Ys: Origin - Thoughts

My journey through the world of Ys momentarily ends on Ys: Origin, the modern prequel to the first two Ys books (er, games). Origin takes the Oath in Felghana formula and refines it, hitching the blood-pumping action onto a linear path to reduce backtracking. Gone is the open world and its towns, replaced by more interesting levels, better bosses, and an overall smoother progression. It still remains an eccentric Ys game at heart, with its hard focus on leveling and generally unambitious plot, but I'd contest that it's the best one I've played so far.

Back in Ys I, there's a gargantuan tower that you climb in the latter half of the game that's surprisingly long and full of labyrinthine corridors. Ys: Origin revisits this tower in its entirety, basing the entire narrative around the 25 floor behemoth. Thankfully the game takes ample liberties in re-imagining its rooms, treasures, and gimmicks, providing a completely new experience in a somewhat familiar setting. Perhaps the only thing I miss is visiting towns—for better or worse, the tower is your home now—but at least there's still a colorful cast of NPCs to chat with.

Speaking of, there's a better sense of camaraderie and fealty in Origin compared to the other titles. No longer do you play as the reticent Adol visiting a foreign land; you have the choice between three characters related to Ys in some particular way, each with their own unique storyline. My playthrough delved into the struggles of Yunica, an ax-wielding understudy of the Holy Order bound by duty to locate and rescue the goddesses of Ys. It was refreshing to play a game in this series where you're not some perfect savior that everyone falls in love with, but instead a sheltered local that has her own hurdles to overcome. While the plot follows a pretty unremarkable structure, the NPCs feel like they play a far bigger role and the pacing of the story beats is great, interrupting the game at exactly the right time.

As I said in my Oath in Felghana entry, the story and presentation in this series always takes a backseat to the fast-paced gameplay. The action piggybacks off of Felghana, but the magic is perfectly balanced (I preferred all spells equally) and the enemies have been tremendously improved. Though each area may be somewhat gimmicky, the environmental hazards and enemy combinations completely outclass Felghana, no longer feeling like needless filler before the adrenaline-fueled bosses. Looking back there's still some things the designers could tweak (like mixing more hazards and enemy types together), but what's here is still the best Falcom has offered.

I cannot understate how great the boss fights are either; the jump in boss quality from Felghana to Origin is almost as large as Ys I to Ys II. While I enjoyed only a minority of the bosses in Felghana, Origin knocks it out of the park with nearly every single one. No longer is it difficult to decipher what is happening or how to avoid attacks—within one or two attempts you should be able to devise a strategy for taking down your foe. Every encounter (outside of that goddamn bat again) is fluid and fast paced, demanding that you to learn your opponent's moveset in order to survive. Perhaps the only problem is that since it is a Ys game, grinding one additional level out will decimate a boss, so it can be tricky to find the middle-ground between "overwhelmingly difficult" and "yawn".

Also, have I said how great the magic is? Charge attacks never lose their charm even after the 100th time.

Whereas Ys I & II left me lukewarm by the end, I was thrilled to finish Ys Origin. It avoids so many pitfalls that the previous entries fall into, finally coming together to form a game where I could side with the fanbase's praise. The music is also fantastic and sublime, which is par for the course really, but needs to be stated anyway. I will confess that Origin is great because it stands on the shoulders of its successors—there were multiple points where I thought "oh, this is a cool throwback to Ys I"—but I don't think it diminishes from its own personal accomplishments. If the newer titles in the series are more like this, then it appears I have some games in the future to look forward to.

Firewatch - Thoughts

[contains spoilers]

Slower-paced games that are centered around natural, beautiful environments can elicit a weird reaction from me. Like, I enjoy gazing out upon a breathtaking vista as much as the next person, but for it to have a lasting impression there usually needs to be more to it. As much as I enjoy exploring the rich worlds of Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, the crux of those experiences hinge on their mysteries for me. No matter how gorgeous a game looks, if my only action is to walk through it at a leisurely pace, I need something substantial to ponder in the meantime.

