Ok, I'm now at the point of no return. I've got 100% of the map done, and all but one treasure chest. That one is hiding elusively in the
Silent Tower, probably behind a level 80 super boss that I'm not sure that I'm going to try to tangle with.
In some ways, I think the only thing that may be keeping me from trying to 100% this thing (haven't tried to catch all the fish, for example) is that there aren't real achievements for them on the Switch. Otherwise, I would probably just grind out the rest, since I'm so close. I feel like this game is going to end right about the time I'm ready for it to end, which is a great thing for games. Not outstaying their welcome is an achievement for many games, let along a 50 hour JRPG.
And I have to maybe celebrate the second best boss fight in the game so far (serious endgame spoilers):
That Io fight. It was a true pinnacle of Dana's route, both for story reasons, and for basically being a final exam for all of her abilities, and having them turned back around on you, and the boss having enough health to chew through that you can sort of cut loose and have fun with it. Plus that music was wonderful as well. Great fight.
Finally made it to the Octus Outlook today and finished the first section of it. Reading through some of what you guys have posted is very interesting.
I had no problem with the Pangaia Plains night expedition. By this time all my characters were level 62+, so those small packs of level 60 dinos actually went down pretty quickly. I am trying to get the trophy for using Hummel a lot and his Firecracker skill seems really effective against them. The other key skill I like on him is Trick Shot. It's basically an extended duration guard that appends a counter if he gets hit during it which is really nice since the Flash Guard and Flash Move are kind of finicky and have very tight windows. Once I get his trophy done, I have Sahad's to complete and then I can finally go back to using characters I like. I much prefer Laxia and Ricotta to Hummel and Sahad in terms of their mechanics. Adol and Dana are about equal, with Adol probably having slightly better skills but Dana's Dragon Spirit is really nice for those high HP enemies.
I did the first hunt in the Valley of Kings and was really struggling to keep the torches lit and wondering where all the adds were coming from even though all the nests were gone. I realized about wave 4 that it was all undead and that I had unequipped the bell during the night expedition to equip something else so the enemies during the hunt weren't actually dying. Once I put the bell back on, I cleared it on the next wave.
I really like some of the turns the story has taken... Spoilers through about half of the Octus Overlook.
Spoiler:It's interesting to think of the Great Tree as a tree that nurtures a particular species and spurs its advancement, but then is also responsible for bringing about a cataclysm that causes its downfall.
I'm not totally sure what purpose the Wardens of Evolution serve. They say they're observers, and they clearly are helping the tree, but then why does the tree preserve them? Does it have a will, and chooses to keep them alive, or is this just a side effect of its power?
The Great Tree of Origins also seems like a counterpoint to the Tree of Psyches that Hydra created. Clearly, the Tree of Origins has fed on the psyches of the people who were crushed in each cataclysm, and has fed on the psyches of its wardens most of all. It's surprising to me that the Wardens keep telling Adol how hopeless it is to resist as they simultaneously (at least tacitly) support his and Dana's efforts to resist. Maybe it's just a matter of not wanting to get their hopes up, after their hopes were dashed in the past?
I'm also really curious to learn more about Sarai and why she showed up as the Queen. Did she, like Dana, try to deny the Lacrimosa, and what she would later come to think of as fate? Or was she there as part of the Tree's plan all along? Did she befriend Dana out of some effort to help identify the next Warden? Was Sarai really the queen all along, so that when it was time for the "old" queen to die, the "young" one would take her place? So many questions!
I am curious about the Wardens too. They are supposed to represent the pinnacle of each race the Tree nurtured, and they are only supposed to observe but they sure are interfering a lot on this cycle to try and help end it. They state that each of them attempted to stop the Lacrimosa in their own time and when they gave in to despair the Tree captured their psyche fully. But apparently there is still a small vestige of hope/rebellion within each of them since they are willing to let Dana and Adol pursue their path and even help them?
I am really curious about Ura/Sarai. Since each species is only supposed to have one Warden and Dana is the Warden for Eternians, what is Sarai? Is she an Eternian or some other previous species? I had not even thought about your question if the Queen Sarai we meet in Dana's past is the same person or Ura just took her place at some point. I guess we do learn about an early Eternian rebellion against the Tree from the Sanctuary Crypt and that the Tree caused an early Lacrimosa when they tried to destroy it. So maybe she is Eternian but from the first branch and not quite the same as Dana?
