what difficulty should i pick for best experience

[Scott Pilgrim]

is normal too easy?

[Xengre]

I don't know how good you are at different types of games and I'm definitely not your normal player, however, I would say normal is quite easy.

If you are familiar with Dark Souls games or Elden Ring its combat feels kind of like that with the dodge, attack, and casting handling as well as enemy behavior.

Note that difficulty can also be tailored by how much side content you do and how early. It is possible to do all side content the moment it shows up (this is the extra 300 missions, aka 90% of the game, main story is around 10 hours) if you use the right strategies / builds and are at least decent at these kind of action games (don't need to be amazing tho, just not atrociously bad). The side missions if done early can open you up to extremely powerful magic and equipment (we're talking deal 9999 dmg super early, or even a bit further in them unlock break limit for 99,999 dmg / hp, get multi-hit spells which are even more insane due to indirectly bypassing dmg cap, powerful AoE skills/magic, max stats, absorb all elements, etc.).

[Scott Pilgrim]

Originally posted by Xengre:

I don't know how good you are at different types of games and I'm definitely not your normal player, however, I would say normal is quite easy.

If you are familiar with Dark Souls games or Elden Ring its combat feels kind of like that with the dodge, attack, and casting handling as well as enemy behavior.

Note that difficulty can also be tailored by how much side content you do and how early. It is possible to do all side content the moment it shows up (this is the extra 300 missions, aka 90% of the game, main story is around 10 hours) if you use the right strategies / builds and are at least decent at these kind of action games (don't need to be amazing tho, just not atrociously bad). The side missions if done early can open you up to extremely powerful magic and equipment (we're talking deal 9999 dmg super early, or even a bit further in them unlock break limit for 99,999 dmg / hp, get multi-hit spells which are even more insane due to indirectly bypassing dmg cap, powerful AoE skills/magic, max stats, absorb all elements, etc.).

yeah i beat every dark souls game and soloed Malenia with no magic, so i guess i could give hard mode a go. just wasn't sure if putting it on hard would make it like a frustrating experience cus sometimes games dont know how to correctly apply the harder difficulties (like enemies being damage sponges) and using cheap tactics to make the game more difficult. but if hard mode incentives the player to do side missions, im perfectly ok with that. guess ill switch to hard mode then. thanks

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Scott Pilgrim:

Originally posted by Xengre:

I don't know how good you are at different types of games and I'm definitely not your normal player, however, I would say normal is quite easy.

If you are familiar with Dark Souls games or Elden Ring its combat feels kind of like that with the dodge, attack, and casting handling as well as enemy behavior.

Note that difficulty can also be tailored by how much side content you do and how early. It is possible to do all side content the moment it shows up (this is the extra 300 missions, aka 90% of the game, main story is around 10 hours) if you use the right strategies / builds and are at least decent at these kind of action games (don't need to be amazing tho, just not atrociously bad). The side missions if done early can open you up to extremely powerful magic and equipment (we're talking deal 9999 dmg super early, or even a bit further in them unlock break limit for 99,999 dmg / hp, get multi-hit spells which are even more insane due to indirectly bypassing dmg cap, powerful AoE skills/magic, max stats, absorb all elements, etc.).

yeah i beat every dark souls game and soloed Malenia with no magic, so i guess i could give hard mode a go. just wasn't sure if putting it on hard would make it like a frustrating experience cus sometimes games dont know how to correctly apply the harder difficulties (like enemies being damage sponges) and using cheap tactics to make the game more difficult. but if hard mode incentives the player to do side missions, im perfectly ok with that. guess ill switch to hard mode then. thanks

I totally understand. Ys games such as Ys Origin, etc. are quite like that. The harder modes are fun later on but they're restrictive as you are basically semi-forced to focus on certain playstyles and specific skills instead of experimenting and playing however you want because they have very very steep stat climbs on the enemy, and particularly boss, side of scaling at harder difficulties. If you ever try them they're amazing games, but I would definitely suggest normal first run of most of them.

No problem.