So as you can probably guess, I have some mixed feelings regarding Campo Santo's debut Firewatch.

There's promise here, no doubt. Right out of the gate Firewatch throws you a curve ball by exploring Henry's life pre-lookout days (albeit in a slightly ham-fisted way), doing the bold thing and—*gasp*—giving the protagonist a compelling backstory. At first I was a little puzzled over its inclusion but I reasoned it was a pretty smart move: it inducts the player into Henry's tumultuous past and gives them a reason to be hesitant towards Delilah. The way the game resolves Julia'a presence through Alzheimer's is a really clever and uncommon thing to see too: it allows her to persist in the story but prompts the player to move on.

The push-and-pull nature of Delilah and Henry's relationship is stupendous, easily becoming the focal point of the game. Even pit against the majesty of the softly rendered Wyoming wilderness, the moments where Delilah radios in to talk to you are among the high points of your days; the banter is well-written (though a mite sarcastic at times) and the small choices you make in the conversations feel like they matter. There isn't a significant payoff for your decisions, but I feel the moment-to-moment challenge of choosing an answer is worthy of merit despite narrative inevitability. This isn't to downplay the visuals either; like The Witness, the game deserves praise for its vibrant color tones, varied locales, and soothing atmosphere. Firewatch may be short and move at a snail's pace, but its characters and world feel well realized and very much alive.

I can't really say the same about the story, unfortunately. I'm not bothered by the fact that there's only one ending or that the central mystery leads nowhere—I'm disappointed that Firewatch steered away from Delilah and Henry's relationship. I do think the subversion it took with conspiracy theories was admirable, expanding on how isolation and paranoia can mix to brew a very potent (and nearly tenable!) concoction. As much as one may detest the numerous red herrings, every event and action in the game has a reason for unfolding the way it did, though I imagine many players will get flustered by the abundant amount of information stored in Ned's hideaway (plus they have to dispel their own convictions while digesting each factoid). It admittedly stumbles a bit in the delivery, but I respect the game for what it was trying to achieve.

However, the conspiratorial element doesn't compliment Delilah and Henry's relationship as much as it distracts from it. The ingredients are there for a very fascinating tale about human connection deprived of physical interaction—both seek to escape into one another, yet for different reasons—but it feels undercooked by the finale. Despite how well the ending captured the poignancy of their miscommunication, I felt that if the game had spent all of its effort on exploring the nuance of their relationship, I would've been wholly onboard. Instead, it pushes the player into pursuing something fishy out in the woods, treating the park as suspect rather than letting it evolve into a welcomed, shared experience. I think the discovery of Brian's body being the catalyst for Delilah's departure works well, but there could've been a more natural way to tie it into the story instead of using it as a springboard for Ned's manic antics. The father/son material is tragic and works well on paper, but it should've remained secondary to the main characters.

A lot of this makes it seem like I take umbrage with one single facet out of the entire experience, but the problem is that a game of this particular style rests on its story. I can see some being sated by the delightful visuals alone, but for me it was different; near the end after I had fetched the ax, I realized that traversing the park had become "normalized", meaning all I had left was to anticipate was where the mystery would lead. The tension of discussing Julia with Delilah had been put on hold, and our own personal insecurities (besides the paranoia) appeared to have dissipated. All that was left for me to ponder was what awaited me deep in the forest, but that...

I guess that just wasn't enough.

We're at a point with video games where the most run-of-the-mill topics can be explored and made interesting. Gone Home was phenomenal not just because it made a single house feel lived-in, but that its heartwarming tale turned the ordinary exotic. Firewatch feels like it took the supernatural bent of Gone Home and wanted to delve into that deception more thoroughly, enabling the player to become as lonely and paranoid as the emotionally wracked character s/he's controlling. It consciously shelves the humane aspect of the story in doing so, which is a great pity since it brushed upon one of the greatest sources of loneliness there is—a long distance relationship that goes nowhere. I didn't dislike it, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm sad it shied away from (what I feel is) its full potential.

