Though Nihon Falcom’s long-running Ys franchise has always existed well within my orbit and
I’ve long regarded the series with a sense of curious
appreciation from a distance, I had never gotten a
chance to actually play an Ys game before — until
a few weeks ago, when I got the opportunity to
dive headfirst into the brand-new Nintendo Switch
version of Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana for the very
review you’re watching right now.
Of course, any game with an “VIII” in its title, Ys
included, can understandably sound daunting if
you’re coming in with little knowledge of its seven
preceding entries, to say nothing of spinoffs and
other non-numbered entries.
And this was the exact source of the trepidation I felt going
into Ys VIII: if there’s a great game here, would
I be able to enjoy or appreciate it on the same level as
someone who has been following the series throughout the years?
Or would I feel like I had been cast hopelessly adrift into a land of
unknowns, much like perennial series protagonist Adol Christin at the start of this adventure?
Fortunately, as I quickly learned, it’s actually that
second question that makes Ys VIII a perfect jumping-in point for series newcomers.
Ys VIII begins with Adol and his long-time traveling
companion Dogi working aboard a passenger ship
called the Lombardia in exchange for passage to
distant lands where new adventures await.
But after a series of unusual and unfortunate events involving a massive sea creature, the
Lombardia is sunk and its passengers, Adol included, find themselves washed ashore on
the mysterious, deserted Isle of Seiren.
From there, it’s up to Adol and his newfound companions
to survive, explore the island and uncover its
mysteries, and hopefully come up with a means of
escape along the way.
This “fresh slate” approach effectively means that
no knowledge of Adol’s prior adventures is
required to enjoy this very much standalone tale.
And while the broader strokes of that tale perhaps
take a little too long to come into focus, you’ll be
too caught up in the sheer joy of exploration and
rescuing other castaways early on to care.
And make no mistake: although the story’s pacing
in the game’s early hours could certainly be
improved, there’s a definite payoff when Ys VIII
does eventually start divulging juicy details about
the Isle of Seiren’s history — as well as the true
nature of Adol’s dreams about a woman named Dana who seems to have lived on the island
at some point in its past.
In this way, the events of Ys VIII play out in parallel
in a manner that is surprisingly reminiscent of the
first half of the TV show LOST: one narrative thread focusing on the castaways and their
struggles to survive, and the other focusing on the
overarching mysteries associated with the Isle of
Seiren, with those two threads intersecting more
and more often as time goes on.
But in a funny way, the game’s early hours focusing so heavily on the former to the exclusion
of the latter may actually work in its favor in a way:
after all, I certainly didn’t expect to become so
heavily invested in the plights and personal lives
of Adol’s fellow castaways, and the way they each
contribute to daily life at the castaways’ home
base makes each rescue feel meaningful.
For example, a tailor you rescue early on isn’t just
added to some in-game achievement list as a
checkmark; she sets up shop with the help of
other castaways, and from that point on can assist
Adol and friends by making new clothes and accessories for them — given the proper
materials, of course.
In this way and many others, Ys VIII’s gameplay and narrative components
exist in rare harmony for an action RPG, with one
contributing to the context of the other at any
given moment and making the overall gameplay loop that much more irresistible.
And that overall gameplay loop can be defined by
one key word: exploration.
Ys VIII is utterly exploration driven, to the point where the
Isle of Seiren itself, in some ways, becomes the game’s
most important character.
The Isle of Seiren is
gigantic and the game keeps detailed track of your
exploration progress, right down to letting you
know exactly how many treasures and resource points are hiding within each area of the
island — and, more importantly, how many you still
have yet to find.
And in true fashion for a game all about exploration, you won’t be able to fully
explore an area or reach all of its treasures your first
time through.
Some pathways will remain tantalizingly out of reach until you’ve returned to an
area equipped with the proper Adventure Gear, Ys
VIII’s term for unique items that allow Adol and
friends to climb vines, double jump, run across the
surfaces of swamps, and other actions that turn
areas that were once dead ends into avenues for
further exploration.
And this all happens against the wider context of
the game’s constant reminders that Adol and his
companions in the exploration party aren’t just
charting the island for the hell of it, but because
that exploration is in direct service of finding a
way to get themselves and the other castaways off
the island.
And in a particularly brilliant stroke that further
exemplifies this rare marriage of gameplay design
and narrative context, overall exploration progress
is often gated by natural hazards such as landslides or giant boulders that require
a certain
number of castaways working together to clear.
So every time you a find and rescue a new castaway,
you’re slowly working toward being able to explore
further reaches of the island in a way that feels
organic and realistic — to say nothing of the direct
effect they’ll have on gameplay as they begin
carrying out their assigned role back at home base.
It goes without saying that exciting combat, slick
controls, and overall playability are vital components to any good action RPG, and I’m
happy to report that Ys VIII succeeds marvelously in these areas.
The combat in Ys VIII is fast,
furious, and punchy, taking a surprisingly arcade-
like approach that, among other things, challenges
you to dodge or parry dangerous enemy attacks at
the last second to activate a brief, bullet time-
esque bonus period that leaves enemies wide
open to an assault of your own.
There’s more to it than just last-minute parrying,
though.
Adol and his friends each specialize in one of three attack types, and many enemies
are weak to only one of said types, encouraging
you to switch the party member you’re playing as
early and often, which you can do at the press of
a button and without restriction.
