Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Vita)
Either the Ys franchise is doing way better in Japan than here, or it is surviving on the will of its makers Falcom alone. The series had at least moderate name recognition in the U.S. with its solid third rendition, Wanderers from Ys, showing up on Super Nintendo, Genesis, and the Turbografx CD if you were one of those rich bastards who had that (The game was named by EGM at the time as one of the worst sequels ever made. Naw, dawg). After the cluster that was Ys IV (Falcom handed it over to two different development companies who made two different games, and neither came to the States or were considered the "official" one), the series disappeared over here until Konami published Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim, but the heat was gone. Even when XSeed picked up the rights to a bunch of remakes and started pumping out resources and sweetening the deal by licensing their fantastic soundtrack CDs, it only made a small dent in market. Ys Seven (Yes, without the Roman numerals) was released on the PSP and its success was limited by the success of the system. Ditto for Memories of Celceta on the Vita, a game that was supposed to be both a somewhat reboot/prequel AND the official Ys IV made by Falcom themselves. Did you get all that? There's so much odd history that your name. director Makoto Shinkai is actually involved as he made the opening to a remake of II back in his early days.
After that confusing mess of a history, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana is here with as good of a shot as it's going to get on a bestselling console in the PS4 (And Vita if you're like me and find it weird playing a new Ys game on a home console after over a decade of 3DS, PSP, and Vita releases). With an unwieldy name (Lacrimosa is Latin for tears and a plot device, and Dana is a main character. Savvy?) and a sturdy action RPG formula, does the franchise still have something to offer modern gaming? Sure, all good games do, but while it's not always for the best to just follow trends, sometimes there's a fundamental flaw of franchises that come from a time when console power was measured in bits that can't be overcome without a serious reboot in concept. And Ys already sort of rebooted recently.
The Ys series follows the exploits of Adol Christin, an adventurer described as "a young man with flame-like hair and dark, pure eyes – like those of a curious child," by the art book blurb. The sad thing about that line is it covers about all there is to the character. With decades to develop a franchise leading man, Adol has never really advanced past "guy you play as." I get in role-playing, there are characters where you're supposed to slip into the role, but Adol is obviously his own person. They try to give him a backstory in Memories of Celceta, but it's all bland and forgettable. Even with new conversation options, it changes nothing about him and how others treat him. He comes out of an experience where he literally has to slay a god the same as he came in, and there's something downright weird about that. Besides his best pal Dogi, the people around him and the women he risks life and limb for bounce off an emotional bubble that never absorbs anything past pleasantness. I joked on my Twitter he has no time for other people because after wielding immense enough powers to pierce the heavens and literally saving civilization the first couple times, it became an addiction with Dogi as his enabler. However, that would at least be something to work with if that were true.
The franchise has a new focus in that Adol wrote dozens of adventuring journals and each title is one of them that he eventually uses to write books out of. This is an odd bit of texture for a series full of odd texture. It's a fake fantasy world, but the geographical nomenclature is childishly familiar. In his journeys, Adol constantly runs into the Romn empire, there is much made out of the mysterious continent of Afroca, and one of the main characters in this entry is from Greek. No, not Greece. Greek. Get with the naming scheme. So this is essentially the age of exploration where a Roman-esque empire is still in power and every single mysterious island and country has a sealed weapon/ being of mass destruction that could level continents which is at the brink of falling into the wrong hands.
In this entry, Adol and Dogi are traveling on a ship towards their next journey, not knowing fate has another location in mind. Lining up with history for whenever Adol has one of the most powerful weapons in the world from his previous adventure, he immediately loses it and has to start all over. In this case, a powerful sword from the Xandrian region of Afroca, making this just after Ys V, even though it's a game following the retconned official entry of Ys IV. You just get used to the timeline jumping after awhile. Anyhoo, the ship Adol's on gets attacked by a giant tentacle monster and sunk, causing him to lose his ace equipment and get shipwrecked on the Isle of Seiren.
As is customary for wherever Adol winds up, it is not just a normal island, but one hiding a secret that could determine the fate of the world. Nobody who has gone to the island has ever returned. Dinosaurs that have been extinct for centuries called the Ancient Species are roaming about and even the herbivores seem more than a skosh aggressive. He has dreams about a woman named Dana, a maiden-in-training to the Great Tree, a worshipped plant that grants energy which allows her entire civilization to run. While she's a troublemaker who often doesn't give a second thought to ignoring protocol, her instincts and visions have saved the capital city multiple times. While Adol is having dreams about her, Dana is having visions about Adol traipsing about the ruins of her civilization and trying to figure out how this happened to prevent it.
