When compared to its predessor, Ys Seven, this game is a marked improvement in numerous ways. Combat is more fluid than before with better boss design than seven. Exploration is more fun and encouraged with more unique landmarks and a map completion system. As a standalone game, I quite liked this entry and believe the combat to be better than Ys VIII due to the fixed camera and more encouragement to learn enemy patterns.
I recently, however, watched my friend play through one of the original versions of Ys IV for the pc engine. What became apparent was how much the story in the game was altered for the worse. The story was okay on its own merits but ends abruptly. The original Ys IV heavily expands on the lore of previous games while delivering a narrative with fun characters and villains. Celceta seems to do away with most of this in favor of telling an amnesia plotline that fails to majorly build on Adol as a character as is hinted at the beginning of the game. The characters feel watered down, especially one of the main villains who no longer is a villain in Celceta. The game being twice as long as the original does not help matters as it feels like less happens despite the game being longer.
Overall, i think Celceta is a fun game, but knowing what the story was like original really puts a damper on my appreciation of it.