Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA |OT| Adol Christian and Dana's Big Hole

LonestarZues · Jun 29, 2018

Was going to wait for it to go on sale on PlayStation before I bought it, but being away from home due to work made me bring my Switch with me as it's easier to lug around compared to a PS4 Pro or Xbox 1X and decided to buy it.

About 4 hours in and currently on Chapter 2 and really enjoying it thus far. Only other Ys game I've played is Origin which I didn't like so I didn't have high hopes for this. Glad to have been proven wrong thus far.

jahasaja · Jun 29, 2018

That the word "exploration" is mentioned so many times in reviews makes me interested. Is the exploration as interesting as it sounds in this game?

Deleted member 8166 · Jun 29, 2018

I got the game for 43€ for the switch...so I think it was a good choice to buy it.
I'll wait for the third patch next week tho before starting.

preta · Jun 29, 2018

jahasaja said:
That the word "exploration" is mentioned so many times in reviews makes me interested. Is the exploration as interesting as it sounds in this game?

Yes. The sense of adventure and discovery is truly a delight. While Adol's always been called an adventurer, this game really sold me on the idea, more than the rest of the series.

Thuddert · Jun 29, 2018

jahasaja said:
That the word "exploration" is mentioned so many times in reviews makes me interested. Is the exploration as interesting as it sounds in this game?

Mind it's not as open as a xenoblade game, but exploration is a main feature of the game and ties in with the goals of the survivors.

So you're not just exploring for your own benefit and that's what makes it compelling imo.

Lozange · Jun 29, 2018

One small thing I love about Ys VIII (From what I've played so far, anyway) is that a lot of the locations are named by your party as you discover them. But also the starting area is "Nameless Coast" because Adol doesn't bother to name it. It's a fun way of integrating the feeling exploration into the lore of the game!

JNH · Jun 29, 2018

jahasaja said:
That the word "exploration" is mentioned so many times in reviews makes me interested. Is the exploration as interesting as it sounds in this game?

To me it is. But don't expect something like Zelda BotW, it's not wide open, it's linear. But you have to find paths to unlock other areas and treasures. Areas are linear, not the way you explore the island.

Bjones · Jun 29, 2018

jahasaja said:
That the word "exploration" is mentioned so many times in reviews makes me interested. Is the exploration as interesting as it sounds in this game?

No, it's very confined. There is a few " resource " type things in the same places scattered all over but after 4 hours no I don't feel a big sense of exploration.

Bomblord · Jun 29, 2018

jahasaja said:
That the word "exploration" is mentioned so many times in reviews makes me interested. Is the exploration as interesting as it sounds in this game?

It's a series of self contained fairly linear areas with branching paths and some Metroid Vania esque systems where some paths will be blocked by the need for new equipment.

There's plenty to explore and discover and the island as a whole is huge but it's not an open world.

garion333 · Jun 29, 2018

Bjones said:
No, it's very confined. There is a few " resource " type things in the same places scattered all over but after 4 hours no I don't feel a big sense of exploitation.

Interesting typo there. ;)

jahasaja · Jun 29, 2018

preta said:
Yes. The sense of adventure and discovery is truly a delight. While Adol's always been called an adventurer, this game really sold me on the idea, more than the rest of the series.

Thuddert said:
Mind it's not as open as a xenoblade game, but exploration is a main feature of the game and ties in with the goals of the survivors.

So you're not just exploring for your own benefit and that's what makes it compelling imo.

JNH said:
To me it is. But don't expect something like Zelda BotW, it's not wide open, it's linear. But you have to find paths to unlock other areas and treasures. Areas are linear, not the way you explore the island.

Bjones said:
No, it's very confined. There is a few " resource " type things in the same places scattered all over but after 4 hours no I don't feel a big sense of exploration.

Bomblord said:
It's a series of self contained fairly linear areas with branching paths and some Metroid Vania esque systems where some paths will be blocked by the need for new equipment.

There's plenty to explore and discover and the island as a whole is huge but it's not an open world.

Thanks for all the responses!!. Seems more linear than I thought.

I guess the combat is the real highlight then?

Bomblord · Jun 29, 2018

jahasaja said:
Thanks for all the responses!!. Seems more linear than I thought.

I guess the combat is the real highlight then?

Combat and metroidvaniaish exploration. Also the world building and characters are top notch. I personally would recommend playing it on either hard or nightmare.

jahasaja · Jun 29, 2018

Bomblord said:
Combat and metroidvaniaish exploration. Also the world building and characters are top notch. I personally would recommend playing it on either hard or nightmare.

