The GWJ JRPG Club - Q4 2021 - Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

I completely agree with the second point in your spoiler. I found it unnecessary and probably the least satisfying plot point in the game so far.

Spoiler:

Like you say, the island is plenty dangerous without this. I felt like the plot point came out of nowhere and hit to fast to really land. And if the game needed to kill off certain castaways, it could have done that through natural disaster or monsters.

The boss fight sucked too. Far too many area-of-attack techniques that I found nearly impossible to dodge.

Here's a very small touch I really enjoyed later on. It's not a big spoiler but I'll tag it just in case:

Spoiler:

When the party finally reaches the city where Dana lived, someone (Laxia, I think) notices that all of the buildings are quite large, and the windows are higher than would be convenient for a human. During the Dana segments, every adult character is a lot taller than her. I didn't notice this until after Laxia commented on the buildings in present day.

Regarding the raids: I got a B once, and I failed one of them in Chapter 6.

Overall, I’m not a huge fan of the raids and the hunts. They feel kinda useless.

Based on the difficulty spike going into the Chapter 5 raid, I could totally see failing a future raid, or scoring poorly. I very nearly failed that one.

I kind of like them though. I see your point -- they don't feel like they add a lot to the game -- but they're more combat with a slightly different take, and I think the combat's fun, so it just feels like more of a good thing to me.

It seems like the point of the raids is a way to quickly farm monster materials. You get lots of monsters in a short time frame, in a confined area, with auto-regening SP so you can kill them super quickly without travel. Also a good way to max out your skill levels. Throw on a Warrior's Trinket and spam those skills.

A little over 18 on total playtime to complete chapter 2, really hope that next chapters are not as long.

Thoughts on the chapter 2 ending:

Spoiler:

It went about as poorly as I thought, but at least they avoided the "the church lady is actually super evil" angle. As LastSurprise stated, the plot really comes from nowhere and ends rather abruptly and Kiergaard's reasoning is completely nonsensical. What should be a tragic moment (Barbaros' death) had absolutely no impact whatsoever. Also as soon as Litch reveals he is a medical student and was the ship's physician it immediately solidified that it was Kiergaard for me. The only other person who wasn't with you during an attack or provide a camp service was Sister Nia and they handily provided you a brand new medic right as the plot kicks off.

I am also upset on how it ends. You have this boss fight with Kiergaard and seemingly he is way stronger than you, and is about to run so they just dues ex machina in the Primodial to knock him out and take him away. Pretty unsatisfying ending for someone who killed a super important character.

Mechanically, before that little subplot I was 1 castaway away from the next blockage, but with three dead and possibly only one new person added, that puts me three people short and no where left to explore. Kind of wonder how they are going to open things up so I can explore more of the island.

Malkroth wrote:

A little over 18 on total playtime to complete chapter 2, really hope that next chapters are not as long.

Chapters 3 and 4, at least, are substantially shorter. I'm in Chapter 5, and I think I'm at around 27 hours of playtime.

Hot takes on Ys VIII from my house, courtesy of my wife:

Her: That character [Ricotta] seems racist.
Me: What race do you think she is?
Her: I don’t know, but I feel like I’m getting played.

At a bit over 12 hours, and I finished the very long Ch. 2.

Somehow I haven’t died to any bosses yet, but it was enemies in the field that get me; once the starfish on an early beach, and quite a few times to one of the giant frogs in the cave that I tried to brute force kill them and just didn't have the damage output, nor could I dodge the falling rocks in a small space. Didn’t want to waste any healing items then, either. I might go back and try again on those frogs since I’m a bit stronger now. I'm playing on Normal for now, but I'm starting to think I should dial it up to Hard.

I like the movement and the combat. There’s enough SP to spam the special attacks, so I just throw them out there against groups and single enemies. And a lot of the open field is just trying to get through as efficiently as possible and not taking damage, and juggling team members to take the bonus type damage. I do wish it could be a little more open world; maybe not like a Xenoblade, but maybe larger segments between loading screens. At least the loading screens are fast, probably due to the size of the segments.

Right as I was getting tired of switching between the climbing gloves and the floating boots when running around in the swamp, we got a second gear slot where I could have both! And I am sort of enjoying this Metroidvania vibe with getting new equipment or getting more people and going back to old areas to open up new paths.

Now for a bit of spoiler talk, since the end of Ch.2 is the hot topic in the thread.