Hexcells - Thoughts

Matthew Brown's Hexcells is great! That's the most important thing that needs to be said about the game, but I suppose I'll expand on it a little more.

For the uninitiated, Hexcells is basically Minesweeper meets Picross with a tiny sprinkle of Sudoku. Your only controls are to either destroy or highlight an orange hex with your mouse cursor, and the goal of each puzzle is to destroy/highlight all of the orange hexes using the numerical hints given to you. The starting hints are simple—the numbers inside of destroyed hexes will tell you how many highlighted hexes surround them. You can see this in the screenshot down below:

This puzzle is easy enough that it can be solved through cursory deduction. If you're a Minesweeper amateur like me, the game thankfully eases you into its basic mechanics early on, but be warned: it'll turn into a brain-busting mess before you know it! The first Hexcells game is relatively straightforward (it took me two hours to "perfect" it), but the following Hexcells Plus and Hexcells Infinite took me 10 hours each to plow through. More hint types are piled on as you progress through each game, and the way they shape your comprehension of the game is pretty astounding.

Talking about numerical puzzle games like these are difficult, because you'll either like it or you won't. If you're looking for a twist on the Minesweeper or Picross formula on Steam for an absurdly cheap price (all three games can be bought for under $3 during a sale!), then Hexcells is a no-brainer. I had a damn good time with it!

The Witness - Thoughts

In its entirety, Jonathan Blow's The Witness exists as a challenge. Nearly everything about it is designed to instigate and confound, from its textless puzzles to the verbose audio logs. But it doesn't seek to halt your progress—merely impede, momentarily. It's a game designed around the "aha!" moment, crafted meticulously together to spur your curiosity and wonder. The game's mysterious island will submerge you in instances of apophenia and splendor, kindling your imagination and asking you to seriously think about some of its puzzles. If you play it without a guide, you're bound to have an amazing time.

Broken down to its core components, the gameplay in The Witness is all about clicking on circles and drawing lines. It may not seem like there's ~30 hours of content with that description, but you'll interact with the game's systems in clever ways: perhaps you'll see multiple "exit" points for the lines, or there will be strange symbols on the panel that will bar your way, or maybe you can't even locate what you're supposed to be drawing lines on. Similar to Fez, there's a lexicon of symbols that you'll have to manually decode, but the way they're adjusted and oriented changes up constantly.

But that's what makes the game fun! You know nothing going into it, but by the journey's close you'll be witness to the furtive ways in which the island works. The game guides your hand but does so from the shadows, allowing you to explore any of its locations once you're free from the starting area. Of course some locales will be harder than others, but the nonlinear approach to learning the rules of the world make the game seem far more open and exploratory compared to many other puzzlers. Even when you reach the game's conclusion you'll still be interacting with the panels in very clever—and devious!—ways, never quite sure if you've fully digested everything the island has to offer.

And if the puzzles don't seem to stump you, the inscrutable text will. Blow's natural leanings towards "pretentiousness" have not been curbed since Braid, and I think that's great! I'm all for a larger diversity in gaming. There's a place in this medium for Mario and Call of Duty's A to B storyline just as there is for convoluted meta-narrative pieces like The Beginner's Guide and The Witness. Plus Blow raises some really interesting (if vague) questions with the texts compiled here, weaving their meanings into the "challenge" aspect of the game itself. The narrative is one part celebration of human ingenuity, and another part condemnation of our categorical tendencies, with a ton of angles to approach each side from. Plus Tarkovskiy gets "name dropped", which is pretty cool.