While exploring the consequences of Dana changing history with the castaways who are living through the results would be trippy as hell (It's more she makes things that allow them to progress), the game takes a more traditional JRPG narrative as it goes along save for the castaway village setup. Adol's job as explorer is to find the survivors from the shipwreck scattered across the island and send them back to where a camp is being constructed. The villagers each add their unique talents like farming or tailoring to the mix, and as you get more people, you can clear a path that was previously blocked, though there is a somewhat humorous event if you find a noble who gives you the exact number you need to clear a path, and then he refuses to help you, leaving you one short. Jerk. You eventually get items and extra conversations by doing subquests for them or trading for special items they like with the stranded merchant.
The castaway group also gives you main party members, and you eventually get six to switch between in groups of three. The enemies each have a weakness to three different types of weapons, so you'll ideally want one of each, and–at least for me–the rest of the party tends to fall by the wayside. They include Laxia, a noble archaeology enthusiast with decent skills at the rapier, fisherman Sahad who evolves a fighting style with a broken anchor, and Ricotta, a little girl who swings some big weapons. They're a likable enough bunch, if not doing much to break the mold. When there are swarms of enemies with multiple different weaknesses attacking at once, it can be annoying to switch between characters while fighting them one at a time.
The whole idea is to create a figurative family you get through this ordeal and grow with. The characters range from predictable and irritating (That noble guy) to off-the-wall (A 70-year-old former gladiator with abs named Silvia. Ys VIII granny gladiator for Smash!). It's not far off to say one of the best characters is the parrot you find on the island. I won't say anything more since it's best if you simply remember to talk to the parrot from time-to-time and let it surprise you. There is an odd part to all this where Adol has a seeming harem of attached or unavailable women. They're obviously not romantic interests (The man doesn't seem much interested in sex anyway. Hey, if he doesn't want to get down, he does't want to get down), but the weird comes where the chemistry that would normally be reserved for the characters you can romance in similar titles is used here for... mothers of six who probably have romance novel heroes that look kind of like Adol and ten-year-old girls who found their first crush. Don't misunderstand, it's all perfectly innocent. Most times if you wanted to do something like Persona social rankings with Adol Christin, this is how it would turn out. Granted, before Persona 5 showed people who, GASP, were heavily implied to have sex when they reached a certain point in a relationship, the kisses on a cheek our hero receives here were like getting to second base in most JRPGs that weren't made by outright pervs.
I make fun of Ys stories because they're going to run tradition into the franchise's grave, but there is a huge saving grace to all of this. I get the feeling Falcom knows Adol is not nearly as fascinating as everything around him, and their idea this time around is having a second main character. Dana's story doesn't take nearly as much time as the trek of the present, and you'll likely spend most of it figuring out where in the winding temple and city roads to go, but this whole game is built around Dana if you couldn't tell from the title. She has a high position in her society, but she loves her people and will often betray her "proper" behavior to help them or simply be among them. She is one of the shortest people of her race, yet one of the most powerful. She is looking at her visions of a future where everything she knows is in ruin, finds she can change little things, and if this means she has to push through a group of priests and even friends who think she might be mad, she'll do so (random note: her best friend Olga's hair feels like a road sign that got molded into a hairstyle). She is the pathos and drive of the story, and by golly, she earns it.
The gameplay and music are the reasons most people still hang around this particular part of the JRPG universe, and the quality is up to snuff with the rest of the series. The interface is pretty much a refinement of Memories of Celceta with a mix of action RPG elements and Metroid exploration. You move through the great unknown trying to map out everything while looking for supplies, discoveries, and survivors. You will need to find extra abilities to fully explore the swamps, jungles, and whatever gets in your way. Some are typical like a double-jump, and some are odd Jesus powers, like literally the ability to walk across water. You get rewards for simply mapping out the area, which is a carryover from Celceta where you were given rewards for mapping the area because that what the Romn empire was paying you to do. Doesn't make as much sense here, but it adds to the idea of Adol also being an explorer on top of monster slayer.