Spoiler:

The whole serial killer thing seemed so…..pointless? Building off what everyone else has said, it started suddenly and stopped suddenly, and if they needed to prove that the island was dangerous and people could die, there were better ways to do it. Like the T-Rex. I dunno, maybe it was to give Euron a reason to be there, if he becomes important later or something. Anyway, comic book evil characters like that seem so shallow, so I wish they had done just about anything else than that. I did chuckle a bit at the doctor being chomped on like the lawyer in Jurassic Park, at least.

I liked the nice little conversation between Adol and Laxia, so it looks like things are loosening up on that front. If this was another game, I might think that this was opening up some romance path, but my prior experience with the series says that she’s going to learn that the only thing Adol has room for in his heart is adventure, so that’s probably not happening here.

Anyway, I’m enjoying it. And it’s surprisingly pick up and play friendly, since it autosaves so much and loads pretty fast.

After nearly 58 hours, Ys VIII has been completed. I got all the side quests, mapped the whole thing, and got all chests. The final boss was kind of easy, thanks to amassing a lot of healing items throughout the game and not using them.

This is quite possibly my GOTY so far!

I agree with the twist at the end of chapter 2 was somewhat pointless, but overall I thought the story was pretty good! The last Ys game I had played was Oath in Felghana, and I honestly can't remember anything of its story (I assume it had one). Then again it's by the same developer as Trails, so I guess it makes sense that these games would start getting more elaborate stories (which, luckily, so far, seems to be self contained, unlike Trails which at the moment is getting harder and harder to get in considering how many games one needs to play to understand the whole thing). Although considering one character that shows up late in the game, now I'm seriously considering playing Memories of Celceta...

I am enjoying this but I find the combat to basically be button mashing. I hold "R" spam all the face buttons until I am out of "mana" then use normal attack until I can spam the specials again. I also never really switch to another character unless Adol dies. Should I work harder to dig into the combat?

Depends on how much you want to be challenged, I guess. I think there is more to the combat than what you're experiencing, but you'll probably only feel the need to dig in if you increase the difficulty setting.

When you raise the difficulty, you'll hit less hard and the enemies will hit much harder. You'll probably:

  • Not be able to spam attacks quite as much
  • Need to focus more on blocking or dodging (or both)
  • Juggle between characters to exploit enemy weaknesses
  • Pay attention to which special attacks you use. Some are very good at "breaking" enemies, some do more damage, etc. And some have long wind-ups or animations that can prevent you from dodging, leaving you vulnerable; and also
  • Need to focus a little more on food and the status boosts it gives

Also the characters control somewhat differently. Sahad moves more slowly and feels clunky. Laxia's attacks tend to go forward in a straight line. Hummel tends to have more ranged attacks. Playing as Adol feels more "natural" or intuitive, to me, but I've enjoyed testing out the others.

By the way, speaking of challenge, has anyone else hit that boss at the top of Baja Tower? Talk about a difficulty spike! My wife, who was watching me play, asked "are you supposed to be here?" I've done all the sidequests up to that point, and haven't felt under-leveled, but ... yeesh.

LastSurprise wrote:

By the way, speaking of challenge, has anyone else hit that boss at the top of Baja Tower? Talk about a difficulty spike! My wife, who was watching me play, asked "are you supposed to be here?" I've done all the sidequests up to that point, and haven't felt under-leveled, but ... yeesh.

I think the key for me was the dodge. And healing items. Dodge was the key to many, many boss fights for me. For some reason I was better at pulling it off than the block.

I think you’re right. And I dodge a ton, but I was not ready for bullet hell to be introduced there! Will try again after gaining a couple levels.

Sundown wrote:

At a bit over 12 hours, and I finished the very long Ch. 2.

Somehow I haven’t died to any bosses yet, but it was enemies in the field that get me; once the starfish on an early beach, and quite a few times to one of the giant frogs in the cave that I tried to brute force kill them and just didn't have the damage output, nor could I dodge the falling rocks in a small space. Didn’t want to waste any healing items then, either. I might go back and try again on those frogs since I’m a bit stronger now. I'm playing on Normal for now, but I'm starting to think I should dial it up to Hard.

I like the movement and the combat. There’s enough SP to spam the special attacks, so I just throw them out there against groups and single enemies. And a lot of the open field is just trying to get through as efficiently as possible and not taking damage, and juggling team members to take the bonus type damage. I do wish it could be a little more open world; maybe not like a Xenoblade, but maybe larger segments between loading screens. At least the loading screens are fast, probably due to the size of the segments.