The final thing worth discussing is the art direction. Blow and his team absolutely nailed their attempt to make a modern Myst in style alone, having distinct portions of the island that work harmoniously together. There's a ton of color used in each setting; at times I found myself wondering why other games aren't nearly as vivid and lush with their color palettes. Seriously, the colors are so strong and distinctive that it almost comes off almost as cell-shaded, but continues to deceive you with its realism. Plus the aforementioned apophenia moments are unforgettable—there's so many little details put into the environment that the game may be worth it for the art design alone (er, as long as you don't mind the price of admission).

I have my own theories on what Blow was trying to achieve with The Witness, and I hope that if you're intrigued by what you've read, you'll give it a shot too. It's a welcoming game despite the isolation (kinda the inverse of SOMA), and the puzzles found within are superb. During my time on this beautiful and vibrant island, I only needed to look up a solution for one of puzzles out of the +500 I completed (the ship [sigh]); nothing is ever so hard that the answer lies out of your reach, though you'll likely have to break out the ol' pen and paper when the going gets rough. The Witness is a fantastic experience, from start to finish.

SOMA - Thoughts

[contains minor spoilers]

To put it simply, SOMA is phenomenal. As a fan of Frictional's past work (Penumbra trilogy, Amnesia: The Dark Descent), I'm stoked that they've outdone themselves for their most recent release, and could not be more impressed—or enraptured!—with SOMA's underwater wasteland. While it does little to expand off of Amnesia's revolutionary gameplay, SOMA's philosophical conundrums will linger with you far longer than its scares ever could. At times you may even find yourself thankful you're not living in a reality so flush with robotics; the concept of "humanity" aggressively dissolves when consciousness can be adapted into ones and zeroes, capable of being uploaded, saved, and duplicated.

The most important thing to note is that SOMA isn't exactly pure horror. It's true that there are malformed monstrosities and scary moments lurking down in the depths, but the game focuses far more on oppression, misfortune, and moral grays. In that sense, horror is far from the main draw; perhaps I can best equate it to how fear works within the more action-packed Dead Space, being a tool of delivery for tense encounters. But whereas Isaac Clarke's battle against the Necromorphs is one of physical apprehension, Simon Jarrett's deep-sea struggle is centered around existential dread.

As soon as you (playing as Simon) get your brain scanned, you're immediately transported to a dilapidated sub-aquatic environment. You'll come across no other autonomous humans (there are plenty of corpses) and the only true ally you have in the game can come off as detached and rude at times (I still really liked her). You'll learn that it's impossible to return to the surface, and the only hope humanity has now is to live on in as pioneers in a digital world. And in order to ensure their survival, you'll have to make sacrifices that will force you to grapple with the very nature of consciousness itself. Nearly everything that happens in SOMA is meant to make you feel uncomfortable in a cerebral way, targeting existential anxiety over the more commonly evoked visceral nausea. And it succeeds very well at this.

That doesn't mean that the game does everything right. The monster encounters stay too close to Amnesia's "patrolling in the darkness" design, and the wounded effect is straight-up headache inducing (it's cool, but detrimental to playing the game!) However I can overlook these gripes thanks to how utterly convincing the game's world is. The sound design is lurid and foreboding, the voice acting is uncanny and human, and the art design put into each of the Pathos II stations (and the abyssal endgame areas) are both haunting and breathtaking. Nearly every step of the way is meant to make you feel lonely, separated from the life you once knew, now stumbling upon the threshold of futility. Even the main plot wraps up in a masterfully bittersweet way, prompting a constant stream of conflicting messages and "what if" scenarios in your head as you contemplate questions rare to the video game form (which is surprising given the AI obsession lately).

The scariest thing for me about going into SOMA blind was how/if Frictional could move forward after Amnesia's success. I'd go as far to argue that Amnesia is one of the greatest horror games of all time, yet still—despite the odds—SOMA has become my favorite title of theirs. It's a fascinating experience, gorgeous in a very cold, calculating way, offering forth a future that makes the modern man tremble in his corporeal form. Perhaps what's even more uncomfortable about it is that the questions it poses have the possibility—some centuries from now—not to be seen as frightening anymore, but rather, merely mundane.

