It takes quite a while to appreciate the full breadth of Ys VIII.
The game's numerous systems are metered out thoughtfully,
with just enough space between them.
These various systems are all elegantly contextualized,
taking full advantage of the mysterious island
where events take place.
With many action RPGs, it can be easy to focus on the mechanical side of things,
getting sucked into the loop of acquiring new gear, skills, and items.
The world becomes a means to an end,
serving as little more than a backdrop for character progression.
This doesn’t happen in Ys VIII.
Discovering new locations, scouring for treasure,
and running from monstrous beasts are every bit as enjoyable
as fighting and getting stronger.
Ys VIII knows that it's easier to invest in the evolution of your characters
if the space they exist in is worth getting attached to.
Uncovering that world does take some time, since the story starts rather slowly.
Series protagonist Adol Christin is sailing aboard a ship named the Lombardia
with longtime companion Dogi in tow.
The ship is wrecked by an enormous sea monster,
scattering Adol, Dogi, and the rest of the passengers
across the vast and mysterious island of Seiren.
Initially appearing to be an idyllic paradise,
the island turns out to have a wide array of vicious creatures both large and small.
Ys VIII takes this theme of being shipwrecked
and uses it to enhance expected RPG features.
Adol starts out with practically nothing, and only by finding other lost passengers
is he able to form a crew capable of building a village for protection.
By taking a piecemeal approach,
Ys VIII is able to add a snippet of personality to shopkeepers.
You come to know and appreciate them a bit more,
and it promotes the idea that thorough exploration will be immensely rewarded,
a concept the game reinforces time and time again.
For every ten percent of the map you explore,
you'll receive items in return.
Upgrading weapons, completing side quests, and mixing medicine
all require materials found in different places throughout the world.
Blocked pathways need a certain number of villagers to clear,
which means the area around you
evolves in tandem with your central hub of operations.
Regardless of what you're doing,
all of these activities tightly feed into one another.
Ys VIII not only gives players a lot to do
but finds clever ways of giving objectives meaning
and making sure that one activity influences another.
The same philosophy of breadth applies to combat as well.
Players have up to three party members at a time
and can switch between any of them instantaneously.
Different characters have different attack attributes,
either "slash", "hit", or "shoot".
Enemies are generally weak to one of three styles
and greatly resist the others.
By exploiting a weakness, an enemy enters the "break" state,
becoming especially vulnerable.
Group battles are often composed of enemies with varied weaknesses,
and specific environments will have more of one type than another.
The result is that you'll constantly have to switch between characters
in order to get through fights efficiently,
preventing a reliance on the exact same approach in every situation.
Skills upset the rhythm even further.
Each character can equip four skills at a time,
and these skills tend to focus on a specific trait,
such as area of effect damage, breaking an enemy quickly,
or afflicting enemies with some sort of lasting effect.
These elements combined with new skills and fresh enemies,
keep fights interesting throughout.
At the same time, the systems are easy to understand and execute,
striking a fine balance between simplicity and depth.
The most difficult maneuvers to pull off are Flash Guard and Flash Move,
but they offer the biggest gains.
A Flash Guard is performed by blocking a strike at the last possible second
and for a brief time, all of your attacks become critical hits.
A Flash Move works similarly, but the player must dodge instead of guard.
When executing a Flash Move, time slows down,
allowing you to quickly get behind enemies or pummel away at them with little danger.
Both techniques blend in with the frantic pace of combat.
Everything moves so quickly in Ys VIII, yet it's never visually overwhelming.
Enemy attacks always remain very readable, so with enough patience,
even the fiercest enemy can be dodged and parried with ease.
There’s a flow to combat that’s easy to adapt to over time.
The chaos of battle is perfectly accompanied by the electric soundtrack,
which proudly features shredding guitars that dramatically heighten the intensity.
Other, quieter tracks offer a whimsical and relaxing tone
that fits the tropical setting.
The pace of the game changes so regularly
it's almost as if it's paranoid about things getting stale.
Periodically, your village will come under attack,
prompting you to return to fend off waves of enemies.
These fights can be made easier if you spend resources to upgrade defenses beforehand,
which adds yet another thing to consider while amassing precious materials.
During interception missions,
you'll be graded on performance broken down by various factors,
which is a quick and helpful way to judge the player's current proficiency.
There are also night missions which return players to previous areas,
but with more difficult and numerous enemies.
Just when you're about to tire of one activity,
the game throws in something new, yet none of these things take very long,
serving as breaks rather than annoying obstacles to story progression.
Where Ys VIII stumbles is in its script and characterization.
Although the story does take unexpected turns,
the dialogue is occasionally stilted and dry.
It doesn't help that the characters are a bit shallow themselves.
There's a stuck up noblewoman, a gruff but honest fisherman,
and a mysterious sharpshooter of few words who comes and goes as he pleases.
While none of these archetypes are inherently bad,
the cast rarely strays outside of them,
so while characters do develop over time, they do so in the most predictable ways.
We always found ourselves wishing we cared a little more
about what was going on than we actually did.
While the narrative doesn't especially resonate,
the rest of the game very much succeeds.
In other RPGs, extraneous features and side activities
feel like they exist merely to tick off expected boxes,
but in Ys VIII, they serve a much more significant purpose.
There's a cohesiveness to everything
that makes the individual components stronger
than they would be by themselves.
Ys VIII ends up being so enjoyable
because of how thoughtfully most of its pieces
are considered and implemented.
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