I haven't been an Ys fan for very long. Around five months ago, I played Ys I & II, with Ys IV following shortly after. They were all good games, with solid gameplay and -very- solid soundtracks. It wasn't until the seventh game, however, that I realized what the series is all about. Fun. Simple, undiluted fun packed into a tiny UMD.

Oath in Felghana is no different. Eschewing the need for high-end graphics or the next big innovation to gameplay everywhere, the game draws you in with its colorful sprites and backgrounds, likable characters, and intense yet simple hack-n'-slash action, all gift-wrapped within an effective, yet slightly cliche plot of love and betrayal.

The plot opens with Adol Christin, silent protagonist of the Ys legacy for 23 years now, arriving in the remote land of Felghana with his best friend and heterosexual life-partner Dogi. As one would expect from an Ys game, this turns into a classic quest to save the world from the forces of evil. While the basic cliche premisis is nothing to praise, the game makes up for it in how it expresses the plot. A wonderfully dramatic script, great characters, unexpected twists, and amazing voice acting for the main characters really makes the plot an incredibly likable and attention-grabbing one, despite its shortcomings.

Platforming fans will absolutely love the game, which, like its original incarnation, puts heavy emphasis on jumping from ledge to ledge, killing any pestful enemies might get in your way and knock you into whatever abyss sits below. Surprisingly, despite all of the platforming elements, there's no bottomless pits to be seen, and an unfortunate fall will simply lead you to another area of the dungeon, either forcing you to trod back to where you were, or revealing a new location that just might have something useful!

Action is quick and easy to get the hang of, yet very, very satisfying. The camera assumes an overhead view, giving you a bird's-eye-look at the giant mobs of enemies that will soon meet your sword. Adol Christin, the silent protagonist for 23 years of the Ys legacy, is given a six-hit combo and multiple alternate slash attacks, allowing you to quickly dish out damage onto your enemies. True to the working of RPGs, Adol obtains various forms of Magic and other abilities as the game progresses, making the game all the more enjoyable as you hack and slash your way through.

Difficulty-wise, Oath in Felghana manages to maintain an excellent balance between 'ripping your hair out' and moderate. While the constant swarms of bloodthirsty monsters and lack of usable healing items can and will cause you to die many times, the Game Over screen offers you a nice way to get back on your feet with the option to retry from the last screen you entered. Doing this sets your HP, EXP, and other things back to how they were when you entered, though, as to not make things too easy. If you find that you cannot get through a room because you entered with low HP, then you can also return to the title screen and start over from your last save points. But if you keep trying, I'm sure you'll make it without doing so! And, heck, if you find the game overall to be too hard, there's two difficulty levels below Normal to try. If you aren't a platforming veteran, then you'll most likely find yourself falling down to other screens often, which can get annoying quickly. Luckily, the game has a 'No-Fall Mode' option, so that when you fall down a pit, you'll be warped to the beginning of the last room you entered instead, saving large amounts of time.

Bosses in the game are excellently designed. Many of them requiring you to be on your toes at all times, utilizing precise jumping, and knowing when and when not to attack. The bosses offer some of the largest challenges in the game, contributing several deaths to the writer of this review. First-time deaths are common, as with most platforming games, requiring you to learn the enemy's pattern before being able to effectively finish them. This is made easy by the chance to retry against a boss as often as you want, skipping any pre-fight cutscenes to minimize player frustration. You can, of course, also return to the title screen and load the last save point, just in case you want to get a bit of grinding in to help turn the tables. After enough deaths against a boss, the option to lower the difficulty level of the fight presents itself. When chosen, the game is temporarily set to the difficulty right below your current one, until you emerge victorious, and resets itself afterwards.

A few tiny complaints I need to point out. One, while the overall voice acting is nothing short of amazing, some of the minor NPCs have hilariously bad voices(especially a certain quest-specific knight in Valestein Castle). Two, the game is much shorter than the average RPG, totalling in at around 10 hours.

All in all, an incredible game. A must-have for any Action RPG or platforming fan.… Expand

Literally everyone who rated this game is trying to make it look bad and is most like the same person. They compare everything to Ys Seven and vise versa, when they claim to hate both games. They are obviously very bad troll or never played the games. The soundtrack is this game is easily top tier and the addictive gameplay easily beats out the original Ys III's. The only real complaint I had about this game was the story, which is entirely negligible, and the voice acting, which you can turn off if you really can't stand it. Also any point about platforming being too hard is entirely negated by the fact that the game has many ways to help you get by, including restarting from zone-in and limiting directions.

