Ys Books I & II came out on the TurboGrafx-CD in the spring of 1990 when I was 14 years old. In the near-35 years since, I’ve played almost every iteration of the franchise: on consoles, on portables, both numbered entries and side stories. I didn’t beat them all; some I abandoned, others I completed, but I simply loved returning to the world every few years.
Since then, communities have exploded, translations and special editions have expanded, but my adoration of the series never wavered. I loved Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, despite it being ranked lower than Ys VIII almost universally. But all that will matter in the the autumn of 2024 is that Ys X: Nordics will have an English translation on the PS5 and I couldn’t be more thrilled. My expectations are always tempered for Falcom’s storied franchise, but I endeavor to have fun, see Adol in yet-another new light and to enjoy three-and-a-half decades of one of my favorite series ever.
2023 is wrapping up with many critics claiming it resides shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the best years in gaming history. My experience isn’t quite so stellar, but
Let’s go through some lists starting with titles that were released before 2023, all while realizing that the true best game I played this past year was Bloodborne!
Older Games Played:
Of those titles, I completed the 2D ones only. While I had played Rogue Legacy 2 on Steam the prior year, it was only when I got it for free on PS+, and could play from my couch, that I beat it. Admittedly, I lowered the difficulty to blaze through chunks that I had beaten before. In some ways this game is perfect: allowing for those changes to difficulty, a fantastic gameplay loop and incredibly-tight and responsive controls. Several of the theme songs stuck in my head for quite some time and it was a fun experience. However, my Old Game Of The Year, if that were a category, would go to SteamWorld Dig 2. It’s so funny, I got a trophy in the first game way back in 2013 and I remember playing it and abandoning it. No clue what drove me to return, but once I started, I was hooked. After blazing through the first title, I anxiously awaited a sale price for the second, eventually pulling the trigger without one, that’s how much I liked it. And the sequel did not disappoint, living up to and exceeding my praise of the first. I simply loved that game and, much like the emptiness felt after completing Elden Ring, I continually yearn for a similar experience, with no satisfaction. In fact, if I were ranking the best games of the year regardless of their release date, SteamWorld Dig 2 would be in contention.
The other titles all had qualities of their own, but not enough to keep me returning to them.
Moving along, now we look at titles released this year that I have yet to play in 2023:
There are a few games I’d like to try, but none here give me the burning desire to jump in. Games like Pikmin and Fire Emblem may be great, but do I care? Nothing above are a have to play game, despite how good BG3 appears to be.
Our final category is the games I have indeed played this year, and ranking them isn’t very easy.
2023 Games:
As I work through Lies Of P and Sea Of Stars, I quite like the former due to its obvious inspirations and feel indifferent towards the latter. I beat neither Zelda, much as I didn’t its predecessor, nor FFXVI, losing interest after numerous hours.
Thus, we’ve whittled down the list to four games, all sequels. As much as I love Mario games – and I do like the franchise – nothing about Wonder stood out to me, despite what everyone else thinks.
And then there were three. Xenotilt probably improves on everything in Demon’s Tilt. As DT is in my top-20 ever, I struggle to wonder which should be on that list. In either event: it’s not 2023’s GOTY.
Capcom ends up holding the trophy, as the remaining games are both theirs. And this decision is a difficult one. By all accounts, Resident Evil 4 should do what no game has ever done: won the trophy as both an original release and a remake! But while it effectively replaces the original, I think I have to give it to Street Fighter 6. The gameplay is honed. The systems are polished. The game is just fun and it’s the best launch-SF game since SFII. I absolutely love this title and have no reservations awarding it GOTY, even if RE4 is as good as it is – DLC included!
So there it is: Game Of The Year 2023 is Street Fighter 6!
I’ve now completed the campaign in Ys IX: Monstrum Nox and also cleaned up some trophies in the process. The game was wonderful and certainly resides among my favorite entries in the storied franchise. Now is the time to look back and reflect on the good, the bad and the in between.
The story itself was just OK, with a main villain only really showing up in the last act. Convoluted as expected, I didn’t care much for the twists they introduced later on and things felt a bit drawn out in the late game. Alternately, the cast of characters were as fun as they were cliché and my son remembered everyone’s names: both normal and Monstrum variants.
Exploration was, for the most part, quite fun and I do like how they mixed things up with the city of Balduq. However, with the game being front-loaded with city adventure, it left a number of areas to the back half which felt a bit uninspired, almost as if they were just add-ons. A more equal distribution would have given the game a more cohesive feel. The gameplay itself is the real winner, with gifts allowing for easy traversal and fun exploration. It’s going to be hard to go back to prior entries given how good adventuring felt. Combat itself was a mix – it was fun and rewarding, but it was also a chaotic mash-fest on normal difficulty. The game was a bit easier than traditional entries on the standard setting but that was no downside for me as I prefer the experience over the challenge.
On the sound front, Falcom rarely disappoints. While sound effects themselves feel ages old now (Ys Seven is over a decade old and sounds are the same in some cases), the entire game had a good, punchy sound, particularly with headphones on. The big question is the soundtrack. As a collector of Falcom Sound Team JDK’s work, this is another phenomenal entry. Some songs were stuck in my head for days with upbeat, metal riffs offset by melodic piano and symphonic entries. You can’t go wrong with an Ys soundtrack and I quite enjoyed my time with this one.
Ultimately, it was a fantastic and entertaining romp. The PS5’s load times were almost nothing – often two seconds but maxing out at around five – which made the entire experience so much better. I may revisit this brief post to expand upon my thoughts, but for now it’s just a brief overview with a hefty dose of spoiler-filled images below.
