Since this is the Ys thread, there is a very important question that needs to be asked.
Is Adol Santa Clause?
I think this bit of official Falcom art should answer that question for you:
I'm finally getting farther in Monstrum, and I'm starting to get FF VIII vibes on something.
Also, love how with the missions to save prison inmates, your party gets info on the other Adol in prison, which currently that plot point is one that I have no idea what to think of. Curious on what this boss person is the law breakers mention of in those certain quests, and how shit will be going down once the boss returns. Something tells me the top person of the Hieroglyphic knights or church (the one that girl wants to assassinate) is the identity of the boss and will be the ultimate big bad of this story.
Overall enjoying the game, but not as big a fan of the huge hub area and the formula of each chapter. VIII I felt had a better set up in making it feel like you were making progress through the game.
I think the artificial-feeling nature of Ys IX's progression is intentional. Even when you're not literally in the main structure itself you're figuratively in prison, just one where you have a lot more freedom to move around. That said, I would love it if the next (new) Ys game features multiple towns instead of one hub area.
In the penultimate Chapter myself and I finally noticed a bit of sneaky foreshadowing that Falcom slipped into the game and which I hadn't spotted before despite playing the game a couple times in Japanese. It's even kind of meta.
Sounds like we got confirmation that Falcom is working on Ys X next rather than Ys V Remake. That's probably the only thing newsworthy from the Falcom magazine leaks.
@yotaka While the feeling of progression was intentional, still not something I personally enjoyed. Thankfully the last few chapters at least made up for it and shook things up a little bit. Out of curiosity, what was the foreshadowing you mentioned noticing? Also, not sure if it was a joke or something but I saw in one of your posts mentioning multiple games about Geis's possible sister in law. Which character was that supposed to refer to, as I am blanking out on any character that would possibly refer to.
Out of curiosity, what was the foreshadowing you mentioned noticing?
Also, not sure if it was a joke or something but I saw in one of your posts mentioning multiple games about Geis's possible sister in law. Which character was that supposed to refer to, as I am blanking out on any character that would possibly refer to.
Wasn't a joke, Frieda from Memories of Celceta is Geis' almost but not quite sister-in-law since she was engaged to his brother Ernst.
Finished Ys VIII just yesterday and well... what a game. I was promised that this is Celceta, only better and it didn't disappoint. Falcom certainly amped up the graphics compared to earlier titles to the point that it looks a modern sort of pretty and the newly introduced game mechanics (Raid Battles) mixed things up a bit.
Overall, I'm pretty satisfied and look forward to Ys IX, though I'd like to point out some highlights.
- Castaway village was awesome. As far as hub areas are concerned, it was nicely done and while some of the villagers were a little one-note, they were all quirky and memorable and the way each of them served a crucial function made this community feel quite organic, or as Austin put it, a microcosm of civilization. And seriously, Katleen and Griselda have killer designs, though it of course doesn't compare to the force of nature that is ex-gladiator Silvia XD.
- I found the music a little weaker compared to previous titles in the beginning, but apparently the truly epic tracks were reserved for the latter half of the game. In other words, Falcom once again delivered.
- The Saurians elevated the combat to new heights. Taking these things on while underleveled had me on the edge of my seat multiple times and there is something visceral about their design and capabilities that makes them stick out as bosses in mook clothing. Except that several times, they stressed me out harder than even the final boss in the true ending. Nothing gets your blood pumping quite as much as slowly chipping down on the health bar of a Saurian that has 15+ levels over you and then getting mobbed from behind by additional Saurians that you unwittingly provoked.
- One of the things that intrigued me about Ys VIII from the very beginning was Dana being billed as the deuteragonist. Though I jumped on the Ys bandwagon, one of its weaker aspects has always been Adol's character for me, so the promise of him needing to share the spotlight for once was very welcome. And wow... the cross era system, the shared consciousness, how their connection and meeting across the ages was woven into the story and the way the game presented their personalities as very similar and different at the same time... I recently saw a Japanese poll ranking for the most popular Falcom characters and while Adol took the top spot (Estelle took 3rd), Dana managed to reach 4th place despite appearing only in one game. Girl deserves this and more. And it's such a shame that she can't accompany Adol on his travels. They make such an awesome team and out of all Ys games I've played, this is by far the best written 'Adol meets new girl' dynamic. But just like with Feena, it seems that blue-haired chicks with supernatural godlike powers always slip out of his grasp. But now I'm also convinced that Adol has a type. Oh, and hearing Dana speak was jarring in the beginning, because her voice actress has a very unique timbre so I was suffering from aural overlap with Cold Steel III Tita.