[Scott Pilgrim]

Originally posted by Xengre:

Originally posted by Scott Pilgrim:

yeah i beat every dark souls game and soloed Malenia with no magic, so i guess i could give hard mode a go. just wasn't sure if putting it on hard would make it like a frustrating experience cus sometimes games dont know how to correctly apply the harder difficulties (like enemies being damage sponges) and using cheap tactics to make the game more difficult. but if hard mode incentives the player to do side missions, im perfectly ok with that. guess ill switch to hard mode then. thanks

I totally understand. Ys games such as Ys Origin, etc. are quite like that. The harder modes are fun later on but they're restrictive as you are basically semi-forced to focus on certain playstyles and specific skills instead of experimenting and playing however you want because they have very very steep stat climbs on the enemy, and particularly boss, side of scaling at harder difficulties. If you ever try them they're amazing games, but I would definitely suggest normal first run of most of them.

No problem.

oh 100 percent. i beat Ys8 on switch and i have ys9 on switch as well but haven't played it. is 9 any good? i hear 8 is still better

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Scott Pilgrim:

Originally posted by Xengre:

I totally understand. Ys games such as Ys Origin, etc. are quite like that. The harder modes are fun later on but they're restrictive as you are basically semi-forced to focus on certain playstyles and specific skills instead of experimenting and playing however you want because they have very very steep stat climbs on the enemy, and particularly boss, side of scaling at harder difficulties. If you ever try them they're amazing games, but I would definitely suggest normal first run of most of them.

No problem.

oh 100 percent. i beat Ys8 on switch and i have ys9 on switch as well but haven't played it. is 9 any good? i hear 8 is still better

Depends on your tastes.

Reviews seem to suggest 9 is quite good, however, imo I not only prefer 8 over 9 but I actually consider 9 to be one of the ones I don't even like despite being a fan of the franchise.

It has an open world environment that is far more open than 8 is. 8 is, as you know, filled with linear paths to traverse the island and such. However, in 9 you start out and spend most of the time in a city and adjacent fairly open field areas just beyond the gate. What limits you from total freedom is the curse giving you the Monstrum powers which means there are invisible barriers throughout parts of the city and exit gates) that limit you and the other Monstrums from freely traveling. As you progress you will open major barriers and there are some minor optional ones, too, expanding your ability to travel and even eventually leave the city to a certain distance.

As you progress every chapter also unlocks an additional new party members (one of the Monstrums from the group you meet at the start of game as you might guess) and you can use their unique field abilities such as the ability to parkour (literally running on walls, it has considerable range too), glide, see hidden things with a vision / tracking ability, smash certain environmental routes open with brute force, etc.

While exploring the city is interesting initially, briefly, it feels kind of bloated imo and there isn't enough to gain from it imo to actually be worthwhile as I thoroughly explored it. However, if you like exploring stuff like that and using the abilities to collect stuff, etc., you might appreciate it more.

Aside from it feeling a bit bloated the combat was just way to easy for me, but I should note I also thought 8 was way to easy (I feel this is even easier tho) and I prefer the somewhat harder older Ys games so use that to gauge your own reference as you might not feel the same. Adol is as strong as ever, and the first character you get (the cat girl) is also super strong as probably the two most popular characters in the game for combat (though the cat girl is arguably mistakenly cited as stronger than Adol that isn't worth discussing because they're both quite close and absurd). Other characters feel far weaker by comparison even though they by no means feel week. Its just an obvious gap that is a bit of a nuisance (kind of like the anchor guy in 8 having disturbingly high offensive stat and scaling skills leaving everyone else in the dust).

The raid stuff is better applied here than in 8 so that is an improvement, but it still feels extremely unrewarding just like in 8 imo. Upgrades and stuff are also more practical here than 8's raid balance. Still, I ultimately feel like my main action in them in the main raid type (there are some unique ones) is to spawn kill everything before it can even move the moment it appears... which is less interesting, but not everyone may pull this off so don't put too much weight on that point (managing to have enough energy to use big skills between groups of enemies, forcing a counter attack for crit bonus, positioning, etc.). Bosses were, as expected, a letdown as the franchise still struggles with 3D freedom being much for boss designs to contend with compared to the classic 2D/2.5D styled entries.

The biggest issue for me, though, was I didn't find the story very interesting in 9. Its got a very clear odd curve ball I wont spoil involving specifically Adol... That aside, I just didn't vibe with it. It wasn't bad but felt bland. The cast is okay. It also feels just a bit weird that the main female heroine in the story is the cat girl who is quite young.

Overall, it is going to be a taste thing but it was among my least favorite along with Celceta. At least exploration was better than a Ubisoft game heh.