Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta Review
Adol of the Forest
Ys's Adol Christin is a pure and entertaining character; his passion for exploration endures no matter the location or situation. Finding himself without memories and an entire uncharted forest in Celceta to explore, makes everything feel new again for the adventurer. Under the title Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta , Nihon Falcom’s Switch remaster of Ys: Memories in Celceta offers a fairly straightforward but very fun adventure to be had. The isometric action RPG may start sluggishly, but it recovers recovers soon enough to become a fun entry in this long-running franchise.
The game starts with Adol passing out in front of the inn in the town of Casnan, later waking with no memory and being told of a friendly acquaintance, Duren. When a mine collapses and monsters flood the place, Adol's caring nature shines through as he drags Duren to save everybody. Meanwhile, the new governor general sent by the Romun Empire and leader of the fledgling mining town seeking out someone to map out the uncharted forests of Celceta surrounding the town. With Duren recalling that Adol has already been into forest, and they partner up to investigate Adol's missing memories while earning money from their explorations. The time spent with just the two of these characters extends too long, but when additional members join up with them, the plot doesn't give a lot of time to the new party members. Still, the quirky traits of those Adol meets combined with a generally light-hearted adventure continue to bring the smiles as the journey progresses.
While Adol can “speak,” his contributions to events are mostly flavour text that occasionally adds jokes and background to situations, which means his allies largely drive the story. There are five other party members that join the playable cast, each of whom has a fun but narrow-minded personality that makes for an enjoyable adventure. Duren ends up the punchline to everyone's jokes, while the rest of the cast are important people picked up from each village found on the journey. There's an overarching theme: Adol goes on a wacky excursion, a misunderstanding happens, and this leads to solving a village's local issue, which results in gathering more clues to solve the overarching problems of the whole forest. These main story beats don't tread any new ground, but when it's full of cute, endearing, and entertaining moments, it makes for enjoyable exploration to find the next village.
[caption id="attachment_189500" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Something tells me that this Adol character and ships get along swimmingly.[/caption]
The map of Celceta is interconnected by monoliths that dot the path, allowing teleportation between them. However, the early portions of the game limit the effectiveness of the fast travel, which means it still involves multiple screens of backtracking to a main hub to replenish resources. It does change later on around the same time that the story opens up, but that first burst of exploration is almost a third of the map completed before it becomes easy to traverse. Once the party and village count start to expand and the world starts to gain some urgency beyond Adol's memory recovery, everything starts to sink into place and exploration continues at an enjoyable clip that alternates between forest charting, dungeon diving, and quest fulfillment.
Sidequests in Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta generally either involve defeating a dangerous monster or bonding in an amusing event with an NPC while collecting some kind of resource. These moments make the world feel more lived in, and it’s a shame that the relevant party members don't get similar focus to the NPCs involved in the sidequests. Party members guest star as a voice for Adol, but they typically just engage in small pleasantries and ease introductions without really showcasing any of their personality. Additionally, sidequests are bunched together, often only appearing after the next village problem is completed, which leaves long periods where there's a singular focus on the main story beats with nothing else to do.
Players control one character while the other two active party members are controlled by the AI with basic attack or evade options, with the controlled character able to be swapped on the fly. Each character deals slash, pierce, and strike damage, with two party members assigned to each one. Many regular enemies have a weakness to one of the damage types, and will also yield more rewards when defeated with that type of attack. This makes it very useful to swap between characters often, other than just exploring their abilities and keeping things from feeling stagnant.
[caption id="attachment_189498" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Exploration has its fun slides to it for sure.[/caption]
Skills use a meter that recharges when damaging enemies that refills quickly, with new skills learned somewhat sporadically, often coming from controlling a party member against a tough foe. Up to four skills can be equipped at any time, mapped to face buttons, and initiated by holding down the R button on the top of the controller. This button combination occasionally does not recognize the trigger being hit, and characters end up guarding or dodging rather than using an attack. However, under the fast-paced system this generally just leads to taking a bit of extra damage, rather than it being a consistent problematic issue. A separate meter builds up to allow a special attack called an EXTRA, which slows down time and does a ton of damage, and is often best saved for boss fights. Overall, these systems provide some added enjoyment from swapping through characters and engaging in the routine combat. It is much more enjoyable to have that full party of possibilities rather than that first burst of exploration where minimal healing, few skills, and two party members lead to slow portions to go through.
The AI party members deal less damage, and are relatively safe from being harmed too much by the enemies, leaving it a mostly one-person show. Still, swapping between party members adds variety to attacks and skills, keeping combat fresh enough to stay enjoyable. Boss fights require dodging and parrying a bit more to stay alive due to their larger health pools, and often add in mechanics such as attacking pillars of energy to make the enemy vulnerable. These grand arena slugfests are a lot of fun, if a bit chaotic, as the busy motions can occasionally make it difficult to see where the character is for a timely dodge, or noticing they are looking the other direction for a special attack shot into nothing instead of a monster’s hide.
[caption id="attachment_189499" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Big explosions aplenty as the party tries taking down a boss.[/caption]
Enemies respawn on screen after around a minute of idling, or when transitioning between maps, which can lead to issues when trying to heal with an artifact, or when figuring out where to go next. Typically, just progressing forward will yield enough resources and experience to be worthwhile, so there’s no need to dawdle with grinding encounters. Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta has resource nodes that are found while exploring, though some materials can come from defeating enemies. These eventually have a use in creating consumables, refining gear, or crafting accessories, but for most of the game, they can be sold for additional funds or help with an odd side quest. Refining doesn't feel like it changes the usefulness of the weapons, while accessories are found organically from treasure chests.
Adol has a set of artifacts gained and unique actions for each party member that help with puzzles and basic dungeon traversal. Adol's skill is collecting his memories that manifest on screen as balls of light that distort the surroundings, and give a minor attribute boost while showing a brief glimpse of what came before. Duren’s skill is picking locks on chests, while the remainder of the party affect dungeons in smaller ways, such as breaking holes in weakened walls or charging up stations with magical energy. Artifacts have a variety of effects: some generate extra gold or allow for faster healing when standing still, while others work with environmental puzzles such as shrinking the party’s size or letting players dive underwater. One pleasantry is that these environmental puzzles appear frequently, making for enjoyable situations that are just a fun dopamine hit and vary up dungeon exploration.
[caption id="attachment_189501" align="aligncenter" width="640"] No one messes with the frog king.[/caption]
Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta does a good job of keeping the action moving on screen. There are no framerate drops from big flashy moves, but the visuals do feel muddled during frantic action sequences during boss fights. Environments have some varied details, but do not particularly stand out one way or another, beyond a lot of green used from the forest motif. Story cutscenes feel routine, and while the dialogue gets the story across commendably, the visuals are all in-game models that undercut the comedic and dramatic moments by feeling robotic. The soundtrack has a chaotic energy to it, and seems to lack a unified voice. This carries into location themes; one section of the map might have a quiet melodic tone, only to suddenly shift into a clash of guitar and violin that keeps the pace frantic. While the overall flow is disjointed, it is at least never boring and definitely keeps players guessing.
Adol Christin embodies adventure, and even with amnesia, there's a fun cast of characters and enjoyable combat surrounding him to carry through its thirty-hour length. Pacing issues do slow things down at the beginning, but once the story starts hitting that next gear, everything ramps up to match that enjoyably brisk pace. There are nitpicks that drag it down from being something truly special, but there's a perfectly serviceable action adventure in Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta . The story of Adol continues, and this outing will keep players interested in seeing where the winds take him next.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
The post Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta Review appeared first on RPGamer .
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