Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA Reviews

Amazing action Rpg..simple but addictive combat,flashy skill,fast paced...this game work well on steam deck too..recommended for people who like hack and slash..story quite long for action game standard

A favorite action-jrpg. Recruiting castaways and building your little camp is charming, and getting down the flash guards/moves is always satisfying. Soundtrack has amazing beats as well.

Great game, fun combat.

My first Ys game, really quite good. Surprisingly compelling story, fun combat and great party. Searching for castaways feels meaningful and the side activities are really trimmed down so that none of the game feels like a ubisoft collect-a-thon. Great JRPG overall.

Excellent story, Excellent characterisation, Excellent music, Excellent art style. Good combat. I wouldn't be surprised if the the entire comment section is lamenting the separation of Dana with Ado and co. but I would genuinely consider Laxia to be the most suitable and regrettable lady for Adol. She had a lot of character growth thanks to Adol [spoiler] as she starts as a helpless yet fixated ex-noble girl trying to shield her fragile self with a misandristic facade and tsundere attitude, and blames her uncertainties in life on her father to escape her past. As she gets more interactions with Adol and the other castaways she acknowledges that her noble past means nothing in the present and begins to doubt her way of life and coping mechanism. She questions how she can become useful to the village as other skilled ladies i.e. Alison and Kathleen join the villages and eventually confesses to Adol about her past to make herself comfortable to face those events and the question of who she actually is. Eventually she acknowledges that it is also an innate part of her to have admired her father and his work as an archaeologist as well as her aspiration of using her knowledge for the good and becoming a scholar of archaeology to trace her father's footsteps. Finally she also manages to be an essential intellectual support in Adol's attempt to stop the Lacrimosa and firmly asserts her own wish to live in her own way with Adol and co. against the Wardens' arguments. In the epilogue she vows to Adol for them to meet again when they have successfully made their breakthroughs as an archaeologist and an adventurer respectively. [/spoiler] Unlike the other human girls e.g. Lilia, Elena, Leeza, she has gained the spirit of an adventurer through the events of the game and has a passion and profession specifically in making useful discoveries, similar to Adol, as well as the will to travel and learn more about the world because it is a fundamental part of her work, even though the motive is different from the explorers e.g. Thanatos and Ricotta, to be able to embark on an endless journey with Adol occasionally or permanently.

So fun! The story is really compelling and keeps you playing. The combat system is very fun too. Switching between characters to get breaks mixes up the strategy enough that the combat doesnt get old. The game shows it age in the graphics, but grew up in the ps2/dreamcast era This game scratches that itch for an old school Japanese Action RPG

In a shocking subversion of expectations in this, the first game of the current modern era for the franchise, Adol does not become embroiled in some mystic quest/prophecy thing involving an ancient civilization in a strange land he's just visiting after he got into a shipwreck/fell overboard/fell out of the sky/got teleported. Just kidding, he does get thrown overboard during a shipwreck and finds himself in a strange island with a mysterious past having to do with ancient high magic civilizations and some prophecy that ends up roping him in as usual. The subversion is that we actually get to play as Adol during the events that led to the shipwreck up to the point where he's thrown overboard and wakes up in an unknown beach instead of being nursed to health in some stranger's bed. The second subversion is that there seems to not be any local settlements in the island and his fellow passengers and sailors also ended up there, so they now have to come together to build a settlement of their own, rescue those still missing, and survive long enough to come up with a way to reach civilization again. The gameplay is very similar to Ys Seven and Memories of Celceta, the first two 3D games in the series, but revamped to be a bit more complex, including re-integrating elements present in previous games that had been abandoned by those two games, such as being able to upgrade your weapons twice or having an actual jump button and some platforming elements. Combat is still focused on types of damage, skills and special attacks, and it flows very well, though the buttons are mapped very differently than in previous games. Hell, even the whole "go map out the unknown regions of the Forest of Celceta and come back to report updates and you'll get paid" mechanic of the previous game is present here in the form of going out scouting to map the island and reporting back at the main camp. The "village simulator" part is simple in its implementation but it's still cool because it integrates every NPC in the game and allows them to actively participate in the story even if they're not playable characters that can form a 3 person party with Adol to go exploring and fighting monsters, since they end up doing something relevant to their skills as established by the dialogue, such as running the crafting facilities (smithy, tailor, apothecary, etc), and they do still participate off screen in the actual defense of the settlement when monsters attack. Needless to say, the graphics are much better now since they have reached the latter part of the Trails of Cold Steel quadrilogy, and the game includes a few more "classic" RPG elements that were missing in earlier entries, such as being able to fish and a village defense mini-game. The side quests are also a bit better, because even if they usually still consist of simple "get me x amount of x item" or "go kill x monster" they do usually include a cutscene where the characters actually do something with the materials, talk about stuff, share backstory, get to know each other better, and stuff like that. I'm having a lot of fun with this one, and I expect it will grow on me as the plot advances, much like almost every single previous game in the series, since I've noticed I start out thinking "it's okay" or not really feeling the changes in gameplay from the previous iteration (except when I played Ark of Napishtim after Ys II), but by the second half of the game I'm always having a blast and fully on board with whatever they're doing gampelay-wise and from the p.o.v. of the story. I totally get why this one has such a solid reputation as one of the best Ys games out there, especially for players who struggle to enjoy older games. Edit: After finishing the game and getting the true ending, I have to say I really enjoyed the experience and the little nods it gives to the events of previous games because by the time the story in this game takes place, only Ys Seven and Monstrum Nox are yet to happen. I was particularly surprised by a certain character from Adol's previous adventure.

Soooo i bought this cause i saw some Top 10 Lists and was starving for an Rpg of this type , never played a Ys game before so i went in blind and at the start it was ok-ish , i knew it was an older game and the story is so so ... but then after act 2 when things start to roll the deeper i got the better it got where now i would recommend this in an heartbeat the combat is weird at the start but when you get deeper the whole game is just getting amazing the story the chars (Dana :O) if you want to buy it do it nothing to regret here absolut gem of a game

I really enjoyed this one, but at the same time made me appreciate the simplicity of the older games in the series. It's somewhat long and the story goes many places, though that's not a bad thing; it helps to amplify the circumstances under which the game's story develops and really gives you the sense that you're embarking on a grand adventure. All the characters were great, and it did feel like a true shame to say goodbye to all of them at the end. Combat wise...it could have been a bit better. It's way too easy and somewhat tedious for most of the game. It only really gets decently challenging in the latter part of the game, and I think it's great that they kept the simple control scheme and actions that mostly rely on your reflexes and now, timing. That said, its fast pace made it fun to engage with even in the slower, easier sections of the game. Overall...it's very good, but perhaps simplicity is what suit the series best. No doubt this was made with the intention of being a lot of people's first Ys, which is good when you're being challenged and the story is flowing along nicely...and sometimes bad, when some of the side activities overstay their welcome, without mentioning the tedium that is material gathering. Still, I very much recommend it.

I absolutely loved the setting and exploring the island while trying to find the next castaway. I adored all of the main characters and most of the NPCs, and the story gripped me until the rolling credits. The combat was good too, but it's not the main thing I look for in my games. 10/10.