Enjoying the game a ton. Will do a bigger post later but for now I have a question.
What to do with the permanent stat boost items? I see three options.
- Pile them all on Adol because he’s likely to see most use.
- Give them to the playable characters who I think are coolest/most fun to use.
- Try to spread them evenly across all playable characters.
Any advice?
Adol was my most used character, so he got all of the stat boost items.
Ok, I’ll try to keep this non spoilerish to avoid the need for spoiler tags for now.
Ys 8 game mechanics owe a lot to the framework laid out by Ys 7 and Memories of Celceta (which itself is a remake of Ys 4, never originally localized I believe). Earlier Ys games tended to have more platforming elements while the modern Ys games don’t. But I’m really impressed with the story and character development so far which can feel like an afterthought sometimes in the other two games I mentioned. Actually having a mystery that I’m interested in, characters that I care about. I still think Adol doesn’t bring much to the table but at least he doesn’t get in the way of what the game is doing well.
I’m at Ch 4 and the timelines feel like they’re starting to come together. Also, some genuinely shocking events! As an Ys fan since the first game in the 8-bit days, this feels really fresh to me. So glad this game was chosen, any Ys fan needs to play this. Also, I feel like Ys games of this quality now give the series a chance to hold its head up in among other venerable JRPG franchises.
It does make me want to do some reading to find out if Ys 9 keeps up this level of quality (or is even better?!).
I spread them around a bit to the characters I enjoy playing but probably should have just stacked them on a single character.
They do a really good job with the charaterization in this game. After the bland and forgettable characters of Ys Origin and Memories of Celceta (I don't remember a single character except Adol) it is good to see them develop these characters so well. As you mention, Adol doesn't really add anything and I think it is mostly due to him being a silent protagonist.
Some more thoughts that I forgot to include last night:
I made it to that giant tree in the bay where you wash up which was pretty cool. I did some fishing and pulled up an enemy way above my level. Then explored the area and when my characters mentioned a Pikard I was like "Cool! Another pet for Reja." but as I got closer I noticed that it looked strangely familiar. When I realized it was Sir Carlan I was upset that he didn't actually die to the Oceanus. The thing hit him directly with a tentacle, how did he not get squished/knocked unconscious and drown? Then I just wanted to leave him there to die or throw him in the ocean to drown. I really do not like him and wish he was dead. Later I got him to max approval and his scene just made me angry. He's still the stuck-up asshole yet they try and give him a skill that is indispensable to the village so that he is grudgingly accepted by the community.
More to the main story though, I always find it interesting that when these world-ending cataclysmic cycles occur in games, it is always when the humans are on the chopping block that something happens to end it. Granted, this time around it is the efforts of past species that just put humans at the right time and resources to do something about it. I guess without Dana somehow linking memories with Adol and sealing herself beyond the Tree's power we wouldn't stand a chance. But when I cleared the first section of Octus Outlook, Hydra does seem genuinely surprised we were able to free his people's psyches from the Tree. I am not sure how this one is going to turn out yet but seeing as how there's already Ys 9, things look promising for Adol.
And done, at 53 hours. Got the true ending, same as LastSurprise.
This was just a really good game. Good action, good music, good adventure, surprisingly good story, and a good ending. Rock solid all the way through.
I do have a few minor complaints, though. I think it could use a bit more polish, and shows off it’s Vita roots; the areas could be bigger (although I’ve been spoiled by the Xenoblade games), the graphics could be a bit better, the voice acting could be a bit more consistent both in direction and how often it is used, and the like. And of course, most of the bosses were just kind of there, no real story tie in; but this game certainly doesn’t live or die by something like that.
Going to talk about the very end of the game a bit, since LastSurprise touched on it in spoilers.
Yeah, I don’t know what the point of most of the True Ending was. Like, was Paro really the Maia, or was there some trickery going on there? What did that accomplish? And the Final Boss there made no real sense; first we fought tons of enemies and the little blue thing in the cage just took damage periodically. I thought they could be going for something crazy like that being an embryonic primordial Dana or something and that we were out of time, but no, it was just one enemy that jumped onto a giant quadrupedal tree thing. The coolest thing about that fight was how I killed it with Hummel’s counter attack. That counter was actually really useful in a lot of boss fights, and spammable, since it was cheap with the SP reducing rings. And I had maxed out my capacity for the meals, so I was just wolfing down the giant pumpkin pies for healing and huge stat buffs, and had a ton of the drinks to reset the meal counter.