I recently updated Game Completion Lists with one of my favorite series ever: Ys. As I purchased the ninth numbered installment (but hardly #10 overall), the Italian store clerk had to go into the back to retrieve a copy as it was not present on store shelves. He commented on how I was the first person to come in to purchase the game – and it had been out over a week at that stage.
But I don’t particularly care that the series remains a niche franchise. It’s still simply fantastic. Unfortunately, the game’s early hours left me longing – as it felt like a double-A Playstation 2 game. I didn’t care for the characters as quickly as I had in prior installments. But as my fifth hour passed, I realized this game surpassed the gameplay of all past entries. New skills opened up higher areas and the game became less flat than ever. Additionally, I’ve been playing most Ys games in the last 10-15 years on handhelds. Sure, I played Ys Origins on the PS4 – but that was a port of an older title. On the big screen, this game isn’t the prettiest, but the PS5 gives me super-fast load times and the series’ soundtrack is traditional in its excellence.
As I struggle with actually completing Ys games, it remains to be seen if Ys IX will retain my gaming gaze. For now, however, I’m thoroughly enjoying it.
COVID has run amok throughout the world, thus changing release dates on so many different things. Despite the sporadic nature of 2021, there are some items to look forward to. As always, this is more for personal reference than for any other reason.
| Music | |
| 21 Feb | Empyrium: Über Den Sternen |
| 26 Feb | Einherjer: North Star |
| 26 Mar | Liquid Tension Experiment: LTE 3 |
| 23 Apr | Bodom After Midnight: Paint The Sky With Blood |
| 21 May | Amorphis: Live At Helsinki Ice Hall |
| 28 May | Alestorm: Live In Tilburg |
| 28 May | King Of Asgard: Svartrviðr |
| 18 June | Fear Factory: Aggression Continuum |
| 18 June | Helloween: Helloween |
| 2 July | At The Gates: The Nightmare Of Being |
| Summer | Exodus: Persona Non Grata |
| Games | |
| 02 Feb | Ys IX: Monstrum Nox |
| 25 Feb | Ghosts ‘N Goblins Resurrection |
| 29 Apr | R-Type Final 2 |
| 07 May | Resident Evil Village |
| 11 Jun | Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart |
| Unknown | Far Cry 6 |
| Unknown | God Of War: Ragnarok |
| Unknown | Horizon: Forbidden West |
| Unknown | Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga |
| Movies | |
| 12 Feb | Saint Maud |
| 05 Mar | Raya And The Last Dragon |
| 05 Mar | Coming 2 America |
| 31 Mar | Godzilla Vs. Kong |
| 30 Jul | The Green Knight |
| 30 Jul | Jungle Cruise |
| Unknown | The Matrix 4 |
Sometime in the future
My Ys journey started almost 30 years ago on the TurboCD and the legendary series continues with a title that truly stands up to those iconic classics. Just last year I completed II, Felghana and Origin but entry #8 (by far not the actual eighth game!) would have to wait. And while I’d prefer play on my big-screen TV and PS4, the Vita will have to do, much as it did for those three aforementioned titles.
And I’m excited as the first three hours have been compelling and fun, not unlike countless Ys titles in the past. Reading reviews never helps convey quite how systems work and how fun they can be. What I can share, however, is the kick-ass overworld theme for the first section. I instantly fell in love with it and the tune captures that rocking exploration feeling the series is synonymous with. It’s immediately become one of my favorite Ys tracks ever… Quite the statement given the franchise’s heritage. Ah well, enjoy the song… It’s spectacular.
After finishing up Ys II and Ys: The Oath In Felghana, I picked up Ys Origin, a game I’ve been meaning to play. Its arrival on the PS4 this year gave me the perfect chance! In addition, I just grabbed Ys Seven so that may make another title beaten in 2017, we’ll see.
In any event, the game was pretty fun though I rued the lack of voice acting like the other two titles I played. The story was fun enough and the gameplay solid. Therefore, with yet another Ys title under my belt, I thought I’d share some more images, replete with spoilers, of course! There are two more campaigns but I can’t say I have much interest in doing them, although I’d like to see how the third one pans out; I think that one is canon.
And so, here are some images from my runthrough of Ys Origin which really offered some fan-service about the…ahem…origins of Ys and the games I’ve been playing for over 25 years! Enjoy!
Ys Books I & II remains among my favorite games ever. That’s partly tied to the time of my life, about 13. However it is also tied to its innovation, its technological prowess (CD quality!) and its music, which is still remarkable. But now having finished the remake of Ys III and my save game but a few hours into Ys II, it was time to complete this retelling. And now that I’m done, I realize…It’s dated.
The game was still great, with the familiar faces of Feena and Reah bringing a smile to mine. However, its source material is almost 30 years old and it shows. The labyrinthine level layout was needed with limitations of the ’80s. Now it just feels empty and repetitive. A guide helped me through this journey and I’ve no shame in that. In addition, Felghana’s remade soundtrack may very well be superior to the PSP iteration of Ys I & II. In fact, the former may be the best the series has ever seen.
As Ys VIII hits shelves this week, my return to Eresia will have to wait. Until then, here are some snapshots from the last hour or so of Ys II – spoilers, quite obviously!!!
This is a totally unnecessary post – but I found it humorous. Having gone back to beat The Oath In Felghana, I figured why not polish off Ys II as well. I abandoned that title at around the same time as Felghana. Well, once you land in Ramia village, you can go upgrade your equipment by meeting Zalem. Well, turns out if you talk to her before trying to do any business, then give her three herbs, then visit her bed, you’ll be given an option to join her there. It’s entirely juvenile and silly, and I certainly don’t recall this option back in the TurboCD days!!! In any event, here’s some visual evidence. Warm and sinful indeed.
