Game – Ys X: Nordics

Time – 55:24:39

Story –

Forewarned this is going to be a lot of glossing over and more ambiguous than usual. The story is worth experiencing in full.

Adol is fresh on the boat of Adols on the way through Obelia Gulf. With the destination on the other side, Celceta. On the boat he took, the captain had not paid what were supposed to be dues and payment forward. A group that acts as a sort of pirates while keeping the place *safe* are patrol the waters of Obelia Gulf. They spotted, stopped, and killed the captain for his lack of payment. He was a repeat offender, and the Normans decided to have enough of his claims of payment later.

With the captain dead, the Normans brought the ship and all its remaining passengers into the village of Carnac. While in Carnac there are several people to talk to and get acquainted with due to now being stuck here for a little while.

That night some of the locals that are around the same age as Adol want to have him join them and become friends while having an enjoyable time with each other’s company. However, during their nighttime meeting the town befalls a terrible fate. Grieger attack and destroy the entire town, capturing all the residents. Adol is barely able to escape heads to Balta Island through the guidance of Karja. Karja being the one he is chained together with via mana from earlier incidents prior to the town’s attack.

Not long after figuring everything out, their plan of action on Balta Island with the rest of the main Norman forces, Adol and Karja due to being chained together are sort of forced to become shield brother and sister. Something of a Norman tradition that bonds and connects two warriors, uniting them as one. On the specified trial the Jarl of the Norman sends them on, Adol and Karja stumble upon a runestone that when reacted to with mana has a story to be told and seen that gives a snippet of history of an important person of the past. Once completed with the trial they head back to report what they had seen.

Once they are officially shield brother and sister things start to get a lot faster. They set out to sea again. This time with a keener sense of what to do. The objective to investigate and find out everything that is going on and why and who raided Carnac.

As events progress and more information about what is going on in Obelia Gulf becomes known they are quickly stunted from pushing further due to a fog. A special kind of fog though that was set up via mana and does not allow navigation through a normal means. They are forced to retreat and make their way the long way around the entire region.

Whole making their way around to their now far out destination the Grieger are always seemingly one step ahead. They are everywhere and with it they have been bringing destruction and havoc to the people all around the area. Small stops to help these towns and people are a must. Main reason to gain more understanding and information about the enemies’ ultimate goals and plans. A true reason for why they are attacking with such swift force.

History of the Normans is scattered all around and oddly enough every Runestone that is found adds more questions and leaves only fewer answers behind. The Normans are at the center of it all. Not in that they are the ones causing it but rather everything happening directly has them involved. Or so the Runestones are showing at least. One thing is for certain though, the Trident are the leaders of the invasions and finding a way to defeat all three of them would answer a lot of uncertainty that plagues the areas situation.

Once through the floodgates connected to the ruins of Ribe they are greeted with a fortress of attacks that forces a withdrawal and plan of action to be made before pushing through to get down south. With the new plan crafted and the Balta Seaforce at their backs, an attack commences. Where the Jarl takes the Grieger ship and Adol and Karja take on two of the trident leaders. However, that plan quickly changes and positions swap to the Jarl taking on the two leaders as Adol and Karja disable the ship.

Things do not go quite as planned by the end but the post results do help where they both are able to meet with a person they otherwise were unable to prior. So while the deets of how became twisted the end result is what matters most. With the connection to this new person and the trident slowly being taken care of… a hasty journey to a gods temple is in order. Yet the end result here is again a twist on what should have been a straightforward plan. Now with even more complications handed over, things start to look a bit grim.

Hope is not lost though as there is one last ray of hope that should be able to come through and help resolve what is now a complex issue surrounding Adol and Karja. As this complication is getting sorted out, the end  path is now clearer than ever. The final destination is here, a spot that Adol never would have dreamed of but here it is. Sadly no final boss long staircase, rather a midsize door that opens to the area. A sad reality lol. Once finished here all that’s left is the farewells to all the companions along the way before setting off to Celceta.

Gameplay/Quests –

Action RPG that encourages nothing more than to spam spam spam. Use abilities like they are normal attacks and normal attacks like they are specials… meaning normal attacks can at times be used less than the special abilities tossed around hehe. Perfect for a action based rpg genre game. Makes the gameplay highly addictive and enjoyable. No wrong set of abilities or skillsets to hotkey in.

