Just finished a Nightmare playthrough. Thoughts!

[Flan2M]

So I've been a big Ys series fan for a few years now. I'm pretty average on the origin / felghana games, and Ys Seven was a bit too extreme for me on nightmare on a new playthrough. I've done Celceta and Ys 9 on nightmare on a fresh playthrough though.

With that being said I've seen people saying the game is a bit easier than other installments and yeah, I can say the same. I'll get to this later.

The game more focusing on parrying is a bit different and kind of a breath of fresh air since celceta, 8, and 9. Where you just trigger flash move and flash guard as you dance and wail on the boss while you keep up the buffs up. Classic Ys gameplay of fast and fluid combat. It did take a while to get used to though, but it will click over time.

The duo system though, it did feel clunky at first, but in the end I actually stuck with it for half way through the game to the point where i got the 30 minutes in duo mode achievement lol. Until I actually realized how you're supposed to stack the skill chain meter by alternating between Adol and Karja. Then I got Arc Bringer for Adol and I just blitzed through everything.

Speaking of Adol and Karja. It's nice to see that we're not longer having 6 party members because honest to me. It was cool at first but. In reality you would never use all 6. The first 2 party members you usually get in the other games for strike and pierce, you would never swap them out, unless you really REALLY liked playing them. That's my opinion. Like in Seven, why would you not use Aisha -

(Actually seven makes it work because in the Final fight you actually use all of them. But The two teams in the first and second phase have Dogi in the first and Aisha in the second, which probably the most of the people that played Seven contained in the main party)

- ,in Eight why would you not use Laxia, or in 9 why would you not use Krysha. Also my opinions. As well as the second Slash attribute character being useless because you would use Adol anyways. Unless you get the ignore all defenses accessory

So having to manage 2 characters only made it less of a mess to gear up 3 or 6 other characters.

People give praise to Ys 8 for having the best over world in the Ys series yet, I can say the same too. Ys 9 took a while but it did have more interesting areas near the end. Ys X has nice scenery locations. But not as memorable as things in Celceta (LOL) or Ys 8's areas. Because it was mostly Island to island with the same geographical structure. That's not saying that Ys 8 was not on an Island, but if you played Ys 8 you can see where I'm getting at. Areas like the Ruined Capital of Ribe or The Seabed Temple where especially the unique areas.

Now this personal thing from me. In Ys games, usually the final area has you going into some supernatural zone away from everything. Like in Celceta in the Akashic Records, Ys 7 the Well of Souls, Ys 8, the Octus. Something really cool for the Finale. Ys X kinda just didn't hit me. It just felt empty.

Going to three more sections before the last one, I'm gona talk about side characters and music and a little bit of story.

The side characters, or say the Sandras' crew take a big part of it. A bit more memorable than the folks in Castaway Village or the guys in the Dandelion. But in those games, your party members sorta sell the show a bit more just like how Saghad and Krysha did in their games. So shout outs to the Sandras crew for having a great memorable bunch especially the Free Carncac Youth Group. The trident generals looked very promising as an antagonist trio, but the writing fell short and didn't let them shine to the end.

Music is always a thumbs up in Falcom games. I'll just throw in some tracks, just youtube them lol.

Hardhearted Rock Line
Overblaze
エギル海底神殿
The Ultimate Pleasure in My Hands

Ys 8 and celceta holds up as my personal favorite because I like the majority of the soundtrack.

The story is whatever. As for Ys veterans you're here for the adventure while the story can either drive forward and be interesting or just be tagged on for the ride. It did feel like it was going somewhere in the beginning, but later on just fell short. It did feel like a bunch of stuff were rushed towards the end. As a so called twist just felt like a big ass "really" now a bunch of stuff doesn't make sense anymore so where's the drive.

Spoiler So after you defeat the trident trio ♥♥♥♥ doesn't make sense anymore. So Karja is now the new coming of Rollo. You run from the Balta Sea force, and now you meet Lila. Now don't get me started on Lila. Falcom has done this once again with the mysterious voice calling to the main character. We've seen it with KeA (Play Trails to Azure) and Dana. Those were great. Because the character that we were searching for was actually interesting. Lila was just felt like she was tagging on for the ride on the Sandras. The one that just seriously lost me was when after we took out Grimson in the Ark. Everyone just stops chasing us and lets us go to the Viewpoint Isle. So what the ♥♥♥♥. Yes there's more to it and I've read it, but a lot of it just doesn't mesh well at all. Don't get me started on how the final boss fight was. It just didn't feel like anything was on the line. Like how In Ys 7, Tia was the Maiden of Demise and spawned the Root of all Existence. Or in Celceta, You have to stop Gruda from getting the Mask of the Sun so you have a showdown with his phantom. It's like there were more serious things going on to prevent a catastrophe in the old games. I get it that this game took a different turn for the finale. In this game, like they said it before. It was about finding one's self. I believe Karja said that.