Each character also has unique special skills that
can be mapped to the four face buttons, and because these skills draw from a shared pool
of
Skill Points for the entire party that is constantly
recharged by landing regular attacks, combat in Ys
VIII quickly settles into a rewarding rhythm of
finding new ways to link regular attacks and special skills together, dodge-canceling your
combos and switching targets as you flit around the battlefield to avoid enemy attacks.
Simply put, Ys VIII does not want you to conserve your Skill Points and special attacks for
boss fights and emergencies like so many other
RPGs and action RPGs might; instead, because your
Skill Points are almost always recharging, Ys VIII
encourages you to use your full repertoire of
abilities early and often, as well as find ways to
link various special skills together into even more
damaging combos.
Meanwhile, healing your party is generally handled via the item menu, allowing
each character’s special skills and the general flow
of battle to focus on evasion and offense, offense,
offense.
—
Even though it would be fair to assume that Ys
VIII’s gameplay might start becoming repetitive when stretched over the game’s estimated
50 hours or so for a standard playthrough, that
is refreshingly not the case here.
Part of that is owed to the raw strength of the arcade-style combat
and slick controls, but Ys VIII also takes great
pains to sprinkle brand-new gameplay components and
gimmicks like raid battles, monster hunts, fishing,
night exploration, and other surprises throughout the entirety of the adventure, and not just
during its opening hours, which helps keep things
feeling relatively exciting and fresh even at, say,
35 hours in.
Unfortunately, despite all of my praise in this
review thus far, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows
for Ys VIII.
If you’re the kind of player for whom minor details are important, then Ys VIII
may drive you up the wall with its profound lack of
polish when it comes to its English script and
localization.
Even with a seasoned editor on staff, some games
might sneak through to release with a few minor
typos and other text oddities, and that’s okay.
I’m a pretty reasonable guy, and even as someone
who formerly made a career out of editing, I don’t
demand total editorial perfection from my games.
But Ys VIII’s English script is a continuous carnival of problems, from myriad obvious
typos to improperly formatted text, repeated words
and lines, subtitles that don’t match spoken
dialogue at all, and even lines that made it into the
game only partially translated.
It’s just a MESS, and the fact that Ys VIII’s English
script could make it into the game in such an
unpolished and unprofessional state just defies understanding.
But even if you can look past the
significant localization problems, and I believe most players probably will, there is one more
polish issue to consider that is specific to the
Nintendo Switch version of Ys VIII.
Unfortunately, Ys VIII is an absolute poster child
for the ever-present “power vs. portability” argument that quite often rears its head when
porting multiplatform games over to the Switch.
To state things quite plainly, I played the PlayStation
4 demo of Ys VIII back when the game initially released in the west late last year, and the
hallmarks of that demo experience — performance at a rock-solid 60 frames per second with
the buttery smooth gameplay and combat that implies
— are nowhere to be found in the Switch version.
Not only is the Switch version’s performance cut
in half to 30 frames per second alongside a
noticeable downgrade in textures and overall graphical fidelity, the game often struggles
to maintain even that level of performance, with
camera sweeps and especially hectic fights often
resulting in things getting rather choppy.
These dips in performance are always temporary and
30fps is certainly maintained most of the time, but
the dips below that happen often enough that you’ll never quite forget about them.
Strangely, these performance issues seem to happen more often in TV mode than in handheld
mode, making the Switch version of Ys VIII more
suited to portable play than anything.
The Switch version is still perfectly playable in TV
mode, mind you, and that’s how I’ve personally spent
most of my time with the game for this review, but
if you own multiple platforms and see yourself playing
Ys VIII at home more than on the go, I’d recommend the PS4 version over this Switch
port in an instant.
Still, being able to explore such a huge, exciting
world in a portable format with solid performance and graphics that still look quite good on
the Switch’s screen is its own unique draw,
and that’s about the only compromise you’re likely
to find between the Switch and PS4 versions.
Falcom’s sound team, for example, is known for its
consistent delivery of some of the best soundtracks in the business, and that is certainly
true of Ys VIII no matter which platform you play it
on.
Hayato Sonoda and Takahiro Unisuga know exactly what kind of driving melodies players
want to hear when exploring and fighting their
way through the Isle of Seiren’s diverse locations,
and those kinds of more traditional Japanese RPG
soundtrack offerings are counterbalanced nicely by the wailing, screaming guitar riffs that
are hurtled your way during boss fights and other
important battles.
The English voice acting, meanwhile, is a lot better and more competent
than you might expect in light of the poorly
localized script, and never once did I feel compelled to switch to the Japanese voice
track.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana is a great action RPG
that is likely to satisfy fans of the genre while
serving as an ideal entry point into the series for
Ys newcomers.
While the Switch version trades in more performance and visual fidelity than
I expected would be necessary for portability,
and I do feel the game could have been further
optimized for play in TV mode, the way Ys VIII so
elegantly marries its heartfelt narrative of
mismatched castaways learning to survive a mysterious island together with the practical
gameplay demands of exploring and fighting your
way through said island is rather special and
refreshing.
It’s for those reasons, not to mention the punchy,
arcade-style combat and sharp controls, that I
want so badly to say that I love Ys VIII — and in
many respects, I do.
But I simply can’t look past the shockingly raw and deeply unprofessional
lack of localization polish that pervades the entire
game, and that combined with some early-game pacing issues means that at the end of the
day, I like it a lot, and as long as you don’t
need your games to dot every “I” and cross every
T” — literally, in this case — I’m confident
in recommending Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana to
anyone looking for a quality action RPG fix on the
Nintendo Switch.
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