered ! However, I’ve also said that such a level design had its place in the Ark Engine system which had more of an arcade vibe with the combo meters and the general faster flow of the game and that it wasn’t bad as much as it was restrictive. Well Ys Origins kinda falls right into those same trappings, diving head straight into them like an olympic swimmer. The game does have an upgrade system giving you new abilities and tool for your move set but unlike Oath in which it gave the world a sort of Metroidvania feel to it as it was often advised to go back to old areas to get items and complete side quest here in Ys Origins, these new abilities only serves as keys to open locks in the areas you got them with very little incentive to actually go back to previous areas.

Some people might think that it’s a good thing actually as it doesn’t needlessly waste your time with pointless detour but some people might also miss the pleasure of exploration the franchise is known for and thus while I don’t think it’s a flaw of the game, I could potentially understand how divisive this could be. But, on the other hand, Ys Origins was the most popular title series for a reason and its level design is perhaps the best in the entire series.
You may think that an entire game set in one place will eventually become boring but thankfully, this is a vastly overhauled version of the Tower from Ys 1&2 with each floor serving as its own dungeon so to speak complete with unique combat encounters, puzzles, platforming challenges, level design gimmick and themes to each of the 7 floors which compose your ascension of the wretched tower ! And I think they did a more than fantastic job with each of them in my opinion. Unlike Oath which felt the need to incorporate a lot of frankly questionable 2.5D sections to parallel the original Ys III, here the level designers took their stick out of their asses and made the most of the game 3D nature and the verticality that comes with setting your game inside a goddamn tower.

While none of the areas in the game reaches the same heights as Valestein Castle from Oath in my opinion, I think the level design here is a lot more consistent and a lot more creative with even some neat reinterpretation of Ys 1 plot beat like the demon corridor or the hall of mirror the later of which definitely is one of the highlights of the game in terms of set pieces. There’s a deeper sense of cinematography and flow to each dungeon and even if they all share some similar assets to keep the visuals consistent, the game always keep surprising us with some neat obstacles, also falling in this game rarely end up in you having to reclimb an entire area like in Ys VI or Oath to a lesser extend, making platformer that much more smoother in my opinion.

The only area I’m not too big on is the big desert area in the middle because while “Silent Sands” is a banger track I do think that the area by itself far overstays its welcome which isn’t helped by this being the area with most plot shit and backtracking happening slowing the game pace to a crawl for the duration of the floor especially in between two relatively good areas (one of which is an actual fun water level, I know crazy). Another issue that came to my attention while I was playing the game is that in the Swamp floor, the game stop having a natural level curve, the game isn’t super reliant on grinding as long as you don’t avoid enemies but once you reach the Mantis I always happened to be underleveled and doing piss damage to it and had to two a second run of the area to grind a bit, an unfortunate oversight which doesn’t ruin the game for me but is worth noting.

So the general level design is excellent and perhaps some of the best Falcom has ever put out but how about the bosses, well…

THEY’RE FREAKING AWESOME

Ys Origins easily has the best selection of bosses in the entire series only rivaled by Dawn of Ys in my opinion. They really nailed the balance this time between not having too long or annoying patterns while still giving the player the freedom to fight them on equal footing. The only “bad” boss is the plant in the desert area (yeah this area again… told you it was the black spot of the game) and maybe the final boss of Hugo and Yunica’s route for being way too damn easy but even then, they far outclass the selection of bosses seen in previous titles.

And I also think that’s quite amazing that each bosses you fight in this are for the most part reimagining of the ones from Ys 1&2 with even some continuity between how they look there and how they’ll eventually look in those games (like the big zombie head from II but this time it’s a big fire giant that’s not a putrefied corpse at all until you fuck his shit up).
On top of being really mechanically solid, the bosses this time around are also quite spectacular, much more than what Falcom is usually willing to do on their limited budget. The Centipede fight (perhaps THE most iconic boss of the game) is a great example of this, you might even confuse it for an Ys Origins original because of how lame its original incarnation was but here it’s such a freaking amazing set piece.

Your character enters the room and the Centipede is hiding in the wall then fucking boom it comes out and the arena is this Crash Bandicoot style circular arena and you have on top of the Centipede to break all of its individual parts or trying to get him from the ground with your thunder attack while dodging a million projectile which gets increasingly more and more overwhelming as the fight progresses. It’s so fucking kino and most of the big bosses in this game operates on the same logic like the Mantis which is this really cool boss which changes the game camera angle as he jumps and fucks around summoning a thousand minions. Suffice to say that the bosses in this game are not only super cool to figure out as boss fights but also freaking cool as just spectacle bosses in general. Like I said, while there’s one or two bosses that are weaker than others, most of them are actually quite excellent and superbly reimagine mechanics of the first game in the Ark Engine.

But the game doesn’t just have big bosses, it also has a lot of smaller bosses mostly against human opponents. I feel like Falcom saw the generally positive reception people had on the 2 Chester Fights in Oath in Felghana and wanted to capitalize on the hype it created. Mechanically speaking, I’d say that these are some of the most interesting bosses, mostly because you’re pretty much on equal footing with them and they feel less “Mario Bossy” if that makes sense ? Much like you they don’t have invincibility frames and can be hurt at any time, they have a burst mode and spells of their own, some of them are actually pretty damn challenging.