When I ran into those frogs I tried to kill them and was getting my butt kicked, so I locked onto one and saw it was level 45 so I started ignoring them. They only start attacking you if you attack them, so they are mostly there to just temporarily block a passage if you can't find a way to jump past them.

The game is also available for Vita, so I would have to assume the smaller areas with frequent transitions are to support that platform. I turned on the loading screen tips which is supposed to slow down load times, but they are still fast enough on a regular PS4 that the zone loads before I can finish reading the tip.

I finally started climbing the mountain and I just love the air of mystery this game keeps putting into its story and environments. To me it is really charming.

Spoiler:

Also finally ran into a dinosaur (or Primordial) that was around my level so I decided to kill it... Only for it to stand up again and my party freaking out in the active voice chat. So no Primordial slaying for now! Although one of the sleeping scenes does point to that possibility becoming available.

Edit: Does anyone know if those accessories that extend Flash Move and Flash Guard apply to your entire party or just the equipped character?

Malkroth wrote:

Edit: Does anyone know if those accessories that extend Flash Move and Flash Guard apply to your entire party or just the equipped character?

Not 100% certain, but my guess would the just the equipped character. Accessories equipped typically just apply to the character who has them.

I'm not sure either, but I had guessed it would affect the whole party. I think there are some accessories, like the gambler coin with the increased drop rate, that seem to affect everyone. And I feel like I've noticed the longer flash move times even when I'm not controlling the character who's wearing it, though I haven't tried to measure it.

Finally picked up the 5th party member today and glad to have a replacement for Sahad. I really did not enjoy Sahad's slow playstyle, he felt really weak even though he has the highest strength. Maybe it is because Laxia has so many single target focused skills, but to me it seems like she does way more damage while still being very mobile. Laxia also has a nice aerial kit, letting you get a lot more aerial kills for bonus exp which is nice.

Playing with it a bit more, I think Flash Guard works much better as a proactive defense rather than reactive. It takes a half second or so from hitting the button for you to actually be guarded and it persists for a second or so. I have had much better luck getting it consistently by hitting flash guard then walking into an attack rather than trying to time the block in reaction to an attack coming in. I noticed that on Avaldragia (sp?) that the attacks landed earlier than the animations made them look like they would.

Post 5th party member spoilers:

Spoiler:

So we have the raised by animal tropes character now, partly used to explain Shoebill's presence in the village I guess. I was already pretty curious about when Adol's dreams are taking place, and Ricotta's claims to be the only human on the island make me even more curious. Is Dana's time long in the past? Is it concurrent the Adol's adventures but just on another part of the island? I assumed originally that the Island of Seiren is all that is left of the Kingdom of Eternia, and that is looking more likely. But then what caused the kingdom to vanish?

As a side note, how did they repair that busted bridge? I would not want to try and swim across that river to get to the other side. Someone really good at lassos and toss a rope across to one of the far pillars?

And I’m done with the (relatively short) Ch.3! I tried Hard mode for a bit, and quickly got overwhelmed by the DPS of common enemies, so I’m back down to normal. At least the enemies and bosses are getting stronger, so I think the difficulty curve is moving along nicely.

Malkroth wrote:

Playing with it a bit more, I think Flash Guard works much better as a proactive defense rather than reactive. It takes a half second or so from hitting the button for you to actually be guarded and it persists for a second or so. I have had much better luck getting it consistently by hitting flash guard then walking into an attack rather than trying to time the block in reaction to an attack coming in. I noticed that on Avaldragia (sp?) that the attacks landed earlier than the animations made them look like they would.

Yeah, that was the first time I wiped to a boss, was against that fight in Ch.3. I lost the first time, and won on the second try after having everyone near dead and using some medical supplies. Even had the same issue as you, where it felt like the attack was going faster (and farther) than the animation would indicate. Just kept trying to roll away early, and it worked some of the time.

So after getting to the first save point of Ch.4, I went back and did some exploring for places I had been before, picking up some treasure chests that I hadn’t gotten before and even found a new areas off of Longhorn Coast that I had apparently skipped out on before. It was called the Water and the Wood, and I found

Spoiler:

dozens of Primordials more than 20 levels higher than I was. But since I could run and roll, I kept on exploring and dodging everything, and wound up finding a new castaway! So that was cool. Still don’t know how we snuck the entire town past a dozen not-dinosaurs to clear a path to her, though.