So now I want to rank the Ys games I’ve played. Oath in Felghana used to be my favorite, and I think if I had to introduce someone to the Ys series, knowing nothing about it other than tough-as-nails boss fights and driving guitars making up the soundtrack, I would probably recommend that since it’s a brisk 12-15 hours, and a much tighter package. But I think VIII is clearly the better game overall.
So something like VIII > Felghana > Origins > II > I > Ark of Napishtim.
And speaking of which.
It does make me want to do some reading to find out if Ys 9 keeps up this level of quality (or is even better?!).
IX came out to the west in February of this year, so I think that would make it eligible for the club in Q2 of next year. I’m game if anyone else is.
I don't have a platform for Ys IX yet, it's just another little nudge to finally buying new hardware at some point.
I have to say, the Vita version of Ys VIII is pretty great. Especially coming from Origins which had some wild, unforgivable, framerate drops, especially during battles.
I'm only about halfway through VIII I guess but I'm pretty confident of where it will sit in my order:
VIII > Memories of Celceta > Oath in Felghana > VII > I&II (PSP remake) > Origins.
Ys I has wild nostalgia value for me, especially the soundtrack. Love bumping those enemies. Origins I actually really enjoyed, I would just steer people clear of the Vita port. Celceta has a relatively mediocre story (especially compared to VIII) but it is a very solid, technically proficient Ys game. If you like the gameplay in VIII, you'll find it here. Oath in Felghana does have the better story and more platforming if you're into that. VII is the first iteration (I believe) of the VIII formula, but not especially memorable otherwise. I have access to Ark of Napishtim but haven't played it yet.
So here are a few random thoughts from the beginning of the game:
- Fast travel that's unlocked from near the beginning of the game, plus super-fast load times, will totally spoil me for other games. This should be the standard.
- The map is great and makes me want to explore just that little bit more, filling in a detail here, opening a chest there, etc.
Absolutely. I've found myself getting on a roll, working through the map such that when I suddenly get locked in a story part it can be a little annoying (especially if I walk into a story event by mistake when I was still planning to finish off some stuff). But, overall, a good balance. Most JRPGs don't have side quests / collectathons etc. feel this satisfying.
I finished Chapter 2 last night. Plenty to talk about! And end-of-chapter boss fight that I found super frustrating! But in the meantime, I'll just post this, my reaction when I meet any new castaway:
There were a couple of castways where I went into a new area and wondered why there were no monsters (nor new campsite to build). Then, aha, a new castaway. And then I guess it explained why they weren't dead yet. Still, damn, it's a pretty deadly place to be stranded.
Mild spoilers for one of the castaways:
You meet a mother who talks about her 5 children. I might have misread what she said but I assumed the 5 children had been on board the Lombardia and I was wondering why she wasn't more stressed about finding them.
End of Ch 2 spoilers:
Ch 2 was quite dramatic, really not used to story character deaths in Ys games. And a serial killer? There was a suggestion that he had some revenge motive against the Roman empire but really he just seems like a sociopath.
Question for those deeper in: how often/how much do you upgrade weapons? I have enough iron to upgrade the starting weapons to L3 now, but I don't know if I should go ahead and do that upgrade or save up for when I get the next round of weapons. I've played enough in the series to know that you need to keep upgrading to stay on the power curve to be able to do enough damage to bosses, but I don't want to overextend my resources.
So far, start of Ch 4, I've been finding I pretty much have the resources to max my upgrades whenever I hit a new weapon tier. Also, I've dialed the difficulty down to normal so it's probably a tad easier than my ideal.
Haha, I have been trying to be more deliberate about not just button mashing my way through the game and trying to use the guard and dodge. I will say though, a lot of my guards are accidental as I go to use a skill and it just coincides with an enemy's attack.
Somehow those big scorpions are really easy to Flash Guard against. In general I struggle with the timing though.
I have a burning question for the group: have any of you gotten less than an A-rank in any of your raid battles?
