Ys X: Nordics Review (PS5) – While Ys has never had the strongest presence on Western shores, dedicated fan demand has ensured that the 10th mainline entry in the series has received an official localisation after months of spoiler-dodging and speculation.
The result falls in line with the rest of the Ys series, with a comforting reminder that not every new RPG has to completely reinvent the wheel to be a fun time.
Ys X: Nordics draws on the strengths of the wider Ys series, with some pleasant quality-of-life adjustments for a new era that feels like it beckons new players to pick it up and give it a try.
Ys X: Nordics Review (PS5) – Another Day of Sun
Taking to the High Seas
Ys X: Nordics exists in a weird space, where the 10 in its name has nothing to do with chronology. If anything, Ys: X is one of the best places to jump into the saga and experience as a first taste. Outside of some very brief introductions for returning characters from the first couple of Ys games, this game’s story is almost entirely self-contained and enjoyable on its own merits.
Where Adol is a fairly standard RPG protagonist in his endearing and willingness to help, newcomer Karja is a complimentary presence who manages to be a pleasant contrast to Adol.
The story of these two being magically handcuffed together and investigating the emergence of the mysterious Griegr served as set-dressing that was good enough to keep me going, if not lighting the world on fire with its ideas or execution.
While characters do get the chance to come into their own in dedicated side-quest series to explore at your leisure, the critical path is one that feels well-trodden when considering just where the genre has gone in recent years.
That partially comes down to how this game exists at the very beginning of the Ys chronology, despite being labelled as the tenth main entry. Taking place between Ys II and Ys IV, right at the start of the chronological timeline, being third overall.
As a result, this game was never referenced before this point and nothing that happens in it can be referenced in the actual games that follow it – leading to a feeling of slight flimsiness as I went through it. It’s a double-edged sword; this is a brilliant place to jump in and try Ys for the first time, but it doesn’t feel like a grander saga, like so many other long-running series.
It’s Always Better With Two
While the story of Ys X: Nordics didn’t exactly light my imagination on fire, the gimmick of two characters being bound together at the very least opened some interesting doors for gameplay to emerge, even if all of those ideas don’t quite feel properly refined here.
As you would expect, you’re able to swap between Adol and Karja during combat in order to mix up your approach to various encounters.
By themselves, Adol and Karja bring their own flair to combat. Where one uses a standard sword, the other uses a heavier axe for some bigger but slower hits. As well as basic attacks, each has access to a suite of skills that grows stronger as you use them, really encouraging you to make use of what you’ve got to deal bigger damage.
Being an action RPG, the transition between exploration and combat encounters is seamless and lets you quickly dispatch mobs as you come across them, keeping up a strong sense of flow.
Where combat starts to get more involved is the introduction of the Duo Battle System, making use of both Adol and Karja in tandem to do some serious damage. And while this addition to the combat definitely feels good to use – it doesn’t feel at all balanced for limited but smart use.
Duo mode is tied to the right trigger and activates whenever you so much as guard – and also opens the door for disproportionately high damage to be dealt. Not only do your basic attacks do more, but skills can deal up to double damage with very little commitment required.
The closest that the game got to forcing me out of it was to dodge a handful of telegraphed attacks that are designated to entirely counter the Duo formation. With just a bit of polishing, there’s something good here!
As a result, Ys X is one of the easiest action RPG experiences that I’ve had in recent memory – with very little incentive to explore my options beyond making sure my numbers were generally going up and buying new equipment.
There’s an interesting version of the typical skill tree system here that marries it with the sphere grid from Final Fantasy X, but I never felt like it was truly given the chance to stretch its wings – at least on the base difficulty. The strategy of linking upgrade nodes according to colour was engaging but never felt properly needed overall.
Raising the Sails
While the coast is hardly new to Ys, this is the first time that the open seas have been given as an area to actually explore and travel through as a part of the journey.
This immediately ups the scale for a new entry in the series and opens a lot of potential for interesting areas and places to travel to. Notably, you do actually sail across the sea, there isn’t a menu screen here.
And while there’s definitely a novelty to exploring the open oceans, it wears thin quickly with very little to do beyond just waiting patiently to moor at the next dock or objective marker. Combat on the water is also a sticking point and while serviceable – doesn’t go above and beyond what you’d expect. It’s a pace-breaker and manages to cut up the overlong stretches of open water.
This tedium and lack of polish unfortunately extends to ship-based combat that appears as you move from island to island.
On paper, this is also a nice way to get a break from the fast-paced action of land combat, but in practice, it emerges as a clunky and frustrating time waster, with awkward handling and execution. While it wasn’t enough to ever put a proper dampener on the experience, it certainly feels like a bit of an afterthought in an otherwise well-rounded game.
Having this freedom at all is refreshing and speaks to a new frontier for the Ys franchise. While this might seem like a standard feature for a game of this ilk, Ys has long stuck to what it knows best and succeeded in maintaining its cult following.
There is a glut of side-quests to invest time in are a great way to spend extra time with the broad cast of Nordics, from the old characters to the newbies.
Back to Basics
Despite all of the new being introduced in this tenth entry, the core of the Ys franchise is alive and well in this new entry. When on land, areas are full of opportunities to explore and gather materials for crafting health potions and “box lunches” that act as stat buffs.
There’s an undeniable comfort that comes from this simplicity and ease in just moving around the world. Mechanics like the Mana String add small bits of verticality to areas and open the door for basic platforming.
Exploration is bolstered by this game generally being a step up for the Ys franchise as a whole in terms of its visual style. This is the first game on a totally new engine and the evolution really shows in the details for both environments and character models.
While Adol is suspiciously quiet for much of the game inside of cutscenes, he is still plenty expressive alongside Karja and the rest of the characters you meet, with some seriously impressive and energetic animations when it comes to combat finishers.
This goes double for the environments, that take advantage of the open sea in order to deliver some truly unique vistas to take in. I stopped more than once to bask in the serene oddity of locales like Viewpoint Isle, accompanied with some strong songs to boot.
This speaks to the strengths of Ys X: Nordics as a package – everything here is downright solid and manages to deliver an experience that will no doubt meet the expectations of those who have waited for this to cross to Western territories.
Where every single new release seemingly wants to push for a revolutionary experience and to play with our expectations of the RPG genre, it was like a jolt of lightning being able to sit back and just enjoy a comfortable RPG, despite the trappings that might come with the territory.
Ys X: Nordics will be available on PS5 and PS4 on October 25, 2024.
Review code generously provided by the publisher.