Also, I went back and checked on that first Primordial you meet in the fog, since I didn’t remember it’s level. It’s 45, so I just ran away again for now.

And I like the vibe of the Northern side of the island. I'll be interested in exploring it in the future.

LastSurprise wrote:

By the way, speaking of challenge, has anyone else hit that boss at the top of Baja Tower? Talk about a difficulty spike! My wife, who was watching me play, asked "are you supposed to be here?" I've done all the sidequests up to that point, and haven't felt under-leveled, but ... yeesh.

I beat this guy yesterday! It was all about guzzling potions, eating lots of food, and drinking juice so I could clear the food effects and eat another plate. Those potions included the ones that let me fill my EXTRA gauge so I could do the super move. It also helped to equip items that pumped up my Str. Onward!

By the way, whenever you all get to Chapter 5, I would really recommend trying to S-rank the raid that happens after Baja tower and a side quest. As with the last raid, I didn't feel like I did great, definitely didn't meet the time goal, definitely had characters die, but somehow pulled out this rank anyway. I think the target's around 90K. And the prize is extremely good:

Spoiler:

The Hero Cloak, which per its description boosts your STR and DEF based on the number of monsters you've killed. And the gains are huge: Dana got +100 STR and +100 DEF when I equipped it on her.

Sundown wrote:

So after getting to the first save point of Ch.4, I went back and did some exploring for places I had been before, picking up some treasure chests that I hadn’t gotten before and even found a new areas off of Longhorn Coast that I had apparently skipped out on before. It was called the Water and the Wood, and I found

Spoiler:

dozens of Primordials more than 20 levels higher than I was. But since I could run and roll, I kept on exploring and dodging everything, and wound up finding a new castaway! So that was cool. Still don’t know how we snuck the entire town past a dozen not-dinosaurs to clear a path to her, though.

Spoiler:

I went back to this area just after starting chapter 4 and was able to kill those primordials quite easily actually. They hit extremely hard but their attacks are really well telegraphed and easy to dodge/guard. They actually attack fairly infrequently too. Fighting them actually sparked some new skills for Adol and Laxia which is nice since they were getting close to mastering everything they currently had.

Edit: As your climbing Mt. Gendarme you come across a point where the character remark that they can see the entire area they have explored so far. I noticed that the area where you wash up is a giant crescent bay with a large tree in the center of the bay. I wonder if that tree has any significance to the plot and now I am curious if you can see that tree from any of the beaches you explored earlier in the game. It sits so perfectly center of the bay, it looks like the tree created it.

I think you can. I've definitely noticed that tree from other elevated positions, as well as the smoke from Castaway Village. You can really pick out a lot of the island's features from a view of the horizon, which I love about this game. It makes the whole thing feel really immersive.

Just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying reading everyone's impressions as you play through the game. Brings back many happy memories

Wrapped up chapter 4 tonight...

Spoiler:

Well, finding Dana at the foot of the Great Tree of Origins is interesting. The game seemed to have been pointing towards Eternia being the distant past from the current Isle of Seiren, which makes sense with how ruined and wild everything is and the fact the prayer saplings Dana plants grow into massive trees when you return to Adol. But that is either not the case and there was been rapid deterioration and growth, or Dana found someway to suspend herself through time using the Tree and Essence. The roots she was encased were very unique looking and had that blue essence tinge to them.

As you explore Aegrias the party points out how large the buildings are and that they seem too big for humans. There is also the fact that everyone in Dana's time points out how short she is, and you can see she is more than a header shorter than all the Eternian character models. It made me start to wonder if the Eternians are not human, but some other race and Dana is a human in their midst or something. Could just be that the Eternians are a very tall race of humans, as even the Eternian models we see in Dana's time are too short for the buildings they inhabit.

Ricotta points out that Dana has a mark on her arm that looks like an eye. I didn't pay close attention during my time as Dana, but now I am curious to revisit those earlier sessions and see if she had the mark then or if it is more recent...