Nope, a couple of first time Ss and otherwise As. I find the scoring a bit frustrating, everything dies too quickly to work up many Flash moves and you're just rushing back and forth trying to kill everything as quickly as possible. Most of my points seem to come from preserving defenses and remembering to use the super attack when it charges up. I rarely get the other ones.
Hopefully getting close to the end of chapter 2 now, I am doing some investigating in the village right now (hopefully a good enough hint on location for these spoilers).
Spoiler:Did anyone else find the adding of a serial killer to the crew a little unnecessary? We already have an extremely hostile island for a sense of danger, but the Nameless plot feels a little overboard. Also personally I am not a fan of the "enemy in plain sight" a lot of the time, hopefully they handle it well. My first thought was that Sir Carlan was Nameless (make an attack, then attack yourself to throw off any suspicion) but then he got himself killed so that theory went out the window. Don't really have any other good ideas currently on their identity but I am guessing it is not one of the newer castaways but one of the early people you find.
I didn't have any particular idea of their identity at first but then you meet a new castaway who is a medical student and I'm like, okay, obviously he's going to be a replacement for the doctor once he gets outed as the killer.
I did overall like the chain of events, including when Sir Carlan got splatted by the sea beast (haha), it's just so unexpected for an Ys game.
Adol doesn't really add anything and I think it is mostly due to him being a silent protagonist.
The problem is that Adol clearly has his own personality and goals, just that they never change and he never experiences any kind of character growth. This is despite going through incredible life-changing (for anyone else) events across multiple games. So, I can't just put myself in his shoes like Gordon Freeman in Half-life, but I also don't give a sh*t about him, unlike say Kaim in Lost Odyssey who was a very memorable and important part of that game. Other members of the cast do sometimes bounce off him in fun ways so I'll give him that.
Ch 4 done.
That was quite a surprise twist. I knew that Dana would unite with Adol and crew at some point but I was thinking more inline of some kind of magical time portal. Perhaps even the possibility of two-way travel.
So, we don't know how Dana ended up in some kind of magical cocoon in a tree. The rest of the game will surely involve uncovering events leading up to the calamity in the past. I was actually thinking the ruin looked in pretty good shape but we do explore some parts where it is pretty broken up. And there's that gigantic hole where the sea is running into.
So what will happen to Dana in the present? Will she be there permanently? Regardless of what she finds out, will she actually be able to influence events in the past, or pass information to her past self through Adol?
Malkroth wrote:Adol doesn't really add anything and I think it is mostly due to him being a silent protagonist.
The problem is that Adol clearly has his own personality and goals, just that they never change and he never experiences any kind of character growth. This is despite going through incredible life-changing (for anyone else) events across multiple games. So, I can't just put myself in his shoes like Gordon Freeman in Half-life, but I also don't give a sh*t about him, unlike say Kaim in Lost Odyssey who was a very memorable and important part of that game. Other members of the cast do sometimes bounce off him in fun ways so I'll give him that.
I can see how that would get quite grating across multiple games. I liked Adol a lot as a character in this game -- although he was flat, he was up for adventure and that was enough; the story wasn't about him. And in some ways I like him a lot more than Rean, another Nihon Falcom hero I've spent a lot of time with. For as much as he's afraid of his own power, Rean is written to be overly nice and to have no edge; to me, this made him a lot less interesting. Adol feels very competent, and confident, and capable. And though the dialogue choices were often sparse, I liked the moments where you could play him as surprised that Laxia and Sahad were winded, or tell them that they needed to toughen up.
Ch 4 done.
Spoiler:That was quite a surprise twist. I knew that Dana would unite with Adol and crew at some point but I was thinking more inline of some kind of magical time portal. Perhaps even the possibility of two-way travel.
So, we don't know how Dana ended up in some kind of magical cocoon in a tree. The rest of the game will surely involve uncovering events leading up to the calamity in the past. I was actually thinking the ruin looked in pretty good shape but we do explore some parts where it is pretty broken up. And there's that gigantic hole where the sea is running into.
So what will happen to Dana in the present? Will she be there permanently? Regardless of what she finds out, will she actually be able to influence events in the past, or pass information to her past self through Adol?
And this is where the story kind of changes and gets interesting. The story is actually pretty good, and that's not even grading on a curve for the series (since the story really isn't the focus in the games I've played).
