A wonderful sail of an adventure despite a few issues on board
Ys X: Nordics is the latest installment of the Ys Series. It launched for PS4, PS5, Switch and PC on October 25th. This game originally came out a year ago for Eastern audiences. However, we had to wait till this year to get our hands on it. It was surprising to see it was coming out this year though as I expected it to be next year, so seeing it this year was really cool. Ever since I first saw some previews of this game I was quite excited about it. Adol manning a ship? and his ship not crashing?? That's so unheard of for Ys, a great change of pace. Did Adol sail all the way to greatness? Well... I have now completed the game and played all the side content so I am more than ready to give my thoughts on it.
~ Positives ~
Buttery Smooth And Satisfying Combat - The combat for Ys games is always something special. They always manage to make something so fun in every game. Ys X is no different. In fact, I would say this is the best combat to date. The changes and additions are what make it that way for me. Having both solo skills and duo skills adds more variety to your combat strategy and its just so cool seeing these duo skills in motion.
As well as this, guarding and evading are more balanced in this game. There are enemy attacks that can only be guarded or only be evaded. In Ys 8 and Ys 9 I found myself pretty much just evading as it was much better to do. The added revenge meter which builds up when guarding also adds further incentive to use the guard more. Both evading and guarding certain attacks allow you to do a special counter animation too, which looks awesome and changes for different encounters.
There was the removal of the damage type system in Ys X, however, I don't feel that was bad as they added the break stat. This allows Adol and Karja to specialize in one area each incentivizing the use of both still.
Ship combat was also fairly decent for their first attempt at something like this. I liked having the different load-outs you could use to fight the enemy ships more effectively. Some of the enemy ships you come across can be pretty challenging if you aren't upgrading your ship much but I enjoyed the challenge.
Interesting Narrative - The story may appear pretty standard at first but how it evolves throughout the game takes it far from that. I found myself on my toes to find out more about the narrative and the direction it was going throughout. I would say it has great mystery about it just like Ys 8 did which is nice. I enjoyed how you could find more story around the islands on the monuments further adding to the game's lore as well as the ship conversations between characters to build on topics at hand.
The game has some really cool set pieces and moments too. There are many moments you just have to experience to feel the same way. The biggest twist was something that I didn't expect, though some others may have seen it coming earlier than I did. Despite this, I think the game has a nice message and the ending is so well done. The ending fight is not as simple as good vs evil and that is what really stood out to me. I also enjoyed the characters of the game, and while I don't think they are as strong as Ys 9's they are quite well-written.
Great Side Content (And Lots Of It) - Just like Ys 8 and Ys 9 the side quests are all really good. Not only do they offer some nice bits of narrative to them but the rewards are pretty decent throughout. Even better though, is the fact they tend to be quite short to do making it not much of a time commitment nor a pace breaker. Ys 8, 9 and X side quests are time-limited so you do need to bear that in mind though there is a decent chunk you can do at the end of the game which is what I did before the final boss. The game points out the deadlines for quests by saying if they will expire in a short, medium, or long time.
Just like Ys 8 and 9 too there is a lot of side content for you to do, Ys X also has the return of overworld bosses that drop great rewards and there are plenty of islands for you to explore and find new people on to recruit. Speaking of returning side things, fishing makes a return. Fishing was so fun in Ys 8 and I loved filling up the fish log. I was quite sad when they removed it in Ys 9 but I am glad it's back and better than ever. Then there are also the enemy base raids that start off as a ship battle and then send Adol and Karja on land to deal with the threat. These were really exhilarating and fun to get S ranks on, with great rewards to boot.
~ Extra mention ~
The game's music is mostly good. There are a few tracks that aren't that great that bring down the quality though. However, I think the heights of the soundtrack outweigh the lows.
~ Negatives ~
Visuals are poor for 2024 - Now this is something that doesn't bother me personally too much, however, this game did have a few moments that were a bit immersion breaking in it with the lower quality visuals. Thankfully the performance is really smooth and I would personally take that over visuals, though it would be nice for Ys to start to look a bit better than a PS3 game at most in its environments.
Fairly Slow Start - The game can start a bit slow in pretty much every way. There is quite a lot of stopping and starting with text early on, you have limited abilities, and sailing on the ship is a bit painful at first. These issues are resolved later on.
Areas are quite linear - The areas in this game are a bit linear at times, which is a bit sad because I feel they could have done a bit more with the cool powers you get in the game in the way of puzzles and such. These linear sections are just long stretches with some repeating enemies along the way.
~ Conclusion ~
To conclude, Ys X: Nordics is a wonderful adventure. It's a well-made game with a few issues that are quite apparent. These issues are all not very major though and are far from deal breakers. If you are a fan of fast and fluid action combat or want a wonderful adventure with an interesting narrative then look no further than Ys X: Nordics. I am super excited for what comes next with this series, I hope more people decide to play this gem of a series with the release of this game.
Total Hours Played: 50
Score: 8.5/10
That's it for this blog, stay connected!
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