Ys: Memories of Celceta Reviews

Adol at the end of Ys X: "I'll never forget you guys!" Adol at the start of Ys IV: *forgets literally everything and everyone he's ever known*

great game

Short but fun I recommend this one.

Good game! I enjoyed the exploration.

They say it's not about the destination, but the journey to reach said destination. When it comes to this particular journey, it was...alright. Having a party this time around was nice, even though I primarily stuck to using Adol or Karna. The story was alright, at least until the villains came into the picture, because they were probably one of the weakest parts of the game. Even the final boss wasn't all that interesting, with the boss before it being a lot more interesting to fight. The big thing about this game was mapping out the forest, and it's pretty particular about how you get your percentage points, so I ended up spending time before the final dungeon rubbing Karna's face up against any surface I could throw her at to get 100% (and a Steam guide for figuring out potential spots I missed.) One other thing that sort of disappointed me was the ending. You don't really find out what happened to Eldeel or your party members after the ending, or really anything at all. The game just sort of...ends. Ys II at least had a satisfactory conclusion, and sure, you stop the big bad, but some closure would've been nice. I'm not saying I don't like this game. It's perfectly servicible, but a few things about it, like a lack of camera control, the fairly weak story, and eh ending, puts it directly in the 3 range, at least in my opinion. Game has some solid music, though.

Shipwreck-prone Adol finds himself in a new place but this time instead of waking up being nursed back to health by the locals, he actually walks into town by himself before collapsing outside the inn. Turns out he's been here before but he doesn't remember because he's got amnesia. So he ends up partnering with a dude who's basically Generic Brand Dogi and claims to know him and taking a job from the local governor to explore and map the mysterious forest of Celceta, where Adol lost his memory. This one seems to me like it is to Ys Seven what Oath of Fhelgana is to Ark of Napishtim. That is to say, it has all of the same ideas gameplay and mechanics-wise but they were all revamped and for the most part improved, the graphics are better and more detailed, the world is bigger and it even has some voice acting. I enjoyed Ys Seven a lot, so I'm also having a great time with this one. It's a bit more RPG-ish in some respects, like the fact that you have more freedom to choose where you explore first and what you do, and you even have actual quest requests that people post in their inn's message board, even if they're usually the standard "go kill X monster" or "bring me X things" kind of thing, with a few unique exceptions like the guy who asks you to run his shop and explains which products you can sell at a discount and which you can't. My only real complaint is that the traditional fast travel system from the series that uses an item to teleport to monuments works differently here and only allows you teleport from monument to monument, and only if they are of the same color, which usually means they are part of the same region, and there's a few of those annoying mazes that repeat the same screen over and over unless you navigate them in a specific order. But those are relatively minor things, since those mazes are not that confusing and the fast travel item gets upgraded in the last stretch of the game to work like it usually does in every Ys game. I'm hyped to start the last three games, which are not only the most recent but also the ones that a lot of people say are the best in the franchise, because even if I probably won't play the Japan exclusive titles or the alternate versions of many of the early games that came out in different consoles, all the PC ports I've played here on Steam of Ys Chronicles (I & II), Ark of the Napishtim, Oath in Fhelgana, Origin, Ys Seven, and up to this one have been a great time. I had a minor tech issue on my Steam Deck where a cutscene got a bug where a character got stuck on a door they were supposed to enter and they just kept walking in place and the cutscene didn't progress but I googled which Proton compatibility tool was the best one for this game and that fixed it.

Great installation with a lot of lore drops and world building. Great story overall. Seemingly emphasizes the exploration/mapping aspect early on but quickly feels irrelevant later in the game unless you're looking to 100% the game (which doesn't seem as stupidly hard as the previous entries). Fun combat with multiple party members to freely choose from each with unique moves.

This game have manny elements from newer YS games without being as bloated as them. The ending though is atrociously bad.

One of my favorite games I have played so far in the Ys Series. The combat is fast-paced, the story is interesting with a few twists and turns, and there are several playable characters with different weapons and moves that you can switch out. On the highest difficulty, Nightmare, the game is pretty difficult but always doable and you can change the difficulty at any time. There are also some interesting aspects to this game that are slightly different compared to other Ys Games I played. Leveling up seems less important here when it comes to increasing your stats; equipment is much more important and that can be refined with materials and given different properties. The game also has more of an "open world" approach to it, with some paths being blocked off if you don't have the appropriate artifacts. It's an addictive gameplay loop and my only criticism is that the game is slightly longer than I'd like and gets a bit repetitive towards the end; but that's nitpicking. If you like Ys or like fast-paced action combat, I think Ys: Memories of Celceta is a good entry in this long-running series. When will Adol ever get a break?