The GWJ JRPG Club: Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (Q4 2022)!

Yeah, the tower defense ones are easily the least interesting part of the game. It's clear they just borrowed the mechanic from Ys 8 and the city defense stuff, but it felt more interesting in that game for reasons I can't really describe. There's one particular later on where you have to break all 110 crystals because the boss monster is so high level that you probably aren't going to be able to do any damage to it, but that one was also more frustrating than anything since it required a lot of vertical movement and the level didn't feel well designed.

I'm struggling to get into this one which is a shame because I adored VIII.

It just feels like there's so much dialogue and meandering around the city. Ys is an action game, I just want to do cool sh*t and kill monsters.

farley3k wrote:

I have done the final battle of Chapter 4 half a dozen times or so and I just can't seem to beat it. Very frustrating because I find the tower defense battles to be the least interesting part of the game and I just want it to be over.

Have you upgraded the tower defense elements?

A_Unicycle wrote:

I'm struggling to get into this one which is a shame because I adored VIII.

It just feels like there's so much dialogue and meandering around the city. Ys is an action game, I just want to do cool sh*t and kill monsters.

I felt that a lot, too. Eventually I zero'ed in on when dialog seemed important and started skipping other stuff and did my best to rush through the city exploration stuff. It does not help that the city music is pretty boring and it was good at putting me to sleep. If you haven't gotten at least a few chapters in, it might not be worth the trudge to get beyond your complaints.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
bobbywatson wrote:

I was only supposed to play this for a bit this morning, but it took me forever to actually stop. I'm currently in chapter 4.

I like collectibles (up to a point), and so far I enjoy just going around using the Gifts I have to find chests, graffiti and petals. (I'm still missing a bunch of petals, but I'm doing pretty well on graffiti and treasure chests.) The music is good, but I haven't heard any standout like Ys VIII's Sunshine Coast.

FYI, there aren't new petals and graffiti in the later chapters, so you can breath easy there, and that's where the story really digs in since you are no longer spending time focusing on getting to know new party members.

Yeah, I got 100% on the petals, graffiti and city exploration this morning, and I'm in chapter 6. I'm still missing a few treasure chests (most of them blocked by guards, I assume the story will let me get those eventually).

bobbywatson wrote:

Yeah, I got 100% on the petals, graffiti and city exploration this morning, and I'm in chapter 6. I'm still missing a few treasure chests (most of them blocked by guards, I assume the story will let me get those eventually).

Yup, just finish that chapter and you should be good to go for 100%.

mrtomaytohead wrote:
farley3k wrote:

I have done the final battle of Chapter 4 half a dozen times or so and I just can't seem to beat it. Very frustrating because I find the tower defense battles to be the least interesting part of the game and I just want it to be over.

Have you upgraded the tower defense elements?

I noticed last night that I hadn't so I went to Dogi and found now I need to get ancient branches (or something like that) before I can do anymore.

I will give that a try and see but honestly with such a huge backlog (and I just ordered Mario + Rabbids) I will give in about 2-3 more tries and then just be done.

I fully chuck in my "gamer card" and am happy to drop it to easy - which means it should be easy!

So if you need more resources for upgrading the defenses, there are three ways to do it.

1. Find them in the world (least reliable)
2. Trade worse resource for better ones with the sister of the blacksmith kid (can only get a few this way)
3. Buy them from the green flame near where Dogi is with points earned at the end of each chapter (fastest and best)

So I would recommend going to the green flame and buying them there.

There's actually a secret fourth way as well you can get later in the game as well.

Spoiler:

If you find all the azure petals, there's an Axolotl spirit thing in the river that appears that you can talk to and recruit. You can just buy the resources from him with Gold, which is never really running short in this game.

I'm at the end of Ch 6 but I haven't got 100% of the collectibles yet. Assuming I can go back for them later?

Sundown wrote:
Spoiler:

If you find all the azure petals, there's an Axolotl spirit thing in the river that appears that you can talk to and recruit. You can just buy the resources from him with Gold, which is never really running short in this game.