(Had I played SOMA in 2015, it would've easily cracked my top five favorites from that year—hopefully I'll leverage my time better in 2016!)

Ys: The Oath in Felghana

Originally, I played Ys I & II Chronicles+ in order to prepare myself for Ys: The Oath in Felghana (I know I didn't need to play them in "order", but I figured it gives me a good perspective on the series). But Felghana is a different beast than the bumpin' grind-fest that I & II were. It's faster, prettier, smarter, and way more rock'n'roll. I was glad to finally find myself getting into the series, but many of the questionable Ys eccentricities still remained. So it's fun... but with plenty of exceptions.

The general story follows the mold of innumerable JRPGs at the time, which is a given since Falcom stuck close to the original 1989 material. While it feels like a retread of Ys I & II at times (a cheery town full of upstanding individuals, a faceless evil lurking in the shadows, and a naive girl that gets the cold shoulder from Adol—yet again), the writing is strong enough that I felt engaged whilst stumbling upon every predictable story beat. Though much of it is mostly forgettable, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't charmed by some of the characters, as well as interested in seeing how the main plot resolved itself.

But story has rarely been the main draw of the Ys titles. If anything, the combat usually garners the most attention, and here is no different. Gone is the bump system! In its place are beat-'em-up-esque controls, as Adol can only perform one combo on his colorful foes. This can be mixed up with some magic and aerial attacks, but for the majority of the game you'll be hearing the same six "swoosh"es over and over again as you cut your foes down (and thankfully they drop healing items this time around). It's better than the bump system because it demands more attention than "run into the corner of every enemy", though I do kinda miss the charm of smooshing enemies against a wall while grinding.

Luckily grinding isn't really required in Felghana. The trade-off is that you have to learn boss patterns more intensively, but you can always go decimate scores of baddies for XP if things get too crazy (and like with Ys I & II, one additional level makes a world of difference). I love me some tough bosses, but I didn't find Felghana to be a significant step above Ys II in this department—many of their designs are extremely gaudy and their attacks can be all over the place. Having the ability to jump adds this bizarre layer to the combat space where it can be hard to tell what plane bullets are on and whether jumping is effective during certain attacks or not. The fighting is a magnitude more frantic than it's ever been but it's not necessarily invigorating to play, since you'll have to memorize when/where to attack after many attempts on the same boss (the ice dragon was the worst offender).

I will give the game credit however—it can be pretty fun at times. The boss fights being difficult makes them rewarding to topple... well, when you're not frustrated out of your mind at the accuracy and speed of certain attacks. While the enemies aren't all that engaging to fight it's still satisfying to slash them to pieces, and each elemental magic is surprisingly useful (though nothing tops the whirlwind). The music is so over-the-top that it's an absolute blast to listen to as you explore the land; the tenacious fighting spirit of the Valestein Castle's track easily makes it my favorite. Another bonus is that no areas feel like filler, and by the end you'll feel sated from your seven hour sojourn in the troubled lands of Felghana.

I can't say Ys is a favorite of mine yet. It's too RPG-focused to be a purely satisfying action game, but the lack of combat depth doesn't allow it to rival other Action RPG titles. Ys: The Oath in Felghana exists in this strange middle-ground where it doesn't excel at one particular thing, as the boss battles are too disorganized, the story too bland, and jumping still feels weird to me.

However, it's not a bad game. I never got to a point where I felt upset or agitated like I did in Ys I & II, and I never needed to revert to a walkthrough to finish it (other than how to damage the last boss—a minor inconvenience compared to damn Darm Tower). It's a zany ride that offers a solid experience if you're interested in getting lost in a quaint yet nondescript world teetering on the brink of demise, or if you wanna just beat the ever-living snot out of some monsters.

Ys I & II Chronicles+ - Thoughts

 Ys I & II have not held up well.

