The GWJ JRPG Club - Q1 2020 - Ys Origin

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Welcome, one and all, to our first JRPG Club entry of 2020, Ys Origin - coming to you a few days early in case you're already itching to start! Here's what howlongtobeat.com has to say about our latest pick:

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/g8cT580.png?1)

But I'm not totally sure how to interpret those numbers. Per our conversation in the main thread, any member of the club has finished the game -- and is eligible to level up! -- after completing all three characters' routes. That's probably longer than the "Main Story" figure, which clocks in at 11.5 hours. The "Completionist" number is 36.5 hours, but I usually understand that category as "how long it takes to do everything [or get all trophies]." And there's a lot of extra, unnecessary stuff required to get all trophies, like multiple playthroughs with each character and finishing the boss rush mode on Nightmare difficulty. I'd be shocked if all that could be finished in 36.5 hours, unless the player already knew what he or she was doing.

In brief: expect between 20-30 hours for this game. That's still substantially less time than manyof the games we've chosen, before!

Ys Origin is an action RPG that I expect to be very approachable, and should start 2020 off right for JRPG Club veterans and new players alike. So, who's in?

I'd say the "main story" number is completing just one character route. They each take roughly 11 to 12 hours (I had a look at my save data yesterday).

I played this back in 2017, but I think I will play it again, or at least one of the routes, just so I can keep up with the conversation. I remember liking the game a lot!

I’m in!

I played Ys Origin before, but it looks like it was almost exactly 5 years ago, so I’m definitely due for another run. I expect to play somewhat slowly through this one since I’m also going to be playing The Witcher 3 for the CPRG club, and I expect that to gobble up most of my gaming time for awhile. That said, I still plan to finish this one, and I've played ahead a bit with Yunica. I think 30 hours and some change is a reasonable number to complete all three routes, based on my previous playthrough.

For anyone not familiar with the Ys series, the series is famed for 3 things:
1. Fast paced action; it puts the A in ARPG
2. Tough as nails boss fights
3. Metal

I would also provide this starting advice:
1. Normal is a fine difficulty, and will still give you a good challenge.
2. Stats make a huge difference in this game. If you’re getting whupped by a boss, grinding out an extra level or two or upgrading your equipment can make a huge difference.
3. To that end, kill every enemy you see, all the time. It helps keep your level up, and the game has a mechanic where you get a boost to experience gain when you hit things constantly. If you wait too long before hitting the next thing, the bar begins to empty and it goes back down to normal experience gain.
4. When you level up, your HP refills; you'll probably be relying on this a lot between save points, so be mindful of it.

I'm in, in fact I started last night!

I went with Yunica, Normal difficulty since they were the default options. For a mere apprentice, she's pretty handy with an axe

Feels great so far and the soundtrack is rocking. I only meant to check out the intro but ended up playing for a couple of hours.

Edit: For anyone playing on PS4, I made a community "GWJ JRPG Club" for us to keep in touch. Please join, it should be open to all!

I'm in. I got a bit of a head start. I'm a couple hours in with Yunica. I like the gameplay, although it lacks depth, I think. It's still fun to mash and dodge. The bosses I have encountered are interesting, too.

Wembley wrote:

I'm in. I got a bit of a head start. I'm a couple hours in with Yunica. I like the gameplay, although it lacks depth, I think. It's still fun to mash and dodge. The bosses I have encountered are interesting, too.

Yeah, the combat is fairly simple. Mash the attack button, jump out of the way of hits, and mix in some of the abilities you pick up along the way as needed. There's no real combos or anything to learn, it's all about hitting the attack buttons fast and getting in and out without getting hit. Pure execution.

The real meat here is the boss fights, and for kicks I'm tracking how many times I die to each boss. I think the first three or so are a good introduction to what the fights will look like. The fourth boss is where the game starts dialing it up.

Spoiler:

The thunder/poison centipede thing

That leads to something I've been thinking about: what qualifies as a spoiler for this game? Story stuff is a given. But the rest of the game? If I say I've made it to a certain floor or a certain save point, that really doesn't say anything about what I went through to get there, or give away any story beats to someone who hasn't made it there yet. If I say what a boss is, it still doesn't tell you what the boss is like, you'll still have to figure out the patterns and execute on it.

Any thoughts from the rest, especially those who have played already?

I'd say prefacing a spoiler with the floor number is probably a good thing (and does not give anything away). I would consider describing a boss as something of a spoiler.

I played some more this morning, and made it to the boss of the third section of the tower. I'm playing on Easy (I've beaten the game before on Normal), so everything is going pretty smoothly. I don't remember how many times I died on the

Spoiler:

centipede

boss before. With Yunica, dozens, at least. Probably a few times with Hugo as well.

I'm in, seeing if I can improve on Level 1 status despite starting a half dozen JRPGs here. I can do this!

