The Ys franchise has been around since the late eighties but
the games have rarely made it over to the west. Some of the titles are
available via Steam or the Wii virtual console but this is the first time the
series has seen a major release upon European shores. We won’t go into a long
history lesson on the plot as the game acts as much as a self-contained
adventure as a continuation to the timeline. Because of this it is easily
accessible for newcomers to the mythology of the world.
The plot follows a young adventure named Adol who is found
in a great forest suffering from amnesia. As Adol you are tasked with exploring
the forest and recovering your memories. Along the way you will encounter
characters who remember you. Some of these will accuse you of things that you
may or may not have done and a large part of the game is in investigation these
claims, normally by heading to a dungeon, in order to find out what is actually
going on.
An action RPG, Memories of Celceta has characters exploring
the world away from random battles. All the enemies are on the screen from the
start and you will need to use your array of weapons and special powers to
defeat them. Combat is similar in some respects to the Tales series (or later
Star Ocean games), where you have a small group of heroes fighting in real
time. The player controls one character while the AI controls the other two.
Unlike many games the AI is actually pretty good at handling
the characters and there weren’t many moments when it did something stupid or
put them in harm’s way. They do attack but we found that we needed to dive in
to perform at the heart of the battle. This means you can’t just sneakily hide
somewhere while the computer does all the work.
You’ll gradually get more characters join your party and
each has their own strengths and special abilities to use on the map. For instance, one can pick locks while
another is capable of splitting rocks to open the way. All members of your
party gain experience during your adventure whether they are in the on screen
party or not which means you are free to experiment and swap characters in and
out without them lagging behind in terms of stats.
As you level you will gain new combat skills that you can
assign to different buttons. To use these skills you have to strike enemies to
build a meter. Finishing off an enemy with one of these skills then fills a different
super move meter which when full unleashes a lengthy and powerful combo. It’s a
simple system but one that works well.
Collectible items also have a system to follow. As you
gather bits of plant, minerals and other objects you can combine them for items
of higher value. Collect enough coal and you turn it into iron ore, collect
enough iron ore and can turn into silver ore etc. These items can then be sold
for much higher values than before as well as being used to craft new weapons
and objects.
As you explore the forest you will fill out your map which
highlights areas of interest and stone markers. Any marker visited can be used
to quick travel around the map and also acts to heal your health and cure
status ailments. This means you aren’t constantly backtracking and keeps the
pace up.
Aside from your main quest there are also numerous side
quests in each area. These normally appear after solving the areas problem and
take the form of messages pinned on the town’s board. Reading the board once
adds all the quests to your map so you only have to glance at the quests once.
This further streamlines the experience and allows for quick and easy access to
what there is to do around you. You can also save just about anywhere, except
during boss fights. If you die you get a retry option which normally puts you
at the entrance to the last room you entered as well so there is little
repetition of events.
In fact the only thing likely to stall your progress through
the game is the somewhat strange requirement that some dungeons have to make you
find a number of pieces of stone tablet in order to proceed. You need these to
make a shape on certain doors (like a picture slide puzzle), before the door
will open. We found ourselves stuck a number of times because of missing a
piece and then had to trudge around the dungeon looking for it.
Overall, Ys does a very good job of bringing the action RPG
genre to the Vita. It looks lovely and there is a strong and pacey quest to
undertake. It may lack a little depth but it’s a player friendly and enjoyable
game and one that fits the Vita very well. If you are in need of some dungeon
exploring action then this is the game for you.
Overall 8/10
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