2339: Adol Wins Again

I finished Ys: The Oath in Felghana tonight, after a bit less swearing at the initially unassailable-seeming final boss than I anticipated.

That was an absolutely brilliant game. Well-paced, enjoyable to play, challenging but never insurmountable and certainly didn’t outstay its welcome; my game clock read just over 12 hours at the end, although GOG Galaxy claims I actually played it for 24 hours, which can probably be accounted for with a number of boss fights that took a significant number of attempts to clear.

Make no mistake, Oath was a difficult game, but it never felt overly punishing. Indeed, any time that I found myself staring at a Game Over screen, I always knew that it was my fault. Specifically, it was usually the result of overconfidence: charging headlong into a group of powerful enemies, hoping to obliterate them all quickly and gain a ton of XP, but instead getting torn to shreds. Or, in the case of boss fights, it was a matter of learning the attack patterns and then being able to execute suitable countermeasures.

The boss fights were a particular highlight, because they featured an absolute ton of variety and mechanics to pay attention to. The first couple of bosses were very much about dodging and timing, while others were about inventive use of your skills to avoid damage. What I particularly liked were the several encounters that initially seemed absolutely impossible to complete, but which after a bit of practice and careful observation proved to be somewhat less of a problem than I initially believed they would be.

Oath is old-school in its sensibilities in that failure is part of the experience. When you first encounter a boss, you pretty much need to fail in order to understand what it’s doing and how it affects you. I’ve said this before, but in many ways it reminds me of fighting fast-paced versions of Final Fantasy XIV bosses: all mechanics can be countered and dealt with in some way, whether that’s through dodging, skill use or various ways of protecting yourself. There are always clear visual and auditory cues as to what’s about to happen, allowing you to prepare yourself appropriately, and in situations where you’re expected to perform more complex actions such as switching between skills in the heat of battle, the encounters are designed in such a way that you always have time to perform the actions you need to rather than suffering under a relentless assault. Indeed, it’s certainly possible to defeat the final boss without taking any damage because there’s an Achievement for doing so, and I imagine most of the others can also be handled in such a manner.

I also enjoyed the plot a great deal. While I missed the presence of Feena and Reah from Ys I, II and Origin, the new characters were well-defined and interesting. The villains in particular had some interesting plot arcs, and the game threw up several unexpected curveballs towards its conclusion.

Character highlights for me included series recurring character Dogi, who despite being big enough to crush walls comes across as one of the nicest people in the world, and this game’s vaguely implied romantic interest Elena, who was both adorably cute and a genuinely likeable character. I felt a bit bad leaving her behind at the end of the game, but I’m getting the impression protagonist Adol is a bit of a player; I’m anticipating a variety of other cute girls over the course of the games in the series that I’m yet to play.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again; I’m sorry that I haven’t checked out this series sooner. I’m having an absolute blast with it, and I’m very much looking forward to the upcoming Ys VIII, which I’ll be very surprised if we don’t see come West courtesy of Xseed Games in the near future. Given how much I’ve enjoyed the series so far, I feel fairly confident saying that I’ll probably be there day one when it finally comes out.