Cool thanks! So hard is not crazy impossible bullet spongy enemies hard?

JNH · Jun 29, 2018

Nah, I'm an average player and hard is fine. :-)

mauaus · Jun 29, 2018

Can I switch difficulty?

Bomblord · Jun 29, 2018

mauaus said:
Can I switch difficulty?

Yup at any point

jahasaja said:
Cool thanks! So hard is not crazy impossible bullet spongy enemies hard?

Personally played through it on Nightmare and in the beginning most enemies (especially bosses) could one shot you ;). They take a bit to kill but I wouldn't describe any of them as sponges if you can master the flash guard which raises your attack temporarily.

QisTopTier · Jun 29, 2018

mauaus said:
Can I switch difficulty?

Unless you are on inferno you can swtich, inferno has bigger gameplay changes compared to the other difficulties so it's kinda off on it own setting

jahasaja said:
Cool thanks! So hard is not crazy impossible bullet spongy enemies hard?

The hardest 2 settings has bosses and such at the life they are balanced to be at, fights are over in a minute and half to five minutes. The difficutly comes from the damage they put out and on inferno THE SPEED THEY MOVE ATTACK AND HOW OFTEN THEY ATTACK.

it comes down to mastering a dance with bosses as you melt them down but you mistep you get very punished, boss defeats end up feeling very satsifying

mauaus · Jun 29, 2018

Bomblord said:
Yup at any point

Personally played through it on Nightmare and in the beginning most enemies (especially bosses) could one shot you ;). They take a bit to kill but I wouldn't describe any of them as sponges if you can master the flash guard which raises your attack temporarily.

Thats a relief, started on normal and its pretty much a cakewalk, gonna switch it up!

MechaX · Jun 29, 2018

QisTopTier said:
If you are complaining about healing items just dont use them, I cleared inferno as my first playthrough 0 restoration or status removal items used. 3 hours hasnt even scratched it

It's the best game in the series on inferno easily for me

8 > origin = 2 > 7 > Oath > MoC > 1 > 6 *based on max difficulty playthroughs

To me, beating a boss doesn't even count if I have to use healing items; it is way more fun to me to learn the boss patterns. But I wish I was about that Nightmare difficulty life.

QisTopTier · Jun 29, 2018

mauaus said:
Thats a relief, started on normal and its pretty much a cakewalk, gonna switch it up!

It can get annoying here and there until you figure out some of the bosses tricks but unless you are in a rush taking the time to master the bosses feels really freaking good.

jahasaja · Jun 29, 2018

QisTopTier said:
Unless you are on inferno you can swtich, inferno has bigger gameplay changes compared to the other difficulties so it's kinda off on it own setting

The hardest 2 settings has bosses and such at the life they are balanced to be at, fights are over in a minute and half to five minutes. The difficutly comes from the damage they put out and on inferno THE SPEED THEY MOVE ATTACK AND HOW OFTEN THEY ATTACK.

it comes down to mastering a dance with bosses as you melt them down but you mistep you get very punished, boss defeats end up feeling very satsifying

Sounds perfect! That is the way difficulty levels should be done!

splash wave · Jun 29, 2018

ryushe said:
About the same.

Xenoblade technically looks worse, but Ys preforms significantly worse than Chronicles, IMO.

Wait, so is the IQ as bad as XB2? That's the part that really bothered me about that game.

QisTopTier · Jun 29, 2018

jahasaja said:
Sounds perfect! That is the way difficulty levels should be done!

Like if you actually maxed out your weapons when you can *easy to do* bosses on anything under nightmare dies way to fast you barely even get to do the boss fight if you understsand how the flash dodge/guard mechanics work.

The trick to learn and it's what you wouldnt do in other games is to DODGE WITH THE ATTACK after the flash dodge procs and the attack is still active you flash guard inside the hitbox and it stacks both effects

Bigmac · Jun 29, 2018

Just got the game for Switch and I'm really digging it so far. It really gives off some nostalgia vibes in that it reminds me of the PS2/ Dreamcast era of RPGs. I think it's the music and overall aesthetic. Excited to see how complex it gets in terms of boss fights. So far (at the beginning of Ch 2), there hasn't been a whole lot of strategy involved.

Bomblord · Jun 29, 2018

QisTopTier said:
It can get annoying here and there until you figure out some of the bosses tricks but unless you are in a rush taking the time to master the bosses feels really freaking good.

I can't echo this sentiment enough. Getting a perfect series of flash guards and wailing a boss down that can nearly 1 shot you while barely taking any damage is just so incredibly rewarding.

ryushe · Jun 29, 2018

splash wave said:
Wait, so is the IQ as bad as XB2? That's the part that really bothered me about that game.

