Right, this may sound confusing so bear with me, Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is a remaster of the 2012 PSP Ys: The Oath in Felghana which itself was a remake of the 1990 Ys III: Wanderers From Ys (phew!). The original Ys III: Wanderers From Ys was a 2D sidescroller similar in style to Zelda II and was the final game in the series to feature the work of Masaya Hashimoto and Tomoyoshi Miyazaki shortly before they left Nihon Falcom to form the legendary video game development company Quintet.
Story
Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana’s story starts out with Adol and his best friend and fellow adventurer Dogi visiting Dogi’s birthland Felghana. It soon becomes apparent that something is seriously wrong with the once prosperous mining town of Redmont and the lands of Felghana are littered with monsters.
Dogi sets off to the mountains alone to find his old mentor and find out more about the strange happenings in Felghana while leaving Adol back in Redmont, which serves as the game’s hub. Adol quickly gets wrapped up in the mysteries plaguing the town of the Redmont and helps out the townsfolk, rescuing people from monsters and investigating disappearances at the local mines.
The story is much deeper than that, with a few subplots and even a twist or two but I won’t spoil them here.
Gameplay
Unlike some of the other Ys games, you only be controlling Adol here. Gameplay plays out in an isometric style and Dogi spends the majority of the game absent besides certain story beats. The general gameplay loop of Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is you find out information in Redmont from the town’s various NPCs and either go to investigate an area or rescue someone. Each area besides Redmont acts as a dungeon and they can be quite large.
Typically at the end of each area, there will be a boss that you can defeat to claim a special item or reward.
Combat has transferred nicely here pulling directly from Ys VI, in fact at a glance, you could easily confuse The Oath in Felghama with Ys VI as they look and play so similarly.
All fights take place in real-time across Felghana’s many dungeons and even the main pathway that connects the island together. The only place you don’t have enemy encounters is the main hub town Redmont.
Various bonuses can be achieved by attacking enemies repeatedly including additional percentages to damage output as well as increased Exp gain which is a very welcome feature, especially later in the game when you may want to consider some level grinding.
Weapons and equipment can be purchased from the towns Blacksmith with more powerful items being found out in chests in the Felghana’s various dungeons.
Each piece of armour or weaponry can be upgraded at the blacksmith for a monetary fee and some Raval Ore, An item that is often found as a reward for finding hidden paths or dropped by some late-game powerful enemies. This upgrade system makes for a nice sense of progression as you play your way through the game as there’s always something slightly more powerful within your reach if you collect enough ores.
To aide both in combat and exploration, three magical amulets can be found which will bestow Adol with a spell such as the Fireball. MP constantly recharges so you can pretty much uses these abilities at will.
The later two amulets give Adol the ability to access previously inaccessible areas, which usually contain some nice rewards so backtracking is highly encouraged as the story progresses.
Optional gemstones can be found which will empower each of the amulets up to three times allowing for stronger versions of each ability, a must for the late-game dungeons.
Carried over from the PSP version is the double charge system that lets Adol regain some of his health over time while increasing his attack power and defence. This is a feature that was sorely missing from the previous PC version so it’s nice to see its return.
In terms of presentation, Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana looks a lot cleaner than its previous releases and feels more modern overall. The game looks great on Switch and performs at a solid framerate with no hiccups (As far as I could tell).
The audio is definitely improved with the shocker being Adol can actually speak now. Adol’s lines are few and far between but they certainly make a difference, in fact, the voice acting quality is very good across the board with most important characters now having fully voiced dialogue which is a very welcome addition.
While on the subject of audio, I best mention the awesome OST which has been rearranged and sounds great. Not only is this new OST included but also a toggleable option to switch to the soundtracks from the PC-8801 and X68000 versions of Ys III.
One area that wasn’t improved was the annoying chime sound effect that plays to let you know your magic is charged. It’s a little inconvenience but was genuinely driving me crazy by the end of my play-through.
The only other thing I didn’t like about Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is the two sections in the game where you must escort another character from one side of the map to safety. Playing on normal difficulty these NPCs were completely passive and could only take two hits. This is fine, as I do like a challenge, however, these passive characters seemed to be magnetised towards enemies AOE attacks and almost ran towards the enemies before Adol had time to dispatch them. Thankfully, these sections only happened twice with one of them being completely optional and by that time I had learnt to rely on Adol’s knack for magic projectiles to keep everyone safe.
Upon completing the game on normal mode I unlocked Inferno difficulty along with a time attack/Boss Rush mode which can be accessed from the main menu. There’s an option to save clear data for a New Game Plus run if you intend to play through the game again with some of Adol’s gear intact.
It took me just under 12 hours to complete the main story and most of the game’s side quests. The Time Attack mode I’ve also sunk a couple of hours into and it’s a lot of fun. Overall, it’s a very breezy experience with minimal grind required unless you want to fully upgrade your weapons and armour.
Conclusion
Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is a fantastic action RPG that’s full of charming characters and a fun and addictive battle system. It’s nice to be able to play this classic on modern systems and while a little on the short side, I felt very satisfied once I completed the game’s story. I would highly recommend seeking out a copy of Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana and I hope we get more Ys remakes coming our way in the future!
8.5
Nintendo Switch review code kindly provided by Decibel-PR