First announced in 2013, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA is finally out, and for fans of the action RPG genre, the series’ first foray into full 3D is totally worth the wait.
Taking control of Adol Christin, an adventurer travelling across the sea to the continent of Eresia, you must explore the mysterious Seiran Island after the ship he was travelling on, The Lombardia, is destroyed by a huge sea creature. But there is more to the island than it seems. While Adol sleeps, he dreams of a young Maiden named Dana who lived long ago. As the game progresses, Dana’s story unfolds, and these two timelines come together, slowly revealing the secrets of the island’s past.
Shortly after washing up on the shore, Adol meets with a couple of other castaways and is tasked with finding others who might have survived the attack. The survivor’s base camp is called Castaway Village and has all the mod cons you’d expect from any RPG village, including a Smithy for Weapons and Armour, a Tailor for Accessories, and a Doctor for Medicine once the relevant castaways have been discovered. As everyone in the village works together to get off the island, weapons, armour, and medicine are traded for materials and items rather than cash. And if you’re a few items short of a new sword, there is a Trading Post where you can swap materials for those of a higher or lower rank. Materials are found by scavenging the various harvest points dotted around Sieren Island, defeating enemies, and as quest rewards. And believe me, you need as many as you can get.
There is a bulletin board in Castaway Village where side quests can be found. Completing quests gives you a reward and improves Adol’s reputation, which is absolutely vital if you want to see the true ending. There are several small stories and dramas that unfold within Castaway Village, ranging from entertaining to genuinely harrowing. The more time I spent with the characters, the more I found myself caring for them, much more than I usually care about NPCs.
Parts of the island are inaccessible until you find a certain number of villagers or a specific piece of equipment, called Adventure Gear. Adventure Gear grants Adol abilities like climbing and double jumping. This gives the game a Metroidvania feel. I was constantly compelled to explore areas I hadn’t reached before. Usually, this exploration leads to more treasure or castaways, which opens up more of the island to explore.
The island is absolutely huge, and I found the layouts of the different maps a little confusing at first as I was constantly rotating and switching between them to try and get my bearings, but soon enough it became second nature. Luckily, there are crystals dotted about the place that heal your HP and act as quick travel points, making travelling around the island much more manageable. Certain areas of the island are classified as dungeons, which are usually in the form of giant caves, jungles, or ruins, and there are usually a couple of bosses waiting within them. Traversing dungeons is the same as exploring the island, only you can’t take advantage of the game’s field healing mechanic, which allows you to regain HP and recover from status ailments by standing still for a while.
The combat is delightfully simple. X attacks in real time, and holding down R1 and pressing one of the face buttons triggers a Skill. Skills do more damage than normal attacks and use up SP when executed. Striking enemies with normal attacks will cause SP to recharge, so switching between normal and Skill attacks is the key to victory. Skills level up the more they’re used, and new skills can be equipped in the menu. Landing Skill attacks will also cause the Extra gauge to fill up, and once the gauge is full, pressing R1 and L1 unleashes a powerful combo attack.
You can lock on with triangle, jump with circle, and evade with L1. Holding down L1 while moving lets you run a bit quicker, and evading just before an enemy hits you will activate Flash Move, causing time to slow and granting you invulnerability for a few seconds, allowing you to inflict extra damage. Similarly, pressing R1 just before an enemy attack lands will activate Flash Guard, causing the SP and Extra gauges to fill up and all hits to become critical for a short time. Mastering each isn’t essential as regular dodging works great, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like a badass each time I successfully pulled off a Flash Move/Guard.
Your party can have up to three active members, and each member has a different attack type – Slash, Pierce, and Strike – and certain enemies are strong/weak to each. Attacking enemies with their weakness will cause them to Break, making them stunned for a few seconds and allowing you to inflict more serious damage. Pressing square instantly switches control to a different party member, allowing you to take advantage of their attack type. This adds a bit of strategy to each battle, especially against stronger enemies. Killing enemies rewards you with items and experience points, and I experienced absolutely no grinding as my characters were regularly levelling up as I was exploring the massive Island.
A huge part of the story focuses on Adol and Dana’s shared consciousness. Dana’s past actions will affect Adol in the present. For example, planting a sapling, as Dana will create a tree for Adol and his party to climb, giving them access to a previously inaccessible area. These situations are mostly scripted and must be completed to move the story forward, but when playing as Dana, I found several extra events that also affected the present, often leading to more treasure or unseen parts of the island.
Dana comes with her own side quests, such as helping townsfolk, freeing fairies, increasing her virtue, enhancing her statistics, and even granting her new battle styles. Similar to the character switching in Adol’s era, pressing square lets Dana switch between three styles that affect enemies differently, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. There’s also an optional dungeon to explore that utilises all of Dana’s powers and abilities and uncovers even more backstory. I feel like I’ve said too much already, so I’ll leave the rest for you to discover on your own, but believe me when I say it’s totally worth it.
There are numerous distractions and mini-games too, such as Interceptions and Suppressions, which see Adol and the villagers fight off wave after wave of monsters under varying win conditions, and fishing, because this is a JRPG, and you can’t be a JRPG without a fishing game. It’s also possible to revisit previously defeated dungeons at night for more of a challenge and rare materials, as well as numerous landscapes and treasure chests to find. There’s enough here to keep completionists busy for a seriously long time.
Graphically, Ys VIII looks good. At its core, it’s a Vita game, so it looks basic when compared to other games on the system, but the HD textures and little additions to the scenery do a great job of making the world of Ys VIII feel more alive. There were times when I’d turn a corner and be blown away by some incredible scenery. It’s vibrant and colourful, and the variety of different areas to explore keeps Seiren Island from ever getting boring. It has that Japanese anime flavour, so the characters are colourful and well-designed.
English voice acting is your typical anime-style VO, which is fine and suits the game, but it can be quite cheesy and laughable at times. At one point, one of the characters started speaking in Japanese, even though the devs hadn’t added English VO, which was odd. Weirdly, there is no Japanese voice track available for the PS4, even though there is one for the Vita. That being said, literally moments before submitting this review I checked the official Ys VIII website and Takuro Yamashita, President and CEO of NIS America, Inc has issued an apology for the quality of localisation and went on to explain they are currently giving it a complete overhaul which will be available in a patch sometime in November (click the link below for the full statement).
The music is good, but often misplaced. It’s that kind of upbeat anime style J-Rock with guitars and synth, which is fine when you’re in a boss battle, but when running through a meadow, it’s kind of off-putting. There were other times where more dramatic scenes had this super happy music playing over them, which completely took me out of the moment. I was ready to write the music off completely, but listening to the soundtrack while writing this review convinced me otherwise. It’s a great soundtrack, just used badly in places.
Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this product from Koch Media