The combat is basic action RPG spiced up enough to keep it interesting. You have your basic slash, which eventually becomes more of a device to power up your special move meter. To keep from being a complete button masher, you have to wait a second for the weapon to flash, and then you can make a hit that builds up that meter for special moves. The special moves can be assigned to the four main buttons with the assistance of a shoulder button and can be customized to your whim. They range in what they can to from dealing heavy damage to knocking the enemy out cold for easy hunting to simply allowing you to get in a better position to attack. Using these moves effectively fills out another meter that allows you to unleash an ultimate attack to be used at strategic moments. Also in play is a dodge mechanism that will eventually sends you into witch time... except it's not called witch time, of course. This freezes time and allows you to go to town for a few seconds. You can also do the same thing by deflecting an enemy attack, but this is harder to do. The dodging feels less tight when attacking, like it makes it extra punishing for attacking too often by delaing a fraction of a second more than most games do when you decide to stop attacking and start evading. It doesn't make much of a difference though, since this is one of the easiest Ys games out there.
While the system is robust and doesn't get old throughout the gameplay, the execution feels more simplistic than other entries in the series due to the difficulty. I played on normal, and only had trouble with two bosses where you're forced to use one character (And one of those inflicts the worst status effect in the game and you can't leave the area to get more items that fix it). Usually at this setting, there are a few encounters that are like bullet hell shooters where you memorize the movements of the boss to be able to take it down without being wrecked. With Lacrimosa, the bosses are far more forgiving, and healing objects are more widely available. You can have a doctor mix them, you can cook them, or many raw materials hanging around the island have enough healing properties to be eaten on their own. You can beat the bosses most of the time by mashing and occasionally dodging. If I want to be honest, I had to turn down the difficulty on a couple bosses in the modern Ys games (I'd put that era at Oath of Felghana on). That never happened here. Trading accessibility for rewarding the gamer in mastering the system is only a crime depending on individual's taste, though. I'm sure the cult of Dark Souls would whap it with a newspaper for kowtowing to more casual gamers.
Graphics are the usual effort from Falcom in which it feels like a PS 3 holdover with only a few flashes of inspiration. The textures and detail all feel out of date, but it only really matters in the instances of supposed awe in exploring the lost civilization. It would work better if the full-on views of city ruins, massive irrigation systems, and curious black holes in the earth weren't often blocked by mounds of dirt and railings meant to keep the characters from constantly hopping off cliffs. Functionality definitely cramps the style. Falcom also utilizes whatever gets the job done for their narrative cutscenes. Traditional-looking animation, 3D CG, whatever. The same location will be handled differently in the same sequence to jarring effect. Unless you're dead-set on graphic quality, it's not so much of an issue like most Falcom games, but it's still only barely up to the company's definition of par.
Now the Falcom Sound Team jdk's music, that's where the aesthetics are at. The game starts with a main theme featuring stirring strings and keeps going. Piano, electric guitar, and violin pieces for the individual areas are met with pumping beats to keep you going. It's what I've come to expect from this group, though maybe too much of what to expect. Tracks here can be swapped with other Ys games willy nilly and you wouldn't notice that much of a difference. When they've got awesome jams down to a science, it's hard to be too down of them.
In what was a weird coup, the localization was not by usual Falcom collaborators XSeed, but by NIS America. People at XSeed expressed disappointment in the turn of events as much as they could in public. It might be a sign of things in the future as Falcom's stab at being having a modern Persona-like game, Tokyo Xanadu, was published by Aksys to mixed results. The translation here has come under similar fire, causing NIS America to apologize and issue a translation patch. Now, phrasing like "Archeozolic Big Hole" is a big red flag, but maybe I've been down the Engrish rabbit hole too far as I didn't notice it too much. JRPGs often utilize such dodgy English in core concepts that it doesn't phase me anymore. If you don't speak both languages (Me, I'm at the level of, "DUH, "RI" IN KATAKANA IS 'ri' UPSIDE DOWN!"), how do you know when it's a translation issue or when it's a JRPG just being itself? Granted, Archeozolic Big Hole in NISA's official English translation being called the Crevice of the Acheozolic Era in English on the JAPANESE version of the soundtrack probably should've been been a sign.
I must say, though, the limited boxset is beautiful. The coveted soundtrack is a decent sampling of what the music has to offer. I have no idea when I'll ever use the cloth poster or the bookends, but they're well made. The steel case is not made for the Vita version, however. The art book and the journal are fine and showcase how much thought was put into it, even if the journal is eye-crossingly boring to read. Adol, man, you gotta' get a better personality than nice guy who kills gods and then writes about the architecture of the ship you traveled on to get there.