Basically anyone who give this game below a 6 is just trolling, as it clearly has done nothing at all to deserve such a rating. Haters gonna hate.… Expand

Oath in Felghana, like all Ys games, represents the pinnacle of the action RPG genre, sporting fast combat and great level design, all set to one of the best soundtracks in gaming history. For those of you who have only played Ys Seven, it's worth noting that Oath takes slightly different tack then Ys Seven does. Where Ys Seven sought to add a longer story and depth to the combat system, Oath in Felghana, being a remake of Ys III, instead hews close to the classic Ys formula, polishing it to a brilliant shine. Yet despite it's definitively old-school approach, it offers a large number of difficulty levels ranging for extremely easy to sadistically hard, as well as many modern perks, making it fun and accessible to the old-school gamer and the new generation alike!

Ys: The Oath in Felghana offers perfect pacing, great music, and some of the best action/RPG gameplay you can get on the PSP. Ys has always set the bar high, and Oath in Felghana takes that bar and runs with it into the stratosphere. It's a must-buy for any fan of the genre, and definitely worth taking a look at even if you're not... you just might be surprised!… Expand

10/10, the game is superb. There are some differences to Y's Seven which was itself the best game Xseed has made yet for the PSP. I had played some older Xseed PSP games, such as Brave Story and they really have now perfected the action RPG with Y's Seven and now this. Lightning fast load times, very colorful graphics, music is excellent, voice acting is good as well. The game is just very quick moving, quick progression, ton's of fun. Maybe i just really like this type of 'rpg' over Square rpg's for the psp. And in some ways, I really feel this is just a better game than the DS Zelda games too. I bought this and God of War late last night, and i've been playing this instead of GOW! Go xSeed, you guys rule.… Expand

Excellent PSP port of a Falcom classic. Fast paced, to the point and a lot of fun along the way. Even better is the fact that while the game itself it short there's a lot of replayability due to a whole range of difficulty levels and unlockables to earn. Throw in the option to listen to two classic version of an already fantastic soundtrack and you have a full package here that with enough to satisfy both long-time fans and newcomers too.… Expand

Everyone needs to settle down. This game is not a 10 by any stretch of the imagination. It is a port, not even a remake, and it hardly stacks up to the PC version. The game doesn't control better than the PC version with a gamepad by a long shot and while that can be blamed on Sony, I personally cannot stand playing this portable mess. Anybody saying this game deserves a 10 is lying through their teeth considering that none of the magazines were willing to give it that high of a score and would I give it a 1? Well, obviously not but this game is still a letdown. The bonuses were minimal in the premium boxing and it really doesn't do anything better than older versions except maybe have voice. This gets a flat 5 from me.… Collapse

Find it hard to believe some of the negative comments on here. Never played an Ys game before, took a risk on this and can't believe how addicted I am to it. If you like your games to be streamlined, perfectly paced with tight, fast gameplay and no unnecessary filler then I highly recommend this. The music and all round presentation are excellent too. Load times are almost non-existent even on umd.
Some of the boss fights are extremely tough. I guess that could put some people off (though it does give you an option to lower difficulty) but it's nice to see an action rpg that actually tests your skill and timing.
There are also plenty of secret areas to find if you like exploring.… Expand

Ys: The Oath in Felghana is one of the best action-RPGs out there and also one of the best remakes. The original game, Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (1989), was widely considered to be the black sheep of the series, but with a great soundtrack, so what Falcom did was to remake the game by making everything better (including the soundtrack), and they did a fantastic job with that.