Spoiler:

Finding all the petals is not a pre-req for that as far as I know since I'm sure I didn't get them all, but got the river spirit guy. I definitely ran short on Gold in the final 3 chapters.

ComfortZone wrote:

I'm at the end of Ch 6 but I haven't got 100% of the collectibles yet. Assuming I can go back for them later?

Yes. Every chapter gives you access to most previously explored areas / there's a merchant that sells you missable items.

Due to circumstances, it seems I have been rushing through that game at a fast pace... I reached chapter 8 earlier today. If I keep going at this rate, I might be able to finish it this weekend.

I'm starting to have an idea of what's going on, but not really. (Still have no clue as to why there are apparently

Spoiler:

two Adols).

Can't wait to know what's going on there!

I felt that a lot, too. Eventually I zero'ed in on when dialog seemed important and started skipping other stuff and did my best to rush through the city exploration stuff. It does not help that the city music is pretty boring and it was good at putting me to sleep. If you haven't gotten at least a few chapters in, it might not be worth the trudge to get beyond your complaints.

That doesn't inspire much confidence! I don't recall there being this much dry dialogue in the previous game. Maybe it's the shift to primarily home consoles (i.e not handheld) so they felt they had to make a more robust experience.

I'll definitely try to push through a little longer as I've only barely had any time with the actual game side of this one. Outside of the tutorial and first defense-type mission, it's just been exposition. I voted quite excitedly for this game so I'd like to partake. Gonna give it a good honest try later today.

Sometimes, though, it's just the wrong game at the wrong time. If I don't play it now, I'm sure I'll circle back to it eventually (and can comb through the thread to read the discussion then )

mrtomaytohead wrote:
Sundown wrote:
Spoiler:

If you find all the azure petals, there's an Axolotl spirit thing in the river that appears that you can talk to and recruit. You can just buy the resources from him with Gold, which is never really running short in this game.

Spoiler:

Finding all the petals is not a pre-req for that as far as I know since I'm sure I didn't get them all, but got the river spirit guy. I definitely ran short on Gold in the final 3 chapters.

Oh, interesting. Makes more sense than what I was thinking, then.

Spoiler:

I only noticed the marker for it after I got all 120 petals, and also it makes more sense if that was not locked behind a lengthy fetch quest like that. I also don't have much money trouble since I gave up trying to equip everyone awhile ago. Adol/White Cat/Renegade are my party at this point, don't even bother with the others.

Sundown wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:
Sundown wrote:
Spoiler:

If you find all the azure petals, there's an Axolotl spirit thing in the river that appears that you can talk to and recruit. You can just buy the resources from him with Gold, which is never really running short in this game.

Spoiler:

Finding all the petals is not a pre-req for that as far as I know since I'm sure I didn't get them all, but got the river spirit guy. I definitely ran short on Gold in the final 3 chapters.

Oh, interesting. Makes more sense than what I was thinking, then.

Spoiler:

I only noticed the marker for it after I got all 120 petals, and also it makes more sense if that was not locked behind a lengthy fetch quest like that. I also don't have much money trouble since I gave up trying to equip everyone awhile ago. Adol/White Cat/Renegade are my party at this point, don't even bother with the others.

Be careful with your party mix. You will need all 3 attack types in the final 2 or 3 chapters as monsters will start taking reduced damage to 2/3 of them. It looks like you are missing the pierce type in that mix, so you'll want to either equip the damage type swap item or train up a different person.

And I am now on to the Final Chapter, so hopefully that means I'll be wrapping up in the next week or so. I'm expecting the last chapter to be longer than the others, but I've generally found all of the chapters leading up to this point to be about the same length, once you got past the first one. Anyway, late game spoiler talk.

