{"id":337,"date":"2017-10-01T01:01:57","date_gmt":"2017-10-01T05:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=337"},"modified":"2017-10-01T01:01:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-01T05:01:57","slug":"game-ramblings-53-ys-viii-lacrimosa-of-dana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=337","title":{"rendered":"Game Ramblings #53 &#8211; Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ysviii.com\/\">More Info from Falcom<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Genre<\/strong>: Action RPG<\/li>\n<li><strong>Platform<\/strong>: PS4<\/li>\n<li><strong>Also Available On<\/strong>: Vita, Steam (Windows)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>TL;DR<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Great continuation of the Ys series, and one of the best RPGs of the year<\/li>\n<li>Fantastically fun action combat<\/li>\n<li>Serviceable story, but island systems that come out of it are great motivators for forward progress<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Ys series has routinely been a lot of fun, even if the actual releases have been extremely sporadic.\u00a0 In the past decade we&#8217;ve only seen <em>Ys 7<\/em> and\u00a0<em>Memories of Celceta<\/em>, and internationally speaking the release of\u00a0<em>Origin<\/em>.\u00a0 However, the gameplay has continued to improve in quality, getting us to the point we&#8217;re at now.\u00a0 While this is still definitely a game that feels like it was made for the Vita, it moves up to the console quite well, keeping fast paced combat, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NU4am8acLR0&amp;list=PLzFTGYa_evXi6iVzAPRg4_kkNphkGXG7c\">a great soundtrack to back it<\/a>, and some really good systems involving the growth and maintenance of a town.\u00a0 As usual, we&#8217;re left with Adol Christin being left in a bad situation, but this one works out as well as any game in the series before it.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_338\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-338\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_underground_dungeon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_underground_dungeon-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_underground_dungeon-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_underground_dungeon-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_underground_dungeon-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_underground_dungeon.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-338\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Despite targeting the Vita, the visual style holds up well when scaled up to the big screen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Going into an Ys game, the combat is obviously going to be the core focus.\u00a0 The last few releases in particular have really strengthened their action RPG core, and <em>VIII<\/em> is no different.\u00a0 The basic combat system is a main melee button, four mappable skills on a regenerating resource, a dodge, and a jump.\u00a0 However, this simplicity hides a lot of depth.\u00a0 One of the biggest pieces of the core combat is the timing of dodges.\u00a0 When executed close to the point of taking damage, the game slows down the enemy combat, giving the player a period of time where they can lay into the enemy they&#8217;re facing with little risk of damage.\u00a0 On the other hand, if they time this with their skill activation button, they gain a damage blocking shield and increased critical damage for a short period.\u00a0 In addition, there&#8217;s a small weapon weakness system in place, giving the player an incentive to swap between characters to maximize damage, which can be done at any time with the press of a button.<\/p>\n<p>Overall the system works really well to keep up the pace.\u00a0 When taking on trash enemies, I often found myself dancing around spamming abilities to hit packs at a time.\u00a0 When I moved up to larger enemies, it became a bit more of a tense chess match, where I&#8217;d lay off watching for reads on the enemy attack, then dodge and lay into the enemy while I had my small advantage window.\u00a0 This was particularly evident during boss fights, where damage tended to be pretty fair, but could very quickly stack up into trouble if I started getting sloppy with my dodges.\u00a0 There is a small wrinkle here where flashback sequences involving the title character Dana leave her to fight on her own.\u00a0 However, as the flashbacks progress, she gains the ability to change forms, giving her the effective weapon triangle in the past without having to worry about the lack of party members.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_339\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-339\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_trex.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-339\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_trex-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_trex-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_trex-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_trex-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_trex.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-339\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Some bosses are impressive, others are just a good way to let dinosaur fans get a laugh.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On the story front, things aren&#8217;t as great, but they&#8217;re serviceable.\u00a0 In general the story is pretty by the book.\u00a0 Adol and the ship he&#8217;s on run aground, get stranded on an island, and adventuring hijinks ensue.\u00a0 The cast all have their own motivations to getting off the island, but generally speaking they aren&#8217;t explored too much.\u00a0 The story around the title character Dana, and why Adol was having dreams about her goes a bit further, but mostly only to provide a bit of reason to move forward.\u00a0 However, because the story is so focused on survival and getting off the island, it forces the use of one of my favorite parts of the game, Castaway Island.<\/p>\n<p>While you&#8217;re busy exploring the island of Seiren, you&#8217;re looking for a couple things; people and resources.\u00a0 Finding the members of the ship you were on allows the village to grow.\u00a0 Each person has their own little role to play.\u00a0 Some people join your party as combat members while others open up shops for gear and potions.\u00a0 Because the island is deserted there&#8217;s also no money system, so everything is received through a bartering system.\u00a0 This heavy use of resources found in the environment enforces a really strong need to explore every little corner of the world, finding points in the environment where resources can be gathered, or that specific monster you need to kill to get one last piece of hide to upgrade your armor.\u00a0 This system works fantastically well in practice, and provides a much more interactive system of gearing than your typical pattern of <em>new town; new gear<\/em> that so many RPGs fall into.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_340\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-340\" style=\"width: 474px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_fishing.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-340\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_fishing-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_fishing-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_fishing-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_fishing-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/ys8_fishing.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 474px) 100vw, 474px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-340\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Side activities like fishing provide a nice distraction, as well as further resources to put back into the village.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In any normal year\u00a0<em>Ys 8\u00a0<\/em>would have been the type of game that would push to the top of my list of favorite games, and as it stands it&#8217;s easily one of the better RPGs I&#8217;ve played this year.\u00a0 The combat is fantastic, the story does well enough and pushes some great side systems, and the soundtrack really drives the game when it&#8217;s needed.\u00a0 While this definitely won&#8217;t appeal to the Final Fantasy audience, anyone who&#8217;s a fan of the Tales game is going to find a lot to like here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More Info from Falcom Genre: Action RPG Platform: PS4 Also Available On: Vita, Steam (Windows) TL;DR Great continuation of the Ys series, and one of the best RPGs of the year Fantastically fun action combat Serviceable story, but island systems that come out of it are great motivators for forward progress The Ys series has &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/?p=337\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Game Ramblings #53 &#8211; Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":343,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,6],"tags":[48,123,29,122,121],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arpg","category-ps4","tag-arpg","tag-falcom","tag-ps4","tag-ys","tag-ys-8"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.dwgames.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}