- Ys VII's party members were kind of meh. Celceta's party members were passable and YS VIII is another improvement. Sahad is a big ray of sunshine, Hummel goes from intriguing to funny at the drop of a hat, Ricotta is basically Millium if she were a wilderness child and her dynamic with Thanatos is all kinds of wholesome. Only Laxia ended up a little disappointing which has to do with her connection to Ys VIII's theme of 'Evolution', but that merits its own rambly post which I'll deliver later. And why do I get constant Patrick/Celestin vibes, when looking at the interactions between Laxia and Franz? It must be the hair colors...
- Master Kong is equally parts hilarious and genius. Taking the cliched martial-arts hermit master trope and injecting it into a freaking gorilla had me rolling on the floor when I finally realized during the third fight that his specially rendered moves were the skills that the respective party character is supposed to learn. And beside the allusion to King Kong, the name Kong is also a possible Chinese surname. Confucius, if rendered in hanyupinyin is written as Kong Fuzi.... never change Falcom. Your tongue-in-cheek humor is always appreciated.
Just finished the optional post-game dungeon and boy, that lvl 99 'Reapers of All' boss was no joke. The True Ending boss is downright cute in comparison... but this isn't a post about nasty bosses. Instead, let's talk about Evolution, Ys style.
When I heard Laxia expositing about evolution, I had mixed expectations. I'm pretty used to popular media butchering scientific principles and evolution is a particularly problematic topic. Less because it's a difficult theory to understand (rocket science is much, much harder) but because it tends to put a damper on human egocentriscm with the challenge it poses to monotheistic religions only the tip of the iceberg.
Then again, the world of Ys is an almost-earth with gods, goddesses, dragons and two moons, so when Laxia defined the Ys version of Evolution as Selection and Rejection (which is a big nono in Darwinian Evolution), it was inevitable I guess that the story ends up with some kind of overseeing arbiter to the evolutional process - the Tree of Origins. My expectations to see a faithful representation hit rock-bottom then and I simply ignored the topic and focused on the enjoyable parts of the game of which there were plenty... that is, until I reached the True Ending and some of the symbolism in Ys VIII's endgame started to sink in.
My current opinion is that YS VIII actually has a pretty interesting and even clever approach on the topic of evolution, but due to the way the endgame narration was handled, this clever commentary is buried beneath contradictory messages and exposition, which leaves the players with a confused mess of an aesop. Or in other words, beside all the other things that were done very well in this game, Falcom almost managed to give Lacrimosa of Dana's story an excellent narrative theme, except that said theme... didn't stick the landing.
The Hypocrisy of the Lacrimosa
First of all, I need to introduce a prominent dichotomy from real life academia, namely the contrast between evolution and creationism. While evolution explains the diversity of life, past, present and future through the mechanism of natural selection with the noted absence of any divine intervention, creationism is pretty much the exact opposite, stating that nature and life originates from divine intervention instead. The Ys version of evolution on the other hand is a fusion of the opposites mentioned above. The 'selection' part of the theory correlates to Darwinian Evolution, while the 'rejection' part refers to a form of destructive creationism, which is often found in RL religions, for example Noah's Flood from the old testament, an act of god noted to 'cleanse' the earth from a corrupted and violent humanity to make place for a new and 'better' mankind. In Ys, this destructive creationism is the Lacrimosa.
As someone with a background in biology, to see some kind of deity in charge of evolution leaves a bad taste in my mouth, which might be why I reach this conclusion. Nevertheless, I think the Tree of Origins is a very bad arbiter of evolution. In fact, it's so bad that it has pretty much perverted the in-universe concept of evolution. All the talk about 'providence of nature' and 'going against the natural law of the world', once the heroes decide to challenge the Lacrimosa, can only be seen as manipulative and self-serving rhetoric to conceal the fact that the Tree of Origins behaves and acts like a capricious god right out of the old testament or Greek mythology.