To be fair they're an ancient piece of Falcom's history that started way back in 1987 on the PC-8801, and the remakes have done their best to try and stay true to the original's framework. However, that doesn't mean Chronicles+ is all that fun to play because of that. My first real foray into the Ys series felt like going back to a time where the wild idea of adventuring in a virtual 2D fantasy world was exciting in and of itself. But having experienced numerous other (more modern) titles, I couldn't help but feel like my time could've been better spent elsewhere.

The Bump system is a good idea—in theory. It boils traditional RPG encounters down to a mere second, since either you bump your foe into oblivion or they counter you. It reminds me of Half-Minute Hero in a way, as it makes grinding significantly more fun than in the original Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Trying to master your approach and angle of attack can feel a bit awkward at first, but it works for the most part in both games. And you better enjoy the Bump system, because it's the only action you can perform for the entirety first game.

The main problem with the combat is that nearly every enemy behaves the same way. Besides speed and durability, each baddie feels like the same creature in a different colored disguise. There's rarely any projectiles to dodge, clever hazards in the dungeons, or challenging gimmicks to any of the enemies—just bump 'em 'til they explode into XP. Ys II attempts to vary up its bestiary, but you can stun-lock most of the enemies before they even get a chance to charge their attack. After a while enemies become nothing more than minor inconveniences, and you begin to understand that what you're actually doing is traversing flat labyrinths for the entirety of the game.

The labyrinths aren't that interesting either. The artwork for the tile set itself is vibrant and gorgeous, but there's no identifiable landmarks or distinguishing feature to each dungeon, so it's easy to get lost if you lose your sense of direction. Besides the multitude of dead-ends waiting for you, there's also a boss to cap off each area that will test your mettle... but only in the second game. Ys I has some utterly atrocious bosses—like that accursed bat—so I was real glad to see the series do a 180 and offer up some great fights in Ys II. I'd argue the best part of that game was battling the agile monstrosities, but only when you're of an arbitrarily fitting level. Never have I played an RPG where your level is so essential to overcoming challenges before: the first boss of Ys I absolutely wrecked me until I purchased a new sword and leveled up, and then he was a joke (he died in three hits!)

I didn't like Ys I all that much. It was short, had boring areas to explore, and only Darm Tower at the end of the game was interesting. However that whole structure soured me due to the amount of backtracking required and how vague some of the progression was (use a hammer to break a column to rid a room of poisonous gas?). Ys II fared far better, but it's not a significant step up. Sure, there's more meat and variation to it (you finally get to use spells!) but the aforementioned enemy variety is still lacking and much of the path obfuscation remains. And the final level in this game was even longer and more obnoxious. If I was younger I wouldn't mind these dungeons taking over two hours to complete even with a guide, but currently I have little patience for that type of design.

Finally, the story is... whatever. It's the traditional "silent protagonist rescues girl(s) and saves the world from very evil bad guy", with some prophecy thrown in for good measure. Three things I liked were the Stormwall, the metaphysical division between Ys and Esteria, and the ability to talk to demons, but the game doesn't do anything interesting with either any of those: the Stormwall exists solely to strand you on the island, citizens in Ys and Esteria act the same, and the demons act just like regular NPCs! Even an idea as interesting as a goddess falling in love with a mortal is kinda brushed aside at the end, as if she was a schoolgirl struggling to confess to her crush (which she pretty much was). I admit it is demanding to ask more from a Japanese RPG made in 1987, and to the game's credit its characters are more memorable than many of the genre's kin at the time, but I suppose I just wanted the remake to explore more avenues that the original version opened.

Ys I & II Chronicles+ is an aged relic with a new coat of paint on it. The experience is more palatable with enhanced graphics, rebalancing, and multiple soundtracks, but the archaic details remain. The second game easily trounces the first with its bigger journey, better mechanics, and fantastic bosses, but it still has a long way to go to become something I'll ever play again. I'm not giving up on the series as I'm eagerly looking forward to playing The Oath in Felghana—it's just that the series' origins failed to impress me. Well, at least the games were relatively quick to play through.