FALCOM Thread

[gameoverDude]

For Ys: Memories of Celceta, it's better to turn off the Create Thumbnail on Autosave feature before getting started. If you don't, it can cause some annoying lag spikes.

[Strider77]

It's got the second best music of the series

You really like that OST better than 1, 2, 3 and 4's OST?

[Mischief Maker]

Of the Ys games I've played, Oath has the best OST, Origin has the worst, Ys VIII definitely has the second best overworld theme right after Oath, and all the dungeon themes I've heard so far have been quality.

[Sumez]

VIII's soundtrack only gets better the further you get into the game. It's incredibly good. I'd place it squarely on top, second only to maybe PCE Ys 3 (which I much prefer to Feglhana's versions which, despite being adept, lack some of the same punch, and play too much on the rock sounds).

[Obscura]

Okay, was Ys VIII just created with Nightmare or Inferno difficulty in mind? I restarted on Hard and still I almost never want for SP. If I do manage to run dry, I just pause for a split second to auto-charge my normal attack then a single hit, without any flash dodge/guard, refills half my SP.

I'm gonna have to restart yet again, aren't I? Anyone have feedback on whether Nightmare or Inferno is the way to go?

According to a recent interview with one of the Falcom developers, yes, all of the recent Ys games are designed with Nightmare as the "canonical" difficulty level and all of the others being varying shades of easy mode and Inferno being "bullshit hard mode that you're supposed to try after you've beaten it once", but Ys 8's SP mechanics have been heavily changed from Ys 7's, for the worse (among other mechanics, which were also changed for the worse). What you describe is entirely true in Ys 8; it's not the case in Ys 7.

Also, I'm pretty sure leveling skills doesn't make them execute faster. It just gives them 10%/20%/30% more damage.

[Sumez]

That skill system is the dumbest thing ever, I have no idea why they had to carry it over through three games now, meaning they will probably keep on with it. All their fans realise that Felghana and Origin had much smoother gameplay - why doesn't Falcom at least try to bring some of that back?

[Obscura]

The skill system isn't a problem; if anything, it's an improvement over the old spell system that made you hold down buttons awkwardly.

The problem is the de-emphasized movement and especially Flash Guard (a problem that's made much worse in Ys 8, where Flash Guard goes from something you do against attacks that are hard to avoid normally to your default way of dealing with everything). Also, the move back to carry-able healing items instead of the Oath/Origin way of doing things is awful; in 8's early game, the actual amount of hits you can take before a boss kills you isn't very different from Oath/Origin (since pretty much every boss past the first couple will kill a character in either one or two hits), but the feel of "go to my menu to select a healing item after every hit" just is way worse than keeping the action going.

[Durandal]

The skill system isn't a problem; if anything, it's an improvement over the old spell system that made you hold down buttons awkwardly.

Not that I disagree with Flash Guard being the main culprit behind the decline of the new Ys games, though I didn't find that the skill system added a lot (I'm speaking only for Seven, but I hear MoC and 8 aren't too different). Spamming the strongest skills worked out just fine. In the Oath games most of your abilities also doubled as a means of movement, so they became integral parts of your moveset. The charge functions everywhere can be indeed hard on the hands, though I think that this can be solved with an auto-charge like with the charge attack in MoC. Though I can't exactly recall most abilities' effects when charged to gauge whether this might become more of a problem.

I think that for the skill system they might as well drop the four-skill-limit for each character and just go full DMC, treating each party member like a different 'style' of sorts and letting each move be performable whenever once unlocked. At least it could make up with a stronger offensive game for the fact that the defensive game has been reduced to just Flash Guarding (while in the Oath games this was the exact opposite, with the new games they're located in limbo).

[Obscura]

For what it's worth, skills being used for mobility makes a light return in 8. It's not mandatory, but I've found a few ledges with minor treasure or materials that I could only get to by doing a jump + Laxia's "air dash stab" skill, and it's also a useful shortcut to get to a few areas much more quickly and easily.

(Dana has a utility skill that's also a really interesting twist on the formula; activate it, and it drains your SP and stays active until your SP hits 0. During this time, she gets big boosts to STR/DEF and EX gain.)