EDIT: Uff. I'm horribly bad at this. Must learn controls better. Would a controller be better on a PC than a keyboard/mouse? I'm totally unaccustomed to this type of movement and fighting mechanic. I'm sure I can get used to it after a bit, but I wonder if a controller would be easier.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Would a controller be better on a PC than a keyboard? I'm totally unaccustomed to this type of movement mechanic. I'm sure I can get used to it after a bit, but I wonder if a controller would be easier.

It's doable on M+K, but I would still highly recommend a controller. It's the only way I play.

bobbywatson wrote:

I'd say prefacing a spoiler with the floor number is probably a good thing (and does not give anything away). I would consider describing a boss as something of a spoiler.

That works for me.

Spoilers as of Floor 18, Yunica's route. I started a couple of days early, and got sucked in since I was having a ton of fun with the speed of the game.

Spoiler:

Man, I forgot how much of a pain in the butt the sand section was. The first half, pre Rado's Annex, has a lot of sinking sand and the fast moving skeletons that don't die until you get the bell. The second half has all the spike towers, enemies that hit really hard, and that diagonal slippery slide section which was irritating, but only took three tries (mercifully). At least the music in the desert is an absolute banger, so I don't mind spending more time there.

My only real working strategy for the sorcerer boss and the plant boss was the same: charge up the flame attack, and fire it off whenever an opening appears while running around the edges or jumping around wildly. If I tried to actually get in there and mix it up with a boss, I just got hit by everything. My ability to see incoming projectiles and dodge things on the fly is pretty limited, so I just tried to stay out of the way of the bullet hell as much as possible. And it worked for these two at least.

Sundown wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Would a controller be better on a PC than a keyboard? I'm totally unaccustomed to this type of movement mechanic. I'm sure I can get used to it after a bit, but I wonder if a controller would be easier.

It's doable on M+K, but I would still highly recommend a controller. It's the only way I play.

Thanks. I switched and gave it a shot. Night and day difference. Frustration has become fun.

Are you using analog sticks or d-pad? I've been using the sticks mostly, and switching to the d-pad for platforming. It can be hard to judge angles sometimes.

ComfortZone wrote:

Are you using analog sticks or d-pad? I've been using the sticks mostly, and switching to the d-pad for platforming. It can be hard to judge angles sometimes.

I played about 30 minutes, but I'm just in the first area, probably 10-15 minutes into the game. I spent the first 15 minutes failing at everything with the keyboard. So just exploring that first area has been sticks. I might shift to the d-pad (didn't think of that really) if some of the platforming areas get tricky.

ComfortZone wrote:

Are you using analog sticks or d-pad? I've been using the sticks mostly, and switching to the d-pad for platforming. It can be hard to judge angles sometimes.

I never thought of that either. Will give it a try next time I play!

Sundown wrote:
Spoiler:

Man, I forgot how much of a pain in the butt the sand section was.

I just got there myself, but didn't go into it. I don't have fond memories of that section either.

Yunica has two bosses down now. The second one ... took a while. All in all though it was a rewarding boss fight. Once I started using my brains things went much better.

The boss fights are definitely difficult while you try to figure out how they work. I keep thinking "Oh, this is one of those JRPG fights where you're supposed to lose for story reasons." only to get a game over screen when I die. It usually only takes a round or two to dial in what I am supposed to do, but even then it is still tense going since it is very execution dependent.

Wembley wrote:

The boss fights are definitely difficult while you try to figure out how they work. I keep thinking "Oh, this is one of those JRPG fights where you're supposed to lose for story reasons." only to get a game over screen when I die. It usually only takes a round or two to dial in what I am supposed to do, but even then it is still tense going since it is very execution dependent.

The boss on floor 17 was tough, even on Easy. Makes me wonder how I managed to beat it on Normal... I'm probably getting old, and my reflexes are not what they used to be...

bobbywatson wrote:
Wembley wrote:

The boss fights are definitely difficult while you try to figure out how they work. I keep thinking "Oh, this is one of those JRPG fights where you're supposed to lose for story reasons." only to get a game over screen when I die. It usually only takes a round or two to dial in what I am supposed to do, but even then it is still tense going since it is very execution dependent.

The boss on floor 17 was tough, even on Easy. Makes me wonder how I managed to beat it on Normal... I'm probably getting old, and my reflexes are not what they used to be...

I wish I had chosen easy. I usually take comfort in JRPGs since, for the most part, you can always grind if you are having boss trouble. With enough patience, you can beat anything. Seems like that's not the case here and I might just get to a point where I am not good enough to progress. Time will tell!

It is still sort of the case here that you can grind to win. An extra level or two means you are doing notably more damage, or taking notably less. You still have to execute well, but it gives you more room for error.

