Yeah, yeah. I’m late to the party.
Cleared my first playthrough on hard, although perhaps I should have gone for nightmare instead, since the game’s difficulty has become more friendly with allowing the use of more items. Anyway, this is the remake of Ys IV, and actually the first version of Ys IV that was actually made by Falcom. I haven’t played the previous ones before (supposedly they use the bump system so I might go back and give ’em a try).
The gameplay is pretty much the same as Ys Seven, with some additional stuff like weapon/armor reinforcing (can’t remember if it was in Seven or not) and Kiseki-style quest boards. Game is 20-30 hours depending on how often you fool around/get sidetracked, and uses Seven’s 3-member party system with 3 different attack types.
I find Celceta to be an improvement since the characters have better variety to their play styles, and each character feels different in control. Back in Seven, character of the same attack type pretty much felt the same, so the differences in Celceta are quite welcome. The reinforcing system was fun, you get to put various properties onto weapons and armors like status effects and HP regen. Favorite character to use was Karna, because damn, her range is useful and Napalm Shot is hella useful. Callilica was also very fun to use with her wide-ranged hammer attacks.
The main differences Celceta has against Ys Seven is that you are no longer restricted in the amount of items you can carry. In Seven, you had a limit of 5 of each item on Normal, 3 on Hard, and 1 on Nightmare. Here, you can hop into the final boss fight with 40 potions and 30 revival items and no one will bat an eye. It’s more fun to limit your usage of items for boss fights and actually learn to dodge/flash guard, but those potions were much needed for the damn Ruler of the Forest. That freaking laser-spewing deer deserves no mercy. Also you have NG+ and generally more side stuff to do, so Celceta is probably the “meatiest” Ys yet, at the expense of boss design. Ys Seven had the better bosses, as well as the games that use the Napishtim engine (well, minus Napishtim, except for a few memorable battles).
Story-wise, it was a pretty standard excuse to go on an adventure with a new cast, but also really neat for those who have played the other Ys games since it’s foreshadowing galore for Napishtim and also sheds some more light on the Eldeen race. On its own, it won’t be much, but it’s cool to see the various Ys games connect together in lore. As far as the standalone plot goes, it lacks grandeur.
Conclusion: Game was fun, fuck that map that’s standing at 99.8% complete after I beat the game. I probably forgot to hug the wall in some particular part of the Great Forest. My opinion on life hasn’t changed, I still want to be Adol Christin.
Asshole dialogue choices are the best
カレーまみれ勇者の冒険 Curry Chronicles 