Ys Seven
Now that's some red hair!
Posted August 31, 2010
Developed by Falcom (responsible for the other Ys games. like Ys: The Ark of the Napishtim), Ys Seven puts you into the role of Adol the Red (again) and his quest to investigate a series of unnatural occurrences in the area around Altago City. Accompanied by the ever faithful Dogi, Adol is asked by the King of the land to check out the problems and defeat whatever is causing them to strike fear into his people. The setup is somewhat convoluted in the delivery and it pays to have previously played a Ys game to at least understand the relationships of the main characters. That being said, there at least a bare minimum of the back story to digest for players new to the series.
What’s really refreshing about Ys Seven is the fast-paced, real-time combat system. So often in jPRGs, we get bogged down in the slow pacing of the turn based battle which makes the game much longer than it actually has to be. Each character in your party has a different weapon to choose from, thus switching around quickly to your benefit. Some enemies may be more susceptible to ranged attacks while a couple swipes of Adol’s sword or Dogi punches will wipe out others. When enemies die, they drop a considerable amount of loot that can be gathered up after each battle. If you do get taken down by the enemy, don’t fret. The game allows you to save anywhere; a wonderful feature for a RPG.
Beating up enemies builds up the meter in the corner of the screen for more high powered attacks and ultimately a larger number of skill points. Characters also gain abilities by using specific weapons. After the battle, collecting all the loot helps when going to spend it for better weapons & armor. There are a few times when it pays to grind a bit before a boss battle.
Bosses can be particularly tough, vastly outweighing the difficulty of the hordes of minions. They often adapt to specific attacks and require the entire team’s special attacks timed correctly to take them out. They also have a nasty habit of chaining powerful, devastating attacks together, barely giving you enough time to recover via healing during battle. The difficulty seems to scale up as the game progresses as well.
One minor problem with the game is a dependence on revisiting previously searched areas to take out enemies that the team apparently missed. It’s an old RPG trick development trick that allows for fewer areas to be created in the game (thus speeding up development time) and feels somewhat cheap. That being said, we should really be used to it by now and is typical for a lengthy RPG.
You are looking at the neighborhood of 25 hours on Ys Seven, faster if you have some experience with Japanese RPGs already. There’s much entertainment to be had with the refreshingly uncharacteristic combat system, but the story isn’t particularly enthralling (or original) and retreading over already explored areas is a cop-out. Still, it’s worth a playthrough if you are in love with role-playing games or dungeon crawlers, especially when in real-time. You can check out this title on the PlayStation Network or in stores if you prefer the UMD.
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What’s really refreshing about Ys Seven is the fast-paced, real-time combat system. So often in jPRGs, we get bogged down in the slow pacing of the turn based battle which makes the game much longer than it actually has to be. Each character in your party has a different weapon to choose from, thus switching around quickly to your benefit. Some enemies may be more susceptible to ranged attacks while a couple swipes of Adol’s sword or Dogi punches will wipe out others. When enemies die, they drop a considerable amount of loot that can be gathered up after each battle. If you do get taken down by the enemy, don’t fret. The game allows you to save anywhere; a wonderful feature for a RPG.
Beating up enemies builds up the meter in the corner of the screen for more high powered attacks and ultimately a larger number of skill points. Characters also gain abilities by using specific weapons. After the battle, collecting all the loot helps when going to spend it for better weapons & armor. There are a few times when it pays to grind a bit before a boss battle.
Bosses can be particularly tough, vastly outweighing the difficulty of the hordes of minions. They often adapt to specific attacks and require the entire team’s special attacks timed correctly to take them out. They also have a nasty habit of chaining powerful, devastating attacks together, barely giving you enough time to recover via healing during battle. The difficulty seems to scale up as the game progresses as well.
One minor problem with the game is a dependence on revisiting previously searched areas to take out enemies that the team apparently missed. It’s an old RPG trick development trick that allows for fewer areas to be created in the game (thus speeding up development time) and feels somewhat cheap. That being said, we should really be used to it by now and is typical for a lengthy RPG.
Graphics
- The visuals in Ys Seven certainly aren’t going to blow you away, but the developers did an excellent job animating character movement and emotional states. Animated lighting effects are decent, but the backdrops can be very colorful at times. You will find typical stages for these types of RPGs, dungeons, the countryside, castles, etc… All are about what you would expect for a Japanese RPG. All in all, there’s little to really push the visual abilities of the PSP in Ys Seven. (The download over PSN clocks in at about 450MB
Audio
- The soundtrack is darn good and I’m not a huge fan of music in RPGs. The music is varied and stays true to the ambiance created in each part of the world. The light, plucky violin tracks are particularly good. The sound effects are what you would expect from a jRPG, some more on the annoying side. There are no voice overs in the game; perfectly fine with me as the Western translations are pretty bad most of the time.
Conclusion
You are looking at the neighborhood of 25 hours on Ys Seven, faster if you have some experience with Japanese RPGs already. There’s much entertainment to be had with the refreshingly uncharacteristic combat system, but the story isn’t particularly enthralling (or original) and retreading over already explored areas is a cop-out. Still, it’s worth a playthrough if you are in love with role-playing games or dungeon crawlers, especially when in real-time. You can check out this title on the PlayStation Network or in stores if you prefer the UMD.
Discuss This Game on Our Official VGT Forum