Review #825: Ys - Memories of Celceta

 This is.... what? Ys IV's third version?

 I really haven't played as much Ys as I would've liked. I loved Oath in Felghana on PC, which was my first Ys game, and I enjoyed Ys I & II on the DS, but as far as Ys goes that's all I have played... so far. Ys: Memories of Celceta is another once-exclusive of the Vita that is a sort of-pseudo remake of Ys IV. Look, Ys' timeline is weird and a lot of games got remade, some more than once, and it really doesn't matter since Ys is, according to the lore, a collection of stories about Adol, so, in a way, all versions of the same game can coexist as different versions of the same tale. I'm telling you, this is one of the weirdest JRPG timelines to keep track of.

 In a weird twist, Ys - Memories of Celceta could very well work as a your entry point in the series. Not only does it start off with an amnesiac Adol, but throughout the game as you pick up your memories you'll get a look at Adol's childhood and why he decided to became an adventurer. But getting this mute hero's memory back is but one story thread, the bigger story thread concerns Adol and a man that claims to know Adol, Duren, who undertake the town's mayor request of exploring the nearby forest and charting a full map. As you go through the city you'll discover towns, some which Adol visited, some he hadn't, as well as meet new friends and foes. To be honest, characters are pretty one-note and the plot isn't very interesting, but it's serviceable. What really drove me when playing this game was me wanting to explore the forest, not caring about how the story developed because it was so dull.

 The game's world is large enough, and while it seems like the forest is open for you to explore in any way that you want... it actually isn't. There are plenty of barriers that require a character ability or an artifact ability to proceed, so while you can take your time to explore, and you should since you get money and item rewards for charting the map, most of the time there's only one road that'll take you where you need to be and others that you'll eventually get to go through. I liked it, charting the map was fun... although the map percentage is busted, if by the end of the game you haven't got the full 100%... well, have fun revisiting every area hugging every wall, because the black fog also counts towards the map's percentage. Ridiculous.

 There's plenty of sidequests to partake in, so it pays to revisit every town after you triggered a new story event. Although it's better if you wait until you get the Golden Wing, an item that lets you teleport to ANY stone tablet you've found. At first you can only travel between tablets of the same color, which makes backtracking a bit of an annoyance, but once you get the golden wing, you can, at pretty much any time, open the map, press R and just pick where you wanna warp. As for side quests, they come in various flavors: Slay a monster, gather a material or a set of materials, help a vendor tend to his store... there's quite a bit of variety. As you go through the game, you'll come across minerals, plants as well as beast parts from fallen enemies, these can be used to refine or strengthen your weapons or use them to trade for money, which is surprisingly hard to come by. By the end of the game you'll have a six man team and it'll be very tough to maintain your healing supplies, since no character can heal, as well as everyone's equipment up to date.

 Combat is fairly fun in this game, it takes place in real time. While you have six party members, your party can only be made up of three, although you can pause at any time and swap party members. You take control of one character while the AI takes control of the other two, and you can press circle to swap between active party members. AI allies deal less damage, but also take less damage and can't die, since their health bar never goes below 1 HP, so you don't really need to babysit them. What takes the most getting used to is how loose the combat is, even your basic square attacks will propel your characters forward. And it's weird at first, but eventually you'll get used to moving all over the place as you fight. Every character has a different weapon type: Slash, Blunt and Pierce, and some enemies are weak or strong against a certain type. I didn't care about this system, and bosses don't have any weakness or resistance, so I just played with the party I wanted to play with.

 But that's only half the fun. You also get a dodge and a block button, and if you time them right you'll get a Flash Dodge or a Flash Block, which will slow down your enemy for a few seconds, allowing you to retaliate with free hits. And if that wasn't enough, every character has access to a ton of special moves, although you can only equip four at a time, used by holding R and pressing the face button they are assigned to. Special moves can level up as you use them, and they run on a 100 energy gauge, skills costing 40 energy at most. You can recover this energy by landing hits and defeating enemies. So, basic hits charge your energy for your special moves, and special moves, in turn, fill another, yellow gauge, once full you can press the L button to unleash a powerful super move. It's a good system, and it's very dynamic too, since you recharge your energy by landing hits you are encouraged not to store your energy for 'tougher enemies'. And tougher enemies there are! Besides bosses, you may come across particularly tough monsters, which you can try to avoid or try to defeat for a higher amount experience points than regular enemies.

 One of the game's biggest problems is how annoying it can get to proceed through the environment. First, the 'puzzles' which aren't actually puzzles, y'see, each character has a different ability: Ozma can strike walls, Karna can shoot daggers, Duren can pick locks. The 'puzzles' are as simple as selecting the appropriate character, pressing triangle and watch what happens. You don't have to think too hard, although, to be fair, the final dungeon does have a few brain teasers. Regardless, this means that if a character isn't in your party... you have to pause the game, enter the party menu and swap them in to do their trick, then go into the menu, go into the party section and swap them out again. This is a regular occurrence with artifacts, you'll come across a steep wall that you must run through, or rocks you must break, or need to get smaller to go through a cranny... Once again, you have to enter a menu and equip the appropriate artifact. At least artifacts get a shortcut, you can press the tiny red button on the HUD with your finger to open up the item menu, from which you can use healing items or swap your equipped artifact.

 I liked Ys: Memories of Celceta, and... it kinda rekindled my interest to invest in the rest of the series, like, I really want to get a physical copy of Oath in Felghana for PSP. But I digress, Memories of Celceta is a fine RPG that fails to stand out, but succeeds in being really fun.
 7.5 out of 10