Like the floor 17 boss that bobbywatson mentioned, I got beaten easily three times when I first fought him yesterday. I went and grinded a level or two and changed up my tactics to something more defensive, and beat him easily on the next try. I think I was taking something like 12 damage per hit during the first fight, and for the last fight was only taking 7-8 damage. That may not seem like much, but that's quite a few extra hits I can take over the course of a fight.

That's good to know. I have high tolerance for grinding.

Wembley wrote:

That's good to know. I have high tolerance for grinding.

Grinding is great when you have a good podcast to listen to at the same time.

And the thing I kinda like about grinding in the game is how fast paced it is. Since you get that boost to experience for hitting things, grinding is just finding a good room or good route with a lot of enemies, and running quickly through that section several times while attacking things constantly. I much prefer this grinding to grinding in turn based games.

I started this up the day I posted the thread, but hadn't written about it yet. I'm not very far -- to the second save point, which I think is on Floor 4. I got the first special move, right before this, and found that the jump & spin combo, to extend my jump, was a little awkward to pull off.

Is SP tracked in the bottom left corner, near the character portrait? I bought the first blessing, to upgrade my armor, but when in the blessing screen I have no idea how many SP I have.

Also, this was weird, but the game's intro voiceover was in French. But I never selected French as an option for anything, and all the game's text -- including during the voiceover -- was in English. Did anyone else run into this?

Yep, and that was not spoken by a native French speaker.

LastSurprise wrote:

Is SP tracked in the bottom left corner, near the character portrait? I bought the first blessing, to upgrade my armor, but when in the blessing screen I have no idea how many SP I have.

I wondered about this too. I couldn't find where SP is tracked either. It's got to be there somewhere, right?

Sundown wrote:

And the thing I kinda like about grinding in the game is how fast paced it is. Since you get that boost to experience for hitting things, grinding is just finding a good room or good route with a lot of enemies, and running quickly through that section several times while attacking things constantly. I much prefer this grinding to grinding in turn based games.

Are there usually save points right before and right after bosses? That would help with grinding.

This game is so far out of my wheelhouse. I anticipate that I will need to be the GRIND MASTER.

There are always save points just before boss fights.

Getting close to the end of Yunica’s path here (I think I only have the final boss left), and having a blast.

Fun fact: On Easy, the only boss that I've died on was the one on floor 17.

SP is tracked in the bottom left of the screen. And you get SP from those purple crystals that enemies drop.

LastSurprise wrote:

Is SP tracked in the bottom left corner, near the character portrait? I bought the first blessing, to upgrade my armor, but when in the blessing screen I have no idea how many SP I have.

I don't know about the PS4 version, but on PC, there is a counter marked "[SP]" below the MP bar. The number is still visible if I go into the screen to choose blessings.

Also, it took me a while to realize it, but there is a tiny bar above the HP bar that goes from red to white, and this indicates how close you are to gaining a new level. I just noticed this morning for some reason.

On the matter of head starts, I'm actually nearing the end of my second run. Will likely finish that up tonight.

Spoilers as a precaution, though I don't really delve into any story developments...

Spoiler:

My first run was with Yunica and I loved her character. I felt that she was warm and genuine despite being a little naive. Her playstyle is standard Ys fare sans any magic spells, though her abilities are close enough to what spells characters use in other Ys games; if you've played any Ys game of the 3D veneer, you'll be familiar with this.

Now, on the matter of Hugo, I am not fond of him as a character, but that seems to have been the developers' intention. I get the character's motivations, sure, and can sympathize, but I feel like he character goes out of his way to be a royal a-hole. He's edgelord-y in many ways. There is, thankfully, some character growth for both Yunica and Hugo, so things do change as the story progresses. Gameplay-wise, Hugo is more of a range character, and basically turns the game into an ARPG shooter. It's interesting, for certain, and a welcome change of pace.

Both runs so far have been on Normal difficulty.

Given the ease I've had with both characters, I'm considering bumping the third playthrough with the unlockable character to Nightmare difficulty (that's two levels above Normal). We'll see how I feel about it later.

bobbywatson wrote:

I don't know about the PS4 version, but on PC, there is a counter marked "[SP]" below the MP bar. The number is still visible if I go into the screen to choose blessings.

Also, it took me a while to realize it, but there is a tiny bar above the HP bar that goes from red to white, and this indicates how close you are to gaining a new level. I just noticed this morning for some reason.

It's the same on the PS4. The in game UI is ridiculously tiny - I have to zoom in to read in on my TV. The menus are all much larger text.

Also a handy tip I discovered by accident - you can cycle active ability at any time using L1 and R1 on the controller.

I’m in. Started Devil Survivor 2 yesterday so I’ll probably try and wrap that up first.

Totally in! It wasn't too long ago that I played Ys I and II so I'm interested to see how they connect to this

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