Ys VIII was remarkable in part due to how it not only widened the scope of the series, but also brought it up to more modern standards. Ys IX, on the other hand, didn’t seem to really want to be a Ys game, even though it was still quite good. Now we’ve hit the tenth entry with Ys X: Nordics, and while I still very much enjoyed my time with this one, the identity crisis continues. If the last game’s focus was, “what if we made a superhero game with modern Ys systems?”, this one is “what if we made a sailing-centric game?” What we’re left with is another great Nihon Falcom game that takes a truly surprising amount of inspiration from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag.
While the previous game was set at the tail-end of the current timeline, Ys X decides to sandwich itself between Ys II and Ys IV. En route to Celceta, the ship Adol and Dogi are on is attacked by the area’s local vikings – the Balta seaforce, a group of Normans. While docked at a nearby town waiting to find another ship, the town is beset upon by an undead force known as the Griegr. Adol finds himself literally bound at the wrist with Karja, the daughter of a Norman leader, plus he learns some magic that lets him put the Griegr down for good. When the town’s members are abducted, Adol and Karja set off to fight back against the Griegr threat.
The story itself is fine and sees Adol and Karja acquiring a ship, getting a crew (which bolsters the ship’s capabilities,) and sailing the seas fighting the Griegr head-on. The problem here is how long it takes for the game to take the training wheels off. By the time I was actually allowed to sail around without constantly being forced to follow a story marker, seven-and-a-half hours had passed. Ys IX similarly had too much of a start/stop rhythm, but it didn’t take nearly as long to get going. It’s an odd choice considering the series.
While the previous four games had parties of three with different attack types alongside a cast of about a half-dozen or so playable characters, Ys X just has Adol and Karja. I’d been hoping that the series would move away from the big casts for quite some time, so I’m pretty happy about this. However, there’s not a lot of reasons to swap between the two characters outside of personal preference. Adol’s sword attacks are faster than Karja’s axe swings, but the characters are mostly interchangeable. The general skill system returns, allowing players to equip and master skills.
But there’s also a brand new system in place. Holding a certain button will allow you to control both Adol and Karja’s attacks simultaneously, as well as use special attacks that use up significantly more MP than simply using skills. Flash guard and flash dodges are gone now, although you can hold a button to block. Tapping block as an attack hits will let you parry and then counteract for big damage. The issue is that attacking with both characters at once tends to do better damage, so I just don’t find myself using individual characters as much.
When controlling the characters this way, you’re constantly blocking too, which leads to gameplay where you can just turtle up and then mash the attack button whenever an enemy isn’t attacking. The gameplay’s still fun, but it feels so much more button-mashy than usual. I really don’t like it as much, even if I do appreciate that the devs tried something different. Granted, I do sometimes force myself to just use one character’s normal attacks and skills to break up the monotony. But due to the ship stuff, the melee combat doesn’t have to carry as much of the game anyway.
Once those many opening hours are up, you’ll be able to sail the seas at your leisure. Your ship doesn’t handle incredibly well, plus it’s extremely slow to start off with. This gets mitigated fairly quickly thankfully, as you’ll increase the ship’s speed with upgrades, alongside a host of other ship upgrades. You can choose to fight enemies while on the open ocean by sailing into certain areas, which will enter you into ship combat. At first you can only shoot cannon balls and ram enemy ships, but you’ll soon get more weapons. This works very similarly to Black Flag, albeit not as good.
Winning these encounters will give you supplies and the like, which you’ll use to buy more upgrades as they become available. Over time, the ship gets stronger and faster, plus you can move to the deck and interact with your crew when you want. It’s very similar to the base camp in Ys VIII. Instead of having tower defence segments, you now have to destroy three enemy pillars per wave to lower a force field and liberate the island from enemy control on foot. These rank you, so doing better will net you more rewards.
Everything comes together nicely enough, but I can’t help but feel that the changes to combat and the ship content hold Ys X back from being as good as past games. Granted, the ship situation gets better and better as the game goes on, so at least there’s that. Another iffy change is that some enemies (including some ships) get armour at times, which you need to whittle down before you can hurt them. Much like the dual attack feature, this feels like an unnecessary addition that just serves to be something new for the sake of it.
The ocean itself also just isn’t as interesting as the interconnected landscapes of past games (well, not in Ys IX, of course.) There are islands to sail to, but these are comparatively brief. When you clear one of the forcefield island raids, all nearby points of interest are marked on your map, but it can get a bit dull sailing to these, at least compared to how it used to be. Thankfully, you can fast travel to any major places, so this really isn’t much of a big deal.
Ys X is certainly worth putting hours into, but the extreme focus on story in the early hours as well as the ship content might put some players off. It’s great that Nihon Falcom is trying to keep the experience fresh, but I do hope for a more traditional game next time. Perhaps with Adol as the sole playable character? Pretty please. Although, going from half a dozen to two is a pretty good start, I’d say.
Ys X: Nordics: Filled with new ideas that aren't all wholly successful, Ys X is another engaging series entry, even though it can drift a bit too far at times. – Andrew Farrell
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