New player, start with Oath or Seven?

[Endgamecutter]

So after eyeing the Ys franchise for some time now I decided to buy a game to give the franchise a shot.

"Great so start with 1-"

No.

"But the bump combat isn't tha-"

No. Stop. The quality of the bump combat is irrelevant to why I'm not starting with 1/2.

Here's my logic: This is going to be my first experience with the franchise. As such, I want it to be an experience that will best reflect on the series as a whole. Not necessarily the best game in the entire franchise, but one that will give me a good idea of how I feel about the games. While 1/2 may be the starting point lore wise, I'm under the impression that all games are relatively standalone in plot and that the focus is more on the gameplay. As such, 1/2 will tell me very little about my opinion of the franchise as no other game has the bump system.

After doing some research, I've narrowed it down to Oath and Seven.

Oath has the advantage of starting with a more archaic system that is still reflective of overall Ys gameplay, meaning it will be a good impression of what most of the currently available franchise will offer me.

Seven has the most modern system of the Ys games (or at least of the Ys games on sale) and will give me a better impression of what the franchise will look like going forward. In addition, from what I understand seven has a better (or at least more emphasized) story and character interactions, which make it a product closer to what I'm used to in gaming and from Falcom (since I'm transferring over from Kiseki).

Currently leaning towards Seven, but I hear a lot of arguments for both sides of this discussion so I wanted some second opinions. For someone trying to get a good impression of what Ys has to offer, am I better starting off with Oath of Seven?

[Debrel]

Do you prefer JRPGs with just one character or multiple party members? It can't really be that complicated.

[Mondae Sundae]

Oath in Felghana is a shorter game. It focuses more on the gameplay and exploration over story.
That said, the story is quite strong (arguably the strongest in the series); it's short and slowpaced (very off-beat for the Ys series), but the payoff is exceptional.

The gameplay in Felghana is simple, but very refined (only beaten out by Origin).


Ys Seven, while more story oriented, is still mainly focused on gameplay (as it should be). It has around the same number of gameplay mechanics as Felghana, though with much greater variation. Though I don't think it's as refined, the gameplay is still exceptional.

Incidentally, the mechanics of Ys Seven make it the easier game of the two.

The story is fairly typical of what you can expect from a Ys game, though more fleshed out than any Ys game released previous to Seven.

[Ikagura]

I would personally say Origin and Chronicles+ but Felghana is good if you like your game to have some metroidvania parts (getting upgrades and going back to unlock some bonus features).

Napishtim may be a bit clunky but it was great for bringing back the serie after 8 years

Seven is good if you like managing multiple characters at once and focus on a dodge+parry gameplay

Althrough Celceta will be coming soon (using a better version of Seven's engine) and Lacrimosa is mixing Oath and Seven's gameplay

[Mondae Sundae]

Having thought more about your question:

Seven and Felghana are fundamentally the same. But the experience of each is quite different.

Either one will provide a good introduction to the fundamentals of the series (the gameplay, the boss fights, the music -- even Chronicles is a solid introduction). But no Ys game on its own will reflect the series as a whole (which is good).

In which case:
Which one appeals to you the most?

[Berahlen]

Oath or Origin. Seven is a good game, but it's a bit wonky as a port and takes some getting used to.

[ArsenX]

Having just played through all the games besides 4 and 5, and currently being on 7, I really do like 7 a lot. All the characters are really well fleshed out, as I've seen with all Ys games. I'm currently at the final boss at 40 hours, so if you like long stories this'll be good (maybe a few hours of that is me grinding for achievements and for just not getting on with it). As far as game mechanics, it's exactly a rock-paper-scissors game, but you get a different feel even with the same character as they learn different skills and you get a new character with a new fighting style every dungeon that changes the feel of the game. I don't like not having a jump button, but the dodge button is very useful and is how you get across the map with any sort of speed.

I don't really like the artwork in Seven as compared to all the other games, but it's not ugly (except maybe Dogi), and there are a few 2D sprites that look very nice anyways. If you care about the beauty of the artwork, I would recommend Oath.

Be aware that the PC port for Seven seems to have given it a few bugs. I can only play in borderless at 30FPS, and while the FPS is probably my old laptop not being strong enough, I've read that others can't do fullscreen either, but can do borderless. There's also a couple instances where the camera will just black out. I've went into multiple shops and had this happen on entry, and the only thing that fixes it is resetting or accessing the save menu. I've also had this happen to me during boss battles where the camera focuses on the boss and shakes too much, and you can't access the save menu during boss battles. Maybe you could get the PSP version, but I don't know if that doesn't have similar bugs.

[Berahlen]

Yeah I loved Seven too, but it's just awkward enough that I can't really recommend it as an entry point. At least not the PC release. It really was designed for a controller and takes some creative mapping to put to keyboard in anything resembling a playable sense.

[Ikagura]

Seven may be too long imo (Oath can be beaten in less than 5 hour if you rush enough)

But the story was good

[Endgamecutter]

Well, I wound up getting 7 before all the naysayers showed up. Luckily I'm playing on a controller so the only port issue was that I have to play on windowed mode or the menus glitch up

[ArsenX]

According to the bug thread, the camera can be fixed with 60 FPS mode.