However, while I commend the effort, none of them reaches the climatic epicness of Chester 2 in terms of complexity or just raw hype because a lot of those boss fights are against pretty random and forgettable side-characters, I wish they kept the human bosses solely for rival fights between the three characters only, there’s a huge missed opportunity there for some pretty cool stuff but it’s not the main bulk of these human fights (you don’t get a single fight against Yunica like wow she’s so left out that’s crazy…).

So that’s it right ? We pretty much found the perfect Ys game? Excellent level design, excellent bosses, excellent variety in gameplay thanks to different playable characters and a deep respect for the series legacy that can be felt all throughout the work (did I also mention the game has great music too ?? I mean at this point it’s kinda redundant since they’ve been chaining home runs on that front for quite some time and I’m not really good at explaining why music is good, call my man MB for that, I’m sure he can cook up a better video essay on the subject than me !). So what’s the catch ?

Well, I think it’s time to address the big elephant in the room, which is this game's strange structure and how it affects its pacing. Because for how much good content there is there and even with the different characters switching up the gameplay…

You still have to play the game 3 separate times in order to get a full grasp on the story, and witnessing its true ending and to me that’s a big fucking issue !
See you don’t actually switch up characters, those are essentially 3 different routes much like Resident Evil with its Leon A, Clair B, Tofu Guy bullshit. And look, on one hand, can I really complain about the repeated playthroughs ? One of my favorite games of all time is Mega Man X4 which is the first time in the series that you can either play as X or Zero and in order to experience the full game, you essentially have to play it two times. It’s the same stages, mostly the same bosses but instead of playing as a guy who shoots lemons, you play as the hottest laser sword wielding robot the world has ever seen and he plays like a charm.

So technically speaking, I don’t fundamentally have an issue with but many people within the community do, if there’s one thing that Origins is unanimously criticized for is the 3 required playthroughs to reach the true ending, it was such a massive complain that on PC and on PC only, you only have to do 2 of the 3 routes and I mean by that point, you might as well do the third one amirite ?

But see, the main difference between MMX4, Resident Evil 2 and this game is the time commitment. Oath in Felghana and pretty much any Ys game up to that point except III an V last for about 10 to 12h and even if Falcom and their fans might disagree, this is the ideal length for an Ys game. Just a short, intense 10h adventure to occupy an afternoon and that’s what makes them so compelling and replayable because you can put it down and come back to it later on higher difficulty if you feel like killing some times. They might have a decent enough story to get interested in or at least an interesting narration to motivate yourself to keep going but once you experienced everything the game has to offer once, it’s not gonna change the second time through for your pretty eyes ! And it’s not a “change in perspective” or a slightly different gameplay that’s gonna change your mind about it.

And that 10 to 12h time commitment is alright for a single game… but what if I told you that it was also the average length of one route of this game ! And that’s when you slowly start to realize… oh shit really ? Look, I’m definitely making a mountain out of a molehill, but the reason why I love Oath so much is that it’s a one and done deal, all banger no filler game, but here it’s a bit more difficult to defend that position. A single run of RE2 will last you maybe 6 to 7h, a single run of MMX4 will last you like 4 to 5h and that game also doesn’t have like a huge amount of dialogues you have to sit through which interrupts the flow of the game.

And look as much as I’ve praised the story so far and it’s cool to see different perspectives, the main structure of it all stays the same ! You go through the same obstacles, the desert area is a slog for all characters with a shit load of cutscenes and dialogue slowing it down to a crawl, the same 2nd run of the swamp to get properly leveled for the mantis boss. All of them have to have a talk with Yunica’s ghost dad for some goddamn reasons when the dude only has any sort of relevance in her route. You may say that you could just play one of the routes and leave the rest for later but then you won’t be experiencing the full story which I believe is worth a damn this time around even though one is essentially filler (sorry Yunica…). I still think the actual content is good mind you, but it’s an odd-case of having so little of it that they have to spread it thin to make the most of it, I would’ve liked just a tad bit more variety in the level design and structure to accommodate to each character skills and arc to not make the entire process as redundant but hey, game is still fun in the end but I can definitely see how playing the same game 3 times would be a deal breaker to some people.
Asides from that and a couple of smaller complaint, I do think that Ys Origins deserves the cult status that it has today, it’s a fantastic companion piece to the original game that will greatly please fans of the original game without losing the initial magic of the duology and it’s also a fantastic entry point for anyone wanting to get into the series and who knows maybe the ending will make some who were more reluctant to try out the original two games as well as the rest of the franchise.

The New Team at Falcom has succeeded in creating a modern cult classic which many people remember as fondly as the original two games, adding to its legacy and ending the Ark Engine trilogy on a bang. The entire project just oozes from the passion of its developers composed mostly of older fans of Falcom finally getting the chance to finally have their piece of the puzzle and I think that Ys couldn’t dream of a better game to pay homage to its 20 years of legacy.