EDIT: Also, going "DMC" with the skills wouldn't make much difference, at least in 8; in 8, you generally don't want to use skills when you're not in the extended post-Flash Guard invincibility, since you can flash guard during the startup, active, and recovery frames of a basic attack but NOT in the startup, active, or recovery frames of a skill. Using a skill against a boss or even a larger/more dangerous mob when you're not in your invincibility period is a quick way to lose a character, at least on Nightmare difficulty.

DOUBLE EDIT: I forgot to weigh in on the OST topic. I agree that it's one of the best in the series, with a great overworld theme, and one of the best boss songs in the series with Deadly Temptation. It's not quite Felghana levels of greatness, but I'd probably put it at #2 in the modern games.

TRIPLE EDIT: Also, I just want to mention that I'm pretty deep in the game now (just started chapter 5 last night), and so far, the port has been reasonably stable for me. I've had one crash-to-desktop and one lock-up, both during cutscenes. It's all worked fine aside from that; steady 60 FPS, no graphical glitches that I was able to detect, etc.

[gameoverDude]

For what it's worth, skills being used for mobility makes a light return in 8. It's not mandatory, but I've found a few ledges with minor treasure or materials that I could only get to by doing a jump + Laxia's "air dash stab" skill, and it's also a useful shortcut to get to a few areas much more quickly and easily.

Laxia's blitz charge is good for that. I've always made sure to keep that skill equipped.
Good to see the PC version's running fine for you.

I don't think the skill system is a bad thing. Juggle combos are a part of the fun. Launch an enemy, get a couple air hits, then go for a skill finish.

http://www.siliconera.com/2018/07/30/ze ... station-4/
Falcom's president said that Zero & Ao no Kiseki might get ported to PS4.

(about Zero & Ao no Kiseki)
“Although I cannot make any specific promises, we do know that lots of fans love these two games, but do not have the consoles necessary to play them. As a precedent, we have previously released Evolution titles for the games, so the fans can look forward to more news in the future.”

That's a strong hint. I'll bet on this happening.

[Mischief Maker]

So I started a fresh run of Ys VIII on Nightmare and instead of looking at this as a sequel to Oath, I approached it as a generic Zelda clone. Is this game more fun than Ocarina of Time? Fuck yes it is! It's fastfastfastfastfast, even if the combat mechanics are on the simple side and the music is amazing. Plus they followed my rule that if you're gonna use low-tech graphics, at least make it colorful. Exploring Dinosaur island is an absolute joy!

From this new perspective I'm enjoying the game a lot. Not everything needs to be Devil May Cry. Also it's a zillion times more fun than No Man's Sky so I consider my trade-in a wise investment.

[KAI]

I'm at the middle of AO right now (exaclty were the story goes to hell). Great game, can't believe Kondo the madman is really planning to localize this duology.
It would be a major pita to dub all the dialogs from the Evo versions.

[Strider77]

Of the Ys games I've played, Oath has the best OST, Origin has the worst, Ys VIII definitely has the second best overworld theme right after Oath, and all the dungeon themes I've heard so far have been quality.

That makes more sense if Origin, Oath and VIII are the only ones you've played. Oath is easily the best out of those.

Ys 3 on PCE is one of my favorite OSTs period. When I heard Ys 3 (Oath) was being remade my first thought was "I do not envy whoever has to rearrange that OST"... but when I played it the OST delivered in spades. Even when next to the PCE renditions.

I thought VIII's OST was solid but not outstanding. Although it's miles ahead of most modern RPG tunes these days. If I think about it that way it does paint it in a brighter light. Most modern RPG stuff is in one ear and out the other these says.

Not everything needs to be Devil May Cry.

I don't think anyone here is saying that it must... just that it play like a better streamlined version of itself with less spam.

I don't care for the character switching AT ALL. The skill system seems to make itself almost pointless (and kind of redundant) since you can assign only so many to the face buttons. There isn't any real incentive to use all of them versus just the ones that do the most damage. You can't even use the bulk of them without going into the menu and reassigning them. It'd be one thing if there was some really meaningful customization but there isn't... its minor at best.

I think they should streamline the whole affair down honestly. Alot of stuff feels slapped in versus integrated.