Something else really interesting to me is that several other nations are mentioned during Dana's time. We see the entire southern part of the Isle is devoid of any trace of civilization, so it is unlikely these nations existed on that side of Seiren, but then I am nearing 60% map exploration with just south, path to Aegrias, and Aegrias itself, which means either these other nations are extremely close or Seiren used to be much larger and much of it is now underwater. At least at this point, we have not been allowed outside the city and its immediate outskirts as Dana to get a picture of what the Kingdom of Eternia looked like as a whole.

Start of chapter 5 spoilers...

Spoiler:

They finally reveal that Alison is pregnant. I suspected she had morning sickness back when they first mentioned her not feeling well and Kiergaard said nothing was wrong with her. What really surprised me is she is apparently 8 months pregnant and not showing? She is not a large woman, would that be possible? I know after we find her she is almost always sitting down behind her table so it would be hard to see on the character model, but even Licht mentions he missed it...

That bit at the start of Chapter 5 surprised me too! I didn't find it too believable. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed the resolution of that episode, which happens between some of the bigger plot beats.

In my last play session I finally got a new piece of exploration gear

Spoiler:

that lets me breathe underwater. Time to backtrack a bit!

And I wrapped up Ch.4 as well, and went a little bit into Ch.5. Random musings within.

Spoiler:

The multi-armed boss at end of Ch.4 was fun. Lots of big attacks that are easily counterable made for a sort of easy but very action heavy fight.

I'm still trying to figure out what the deal is with the outfits for all of the Eternians. Is it just for fanservice (probably), or it is justified by the presumed heat and humidity of the tropical setting?

I loved the look of shock on the normally stoic Adol’s face when he caught Dana at the end.

Oh, and it may not mean anything, but it seems a bit odd that Dana’s super ability throws a ton of ice shards. I know they have the big mountain range, but for a primarily tropical setting, it kind of stands out. I wonder if that will be important later.

And now we have new equipment to upgrade, and a ton of sidequests to knock out.

Just entering the Tower of Baja now... Speaking of which, anyone else find it slightly annoying or at least curious that they tell you the name of a place but not how to pronounce it? Like at the start of chapter 3 they decide to call the mountain Gendarme, but you don't hear any voiced lines with that name until chapter 4 or something. I kept bouncing between Gen-dar-me and Gen-darm for pronunciations. Now for Baja I am going Ba-ja, Ba-zha, or Ba-ya. It is a little disorienting.

Spoiler:

I went back to the older memories and the one in chapter 5 and Dana does not have that symbol on her arm in the past. So that is something that comes up later in time, whether it is at the time she is suspended in the roots or beforehand is still unknown. I was trying to figure out if the symbol is supposed to be familiar, but I have only played Origins and Memories of Celceta so my Ys knowledge is a little light. Anyone who has played more, has the symbol on Dana's arm been in previous games? Does the Mask of Truth (or whatever reveals hidden walls in Origins) have that symbol on it?

To Sundown's points about Dana's EX skill, it looks like it is because Dana is aligned with the water element. In the chapter 6 section for her you get access to a new spirit which gives you earth powers and all her skills become rocky. I didn't realize she had water trails on her attacks until I got the form swaps for her.

I must say, the Tawa Highway was a breath of fresh air after the Pangaia Plains and Mt. Gendarme at night. I am getting very tired of fighting Primordials. Their HP is way too high and they don't ever flinch from being attacked so you either take a ton of damage trying to rush through their health pools or have to play a very slow style, baiting attacks (which some of them are very poorly telegraphed) to block or dodge to get in safe hits. Whereas before you'd have one or two big monsters in an entire area, these last few areas have just been packed with mini-boss level normal fights. Hoping the tower and beyond have less of the hp sponge mobs.

Edit: I also think I like Dana's solo sections more than the normal party sections. Fighting with just one character feels a lot more fluid and less busy. I suppose I could set the allies to defensive but then things would probably slow down as I have to do all the damage myself and the game expects the AI allies to do some damage.

I finished the fight at the top of Baja tower that LastSurprise mentioned upthread. It was a fun fight, although I didn’t appreciate being blown off the ledge so much. Rolling through attacks got me most of the way there, but Sahad’s Manga Wave is great for doing good damage to stationary targets, so I took great advantage of that to attack then resume rolling. I also have had some fun combining the Flash Dodge and the Flash Guard together; I feel like the window for the Dodge is a bit easier to hit, so I use that to slow down time, then doing the Guard against an attack is much easier. Then I just spam big attacks, and maybe try to trigger the super attack, and just unload some crits.

My main crew was level 44-46, for reference.