I've gotten further into the game and I was wrong. It's actually not.

The first area with all its grass sure looks rough though.

Deleted member 34873 · Jun 29, 2018

Am I correct in understanding that the localization issues have been patched as of the day 1 patches? And that this is the overhauled localization and not a spot patch to temporarily deal with sudden japanese or missing text?

Samaritan · Jun 29, 2018

So it looks like Ys: Memories of Celceta is making its way to Steam next month, courtesy of XSEED. As far as Ys games go, where does Memories of Celceta sit with most fans of the series? I'm sitting on a PC copy of Ys VIII but the thought of having to tinker with it to make it playable is making me not want to touch it...

Shizuka · Jun 29, 2018

Samaritan said:
So it looks like Ys: Memories of Celceta is making its way to Steam next month, courtesy of XSEED. As far as Ys games go, where does Memories of Celceta sit with most fans of the series? I'm sitting on a PC copy of Ys VIII but the thought of having to tinker with it to make it playable is making me not want to touch it...

It's my favorite one, but I may be biased since it was a great JRPG released when the PlayStation Vita didn't have a lot of those.

eXistor · Jun 29, 2018

Samaritan said:
So it looks like Ys: Memories of Celceta is making its way to Steam next month, courtesy of XSEED. As far as Ys games go, where does Memories of Celceta sit with most fans of the series? I'm sitting on a PC copy of Ys VIII but the thought of having to tinker with it to make it playable is making me not want to touch it...

By far my least favorite. I've finished it but hardly remember anything about it, but I remember hating the cast and the bland story. The gameplay is fine overall and it's certainly not a terrible game, but I thought it was the most bland and forgettable of the Ys games I've played. Most Ys games are on sale on Steam right now and if you haven't got them already I'd recommend any of those over Celceta, even Seven which is my second least favorite. Get Origins or Oath in Felghana instead.

Samaritan · Jun 29, 2018

eXistor said:
By far my least favorite. I've finished it but hardly remember anything about it, but I remember hating the cast and the bland story. The gameplay is fine overall and it's certainly not a terrible game, but I thought it was the most bland and forgettable of the Ys games I've played. Most Ys games are on sale on Steam right now and if you haven't got them already I'd recommend any of those over Celceta, even Seven which is my second least favorite. Get Origins or Oath in Felghana instead.

Would you recommend either Origins or Oath of Felghana over putting up with Ys VIII? I've never played a Ys game and I was excited for VIII, so I'm wanting to have the best experience with my first game in the series.

eXistor · Jun 29, 2018

Samaritan said:
Would you recommend either Origins or Oath of Felghana over putting up with Ys VIII? I've never played a Ys game and I was excited for VIII, so I'm wanting to have the best experience with my first game in the series.

I played VIII on PS4 so I can't really comment on the issues. Origins is a bit of an odd duck in that it's set in a giant tower and has no real outside environments and it has multiple playable characters (it's a prequel, so no Adol). It's a fantastic game, but for your first game I'd go for Oath in Felghana for a more traditional Ys game (or YSI+II which are also stellar). I'd rank VIII as a top 3 Ys game for sure, but like I said, I'm not sure what the PC issues are and if they're so big as to skip the game entirely.

QisTopTier · Jun 29, 2018

Samaritan said:
So it looks like Ys: Memories of Celceta is making its way to Steam next month, courtesy of XSEED. As far as Ys games go, where does Memories of Celceta sit with most fans of the series? I'm sitting on a PC copy of Ys VIII but the thought of having to tinker with it to make it playable is making me not want to touch it...

8 > origin = 2 > 7 > Oath > MoC > 1 > 6 *based on nightmare+ difficulties only* is where I would put it.

The pc release coming out soon might fix up some of the issues I had with it which were largely it just looking like someone smeared Vaseline all over my screen and running at an ass frame rate

Erpy · Jun 29, 2018

One thing people disliked about Celceta was its framerate on the Vita. The PC version should definitely fix that.

Samaritan · Jun 29, 2018

Alright, thanks for the insight guys. I think I'm going to give VIII a shot, see how functional it is with fixes and patches, and if that doesn't work out I'll take a look at Oath of Felghana.

skullwaker · Jun 30, 2018

Okay so. I feel like I'm missing something.

I'm on Chapter 2 and my quest is to fish and then report back to Dogi. Well, I've caught 7 fish and have no bait left and anytime I talk to Dogi he tells me he's counting on me to catch him some breakfast and to check out the new facilities, which I've done both. Can anyone help?