If you gave me Ys VIII with the switching characters thrown out (and alot of them out of the story while we are at it) and a skill set that doesn't need button assigning. Dial some of the chatter down also, alot of it is just drivel. That alone would step the game up alot for me. In fact I might even be thrilled with it.

I don't hate the game as is.... it just has alot of baggage that could be tossed.

[Sumez]

The skill system isn't a problem; if anything, it's an improvement over the old spell system that made you hold down buttons awkwardly.

The problem is the de-emphasized movement and especially Flash Guard (a problem that's made much worse in Ys 8, where Flash Guard goes from something you do against attacks that are hard to avoid normally to your default way of dealing with everything). Also, the move back to carry-able healing items instead of the Oath/Origin way of doing things is awful; in 8's early game, the actual amount of hits you can take before a boss kills you isn't very different from Oath/Origin (since pretty much every boss past the first couple will kill a character in either one or two hits), but the feel of "go to my menu to select a healing item after every hit" just is way worse than keeping the action going.

Agreed with the second - healing items as a stockable item to be used via a menu was never fun in any game. I like that they tried to do something estus-like with the bottles, but they forgot to carry it all the way through.

But skills are a problem for sure. What's the purpose of gaining 150 of them when only four can be equipped at a time? Instead of focus on widely different utilities, you just have ways of damaging enemies, and prioritize the ones that do the most damage. There is nowhere near enough variety to justify so many different skills, and when you're required to first upgrade each of them before they actually become useful (compared to the ones you already have fully upgraded), there is rarely any incentive to switch out what you are using. It doesn't feel like a way of customizing your character, it just feels like a mess.

You already have so many different characters, so I would be fine with every character just having four set skills that help enforcing individual playstyles. And if Falcom is afraid of that going stale, how about instead of gaining new skills that you have to swap out via a menu, how about naturally upgrading their set skills to similar, but cooler version? More streamlined, less redundant.

[FinalBaton]

That's what I likd about Celceta : there's only like, 8 skills per character. so you can give a good try to all of them and their number is not overwhelming

Didn't know there was a metric ton of skills in Ys VIII. I'm still stoked to try the game though

Personally I really, really like the combat in 7 and Celceta



MM I think that was a good move to give the game another try with a different mindset : without expecting it to play like DMC and so on

[Obscura]

I'm almost 30 hours into Ys 8 (but only have about 58% of the world map explored?!?! It's weird, I really have no sense for how deep into the game I am, the story is building like I'm in endgame, but the stats all show me at "just past half-way"?!?!), and only have about 6-7 skills per character, not the huge mess that's being described. At any rate, like I mentioned in my earlier post, there's more to them than just picking the highest damage ones, they've got some other tricks (and it's not just minor loot, as of last night; during last nights play session, I found at least one major chest with an incredible accessory that you can get to much earlier by using Laxia's charge dash cleverly than you could otherwise [after getting it, I went and looked up how to get it because I wanted to see how other people were doing it, and the jump sequence I used seemed really tricky. Every other source I found said "you can't get there until you have the double-jump adventure item." OHOHOHO, nope!]).

I still don't think it's as good as Ys Seven, though. Seven is one of my favorites in the series (would be in contention for my #1 were it not for the awful endgame material grind); VIII strikes me as a well-crafted but fairly vanilla/average game overall.

[Strider77]

there's more to them than just picking the highest damage ones

Sure there is SOME.... but it's not that meaningful in the grand scheme of it all.

[null1024]

Almost done, I think? Went and cleared the last of the quests [I've missed only two as far as I know], found all the castaways [I think?], found all the location points. The map still says I've got like 10% left to handle or so.

Spoiler

The evolution folks just told us what we've gotta do to maybe try to stop the Lacrimosa, so I'm headed to the Great Tree. That really sounds like I'm heading into the final dungeon and then last boss.

Went into this one dungeon after clearing some rubble, got to the bottom, started fighting what looked like a bonus boss that was 20 levels above me and I would have probably kept going if it wasn't clear it was going to take like an actual whole hour of solid fighting if I didn't cheese it and dodged properly and attacked when I was actually safe [fucker had a really, REALLY long-ass healthbar, and I was barely doing any damage], and like 45 minutes if I did cheese it and healed like crazy and tanked shit with long, high SP cost moves [seriously, there's something like an 80% damage reduction when getting hit during a 40SP special, I've seen enemy attacks that do like 450HP/hit do like 60HP/hit during a skill].