Ys VIII is exactly the kind of game I expected it to be, maybe a little more thanks to Dana's addition. It's a well made and fun action RPG with a decent enough story to see my way through to the end. Unfortunately, it's also one I will forget in a year's time, like the rest of the Ys series I didn't grow up with. The plot eventually addresses the constant escalating of enemies in Adol's life and creates a blueprint for future adventures to make it not seem like he's tripping over ancient secrets that could end the world with no rhyme or reason the rest of his life. The only thing that can stop him from his future journeys is himself, really. I'm not asking for the gruff, world-weary Adol Christin with a beard and a thousand-yard stare, but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask a hero to be more than just a red-headed piece of titanium that bounces through hell and back with no damage or tarnish. Heck, even that would be more interesting.
The Ys series follows the exploits of Adol Christin, an adventurer described as "a young man with flame-like hair and dark, pure eyes – like those of a curious child," by the art book blurb. The sad thing about that line is it covers about all there is to the character. With decades to develop a franchise leading man, Adol has never really advanced past "guy you play as." I get in role-playing, there are characters where you're supposed to slip into the role, but Adol is obviously his own person. They try to give him a backstory in Memories of Celceta, but it's all bland and forgettable. Even with new conversation options, it changes nothing about him and how others treat him. He comes out of an experience where he literally has to slay a god the same as he came in, and there's something downright weird about that. Besides his best pal Dogi, the people around him and the women he risks life and limb for bounce off an emotional bubble that never absorbs anything past pleasantness. I joked on my Twitter he has no time for other people because after wielding immense enough powers to pierce the heavens and literally saving civilization the first couple times, it became an addiction with Dogi as his enabler. However, that would at least be something to work with if that were true.
The franchise has a new focus in that Adol wrote dozens of adventuring journals and each title is one of them that he eventually uses to write books out of. This is an odd bit of texture for a series full of odd texture. It's a fake fantasy world, but the geographical nomenclature is childishly familiar. In his journeys, Adol constantly runs into the Romn empire, there is much made out of the mysterious continent of Afroca, and one of the main characters in this entry is from Greek. No, not Greece. Greek. Get with the naming scheme. So this is essentially the age of exploration where a Roman-esque empire is still in power and every single mysterious island and country has a sealed weapon/ being of mass destruction that could level continents which is at the brink of falling into the wrong hands.
In this entry, Adol and Dogi are traveling on a ship towards their next journey, not knowing fate has another location in mind. Lining up with history for whenever Adol has one of the most powerful weapons in the world from his previous adventure, he immediately loses it and has to start all over. In this case, a powerful sword from the Xandrian region of Afroca, making this just after Ys V, even though it's a game following the retconned official entry of Ys IV. You just get used to the timeline jumping after awhile. Anyhoo, the ship Adol's on gets attacked by a giant tentacle monster and sunk, causing him to lose his ace equipment and get shipwrecked on the Isle of Seiren.
As is customary for wherever Adol winds up, it is not just a normal island, but one hiding a secret that could determine the fate of the world. Nobody who has gone to the island has ever returned. Dinosaurs that have been extinct for centuries called the Ancient Species are roaming about and even the herbivores seem more than a skosh aggressive. He has dreams about a woman named Dana, a maiden-in-training to the Great Tree, a worshipped plant that grants energy which allows her entire civilization to run. While she's a troublemaker who often doesn't give a second thought to ignoring protocol, her instincts and visions have saved the capital city multiple times. While Adol is having dreams about her, Dana is having visions about Adol traipsing about the ruins of her civilization and trying to figure out how this happened to prevent it.
While exploring the consequences of Dana changing history with the castaways who are living through the results would be trippy as hell (It's more she makes things that allow them to progress), the game takes a more traditional JRPG narrative as it goes along save for the castaway village setup. Adol's job as explorer is to find the survivors from the shipwreck scattered across the island and send them back to where a camp is being constructed. The villagers each add their unique talents like farming or tailoring to the mix, and as you get more people, you can clear a path that was previously blocked, though there is a somewhat humorous event if you find a noble who gives you the exact number you need to clear a path, and then he refuses to help you, leaving you one short. Jerk. You eventually get items and extra conversations by doing subquests for them or trading for special items they like with the stranded merchant.