There is a link mode that allows both Karja and Adol to attack in unison. Doing so unlocks a third allowance of abilities or just spam regular attacks with both of them linked together. This will likely be the most used form of attack. During linked mode and guarding, when damaged a revenge gauge will fill up. The revenge multiplier number is directly applied to the next special ability used when in link mode.

Dashing and blocking are available in both solo and linked modes of attack. When a player properly evades perfect timing they are capable of neglecting damage and at times the ability to use special finisher style attacks that deal massive damage to the enemy. Rewarding skilled players in combat while also not being too harsh for being unable to do it. Holding down the block button will block majority of attacks, same as holding evade button will allow evading the specific blue attacks that are used against character. Tldr red attack is power attack that regular blocking will break and needs a perfect block to allow for special counter or duo mode to block, blue indicates a perfect evade to do the same.

Skills are linked on 1-4 and the more they are used the more mastery is gained from them. Some skills only available through the use of mastering other ones. Alongside mastered skills will increase the power of said skill.

Both characters can be swapped between, depending on what the player preference is. Adol is fire, Karja is ice. I used Adol as I preferred his combat style more than hers. Was always in linked mode so there really was not much of a difference at all though lol.

When a player dies in battle, they will be swapped to the other forcibly and that character will then be allowed to revive the downed character with a half health revive. Both characters end up dying then game over. Never had that happen and only a few times did a character actually get downed though. Easily able to count the total number of times, most of which happened on the mega boss at the end that is a lvl 99. Proper skill of game mechanics will allow beating this monster at around lvl 80. Takes time but more than possible.

Status ailments range from poison, paralysis, confusion, heavy, curse, burn and frostbite. They are statuses that are not immediately applied. They have a gauge that fills up and once completely filled applies the ailment. It will slowly decay until completely gone. Poison eats away hp, paralysis will have a rng effect of being unable to complete current action, confusion inverts all movements, heavy disallows all advanced movement options while making movement slower, curse once applied instantly sets health to 1hp, burn decays health at a rapid tick rate and frostbite deals damage to both armor and regular hp.

Durability or armor is a stat that enemies have and will need to be broken before their regular hp can be harmed. With certain enemies this armor gauge will restore after a period of time or trigger.

Sea combat, there is ships and ship combat. On the map there will be long lines that are green called air currents. They allow for quick movement around the regions and rapidly recharge the speed boost ship ability when inside these wind lines. The speed boost ability called mana sail.

When in ship combat there are standard ammo, ex armament ammo, both of which are infinite, and then there’s secondary that has a capacity. Each type has a recharge rate before being able to use again.

A shield ability will allow for deflecting damage that would otherwise chip away the ships hp. Using the shield and speed boost to ram another will prove to deal a fair bit of damage and can be sometimes easier than anything else for a quicky to destroy a enemy ship.

Alongside sea combat there is also fishing. Fishing can be done at sea and in regular land locations. Use a specific type of bait to encourage certain types of catches or use basic for a broad get what ya get type of fishing. If all fish are depleted in the pond area that indicates a fish can be caught, usually will get shards.

Alongside fishing there are actions that a player is able to do when traversing the waters. Letters will arrive that allow for special quests or actions, various crew short convos that are time sensitive and the ability to quickly select where on the ship player wants to go. Three locations on the ship, the top is where the helm and technically the 4^th location up at the top of mast but that’s not a place one would go often. It’s a seldom place to visit. Common place and under common quarters. Mid level can turn in adventure quests, stone stories found, upgrading the ship, doing rune allocation ~~that can be done anywhere via menu but only crafting type actions in ship or a save stone location on map~~, under the ship is a spot for crafting meds, meal preps, crafting/upgrading weapons or items. Each of these locations will have slight variations with either more than what is listed here or less depending on what chapter and who has been unlocked.