Edit: Lol, nevermind. I missed the anvil above the campsite. Really enjoying this game so far!

LuisGarcia · Jun 30, 2018

Few hours into this and really enjoying it. Looks rough in docked mode but good in handheld imo.

Morrigan · Jun 30, 2018

I forgot this thread existed for some reason.

petran79 said:
Dana's chapters bored me to no end. I always dreaded the moment they touched the crystal to switch eras.

Me too. >_<

Sphinx · Jun 30, 2018

cwistofu said:
Am I correct in understanding that the localization issues have been patched as of the day 1 patches? And that this is the overhauled localization and not a spot patch to temporarily deal with sudden japanese or missing text?

I wish someone could answer to this post. I am holding on on buying it because some people say it's bad without the patches

AniHawk · Jun 30, 2018

Sphinx said:
I wish someone could answer to this post. I am holding on on buying it because some people say it's bad without the patches

the game came with the updated localization. there are four planned patches - on day one the first two patches to fix a lot of the issues that were there plus some others (non-text stuff). the third is coming next week. the fourth is adding japanese voice option and some other stuff and that will be mid-july.

Sphinx · Jun 30, 2018

AniHawk said:
the game came with the updated localization. there are four planned patches - on day one the first two patches to fix a lot of the issues that were there plus some others (non-text stuff). the third is coming next week. the fourth is adding japanese voice option and some other stuff and that will be mid-july.

Thanks! so is the game perfectly playable and enjoyable right now? I mean, if I buy it today and download the patches before starting?

AniHawk · Jun 30, 2018

Sphinx said:
Thanks! so is the game perfectly playable and enjoyable right now? I mean, if I buy it today and download the patches before starting?

i was playing the game last weekend before patches and i think all i noticed in the first two hours was an 'an' that was supposed to be an 'and'. i think the text errors are more numerous the deeper in, but i think a good chunk of them have already been addressed at this stage.

Sphinx · Jun 30, 2018

AniHawk said:
i was playing the game last weekend before patches and i think all i noticed in the first two hours was an 'an' that was supposed to be an 'and'. i think the text errors are more numerous the deeper in, but i think a good chunk of them have already been addressed at this stage.

wait...all the uproar and disappointment about it being bad on day 1 comes from a couple language mistakes?

I don't mind those, I thought the game had real technical issues without the patches.

AniHawk · Jun 30, 2018

Sphinx said:
wait...all the uproar and disappointment about it being bad on day 1 comes from a couple language mistakes?

I don't mind those, I thought the game had real technical issues without the patches.

regarding performance, on day one a patch addressed some crash issues that were never pointed out in reviews. unrelated on day one, there was an issue where if you downloaded dlc, the game would crash when trying to read it (the dlc's been delisted so it can't hurt anyone anymore, but that specific fix is launching next week with the other text fix too).

as far as the language mistakes go - i don't know exactly how many there were. there's a game explain review that highlighted several, and makes a point about it in the review. this is echoed within rpg site's and nintendolife's reviews. it seemed that it was noticeable enough for them to talk about it. some folks conflated this with the idea that the game had the original localization from 2017, which it did not.

anyway the game runs fine as long as you're cool with 30 fps and dynamic resolution. i've put 5 hours into handheld mode so far and personally i think it's pretty good.

TYRANITARR · Jun 30, 2018

Sphinx said:
wait...all the uproar and disappointment about it being bad on day 1 comes from a couple language mistakes?

I don't mind those, I thought the game had real technical issues without the patches.

Yeah, I've been playing since day 1. Zero technical issues and frame rate is very solid. Proceed confidentially!

QisTopTier · Jun 30, 2018

Morrigan said:
I forgot this thread existed for some reason.

Me too. >_<

Her bonus dungeon unlocking a new floor each time made it fun for me :p

sibarraz · Jun 30, 2018

The best thing of the exploration in YS VIII is that it feel very "metroidvania"

Is one of those games where is great to get the 100%

JNH · Jun 30, 2018

QisTopTier said:
Her bonus dungeon unlocking a new floor each time made it fun for me :p

I love this dungeon *-*
I think it was there the game really clicked for me. I stopped at third floor iirc on PC version. Can't wait to go there on Switch !

Al3x1s · Jun 30, 2018

Is the PC version good yet? Updated localization, fixed glaring issues, whatever?

Heart_Attack · Jun 30, 2018

How's the Switch port ?

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA |OT| Adol Christian and Dana's Big Hole

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