The castaway group also gives you main party members, and you eventually get six to switch between in groups of three. The enemies each have a weakness to three different types of weapons, so you'll ideally want one of each, and–at least for me–the rest of the party tends to fall by the wayside. They include Laxia, a noble archaeology enthusiast with decent skills at the rapier, fisherman Sahad who evolves a fighting style with a broken anchor, and Ricotta, a little girl who swings some big weapons. They're a likable enough bunch, if not doing much to break the mold. When there are swarms of enemies with multiple different weaknesses attacking at once, it can be annoying to switch between characters while fighting them one at a time.
The whole idea is to create a figurative family you get through this ordeal and grow with. The characters range from predictable and irritating (That noble guy) to off-the-wall (A 70-year-old former gladiator with abs named Silvia. Ys VIII granny gladiator for Smash!). It's not far off to say one of the best characters is the parrot you find on the island. I won't say anything more since it's best if you simply remember to talk to the parrot from time-to-time and let it surprise you. There is an odd part to all this where Adol has a seeming harem of attached or unavailable women. They're obviously not romantic interests (The man doesn't seem much interested in sex anyway. Hey, if he doesn't want to get down, he does't want to get down), but the weird comes where the chemistry that would normally be reserved for the characters you can romance in similar titles is used here for... mothers of six who probably have romance novel heroes that look kind of like Adol and ten-year-old girls who found their first crush. Don't misunderstand, it's all perfectly innocent. Most times if you wanted to do something like Persona social rankings with Adol Christin, this is how it would turn out. Granted, before Persona 5 showed people who, GASP, were heavily implied to have sex when they reached a certain point in a relationship, the kisses on a cheek our hero receives here were like getting to second base in most JRPGs that weren't made by outright pervs.
I make fun of Ys stories because they're going to run tradition into the franchise's grave, but there is a huge saving grace to all of this. I get the feeling Falcom knows Adol is not nearly as fascinating as everything around him, and their idea this time around is having a second main character. Dana's story doesn't take nearly as much time as the trek of the present, and you'll likely spend most of it figuring out where in the winding temple and city roads to go, but this whole game is built around Dana if you couldn't tell from the title. She has a high position in her society, but she loves her people and will often betray her "proper" behavior to help them or simply be among them. She is one of the shortest people of her race, yet one of the most powerful. She is looking at her visions of a future where everything she knows is in ruin, finds she can change little things, and if this means she has to push through a group of priests and even friends who think she might be mad, she'll do so (random note: her best friend Olga's hair feels like a road sign that got molded into a hairstyle). She is the pathos and drive of the story, and by golly, she earns it.
The gameplay and music are the reasons most people still hang around this particular part of the JRPG universe, and the quality is up to snuff with the rest of the series. The interface is pretty much a refinement of Memories of Celceta with a mix of action RPG elements and Metroid exploration. You move through the great unknown trying to map out everything while looking for supplies, discoveries, and survivors. You will need to find extra abilities to fully explore the swamps, jungles, and whatever gets in your way. Some are typical like a double-jump, and some are odd Jesus powers, like literally the ability to walk across water. You get rewards for simply mapping out the area, which is a carryover from Celceta where you were given rewards for mapping the area because that what the Romn empire was paying you to do. Doesn't make as much sense here, but it adds to the idea of Adol also being an explorer on top of monster slayer.
The combat is basic action RPG spiced up enough to keep it interesting. You have your basic slash, which eventually becomes more of a device to power up your special move meter. To keep from being a complete button masher, you have to wait a second for the weapon to flash, and then you can make a hit that builds up that meter for special moves. The special moves can be assigned to the four main buttons with the assistance of a shoulder button and can be customized to your whim. They range in what they can to from dealing heavy damage to knocking the enemy out cold for easy hunting to simply allowing you to get in a better position to attack. Using these moves effectively fills out another meter that allows you to unleash an ultimate attack to be used at strategic moments. Also in play is a dodge mechanism that will eventually sends you into witch time... except it's not called witch time, of course. This freezes time and allows you to go to town for a few seconds. You can also do the same thing by deflecting an enemy attack, but this is harder to do. The dodging feels less tight when attacking, like it makes it extra punishing for attacking too often by delaing a fraction of a second more than most games do when you decide to stop attacking and start evading. It doesn't make much of a difference though, since this is one of the easiest Ys games out there.