And also, after beating the game, I tracked down the soundtrack. It's clearer now how so many of the different zones had such different music, and a lot of them are just good. And the boss music is good as well, especially the unique one for the boss at the end of Ch.5. The Falcom sound team really does knock it out of the park in every game they do.
Sundown wrote:Question for those deeper in: how often/how much do you upgrade weapons? I have enough iron to upgrade the starting weapons to L3 now, but I don't know if I should go ahead and do that upgrade or save up for when I get the next round of weapons. I've played enough in the series to know that you need to keep upgrading to stay on the power curve to be able to do enough damage to bosses, but I don't want to overextend my resources.
So far, start of Ch 4, I've been finding I pretty much have the resources to max my upgrades whenever I hit a new weapon tier. Also, I've dialed the difficulty down to normal so it's probably a tad easier than my ideal.
I think for the most part, I upgraded as soon as I could and was able to keep pace with everything. I hit some bottlenecks at the second-to-last set of upgrades, the ones that needed a ton of Essence Stones. I actually found that I had not fully upgraded my weapons by the time I was able to jump to the next tier. And, if you ever do get to a point where you can jump straight to the next tier, you should do it -- the bonuses are fixed, so you don't lose out on anything (and actually save resources).
I looked it up before I did this, FWIW.
I stumbled into the 'skipping a tier' thing around ch. 5, and thought it was a great trick. You just have to accept that the person you are not upgrading basically won't be used for awhile, since their damage output will be low. But if you have a core 3 or 4, there's no reason to waste the resource on the ones on the bench, and those resources are probably best used for the town defenses, anyway.
Yeah, I burned a lot of Essence Stones upgrading everyone on that second to last tier, only to find the trophy only cares about reaching the final tier of weapons, not max leveling every weapon along the way.
I think Adol works as a silent protagonist slightly better than others in recent memory because the other character do such a good job of calling out his emotions. When someone mentions a place Adol hasn't been before the character he is talking to mentions how Adol's eyes light up with excitement. This occurs quite frequently, giving you an actual idea of who Adol is as a person and that he's not just an emotionless doll walking through the scenarios placed before him.
I wrapped up the game tonight and got the True Ending as well.
I also felt the whole true ending thing of everything (even the past species) just being a dream of the goddess so when we woke her up it all just went poof... But that she liked Adol and Dana enough to recreate the world for them? I did feel that Dana's ascension is a nice send-off for her since had she accompanied the castaways off the island she really wouldn't have anywhere to go except follow Adol around. The short blurbs of where everyone ended up was a neat bow on each of their stories as well.
I would say the boss fight against Io is my favorite of the entire game. As I mentioned earlier, I just liked Dana's solo sections better than the rest of the game and this fight really put to use all her different forms and skills. It was cool to realize part way through the fight that each form was a copy of Dana's and used her skills against you. I kind of wish the other bosses in the game had actually used the weakness mechanic the regular enemies would use. On normal you could kind of just skill spam and use healing items to power through all the bosses and ignore their mechanics.
Overall I really enjoyed the game and even though I hit 66 hours on this one, I never reached the point where I just wished it was over. I would always look forward to playing the game and never had to force myself so I could just finish it, which is a lot better than some of the other games we have played for this club that overstayed their welcome.
Congrats Malkroth! I'll level you up in the other thread.
I wrapped up the game tonight and got the True Ending as well.
Spoiler:I would say the boss fight against Io is my favorite of the entire game. As I mentioned earlier, I just liked Dana's solo sections better than the rest of the game and this fight really put to use all her different forms and skills. It was cool to realize part way through the fight that each form was a copy of Dana's and used her skills against you. I kind of wish the other bosses in the game had actually used the weakness mechanic the regular enemies would use. On normal you could kind of just skill spam and use healing items to power through all the bosses and ignore their mechanics.
There are a bunch of things that I didn't finish, but may try to in the next couple of months, and the Dana segments are one of them. I got all the spirits but didn't fully explore that labyrinth. But seeing you all write about it makes me interested in reaching the bottom!
RE: Favorite bosses, including the one Malkroth was talking about.