Spoiler:

Aprilis was St. Rosvita, as predicted. And there being a clone of Adol was sort of guessed. But that the Crimson King was a homunculus specifically wasn't, and then that THE ENTIRE PARTY (minus Doll) also being homunculus of the original heroes of the war was definitely not expected. That at least explains how everyone was an ‘orphan’ and had to be adopted into their families. (right as I figured that out, Hawk just went and blurted it out lol)

So I understand Chatelard's goal, which was to clone the best people and make an army of them to overthrow Romn. Sure, pretty weird ethically but makes can otherwise see the logic for a smaller nation to do anything they could to throw off a much larger power. But I'm still a little iffy on the Alchemist's motivations now. Like, okay, he was crushing on Rosvita, and was trying to resurrect her with her memories from a doll and a lock of hair (creeper vibes, for sure). And they used the incomplete tech to fight off the Grimwald Nox once they realized that was going to be a problem with the gods gone, and the recent test with Adol was to see if you could recreate an adult complete with memories. OK cool.

And then what? Was it just resurrecting the saint to have someone that everyone could rally around (as though people would fall for that so easily), and for what? To throw of Romn? Chatelard already had the idea for that, not sure what the Alchemist's plan beyond that was. Was it just to create a waifu, for lack of a better word? And maybe we get to that, maybe it's covered later in the final chapter. But I feel like I'm missing something from the end of Ch.8 and the cutscenes at the start of the final chapter.

Anyway, the music for the Chatelard fight was much better than the regular boss fight music. It reminds me of the Oceanus fight in Ys 8, since that was also the climax that that game had been building to. Both had stepped it up for the boss fight music, although I think the Oceanus fight was better in that regard.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Be careful with your party mix. You will need all 3 attack types in the final 2 or 3 chapters as monsters will start taking reduced damage to 2/3 of them. It looks like you are missing the pierce type in that mix, so you'll want to either equip the damage type swap item or train up a different person.

The third person is pierce I think, and that's why I switched over from Hawk when I had the chance. Didn't really want to waste an item slot on those swap items, since I like the stat boosters plus the ones that speed up the leveling up of skills better.

Sundown wrote:

The third person is pierce I think, and that's why I switched over from Hawk when I had the chance. Didn't really want to waste an item slot on those swap items, since I like the stat boosters plus the ones that speed up the leveling up of skills better.

Oh you are right. I got Renegade and Raging Bull mixed up there since I found RB to be my favorite and Renegade to be a pain to use in battle. I admit, if I felt like I could have made Renegade work, I would have dropped Hawk instantly. He's just annoying whenever he opens his mouth.

I've been using Renegade with a bunch of CRIT boost, and he seems to do pretty well? I prefer him to Hawk anyway, in every way except for his special skills. But I'm hoping some better ones will unlock later. Currently in Ch 7.

Wrapped up chapter 5 yesterday. I must say I am not a fan of the boost gauge draining when you have not been in combat recently. Makes it feel punishing to explore the areas you're in. By the end of Dana I had trained myself pretty well to use it more frequently but I feel like I never can in this one since it is never full. Did the boost gauge drain out of combat in Dana as well? Did I just not notice it because areas were packed heavier with monsters?

The Nox events are pretty ho-hum in this game. Definitely feels like a direct lift from Dana without any significant changes (at least they seem easier though). I thought they felt a little artificial before, so at least they feel a little less awkward here.

Chapter 5 story discussion:

Spoiler:

Contrary to others on here, Yufa being a Monstrum actually caught me by surprise, I was not expecting that. I saw the Krysha one from miles away, but even when it Bull reveal happened and the characters were commenting on it being Yufa I just "Wait, that was Yufa? I missed that." I guess I forgot that until the Monstrums join up with Adol, they can only use their own Gift so Bull would have had no way to get into the Coliseum except already being there.

And we get confirmation that Chatelard is definitely up to no-good in this chapter. First we see when rescuing Lucien that he is removing any Hieroglyph Knights that are questioning him and is the person behind all the false/mysterious arrests. Second he somehow gets a mutant Primordial (can't be a real one, we killed it without Orichalcum) to the prison and is performing some kind of experiments on it. Then during the Prisoner section we find him arresting Belger and saying that after he does something to him, he will send him back to Romn. Sounds a little like Chatelard is doing some mind manipulation stuff and creating sleeper agents to place into Romn command so his Gllian revolution will have a chance? We also learn that the Restricted Section of the prison, the founding of the Hieroglyph Knight chapter in Balduq, and the Knights taking on joint guard duties of the prison all happened seven years ago when Chatelard came on the scene.