I'm almost 30 hours into Ys 8 (but only have about 58% of the world map explored?!?! It's weird, I really have no sense for how deep into the game I am, the story is building like I'm in endgame, but the stats all show me at "just past half-way"?!?!)

Nah, you're probably not that near the end. Even with just ignoring all the side bits and going straight to the end of each dungeon, I'm pretty sure you'd have more than that explored, and the rest of the post makes it pretty clear that you've actually been looking around for stuff.
I did feel like the game was almost over several hours of play ago myself.

But skills are a problem for sure. What's the purpose of gaining 150 of them when only four can be equipped at a time?

I was wondering this for most of the game until I realized -- your party members use those skills when the active character uses a skill. They don't need it equipped or anything, they just happen at the same time. There's a bunch of skills that end up getting used a bunch even though I've never once equipped them.

[Obscura]

Nah, you're probably not that near the end. Even with just ignoring all the side bits and going straight to the end of each dungeon, I'm pretty sure you'd have more than that explored, and the rest of the post makes it pretty clear that you've actually been looking around for stuff.
I did feel like the game was almost over several hours of play ago myself.

Ah, ok -- I'm at the start of chapter 5, did a bunch of sidequests but haven't gone to the tower to start the main quest on the chapter. I know from looking to see what I missed that I've missed one possible townperson (and an associated quest, which may lock me out of the tlb :\), so I obviously haven't been perfectly thorough.

[null1024]

Nah, you're probably not that near the end. Even with just ignoring all the side bits and going straight to the end of each dungeon, I'm pretty sure you'd have more than that explored, and the rest of the post makes it pretty clear that you've actually been looking around for stuff.
I did feel like the game was almost over several hours of play ago myself.

Ah, ok -- I'm at the start of chapter 5, did a bunch of sidequests but haven't gone to the tower to start the main quest on the chapter. I know from looking to see what I missed that I've missed one possible townperson (and an associated quest, which may lock me out of the tlb :\), so I obviously haven't been perfectly thorough.

Yeah, there's a fair bit still.
also, from what I've heard, the TLB requirements aren't really strict at all, assuming you've kept up with most quests and raids

[Obscura]

Fuck this stupid boss at the top of Baja Tower. The engine just straight-up can't handle this. Galbalan attack patterns in the Ys 8 engine with its shit sense of depth perception, shit camera, and shit controls compared to the Napishtim trilogy, what a fucking joke (and you can't flash guard consistently, because there's no way to tell exactly where its projectiles are in space because of the stupid fucking camera angle, and also because the collision detection on his melee attacks is broken so sometimes the first "hit" just pushes you and the second one kills you right after your flash guard expires).

I don't know how many more tries I'm willing to give this before I say "fuck it" and uninstall. The fact that I'm 10 levels under it, and would have to grind for literally about 3 hours to get to the "correct" level, isn't helping I'm sure, but this is just full-on bullshit.

[Sumez]

Weird, I remember that one being extremely easy, taking it down almost without being hit. What difficulty are you playing at? And platform?

[Obscura]

Nightmare difficulty, on PC.

EDIT: And I did finally get past him, after spending every resource I had, but it's not because I did anything any better but just because I got lucky. Such an awful boss, so many combinations of attacks that are guaranteed damage (attack that forces you to jump followed by "blow you off the edge" attack is guaranteed to blow you off the edge for 20% of your lifebar no matter what you do), so many straight-up glitches (fire-breating arc attack and "punch you with my neck" attack sometimes push but don't have a damage hitbox, which means that you're dead when you try to flash guard them because it doesn't activate, the fireball attacks from the core and the two side heads give you no invincibility period after being hit, so if you're at close range when one of those attacks is fired, it's instant loss of a character, sometimes when you've got him in the "knocked down" state to do damage to his lifebar your party members either just disappear or just stand there and don't attack it so your damage output is cut in half at random)... what a shitshow.

[Mischief Maker]

Aargh! I'm stuck at a boss fight, severely underleveled, and can't go elsewhere to grind or mix fresh healing items!

