I only know Ys (pronounced “ease”) by reputation of its lovely music and the ports of ports of ports (of ports) of Ys Books I & II we received in America a long while ago. I never played a game in the series before so I’m going into Ys Seven with eyes unclouded by expectations or nostalgia. It’s kind of an exciting way to play a game! I haven’t experienced something this fresh in a while, and so far it’s pretty good.
Used to Square Enix’s bombastic introductions in their RPGs, Ys Seven starts out humbly, with red-haired wanderer Adol and pal Dogi arriving at a sunny sea port. There’s no explanation or reasoning for who they are or what they’re doing. At that point the game lets me loose in the town to just explore.
And would you know it, it’s an RPG town that isn’t a pain to traverse. NPCs are helpful, foreshadow potential plot points, and offer you directions. It’s like they’re actually useful again! After beating the first boss they even had different things to say. The best thing about the town is the music. Well, the music in the whole game’s great, living up to the series standard with jaunty tunes for the summery town, rousing rock for that boss fight, and regal tones for the castle.
After a brief tutorial at the town’s castle I got to test out the game’s swift combat. It’s button-mashing but, thankfully, not that dumb. Adol and Dogi fight at the same time, with one in the player’s control and the other under the AI’s thumb. Both characters have different strengths, however, so it’s prudent to switch character control once in a while. For example, Dogi’s useful against enemies with shells so it would be good to control him when fighting turtle-y enemies. Enemies drop loot used for making new weapons and items so fighting turtle-y enemies is encouraged.
Fighting the first boss provided the game’s first real challenge. After losing twice I learned the pattern and fell into the rhythm of the battle system. Dodging, switching characters and using special attacks became second nature.
Ys Seven seems like a solid action-RPG. I’m very early in, but I can tell already this could be something special. I look forward to the rest of the game — look forward to my full review soon
Senior Reviews Editor Tim Torres loves video games and loves to write about them. He also loves movies, comics, animation and acting. He does not hate Final Fantasy VII.