Still really curious about this double Adol situation though. I thought maybe the Prisoner had been here awhile or something, but he recalls meeting Belger when he first arrived in Balduq and his conversations with Ingrid. But he does not recall Prisoner 183 (the guy who had an altercation with Parks that Adol broke up), so it is sometime between his last meeting with Ingrid and that meal that their memories diverge.

Finished! That final boss, what a pain in the ass...

Adol and his husband boyfriend partner Dogi just left Balduq, in search of their next adventure, and credits are rolling.

I will post more later this week. I need to put my hand on ice, all this square button mashing is giving me RSI.*

* slight exaggeration

Congrats!

I finished Ch 7 yesterday. Feels like the story is slowly lumbering into gear but still more questions than answers.

Spoiler:

The sequence where prison Adol escapes into Balduq was great, seeing a familiar landscape through new eyes. It's the kind of thing that video games are best at I think. Knowing that he was being hunted, while he himself wanders about talking to the citizens, was delicious!

Speaking of delicious, I thought capriccio was a kind of pizza?

Chatelard is clearly up to no good but I don't have a clear line on who is helping him. I thought it was a nefarious old Nors deity, but then I thought Aprilis was also a Nors deity in some form, and she seems to oppose him, so I'm not sure what's happening there.

Also unclear about the Special Sector in the prison at this point, and how it connects to the two Adols. It's such an intriguing premise, I hope they can deliver on it.

ConfortZone:

Cappricio is actually a type of classical music composition. I was big on Tchaikovsky in my teenage years, and he wrote one, so that's probably where I saw the term before, but I did have to look it up to make sure.

There might be a kind of pizza as well, I'm not very good on culinary terms.

My final thoughts on the game: Overall, I really liked it. I think my final playtime was around 35 hours, over the course of 3 weeks, which is actually a pretty good length. The story was pretty good, but the fact that the cutscenes were so slow and mostly consisting of people standing and talking was somewhat jarring with the fast action and combat. (I can't remember if I made the same comment about VIII, but I feel this applies to both game.) This prison, however, is probably the one with the highest number of alternate and secret exits I've ever seen in fiction. It feels like each chapter was introducing a new one.

The design of Balduq was pretty nice. The dungeons were nice and varied (which I felt was a problem with VIII). The combat was fun, even if I basically button-mashed my way through it, managing to randomly dodge. One thing I did this time around is use the combat skills a lot. Renegade has one that generates a ball of energy (or something like that) that stays in place and attacks monsters repeatedly. I used it quite a bit. I did not bother playing with the various systems to upgrade weapons and talismans and whatnots.

I seemed to have done much better here than in the previous game. I got only one game over. And I don't think it's because I got better at the combat. I only used healing items in two fights (one of them being the final boss).

So, overall, I had a great time, and this will definitely appear on my GOTY list! (It's at number 5 at the moment.)

Wrapped up Chapter 6 sidequests and Balduq exploration today. Looks like I have all the graffiti and azure petals collected now, and just the three treasures guarded by Romun soldiers left. Exploring the town has been quite fun, I like its design a lot better than the open expanses of Ys 8. I have way less materials to use than I did in the previous game, but having the Nox crystals to spend to get whatever you want seems like a better system. So far I have plenty of those just from doing every fight I come across while exploring.

Azure Petal theory (Ys 8 spoilers):

Spoiler:

I get the feeling the girl you give Azure Petals to is being visited by Dana. She gets these moments where she says things she doesn't understand what she says and a couple lines point me in this direction. Around 70 she mentions that she didn't think she would get to see Adol again and at 120 she says Adol's eyes are as honest as ever and that she deeply cares for him. She also tells him that he will never be alone since she will be watching over him, and in the true ending of Ys 8, Dana becomes the new goddess. Plus the girl mentions an azure butterfly visiting her and we see a shiny blue butterfly fly away from her once you give her all 120 petals. Cool little callback if my theory is correct.

bobbywatson: The pizza comment was a bit of a dad joke (capricciosa pizza) but thanks for the info, that's good to know!