Spoiler

The Doctor Kiergard boss fight, while the captain is bleeding to death on the beach.

Oh sonofabitch! Don't tell me I'm going to have to set fire to the last 15 hours of gameplay and start over again...

[Obscura]

You're in a dead end, but Kiergaard isn't as nasty as he seems at first, so you may be able to just force your way through the wall. Everything he does is pretty easy to Flash Guard with a bit of practice. Stay on him like glue to keep the timing easier, and remember that you can Flash Guard while doing normal attacks but not specials (so constantly normal attack him and only special when under FG invincibility). It's worth learning the trick where you do a Flash Guard on an attack that has a ton of active frames, then roll through the still-active hitboxes to get the Flash Move bonuses on top of it, since this fight has a few attacks where that's easy to do.

The only thing that can be tricky is jumping over his wires when he's down to half life, so, uh, be careful when you're doing that to get to him!

Get used to being underlevelled, it's a fact of life on Nightmare with its slow XP gain. My characters yell about how we need to run away in pretty much every single fight at this point (including boss fights that can't be run away from. Man up and stop whining, Laxia and Sahad!).

[Ghegs]

Finally finished Ys VIII on Switch with ~56 hours on the clock.

It was a bit of a rough start as I had played through Breath of the Wild just a month or so ago, and going from an immediately open and freely explorable world where you make your own paths to a game world where everything's set into small areas, which are separated by short loading times and you can't go into a different area except via pre-determined exit points on the map, even though logically you should just be able to jump over a small cliff or whatever...that was a bit jarring.

'twas fun enough.

[null1024]

Finally finished Ys VIII on Switch with ~56 hours on the clock.

It was a bit of a rough start as I had played through Breath of the Wild just a month or so ago, and going from an immediately open and freely explorable world where you make your own paths to a game world where everything's set into small areas, which are separated by short loading times and you can't go into a different area except via pre-determined exit points on the map, even though logically you should just be able to jump over a small cliff or whatever...that was a bit jarring.

'twas fun enough.

Yeah, I'm still kinda annoyed at how much shit is walled off. Sometimes for no reason too: sometimes it's just a big rock in the middle of the field, and I can jump above it easily. Why can't I get on top of it?

[BrianC]

Finally finished Ys VIII on Switch with ~56 hours on the clock.

It was a bit of a rough start as I had played through Breath of the Wild just a month or so ago, and going from an immediately open and freely explorable world where you make your own paths to a game world where everything's set into small areas, which are separated by short loading times and you can't go into a different area except via pre-determined exit points on the map, even though logically you should just be able to jump over a small cliff or whatever...that was a bit jarring.

'twas fun enough.

Yeah, I'm still kinda annoyed at how much shit is walled off. Sometimes for no reason too: sometimes it's just a big rock in the middle of the field, and I can jump above it easily. Why can't I get on top of it?

Reminds me of that Beauty and the Beast Belle game for the Genesis/MD. Nobody movies a log like Gaston!

[Despatche]

Just waiting for Dinosaur Resurrection. After Xanadu Next and the Zweis, anything's possible. They were talking about it some years back, but not since then. Hopefully it's right around the corner.

All this nonsense about "the decline of Ys" is hilarious. Yet another example of Western fans thinking they're way more important than they actually are. I personally think the Ys6 trilogy were better games than the Ys7 trilogy, but that really means very little to anyone who isn't me. Seven is probably slightly better than Celceta, but Celceta does some QoL things that are sorely lacking in Seven, and VIII seems like it does things I wanted out of Celceta. It's obvious that Falcom mostly knows what they're doing, and that Western fans do not.

If the Ys7 trilogy really bothers you that badly, have a look at Tokyo Xanadu or something.

[gameoverDude]

I don't feel that the Ys series is in a decline at all. It's just Falcom taking different approaches with it. Some will like that & others won't. Ys VIII to me felt like a good mix of Celceta (with its map system giving rewards at every 10%, & the quests) with some platforming like VI/Felghana/Origin. The skill system is IMO a means to play it your way.

Should Falcom decide to go with a V remake for the next Ys, they surely have a lot they can add to it. Ys I-V Complete Works' version of the V story draft has a lot of stuff that got cut from the SNES game. I trust them to make another good one.