LogFAQs > #900548741

20. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA
Original Release: 2017
Year Played: 2017
Developer: Falcom
Platform: PS4
Favorite Castaway: Griselda

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Ys VIII is one of the newest games on this list but also happens to be the best Ys game I've played. Part of the reason is how easy it is to pick up and play. Combat isn't hard to learn and is a whole lot of fun, and Falcom took great care in making the game as un-frustrating as possible. Simple things like allowing you to warp back to base and then back to any crystals go a long way (the other Ys games didn't have this). The combat is easily the best of any Ys games, blending the extra party members like in Ys SEVEN (minus the mindlessness) and the excitement of Oath together. I also reviewed Tokyo Xanadu near the beginning of this list, and it used a "prototype" version of Ys VIII's battle system, but here it's improved in every single way.

Hell, if it wasn't for the story and odd pacing, I'd rank Ys VIII in the top 10, but unfortunately these two don't really hit any sort of stride. You see, the game tasks Adol in surviving on a deserted island while finding the others who were on the ship with him. You'll build a village, get help fending off monsters, and even hunt a serial killer. It's a very well grounded story that works, and the village-field-dungeon-field-dungeon scheme it's got going for in the first two chapters works. Throughout these early bits, Adol has dreams about a mysterious girl named Dana who seemed to live on this island. Soon enough in the plot, Dana almost basically takes over as the main character. Once you hit the north part of the island, the game pretty much dumps the whole surviving on an island theme in favor of the mystery of the extinction of an ancient civilization. The pacing is a bit off in these chapters and often the game locks you in a linear pathway until you're done with certain plot points. I also felt that the dungeon design and boss design suffered here, as well. The boss fights in the first parts of the game were fun and well designed, but later on they become just mindless slaughterfests. The exception to all of this is chapter 5, the longest chapter of the game that also returns to the pacing of chapter 2, and it's done well with one of the coolest boss battles (Oceanus) in ARPG history.

But the worst is chapter 6, where the story becomes utterly ridiculous and basically incomprehensible. So the ancient civilization was destroyed because it was fate? And let's just say when the word "Lacrimosa" actually starts popping up in game, the story turns to shit. It's convoluted and none of that was needed, and worst of all it pretty much renders everything that happened before this chapter pointless. The final boss is called Origin of Life for Heaven's sake.

Not gonna bitch about the story anymore, because at the core Ys games aren't really about the story but more about adventure/exploration and combat. It's just that Falcom decided to go big with plot in this entry, and the game suffers a bit as a result. By the way, I have not played the newly patched translation edition of this game by NISA. I played the original and the VA is crappy and translation is poor, but I hear they fixed it up. Those who haven't played the game yet or Switch owners won't have to deal with that!

So besides the story and pacing, the battle system is great and it's so much fun dodging and guarding. The game makes an effort in allowing you to accomplish many things as you play through the story. I wasn't the biggest fan of the defense battles but I understand why they're there. Dana's flashback quests add a nice layer of depth to the game as it allows for actual town exploration, and her dungeon and ability to switch forms was freaking brilliant.

Oh and special praise to the amazing Falcom ost.