Playing this after Ys Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin kinda gave me whiplash in how differently they’re designed.

Origins and Felghana both had tight combat and no ability to heal during battle that made every boss fight a tense struggle to learn attack patterns and conserve your health long enough to take out the boss. But Seven is mostly a game about spamming the attack button until you have enough SP to spam the skill button, and chugging a few potions to shrug off whatever damage you take. There’s no incentive to learn attack patterns and play well, because the game puts up practically no resistance to stop you from mashing your way through every encounter. I died to almost every boss at least once in Felghana/Origins, but I got exactly one Game Over in Seven, and it was from trying to fight an optional endgame boss too early.

Despite this, I did warm up to the game over time. It has a pleasant sort of junk food quality to it where the combat and exploration are competent enough to keep you engaged between story beats. It’s not going to blow anyone’s mind, and I’m still disappointed it doesn’t follow in the steps of previous Ys titles, but you could certainly do worse.