Also thanks for reminding me to try out Renegade's morph ball again. I used it for traversal but couldn't make it work in combat and forgot about it in the meantime. I like having Renegade in my active party, since he provides a nice bit of variety with Adol and Raging Bull.

Agree the dungeons are more interesting this time around, but I'm not such a fan of the new traversal mechanics. They're OK but having recently played Miles Morales all I can think of is how much better they could be.

I'll admit to not having played much lately. A mix of wanting to finish God of War 2018 and being incredibly busy with work. I'm currently marking 100+ student reports which is bleeding into my free time.

After slogging through the initial exposition and finally getting into the first proper dungeon, I found I was still finding it a bit mundane. I remembered I had the same feelings with Ys VIII and had to play on "hard" for the combat to feel satisfying. In IX, "hard" wasn't quite hitting the spot so I tried "nightmare" and it feels perfect.

Since the perfect dodge/guard mechanic is so abusable (and I learned how to play around it in the previous game), I was coming into IX with quite a lot of experience so it makes sense that a bit more challenge would feel better for me.

I've taken on two dungeon bosses now. I particularly enjoyed the first one which spewed out tonnes of slugs! On "nightmare" it was a proper challenge having to guard each of their attacks as I'd get quickly overwhelmed if I played poorly. There's definitely a lot more going on in this Ys IX, almost like it's taking a few notes from Musou...But with a lot more threats and having to react to enemy positions!

tl;dr Played a lot of Ys games so Nightmare mode made the game infinitely more enjoyable. Now I'm hooked

And done, somewhere over the 35 hour mark.

First, a couple of quick thoughts on the ending in spoilers.

Spoiler:

So I was trying to figure out how Zola would be the villain, especially after his monologue about freeing everyone from the Nox, and he seemed more misguided than evil, and so I was waiting for him trying to become a god or take over the world or something; refreshingly, this never happened, other than trying to capture Aprilis to keep her from getting hurt. But when his glorious creation designed to end the Grimwald Nox decided that destroying the city was the best way to do it, I laughed. And then when Hawk said that someone should have seen this coming, I laughed again. And I laughed again at the final boss, with the tower of souls or whatever, since it was just such a silly design. Falcom just really likes their extra-dimensional final boss fights. The fight itself was just a mess, I thought, with it not often being clear where your targets were or the pedestals up in the air being too hard to get to.

Overall, I think it is good, but not great. It builds on the framework that we had in 8, but the story wasn’t as strong (although a couple of reveals were good), and it had a harder time making me care about the characters as well. The deserted island town worked for me better than the Dandelion, maybe since people felt more involved there. I liked the movement options and felt that the exploration in the town was better than expected, but the dungeons were generally uninteresting to explore. And I really have hard time remembering any of the boss fights except for the last couple. I think this is also a problem with both of the 3D Ys games I’ve played so far, that the bosses seem just so much less interesting than those in Oath in Felghana and Origins. I think the 2Dish games are more difficult in general, but also those bosses were more distinct. Outside of the Oceanus fight plus maybe the last couple of boss fights from 8, I don’t think I can remember any of them anymore, and that’s also mostly true for IX, and I just finished it.

I thought the darker tone was interesting, although I don’t know if it really works with the ADVENTURE tone of the other games. I get that they couldn’t rehash the island here, and so went for something completely different. It didn’t totally work for me, but I’m glad they tried at least.

I finished it too. Overall I agree with the “good not great “ verdict. The power curve on those last couple of chapters was pretty satisfying, both in terms of combat and sheer visual spectacle. The final boss in particular I enjoyed for the blatant jrpg excess after what was otherwise a pretty muted lead up.