Ok difficulty and overall gameplay. Ok cutting it short. So I played on nightmare, and obviously the game in the beginning is going to be super rough. Not a lot of SP, not a lot of damage. With the removal of the attack attributes I was going to wonder how they're gona switch it up. So it was with damage and break. So it ended up with putting all the points of break into Karja and flat damage with Adol. I believe that's what that majority of players did. Field combat is just as fun as any Ys game so that's that. I didn't really cling on to enemies with the Mana string because there is a bit of a delay after you arrive on them.

Time for the big entree for Ys games. The boss fights. So with the change of pace with the system mechanics in this game it has gotten a bit slower. With flash move / flash guard at will gone and the durability on bosses. The perfect guard window is actually a lot more forgiving than you think about it. People say you can just hold guard to win. Sure, but getting perfect guards increase the revenge gauge faster. So you can deal stronger duo attacks. Also the later bosses will have guard crushes on non parried guards and will kill you in the next hit if you are low hp or playing on nightmare. So perfect guard when you can. This is kind of a game flaw imo. So In certain fights or even on field monsters. When you flash dodge or flash guard the colored indicated attack it will initiate a cutscene. Nothing wrong with cutscenes, you can skip it anyways, but it will severly hinder the boss for one time only along with massive damage. Later on in the chapters towards the end of the game you are seriously strong and will just get more free hits on the boss for damage or durability break. talking about a certain fight: ESPECIALLY THE FINAL BOSS. In the end, the new system prioritizing perfect guards instead of getting the both flash guard and flash move buff is a nice breath of fresh air. It feels good. And if you properly play with alternating with Karja and Adol for the skill gauge to boost up for SP cut it all plays well and feels well, like a Ys game should.

Ship combat gets better when every parameter becomes half way filled and you get the EX Mana barrier. Other than that it's clunky then it becomes bearable and kinda decent.

As for difficulty since I played on nightmare. It's a lot easier than Ys 9 and Celceta by a lot, I didn't play 8 on nightmare. The revive mechanic relieves a lot of the danger away. It is a bit cheap. Because you have a lot of iframes once you switch to your reserve character. You can get a free revive for most of the time. Being able to negate most damage with perfect guard and even regular guard mitigates most of the danger, so you can still reenact the old ys style where you just utilize the "flash" mechanic and make your boss your ♥♥♥♥♥ while you just stay in their face swinging. In the later chapters you get way too strong and the game does get significantly easier. Which is expected as progression for these types of games. Celceta though, felt like it was hard all the way through.

Also I just wanted to point out I didn't even get the potion achievement because Nightmare doesn't restock on empty bottles. I don't even know if its possible with the amount of bottles you can obtain, but I barely used them anyways. My flex, leave me be.

Ys X is a great addiction. I did refer to the older games a lot, well the party oriented ones because I like those more. Because I see people saying like this is either a downgrade or it's different therefore Falcom messed up. Play all the Ys games. I haven't played Ys 1&2 and 6 thought but I love Ys. Also play the kiseki games too. Falcom's great.

If you read this all, thanks.

[Sevrojin]

if you ever do plan on trying the game again. should try running a little to no block run.

skill chaining can keep you alive due to the mitigation added during a skill animation. off character regeneration is enough to heal even inferno damage.

the game pushes the player to rely on perfect block but it really is the less fun way to play.

try mixing around knock ups, knock backs, and vacuum attacks. using them properly can keep a group of mobs stunlocked.

instead of blocking normally try timing karjas "perfect block" skills to trigger the animations and build up revenge.


ill add the revenge gauge is Bugged AF and should only ever cap at 5. but as iv seen most people it buggs well past that point. so revenge attacks were never ment to get as strong as they are. and i also think this bug is what keeps people relying on revenge till endgame

[Nonexistinghero]

The game wasn't really designed to be played properly without perfect block. All you're doing by not using it is missing out on damage opportunities and the dodge is just terrible.

Not sure how the revenge gauge is 'bugged' in a way that helps the player. If anything, it seems to be bugged in a way that's actually negative since sometimes you just don't get any gauge for a block (both for perfect and for regular). I do think revenge is pretty broken, some for some bosses a single max-at-the-time revenge attack can do 10-20% of its health bar damage. Seemed to be fine early on, but once you start getting to 3 and above the damage output is pretty insane.

[Kanaev]

For bottles - I think there's one more than the achievement requires. I chugged all my bottles and ate all my lunches right before going to the final area and got those two achievements, then found another bottle inside the final area.
100% in one play through, just like with 8&9.

[aNv0idr]

Ys 8 achievements were broken when I played that game. I think they fixed at least some of them much later. But I always play on nightmare to get that difficulty related achievement on a single play through.