When back at the helm, on the main sea map, lots of options and content to pursue. Ranging from two different types of circles that glow either red or purple indicating the type of sea battle. Purple being harder and with more rewards while red are quicker few ships spawn, kill em and take the resources. Purple have two phases, a ship battle and then a raid on the main ship. On the main ship portion of the raid there will be 3 waves and once completed a reward chest that rng’s in color determining how good of a haul it has become… late game red chest exploit via autosave for the quickest rainbow stones heh.

There are a few raids at sea one can do and it unlocks more visibility on the map bundled with some extras such as more letters, more quests ect. No reason not to do them. When raiding these locations, it is phased into 2 portions. In the sea battle phase the player must break certain pilons/pillars to knock the barrier off the fortress. Once inside the fortress if enough of the optional objectives are finished during the ship battle phase will grant lvl 1-10 boosts that assist in the land raid. When raiding the inside of the fortress a few more waves are required before completion. The waves will vary from simply killing units or a boss and even traversing what is a somewhat maze like area that enemies spawn throughout. Enemies killed are optional. During both phases points are rewarded based on performance. With a end result of performance put into a letter ranking. With S rank being the top tier rank where all possible completion rewards are granted. Each of these raids can be redone for a higher score or faster time, allowing for potentially missed rewards to be had.

Back to the main map of the sea again, each marker represents different things a player is capable of doing. Green red and blue. Color determined the priority one would go about them. Red being story, green and blue are optional and should be done before doing the red as to not potentially miss them. Since there are missable quests and data entries. Albeit only a few, they are still there and easily missable.

Quests themselves have a variance of fetch, kill and unique styling. It keeps the player engaged and entertained throughout where each quest doesn’t feel redundant or bland. One quest might take the player to various locations with character dialog and building while the next leads to a certain spot on a map to defeat waves of enemies and another that is simply go and fetch something. None feel like a chore and are all blended quite well into the story that really makes it feel like a proper adventure.

Much more minor stuff that could be covered but is pretty self explanatory when playing through with the main noteworthy thing to mention is that once lvl 99 is reached… full access. So save resources as the special boss will need it to make him easy to beat. Saying this I beat it at lvl 80 though, its not a must or a need but rather, `makes the boss way easier`.

Sound and Visuals –

Honestly the ost’s and sound direction is pretty forgettable. Something that is off is the implementation of voiced lines at times. Where there will be many scenes with no voiced lines until a random one pops up for a single line just before going back to unvoiced. Main character Adol has rarely voiced lines and that is fine since it helps with immersion. His lines are your dialog choice selection that doesn’t do much except change the response he gets. No major changes. The events will unfold all the same by the end so no wrong dialog choices.

Battle osts and songs that are put on to set a scenes mood are just alright. They do the job… decent enough but could use a major improvement. In the settings there is an option to show a popup for what song is playing and that is very nice to have options for. There are some good ost’s mixed in but even the best it has to offer is more of a 4/5. A rating that should be reserved for one of their weaker tracks.

Visuals are decent as well and more than good enough for the game genre. It will age well. The scenery of locations, water and even the mountains looks well enough. It does look dated by a AAA game standard but that doesn’t hurt anything by having such art direction. A mod to fix the very abrupt shadow lines is available and something I used to make the games characters much better. That is a style preference though and some may like the shadows being more sharp instead of a natural fade/blend to them. No wrong choice, I just prefer softer shadows. This will likely sound strange unless looking up the shadow mod where it becomes apparent lol.

Overall and Final Thoughts –

Honestly not many thoughts to say other than, great game that is very fun to play. Combat and mechanics are refined and well done. Story progresses and has a clear direction. Some twists and unexpected things happen and theres not much more a person would want for a decently long story driven game. The characters are all well done… except a certain few. As much or as little care can be sunk into them and that is definitely a positive. Those who oly want Adols story can come and only have that or those who want more are also able to. The world of the Ys series is large and this is another game that keeps adding to it.

I would strongly recommend the game to those that like a refined arpg titles that leans more into the jrpg side of things.

Oh ya and as for Karja, heh yknow it :mrclean: ~~also a certain other cast late game, keep it in the fam lol~~

Characters (main) – 4/5

Characters (sub) – 4/5

Enjoyment - 5/5

Gameplay – 5/5

Visuals – 4/5

Music – 3/5

Story – 4/5

Overall Ratings - Rec: 4/5 Raw: 82%