Thoughts on Ys Origin?
It’s been a while since I played it, so I’ll see what I can remember. I restarted recently and was able to beat a boss that gave me trouble for a long time. I’ve only played as Yunica, not Hugo or Claw, so that’s the perspective I’m working from.
The monsters across the dungeon are configured to be much more threatening and tricky to bypass than monsters in say, Oath in Felghana.
Each of the magic attacks has its own niche where it works best, a few different uses, and a way to get more damage out of it. Like the whirlwind makes you move a bit faster, like a dash, it can be chained over and over again, and you can charge it to get an even bigger dash, that also damages everything around you a lot, and lets you act as you have this damaging whirlwind around you. It obviously doesn’t let you fly as far as the same power in Ys Oath in Felghana, but it has a lot more depth to it. You can even fire off a charge whirlewind, then do tons of light whirlwinds afterwards for most damage.
The Lightning Hammer hits upwards, hitting airborne enemies, and multihitting enemies with multiple segments aligned vertically. The centipede is the perfect boss to show off this weapon, really dynamic interesting fight. It can also guard attacks, functioning sort of like a parry when you need to avoid damage.
The Fireball spell is a fireball, it’s a ranged attack, the only one you have. The charged fireball is a lot bigger, and it can be fired in such a way that it pushes enemies, hitting them again, allowing for a longer chain combo. More useful versus regular enemies than most bosses.
A lot of the bosses have health regeneration in the form of releasing a bunch of smaller enemies, then absorbing them back for health, which helps enforce the recommended level. If you’re too level then you literally cannot win.This sucks, but it is a fun mechanic, which is regretable, because grind sucks.
The bosses are really dynamic, like a lategame boss has you optimizing between destroying obstacles he puts up, avoiding his attacks, and dealing the most damage to him. Ideally you want him really close to you with a lot of room behind him, for your fireball to pass through as many obstacles as possible, destroying them, and naturally for him not to hit you. Still haven’t beaten that one.
It’s still generally easy to ignore enemies, if you didn’t need to level up the game would be a lot easier, but you do, and grinding sucks, and it gets worse on higher difficulties (which change boss movesets, so it’s worth it).
There’s less exploration than other Ys games, going up a straight tower, only really one way to move forward most times, you can teleport to every floor’s save statue. I find this streamlined in a good way, because Oath wasn’t really much of an exploration game either. Like, less bullshit running around and quests, just gives you the dungeons straight up and doesn’t fuss around much with all the other bullshit.
Oh and unskippable cutscenes suck. Worse, you gotta repeat them every time you decide you can’t beat this boss and want to quit out.
Celia Alexis Wagar's CritPoints 