This game is so much fun. An incredibly lavish swan song for this era of Ys with possibly the best soundtrack in the series, detailed colorful PCE visuals, a charmingly awkward fandub, a fun riff on the single Ys plot (complimentary), its truly everything you could want.
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The does an unusual thing of framing itself as being a direct sequel to 1&2, going so far as having you start the game in Esteria, return to it in the middle of the game, and have the final credits sequence there too. It’s so invested in this idea that it repurposes Dark Fact and the goddesses of Ys for the backstory of Celceta, brings back all the magic spells from 2, and has you bring Dogi along for the final dungeon instead of any of the new characters you’ve met in Celceta. It’s a strange choice, and the game would in some ways be better without it, but it sort of works in retrospect with Ys V beginning the series’ now expected gameplay pivots, it ends up feeling like the last hurrah for bump-combat Adol and his adventures.
The game has fantastic presentation, with charming overworld sprites, high quality animated anime portraits and cutscenes, incredible CD audio (all arranged by Ryo Yonemitsu, truly one of the best to ever do it), and a surprising amount of voice acting. This exact era of anime cheesiness just totally hits the spot for me and I really enjoyed everything about the look and sound of this game.
The gameplay is solidly fun, if you come at this from the Chronicles remakes of 1&2 not having 8-way movement is a slight adjustment, but an easy one. Progression feels very similar to Ys 2, with linear equipment upgrades and the Ys 2 spells making a return (though Fire is significantly less powerful, and Alter is not nearly as cleverly used). Enemies hit quite hard in this game, and at endgame can melt nearly your entire health bar in seconds, but healing isn’t too hard to come by (even if waiting around gets old fast when you have a large health bar).
Bosses are quite tricky and mostly satisfying to beat, there are one or two annoying fights but mostly they’re fast paced puzzles in a way I really enjoyed. Dungeons are pretty good too, most of them very linear but a few that are actually fun mazes (though nothing on the scale of Solomon Shrine).
Overall I really enjoyed this game, it’s the exact tone and feel I love from Ys, and it’s mostly just a shame they didn’t get to make more in this style.
Selected track: Truly an impossible choice but I’ve been dancing to the final dungeon theme all day today so it’s going to be that.
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The does an unusual thing of framing itself as being a direct sequel to 1&2, going so far as having you start the game in Esteria, return to it in the middle of the game, and have the final credits sequence there too. It’s so invested in this idea that it repurposes Dark Fact and the goddesses of Ys for the backstory of Celceta, brings back all the magic spells from 2, and has you bring Dogi along for the final dungeon instead of any of the new characters you’ve met in Celceta. It’s a strange choice, and the game would in some ways be better without it, but it sort of works in retrospect with Ys V beginning the series’ now expected gameplay pivots, it ends up feeling like the last hurrah for bump-combat Adol and his adventures.
The game has fantastic presentation, with charming overworld sprites, high quality animated anime portraits and cutscenes, incredible CD audio (all arranged by Ryo Yonemitsu, truly one of the best to ever do it), and a surprising amount of voice acting. This exact era of anime cheesiness just totally hits the spot for me and I really enjoyed everything about the look and sound of this game.
The gameplay is solidly fun, if you come at this from the Chronicles remakes of 1&2 not having 8-way movement is a slight adjustment, but an easy one. Progression feels very similar to Ys 2, with linear equipment upgrades and the Ys 2 spells making a return (though Fire is significantly less powerful, and Alter is not nearly as cleverly used). Enemies hit quite hard in this game, and at endgame can melt nearly your entire health bar in seconds, but healing isn’t too hard to come by (even if waiting around gets old fast when you have a large health bar).
Bosses are quite tricky and mostly satisfying to beat, there are one or two annoying fights but mostly they’re fast paced puzzles in a way I really enjoyed. Dungeons are pretty good too, most of them very linear but a few that are actually fun mazes (though nothing on the scale of Solomon Shrine).
Overall I really enjoyed this game, it’s the exact tone and feel I love from Ys, and it’s mostly just a shame they didn’t get to make more in this style.
Selected track: Truly an impossible choice but I’ve been dancing to the final dungeon theme all day today so it’s going to be that.