But all good things must come to an end and the developers weren’t going to keep improving on the formula, after all they already perfected it and as much as I enjoy the Ark Engine games, the series needs to move forward and diversify itself. Even if it was a pretty short lived but intense era, next time, we’re properly continuing Adol’s adventure and this adventure is about to be a party (system !) !

Ys Origin features smooth combat which seamlessly interlocks with minimalist RPG mechanisms. While each storyline features a satisfying and engaging character arc, it is necessary to play through the game three times with three different characters in order to experience the full canonical story. Each perspective features just enough differentiation to stay engaging, but I did find the repetition a bit wearying. I wish the three storylines were unique perspectives on the same story, rather than three slightly different storylines featuring different protagonists.

The difficulty on "normal" was perfect, with legitimate challenge and just a touch of occasional grinding. Technical performance was mediocre, with a tiny UI and some major framerate drops during a handful of cutscenes and bosses. It's not game ruining by any means however, and the majority of the gameplay is fast and fluid.

Ys Origin, a fun romp up a tower with a story that doesn't overstay its welcome, and fast paced action that is fair and fun. Just make sure your properly leveled for each boss encounter, because being underleveled is a pain and a half. Thankfully leveling up is a quite quick and painless endeavor if needed. The music is also fantastic and fits right in with the rest of falcoms fantastic soundtracks. Of note its surprising how much this feels like a falcom game in its writing, style etc. having only played more of its recent titles eg. Ys 8,9. and some Trails games.

Probably the weakest Ys game I’ve played thus far. The core gameplay, vibes, and story are pretty good and add onto the great tragedy of the first two games. Unfortunately a lot of the level design feels like it’s very straightforward and a lot of items and mechanics introduced are never explored to their full potential and theres a couple gimmick fights which feel like padding. The issues with the level design are only more apparent since you’re expected to play through three times.

I found Hugos route to be some of the most compelling and dynamic in a rpg in some time, while Yunica was pretty reliant on tropes. Toal wasn’t too interesting but his route had some cool additional lore.

Overall a fine footnote in the Ys series but as a stand-alone it’s nothing special.

8,5/10.
A falcomm só faz ost muito boa pra excelente vai se foder bixo, bom demais.
Nada a dizer além de bem interessante, rejogando ys 1 e 2 vejo que o origin tem um papel que vai além de simplesmente uma história de origem, ele detalha mais elementos do mundo, discorre nas entrelinhas sobre um misticismo e como isso se relaciona a temática principal
Isso poe sua vez vai somando a cada rota completada e no fim se faz uma bela conclusão.

As melhores rotas ( ordem,de desenvolvimento de personagem)
Toal>yunica>Hugo.

Dito isso, cada rota.
Hugo joguei no hard e levei 7 e 30 min horas pra zerar
Yunica foi no normal e levei 6 horas pra zerar
Toal foi no normal e levei 6 e 50 min pra zerar, é foi até demorado pra terminar, mas não foi desgastante igual a mil e um jrpg de ação que as vezes termino dando graças a Deus que acabou

Hugo Fact story-line:
Jul 22 2023 - Aug 02 2023
took me about 9 hours to beat
Refreshing action JRPG, fast paced, nice story that intrigued me enough to follow up in the future with the rest of the characters, but the game suffers from taking place in its entirely inside the tower, that's why I feel like I need to play something else before starting over.

However, Ys series is something I want to experience, so that's nice.
Will come back later to update with the rest of storylines

Rota da Yunica: bem divertido, gameplay rápida e satisfatória, a história não é o ponto forte aqui, mas é dinâmica e cumpre seu papel, simples e direta ao ponto. Boss fights maneiras ost do caralho, uma rota curta que introduz bem a situação em que o jogo se passa.

Rota do Hugo: ainda não completei ela ainda, mas já estou após a área do deserto, bem mais fácil de se jogar com ele do que com a Yunica, uma boa mudança que traz um bom fator replay pro jogo. A história aqui já é mais interessante, envolvendo motivos mais pessoais e menos grandiosos, um conflito de irmãos definidos por sua casa, construindo para a rota do Toal posteriormente, gosto muito do personagem do Hugo, um mago extremamente arrogante que lentamente começa a ver valor nas pessoas ao seu redor, e começa a perceber os contras de sua busca pelo poder, acho um conflito muito melhor do que o da Yunica. Com ela terminada agora, confirmo que essa rota é realmente muito mais interessante que a primeira, muito bom a resolução final do Hugo e seu embate com Toal.

Rota do Toal: aqui é onde a história do jogo realmente brilha, a construção final juntando todos os pedaços das primeiras duas rotas é muito bem feito, entrelaçado do início ao fim, dando aprofundamento para as personagens restantes e apresentando o melhor protagonista dessas 3 rotas, embora nesse ponto a passagem pelo mapa já tenha enjoado a gameplay frenética com o Toal quase te faz esquecer do quão chato é passar por tudo de novo pela terceira vez, além de algumas bossfights exclusivas dessa rota principalmente o true boss final. Um excelente fechamento pra esse jogo aumentou muito em meu conceito e me fez querer continuar com a franquia.