To support my claim, I will point out instances which show how the Tree of Origin breaks its own rules.
The Eternian Civilization
The justification given for the Lacrimosa states that each dominant species and their civilizations need to be culled after they've run their course, because a civilization inevitably reaches a state of stagnation, perhaps even followed by decline, after which it's better for the Ys ecosystem to let a fresh species take center stage and start anew. Now, this sounds halfway reasonable on paper. Real life humans haven't been able to build a lasting civilization until now. There is only one slight problem with the Lacrimosa initiated against the Eternians: their civilization as seen through Dana's memories hasn't shown any signs of stagnation yet, much less decline.
Evolutionary deadends exist in nature of course. It either happens due to sudden shifts in the environment that a species fails to adapt to (meteor fell to earth 65 million years ago and the changed biosphere that followed was too harsh for most dinosaur species to adapt to) or because a species becomes too adapted towards one single function (usually courtship) at the cost of its overall adaptability. To give a simple example, the evolutionary pressure among peacocks leads to the males developing tail plumage which becomes more elaborate and eye-catching with each subsequent generation, because a more fanciful peacock plumage attracts more females, leading more genes decoding the eye-catching plumage to enter the gene-pool. But at some point, the peacock organism allots so many ressources toward the tail plumage that it causes the other functions to decline, be it its ability to flee from natural enemies or its search for food, lowering its overall fitness. And then there is the fact that an eye-catching plumage makes it easier for natural enemies to take notice of the male peacock, too. Basically the species defeats itself by becoming too good at what makes it stand out in the first place.
Falcom is perfectly aware of this mechanism. The Septerrion of Space provided its civilization with an unlimited source of energy, material goods and even entertainment, serving the people a life of maximum convenience. The result... the people became lazy and apathetic, probably asocial and in some cases even deviant (if the string of crimes written in the Liber Ark report is anything to go by) and the only reason the Tribe didn't collapse on itself was due to a certain person pulling the emergency brakes at the last moment.
The Tribes of Fire and Earth developed in the opposite direction, engaging in a rivalry that pushed both their people to their limits, culminating in the clash of their Septerrions and the formation of a power so overwhelming that any attempt to control it was doomed to failure. Even its containment ended up flawed and exacted heavy tolls on both Tribes.
As for the original Septerrion of Mirage, well, that ended up being the very definition of self-defeat.
The Eternians possess aspects that can potentially lead them down the road of ruin of the Tribes from Kiseki. Their power of Essence is shown to be both a means to make life more convenient and also a power used for war. And Dana herself fulfilled the role that the Demiurgos performed for the Mirage Tribe.
But looking at the state of the Eternians they simply hadn't reached any kind of 'tipping point' that qualifies as a civilization reaching terminal stagnation and decline. Essence, while a prominent power and arguably their achilles heel, has not caused their overall population to become hopelessly addicted to convenience, as seen with the fact that they have a thriving market and economy, a proper community, a functioning government overseen by people instead of some higher power like the Aureole and a benevolent, helpful religious organization just like the Septian Church.
And going the route of Essence becoming too powerful to control in some kind of rivalry or superpower arms race is also not in the cards, considering that the (fake) Queen just brokered a peace treaty with the neighbouring countries and the Eternian people aren't shown to be bellicose either.
As for Dana buckling under the burden of her precognition, well, the game depicts her as a well-adjusted individual with no major psychological hang-ups, so yeah, I'm not seeing the Eternians go the route of the Mirage Tribe either, especially because their society has two leaders standing at the top of two key institutions (Queen and Maiden of the Tree), so when one of them fails, the other serves as fallback which reduces the risk of leaving their people rudderless. And yes, the Queen is actually an impostor and double agent, but what does it say about an arbiter of evolution or a so called 'Warden of Evolution' that they need to resort to political trickery to justify their narrative that the Eternian civilization has supposedly lost its fitness? And they do this by using a power (the shapeshifting) that is an outside-context problem as it belongs to a race that is already extinct.