While the system is robust and doesn't get old throughout the gameplay, the execution feels more simplistic than other entries in the series due to the difficulty. I played on normal, and only had trouble with two bosses where you're forced to use one character (And one of those inflicts the worst status effect in the game and you can't leave the area to get more items that fix it). Usually at this setting, there are a few encounters that are like bullet hell shooters where you memorize the movements of the boss to be able to take it down without being wrecked. With Lacrimosa, the bosses are far more forgiving, and healing objects are more widely available. You can have a doctor mix them, you can cook them, or many raw materials hanging around the island have enough healing properties to be eaten on their own. You can beat the bosses most of the time by mashing and occasionally dodging. If I want to be honest, I had to turn down the difficulty on a couple bosses in the modern Ys games (I'd put that era at Oath of Felghana on). That never happened here. Trading accessibility for rewarding the gamer in mastering the system is only a crime depending on individual's taste, though. I'm sure the cult of Dark Souls would whap it with a newspaper for kowtowing to more casual gamers.
Graphics are the usual effort from Falcom in which it feels like a PS 3 holdover with only a few flashes of inspiration. The textures and detail all feel out of date, but it only really matters in the instances of supposed awe in exploring the lost civilization. It would work better if the full-on views of city ruins, massive irrigation systems, and curious black holes in the earth weren't often blocked by mounds of dirt and railings meant to keep the characters from constantly hopping off cliffs. Functionality definitely cramps the style. Falcom also utilizes whatever gets the job done for their narrative cutscenes. Traditional-looking animation, 3D CG, whatever. The same location will be handled differently in the same sequence to jarring effect. Unless you're dead-set on graphic quality, it's not so much of an issue like most Falcom games, but it's still only barely up to the company's definition of par.
Now the Falcom Sound Team jdk's music, that's where the aesthetics are at. The game starts with a main theme featuring stirring strings and keeps going. Piano, electric guitar, and violin pieces for the individual areas are met with pumping beats to keep you going. It's what I've come to expect from this group, though maybe too much of what to expect. Tracks here can be swapped with other Ys games willy nilly and you wouldn't notice that much of a difference. When they've got awesome jams down to a science, it's hard to be too down of them.
In what was a weird coup, the localization was not by usual Falcom collaborators XSeed, but by NIS America. People at XSeed expressed disappointment in the turn of events as much as they could in public. It might be a sign of things in the future as Falcom's stab at being having a modern Persona-like game, Tokyo Xanadu, was published by Aksys to mixed results. The translation here has come under similar fire, causing NIS America to apologize and issue a translation patch. Now, phrasing like "Archeozolic Big Hole" is a big red flag, but maybe I've been down the Engrish rabbit hole too far as I didn't notice it too much. JRPGs often utilize such dodgy English in core concepts that it doesn't phase me anymore. If you don't speak both languages (Me, I'm at the level of, "DUH, "RI" IN KATAKANA IS 'ri' UPSIDE DOWN!"), how do you know when it's a translation issue or when it's a JRPG just being itself? Granted, Archeozolic Big Hole in NISA's official English translation being called the Crevice of the Acheozolic Era in English on the JAPANESE version of the soundtrack probably should've been been a sign.
I must say, though, the limited boxset is beautiful. The coveted soundtrack is a decent sampling of what the music has to offer. I have no idea when I'll ever use the cloth poster or the bookends, but they're well made. The steel case is not made for the Vita version, however. The art book and the journal are fine and showcase how much thought was put into it, even if the journal is eye-crossingly boring to read. Adol, man, you gotta' get a better personality than nice guy who kills gods and then writes about the architecture of the ship you traveled on to get there.
Ys VIII is exactly the kind of game I expected it to be, maybe a little more thanks to Dana's addition. It's a well made and fun action RPG with a decent enough story to see my way through to the end. Unfortunately, it's also one I will forget in a year's time, like the rest of the Ys series I didn't grow up with. The plot eventually addresses the constant escalating of enemies in Adol's life and creates a blueprint for future adventures to make it not seem like he's tripping over ancient secrets that could end the world with no rhyme or reason the rest of his life. The only thing that can stop him from his future journeys is himself, really. I'm not asking for the gruff, world-weary Adol Christin with a beard and a thousand-yard stare, but I don't think it's unreasonable to ask a hero to be more than just a red-headed piece of titanium that bounces through hell and back with no damage or tarnish. Heck, even that would be more interesting.
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