I still think the Oceanus was my favorite fight of the game, since it had the buildup of being the monster that sunk our ship and was keeping us trapped on the island, plus it had the unique music, plus the way the whole arena was much bigger than the other boss arenas due to it's vertical depth. It's in many ways the boss fight that still stands out the most to me.
Io was my second favorite fight, for many of the reasons Malkroth said; it was a good final exam boss for Dana and her different abilities, and it just felt more, I don't know, joyous of a fight. The music had a lot to do with it, since it was some jaunty strings number iirc, and not the normal boss music. It was still a hard enough fight, and I'm glad I spent all the bits Dana had for more healing, but it just had a certain fun vibe to it.
In the optional, very final dungeon, with 3 trophies left: max skills, the secret boss, and platinum! Really enjoying this dungeon so far.
It’s a ruined version of the chambers, back in Dana’s time. And very well done: super dark, even with the glow stone equipped, lots of tough enemies, wrecked staircases and pathways all over. The first boss just dropped out of nowhere and it was fun to see it again. The whole environment really sells that these essence creations somehow survived thousands of years and are still semi-functional.
.... aaaaaaaand that's all she wrote! My present-day party has explored the very optional, but very definitely final, dungeon, and conquered its final boss! Once I finally got the thing stunned, I guzzled Dynastic Water and Pumpkin pie for some souped-up EXTRA attacks. I got off two with Ricotta and one with Adol, and altogether this probably drained one and a half to two of the boss's health bars.
I did it all from start to finish during today's play session. That's because there's only a crystal at the dungeon's front end. I had made it partway through Floor 4 but I was low on meals, and also knew I was sitting on a lot of Aura Grass and other trading materials that I could use to brew some medicines. So I went back to town, made as many meals as I could, got as many Aura grasses as I could (but didn't trade my materials up to the materials I could have used to buy more grass, so I probably left some on the table), and bought like 20 strength elixirs for Adol. I think by the time I finished the dungeon, he had nearly 1,000 health.
Really glad we played this one, everyone! I had a great time.
Arise!
I'm all finished. I really enjoyed this. That story really went places and the gameplay was entertaining throughout. I never played any Ys game before the JRPG club, and now that I've completed both Ys VIII and Ys Origin I am definitely a fan. Thanks for broadening my JRPG horizons!
I started late so will probably not finish before the end of the quarter (I'm on Chapter 4 shortly after meeting the cute blue creatures) but am generally enjoying the game so will echo Wembley's thanks for broadening my JRPG horizons.
Remember you have until the end of next quarter for club credit, and I think most of us still follow these threads after the game completes. Glad you are both enjoying the game. I had played Memories of Celceta before the club, but never really jumped fully into the Ys boat myself. After both club games I am definitely keeping my eye on the series though.
Finally got the double-jump adventure equipment. I'd been hankering for it ever since playing around with it when you go back in time. Also, around the same time, I explored enough of the map to open up my fourth equipment slot. Now my default equip is vine climbing, map explorer, dash, and now double-jump. There are still quite a few greyed out so I'm curious what they are.
I really liked htis game and i am glad i had the group to play it with
I'm well into Chapter 5 and appreciate the different environments that they have introduced. I recently got the double jump which opens up some new areas and just finished the
ghost ship section with Captain Reed
. That little story was a nice addition.
I am finding the difficulty with the bosses and larger creatures to be strangely inconsistent. I'm playing on Normal around level 46 at this point and find bosses to be almost laughably easy with little need for healing. Then I run into an area featuring level 18 spinning creatures on the beach and they hit me for 300 HP damage. This is more than most bosses are hitting me for! And even these level 18 critters that many hits to take down. I'm enjoying the game--just some weird quirks.
That was one of the things that I didn't like about leveling. I imagine they didn't want to make it easy to grind materials but going back to starter areas and having creatures I fought at level 1 still hit me for significant damage at level 50 was annoying.
Yeah, that was an odd/annoying quirk I noticed as well. Nothing is ever a trivial fight, because they always pose a significant damage threat. Granted, except for large creatures, everything died in a single hit from my skills in the older areas, so that doesn't really prevent material farming. But the combat really became a slog towards the end, just mashing through constantly HP bags. It would have been nice to see some kind of extra bonuses introduced around Flash Guard and Flash Move or something to make those more rewarding instead of enemies having high HP and damage.
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