This is a big breach of its own rules. Evolution is defined as selection and rejection in Ys, and both are actions of culling. The Tree of Origins is actually a faithful visual metaphor and can be seen as a reference to the phylogenetic tree. The main point though is that once a species went extinct they obviously have no impact on the ecosystem anymore and to uphold this rule, the Wardens of Evolution are supposed to only observe.
But this leads to a far more pressing point: what would be a justified point in time of civilizational evolution to actually kick off the Lacrimosa? Eternian Civilization lead by Dana and fake Sarai is repeatedly said to be a golden age of prosperity. One could of course argue that once a civilization has reached its zenith, the only way is down, so let's manufacture an extinction level event (it's shown without doubt that the meteors that fell on Eternia are caused by the Tree of Origins) and kill the whole species off. But this is a very asinine argument, basically on the same level as: we all must die at some point, memento mori, so let's just murder you right now. Doesn't make a difference, right?
And let's go a step further. The Lacrimosa states that each civilization falls into stagnation. But in evolution, stagnation automatically leads to decline, because the only constant in life and nature is change and a stagnating species/civilization is one that fails to adapt to changing circmstances. Meaning that sooner or later, said species/civilization is going the way of extinction anyway, which begs the question of why a Lacrimosa is needed in the first place.
Did I already mention that evolution and creationism are opposing schools of thought? This is what happens when they are fused - contradictions arise.
As an aside, I also want to point out that the meteors unleashed by the Tree of Origins were for the most part aimed at the big keystone (stupa was its name?) that powers the Eternian capital with Essence. Considering that the hidden history of Eternia reveals that the Tree of Origin was the entity that granted them the power of Essence in the first place, this is another aspect that is not in line with natural catastrophic events which are part of proper evolution, because those are random in nature. But deliberately aiming at the structural achilles heel of a civilization? This is more akin to an act of war directed by an intelligent and malevolent will.
The Primordial Bias
To repeat myself, a species that went extinct is not allowed to impact the ecosystem anymore. This is a self-evident rule of not only Darwinian Evolution but even Ys' version, because the self-imposed rule of selection and rejection only allows for species to be culled, not magically materialized into being after they failed their fitness check. This is by far the most obvious violation of its own rules and to drive this point home even more, once the heroes make their way into the core of the Tree of Origins and meet the actual controller, the so-called 'providence of evolution', it turns out to have the form of a gigantic Primordial. The present dominant species are humans. The species that was culled most recently are the Eternians. And we see another four variations of dominant species through the Wardens of Evolution. But out of all these options, the true antagonist of Ys VIII looks like a god of the Primordials. I doubt it's a coincidence. And obviously, divine favoritism towards one species disqualifies an entity overseeing evolution.
The True Ending
Or to sum it up, what little we are told about goddess Dana make her out to be a faithful representation of proper evolutionary theory and this contrast is the final nail in the coffin that exposes Theos de Endrogram as what it really is: a petty, willful god twisting the concept of evolution into a manipulative narrative (a rhetoric propagated by the Wardens of Evolution who serve as mouthpieces before their respective Psyche Crystals are released) to further its personal agenda. And it's not like Falcom writers didn't make use of this kind of rhetoric manipulation before. Think about that unforgettable scene in Sky SC, when the Imperial Third Armored Division marched to Haken Gate with Steam Tanks and rows of foot soldiers that covered the entire screen and more. But when called out on this clear display of aggression, what does Zechs say? We come in peace and friendship and to honor the recently signed non-aggression pact and these troops are a means to help our recent ally Liberl with their little 'crisis'. Couch an act of war in the rhetoric of peace. Couch an act of creationism in the rhetoric of evolution. In both cases, it makes it harder to argue against it.
Why the story didn't stick the landing
@Wuolong77 That's got to be the most in-depth analysis of the plot of VIII that anyone has done, ever. That was quite a read, well done.
Thanks. And yes...
Happy 35th anniversary to Ys~ and happy new Ys news week 🙏
Falcom just held their annual shareholder's meeting and we got some cool news! They gave us more info and images of Ys X and also announced that Ys III: The Oath in Felghana is getting a remastered Switch port! From what I understand, there are also 2 more Switch ports they are working on, that will release next year, that they haven't announced yet.
