Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (2022) [PS5]

“Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway’s worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little.”

-Yann Martel, Life of Pi (2001)

There’s something about long-running franchises that can be a little intimidating. Take the Yakuza games, for instance, which are a fantastic series and one of gaming’s highlights…but there are also a ton of them and it might be a little tough to get started. Likewise, the Ys series, which has been running since the PC-Engine days back in 1989, might look like an impenetrable wall. That’s not necessarily the case, though, and fans of series like The Legend of Zelda might find something to love here. In fact, with the recent announcement of the latest entry in the series, Ys X: Nordics, it might be time to go back to a fan favorite Ys title: the PlayStation 5 release of Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana.

The Ys series typically follows the journeys of renowned adventurer, monster hunter, treasure aficionado, and all-around good guy Adol Christin. Ys VIII is no different; we join Adol as he finds himself shipwrecked on the mysterious Isle of Seiren, a deserted island said by sailors to be a deathtrap from which no mariner can escape. He’ll have to find other survivors, work with them to explore the island, construct and defend a shelter and maybe even learn a little more about the history and mysticism hidden in Seiren. It’s a tough job, but we’re talking about a man who used to kill his enemies by bumping into them. Adol’s got it covered.

Plot aside, this is an action-RPG so there’s a fair chance you’re here for the action. As a long-running series, Ys’ gameplay has varied significantly over the years, so it’s fortunate that Ys VIII decided to stick with modernizing the snappy and enjoyable combat system from recent entries like Ys Origin. You’ll run around in a party of three, hacking Seiren’s inhabitants to ribbons as you go. You’re able to switch your control between party members at will, and since each character deals either slashing, piercing, or crushing damage, it’s important to do so often in order to target enemy weaknesses. You can also mix in skills and super-powerful Extra skills to keep the enemies on their toes.

Ys VIII’s combat is a little more interesting from a defensive perspective, though. You can jump and dodge to avoid enemy attacks, of course, but you’ll get a lot more out of responding with precise timing. Dodging at just the right moment will slow down the action, allowing Adol and company to unleash a super-speedy series of strikes, while a properly-timed parry allows the team to unleash a series of guaranteed critical strikes. Naturally, dropping the ball on either maneuver will lead to a quick trip to Paintown, so these serve as rewards for skilled play.

When you add everything up, Ys VIII’s combat is pretty addictive – you’ll almost certainly find yourself running around beating up enemies just for the sake of beating them up. That’s a good thing, too, since you’ll need the stuff they drop for crafting. Better gear allows you to dish out more pain, take on bigger enemies and stand a chance in huge and challenging boss battles. These are action-RPG fundamentals done right.

Another notable aspect of Ys VIII is the hilarious set of circumstances surrounding its localization. When it comes to Japanese titles making their way over to the West, there’s a little more work that goes into crafting the ideal experience than just translating the text into English directly. If that were the case, we could just run games’ scripts through a machine-translation system like Google Translate and toss whatever comes out onto store shelves…but as you know if you’ve ever tried doing something like that, the results tend to be questionable at best. You need localizers who are able to take the nuances of the original writing and bring them over to a new audience to really let a game shine.

All that said, if you weren’t blessed with the chance to play Ys VIII in its original form, you’re…well, missing out probably isn’t the right phrase. While we’ll sometimes refer to a work as being “so bad it’s good” and this might be a little tough to wrap one’s brain around, suffice to say that on launch, Ys VIII didn’t even make it that far. Awkward sentence structure, questionable grammar, and bizarre diction abound as the characters flubbed their way through a script that struggled to make sense. If you’re used to modern localization, this really must be seen to be believed.

If you were a fan of this sort of game before, say, around a decade ago, that would have been the end of it, but Nippon Ichi wasn’t content to let this stand, particularly in the face of widespread negative feedback. The entire game was retranslated and patched up, resulting in a far superior experience that lines up with what you’re getting on the PlayStation 5 today. It’s one of the very few instances of this occurring in modern memory, and while there’s no reason to praise NIS for delivering the product as it should have launched in the first place, it’s worth noting that we also could have just been stuck with the word-salad version forever.

Ys VIII originally launched in the west in 2017 on the PlayStation 4 and Vita. Later, it saw releases on the PC and Switch in 2018. We’re playing at the next level today, though, so what makes the PlayStation 5 version different? Well…er…the framerate’s certainly nice, there’s a noticeable improvement in draw distance, and the water just might look a little bit nicer, but generally speaking, this isn’t too dissimilar from playing Ys VIII on a reasonably competent gaming PC. If you were looking forward to those sweet, sweet PS5 haptics, then you’ll want to grab a tissue to dry your tears when you find out that they’re not available here. Life is hard. Still, even if the improvements are marginal, the PS5 version is now the best console version of Ys VIII.

As for the game itself, it’s absolutely worth a play for fans of the genre. The tight controls, intriguing Robinson Crusoe plot, and intense combat all work together to create an adventure that’s bound to captivate. As with the rest of the Ys games, you don’t even particularly need any familiarity with the series to get into it. Grab some coconut, slap a bloody handprint on a volleyball, and get ready to get stranded on a desert isle.

We would like to thank NIS America for sending us a copy of Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana for this review.

PIXEL PERFECT

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Cory G. believes the pen is mightier than the sword…well, depending on how sharp the pen and sword are. A child of the ’90s and a prolific writer, he strews his work about like Legos made of words, just waiting for your brain to step on them. He enjoys a devilish challenge, so when it comes to talking about some of the more difficult games out there, you might just run into the Infernal Accountant Mage. Some advice: hold on to your soul around this guy, and don’t sign anything. Read more at popzara.com.