Far from my fave Ys game, but still very good!
I really liked the story, (especially the 2nd half and everything to do with The Mask of the Sun, gave me an Indiana Jones feel at times) but most of the villains were very boring and one-note, that said I loved all the main party members and their interactions with each other and most of the other important characters throughout the world as well.
Also this game definitely had one of the better amnesia centered plots that I've experienced and I enjoyed how you recover memories while exploring and how the memories showed some of Adol's backstory, it was nice to finally learn a bit about him as a character.
Great world-building as with anything Falcom does. Plenty of optional NPC dialogue and some references to past Ys games.
The gameplay was super enjoyable and in many ways felt like a rough version of what it would become in Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. Especially the combat. Having many different special attack skills that are unique to each individual character and being able to map up to 4 at a time to button combinations definitely gives good variety to the combat and it never got boring to me.
The party system was also kinda rough around the edges compared to Ys VIII because the AI was really dumb and badly programmed at times, but being able to switch between characters was still nice all the same. Some people complain about the attack types and enemy weaknesses, but I enjoy the system because it makes you go out of your way to utilize all your party members in battle by constantly swapping between them.
The cartography simulator of exploring the world and mapping it all out and getting rewarded at every interval of 10% of map progression is always a lot of fun to me and something that really gave Ys VIII that adventurer's spirit so I was happy to see it was also in this game, the fact the level/dungeon design was so good also made exploration never boring to me. There's a nice crafting system too and I loved just finding new resource points to farm materials for new weapons/armor/accessories etc.
Bosses were just as great as you'd expect from Ys, but a bit too easy having access to so many healing items due to the crafting. Still a lot of fun though.
The OST was fantastic, but that's honestly just expected from Falcom, though constantly having some banging tunes playing is definitely another reason I didn't mind grinding experience or farming materials.
All in all while Celceta didn't leave the same kind of emotional impact on me as Ys VIII or Ys Origins, it was definitely still a worthy entry to the franchise with some great characters, a pretty interesting story (lackluster villains aside), fun, albeit a bit too easy combat and gameplay and a killer OST. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute I put into the game.
I really liked the story, (especially the 2nd half and everything to do with The Mask of the Sun, gave me an Indiana Jones feel at times) but most of the villains were very boring and one-note, that said I loved all the main party members and their interactions with each other and most of the other important characters throughout the world as well.
Also this game definitely had one of the better amnesia centered plots that I've experienced and I enjoyed how you recover memories while exploring and how the memories showed some of Adol's backstory, it was nice to finally learn a bit about him as a character.
Great world-building as with anything Falcom does. Plenty of optional NPC dialogue and some references to past Ys games.
The gameplay was super enjoyable and in many ways felt like a rough version of what it would become in Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. Especially the combat. Having many different special attack skills that are unique to each individual character and being able to map up to 4 at a time to button combinations definitely gives good variety to the combat and it never got boring to me.
The party system was also kinda rough around the edges compared to Ys VIII because the AI was really dumb and badly programmed at times, but being able to switch between characters was still nice all the same. Some people complain about the attack types and enemy weaknesses, but I enjoy the system because it makes you go out of your way to utilize all your party members in battle by constantly swapping between them.
The cartography simulator of exploring the world and mapping it all out and getting rewarded at every interval of 10% of map progression is always a lot of fun to me and something that really gave Ys VIII that adventurer's spirit so I was happy to see it was also in this game, the fact the level/dungeon design was so good also made exploration never boring to me. There's a nice crafting system too and I loved just finding new resource points to farm materials for new weapons/armor/accessories etc.
Bosses were just as great as you'd expect from Ys, but a bit too easy having access to so many healing items due to the crafting. Still a lot of fun though.
The OST was fantastic, but that's honestly just expected from Falcom, though constantly having some banging tunes playing is definitely another reason I didn't mind grinding experience or farming materials.
All in all while Celceta didn't leave the same kind of emotional impact on me as Ys VIII or Ys Origins, it was definitely still a worthy entry to the franchise with some great characters, a pretty interesting story (lackluster villains aside), fun, albeit a bit too easy combat and gameplay and a killer OST. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute I put into the game.
VideoGameTim
5 months ago