Less successful for me was the story which seemed to save all its big reveals for the final chapters. There was some good stuff in there but they were all piled on top of each other and lost some impact for it. On the other hand I’m glad they didn’t pad it out any further, maybe some variation in pacing was needed. I also liked the epilogue

Spoiler:

getting a final chance to roam the city, once again as a normal, saying goodbyes. Leaving with what we walked in with, the message seemed to be that all that lasts is the friends we make along the way. That said, I’m not sure I’ll remember any of them all that clearly in a week or two.

Lagging behind everyone here, just hit chapter 4.

Combat is satisfying as ever, but I'm growing tired of the dialogue and thematic inconsistencies. I thought I'd enjoy the gothic city stylings far more than the tropical island of VIII, but I'm just finding it so mundane. Always itching to get into the next actual combat area.

I had a laugh at the start of the game where Dogi says "Ah, the prison city of Balduq!" admiringly. It's like calling somewhere a great airport city, to paraphrase Douglas Adams. It's certainly a lot smoother to roam about in than the island in 8, even it's not as memorable.

Just unlocked Hawk and I'm finding him a lot of fun to play around with. His basic attacks combo really well and his skills, so far, all feel nice and meaty! Big fan.

Still finding the game far less interesting than Ys VIII, but the bosses are sooo much better! Huge improvement there. I just fought the mid-boss in chapter 4 and noticed it was a reference to one of the nasty bosses in Ys I

The final boss for that Ys IX dungeon was crazy cool too!

Finished! I liked it. I am becoming a big fan of Ys games and am considering trying to play as many of the earlier ones as I can find.

I think I like VIII a bit better than IX. VIII had a nice sense of exploration and gave me a good reason to just spend time finding new areas. IX felt more like each new area was a way to get from point A to point B and just progress the story. Plus, all the outside of town sections felt pretty much the same and there wasn't a lot of variability in environments.

I liked the town setting, but it got old the longer the game went on as you kept revisiting the same areas over and over.

Also, the tavern was fun, but didn't match the feeling of building out a base that I got from the deserted island community in VIII.

Story spoilers!

Spoiler:

The story did a great job of building mystery and keeping me invested in what was going on. I laughed at the reveal, though, as it started out making me wonder if this was secretly a Fullmetal Alchemist game and then moved quickly into "Oops! ALL HUMUNCULI" territory. It was still a satisfying payoff for the game if a little goofy.

A++ would play another Ys. Make Ys X already!

Completed chapter 7 over the weekend. Story thoughts up to this point.

Spoiler:

Hmm... Don't really feel like Aprilis' death is earned. I am not sold on the whole "I didn't even see him move." bit for Chatelard. Hawks fought him way back in chapter 3 and managed to make a good show of it before getting bested. And from Aprilis' test we can surmise Adol is a better fighter than that since she has no pointers to give him. Yet both of them are incapable of doing anything, even though Chatelard clearly telegraphs his intentions? Also, how does a single gut thrust kill her so quickly when she has lost an arm and a leg before? Does she has some mystical life-force support gem embedded in her stomach that Chatelard cleanly destroys? Because she also dies incredibly quickly from a single stab wound. Her death just feels really forced and unearned.

For that painting we see when entering the chapel, my theory is that is Saint Rosvita and Anemona, and that Anemona is inhabited by the soul of Saint Rosvita or something similar, since she has fragmented memories dating back to the Hundred Years War.

As for Chatelard's plans, my current theory is that his plans are to foment a ton of negative emotions within Balduq to create an overwhelming number of Lemures then use this "research" he and Noah have done to lure them over to Romn then bring them into the real world. I am guessing that his and Aprilis' mutual acquaintance is one of the old Nors gods.

Still no clue as to why there seems to be dopplegangers of a lot of people hanging around. We know there are two Adols and its implied by the ending of chapter 7 that there are two Mariuses. I wonder who else has clones sitting around in this place. Maybe there's another Aprilis and Chatelard hanging around?

The "overworld" map sections are really boring in this one. Basically just wide open spaces without a whole lot of purpose and kind of a pain to explore. The city was fun to explore and poke around in, but I completed that two chapters ago, so running around doing side quests and farming Lemures is starting to get tedious.