First I'll talk about Oath in Felghana. Its official title seems to be "Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana" and it is set to release in Japan in Spring 2023!
Here is the official website: https://www.falcom.co.jp/ysf/
And here is a Gematsu article that gives some additional info: https://www.gematsu.com/2022/12/ys-memoire-the-oath-in-felghana-announced-for-switch
This version of the game will add some additional voice acting for Adol (I assume these will be battle voices). They have remade the character portraits/illustrations for this release and will allow you to swap to the original version. The game will allow you to swap between 3 different versions of the OST (similar to the current Steam edition of the game it seems): Oath's version, the PC-88's version, and the X68000 version. This port/remaster will also include Turbo Mode that will speed up the game from 1.5x to 2x as fast.
They also mention there is a "No Fall" option you can select that will nullify damage taken from falling (I think?) if enabled. I believe this is an option already in the game but only on Easy difficulty, so I'm not sure if this is just talking about that or if this means it will be a feature in general. One other thing is that the PSP port of Oath added an additional Boost mechanic, from what I understand (I haven't played that version or looked into it too much), and that seems to be included in this remastered port as well.
Next up is Ys X's news, and oh boy is there a lot! Firstly, the official titles is "Ys X: Nordics" and it will release on PS4/PS4/Switch in Japan in 2023. Most likely it will release in Autumn; probably the last Thursday of September which is when Falcom usually releases their biggest game for the year.
Here is the official website: https://www.falcom.co.jp/ysx/
And here is a Gematsu article that gives some additional info: https://www.gematsu.com/2022/12/ys-x-nordics-announced-for-ps5-ps4-and-switch
The setting: Taking place after Ys I and II, this game's setting is in the northern sea; a place called "Obelia Bay", which is made up of many island. In this setting there are maritime people called the "Normans", and immortal undead called "Griegers" who attack people.
The gameplay: They are revamping the gameplay from the previous iteration they've used since Ys VII. Ys X introduces the "Cross Action" system, which allows you to swap between 2 modes: "Solo Mode", where you control one character and have automatic attacks and support from a partner, and "Combination Mode", where you control 2 characters at the same time. They are also introducing a new mechanic called "Mana Action", which greatly expands the degree of freedom on fields and in dungeons (this kinda sounds like ||the Monstrum Gifts|| in Ys IX to me). We will also be able to control a ship and sail a "vast" ocean map! We can explore using sea charts and can also have naval battles against enemy ships.
Yeah, I was on floofy's stream as she was watching the updates in realtime and the entire chat was nerding out over the Ys X info. It feels like Falcom's going for more of an open world system with this game and that's going to be awesome. Getting a bit of a TWEWY vibe from the two-character system but we'll have to see how it works in action. UI's a bit funny right now with the way the gauges branch off, but it's pretty much guaranteed to change over the next nine months.
Ship combat looks like it's going to be a lot of fun and it seems like we've got multiple types of ammunition for the ship's cannons (my guess would be round shot, explosive shot and shells based on appearance) and some kind of defensive ability with either a recharge timer or a separate meter from the ship's HP; hard to tell at this point.
I'm getting an alchemical construct vibe from the enemy being fought in the final screenshot. The Tron-esque glowing lines look similar to the statue and Chimaera bosses from Ys IX. Miiiight be a coincidence but we'll see; at this point what's one more game of teasing about the importance of Ys V before they get around to actually remaking it?
The etymology geek in me is trying to figure out if Falcom has taken オベリア湾 from anything specific like most place-names are. I'll be interested to see if Falcom canonizes 'Rurway' from the Ys Eternal manual but that depends on exactly where this is set. We might not be far enough east for that to be relevant, though if the map shows off the broad north sea region we might get it anyways.
The key art is gorgeous.
And how much do you want to bet that our nice ship sinks before the game is done? xD
And how much do you want to bet that our nice ship sinks before the game is done? xD
I was going to say, giving Adol a boat seems like a spectacularly bad idea. I'm interested to see what this looks like in motion on the new engine. It doesn't seem to look quite as good as Kuro does, but I won't judge in development screens too harshly.