Ys: The Oath in Felghana is a mediocre game for the PSP with nothing to make it stand out except some fancy artwork that unfortunately doesn't help the gaming experience. Before this game was released, everyone raved about the soundtrack and controls, but they are nothing to write home about. The stages prove to be annoying as the platforming elements don't work as well as they should and I often found myself having to trek back through the entire level again and again after falling or being knocked into a pit. This proved to be immensely annoying. The characters were mediocre, the story was even less of an epic that XSEED made it out to be, and all in all, this left me never wanting another Ys game again. If this is the best action/role-playing game that this company produces, I think the whole creative team should look to find new jobs because this experience doesn't stack up against the kind of quality we are getting from most other companies producing this type of game.… Expand

This is a very polarizing game for me to play. I first played this game on the SNES way back in the day and even played the remake on the Playstation 2, which in my opinion is the better version of Ys III. I think this game really shined as a side-scroller and I don't know if I like the PSP version in 3D. The analog nub does not work well with how this game is supposed to play and causes gamers to miss simple jumps that they should never miss. The voice acting gets you through the story but that's about it. This is a classic game but I don't think it does well in this generation of games. Given the play control alone, I wouldn't give this game over a 5, but I think the additions to the story really make the game more convoluted than it really should be so I am deducting a point for that too. The soundtrack is pretty much the same as what I have heardin past Ys III versions so I'm not going to add any points for that either. This is a so-so game on the PSP and I really anticipated more. Good thing I didn't buy the LE.… Expand

Quite possibly the best game in the Ys series and also one of the best games on the PSP. This game consistently delivers fast-paced action that is challenging but never unfairly so, and it has one of the best soundtracks in the history of gaming to back it up. The story and graphics are fairly standard stuff, but they know they're second to the gameplay and never get in the way of it.

The only real downside to the game is its length; a playthrough of the game will take most players between 10 and 15 hours. On the upside, there are several different difficulty modes, optional super-hard bosses, a boss rush mode, a gallery of unlockables, and a new game+ mode, so there's plenty of incentive to play through the game more than once, and the relatively short length and fast pace mean that it never feels like a chore to play through.… Expand

Having played some of Xseed's other games, I didn't expect much going into this one. It turned out that that I was right not to hope for much. Ys: The Oath in Felghana is another classic example of a male-chauvenistic world. For some reason, the developers of this game think that Adol, the silent, red-haired protagonist is so sexy that women are just going to fall all over him. From a female standpoint, this is male game geekism at its best...though I'm not saying this as a compliment. I'm also looking at the huge contrast between some of these high and low scores and wondering if we've just got a huge number of Ys fans and haters having a turf battle instead of being objective. Despite this, I agree with some of the positive and negative points.

Story: The character development is for the most part pretty iffy and I hardly found any of the interactions between Adol and the supporting cast to feel that believable. This is just me, but for someone who reads a lot of books, I found this to be one of this games biggest weak points. The world is also really skewed in its perspective of both men and women. Men are all macho and women take a back seat and look like a bunch of whiny babies waiting for Adol to come to the rescue. I just don't agree with that idea that women should be made out to look like people who are incapable of helping themselves.

Music: The music is good at first, but the actual tracks themselves are too short so after hearing them repeat so many times without any variation, even these start to become annoying.

Action: The action is good too...for a while. The only problem I had with the hack-and-slash part is that it offers little variety so I ended up just doing what works best. Basically the best way to beat the enemies is just go crazy on the attack button and use the wind magic if there are a lot of enemies. This works on most bosses too, but admittedly some were really hard and it made the experience not as fun. I really hated with a passion the pits I fell down and had to retrace my steps because of one little mistake. I kind of felt like all these mistakes could have been avoided if this game were on a console and I had a real controller in hand. This game doesn't feel suitable for a portable game system and is actually quite irksome in more than just a few places because of the control scheme.

Stages: They are okay in general, but nothing really noteworthy as the graphics are just kind of there instead of any really drop-dead-gorgeous landscapes like you might see in a Prince of Persia, Tales, or even a Final Fantasy game that you would want to visit again and again. The artwork is nice but it really clashes with the low resolution graphics. I was surprised to find that there is only one town in the whole game which in the end seems like it would be impossible for Redmont to even exist given the lack of people living there, let alone the Illburn Ruins or Valestein Castle. This seems really short-sighted on the game developers part and prevents the world from having that convincing touch. This criticism mainly comes from my having read and played tons of books and games. The game is also way too short. I've actually got more game time out of some free demos than I got with this one.

Replay Value: If the story was good I would say that there is replay value and while there are many difficulty levels, it doesn't change the outcome of the game so there is little if any reason to give this game another run through.

My critique of this game is that it is basically an rpg with some action elements, nothing special, nothing fancy, and is it worth buying? I would have a hard time recommending this game to anyone unless they for some reason are more interested in anime girls than real ones. I think there are many other games that will give someone a more fulfilling experience.… Expand

A fantastic game. If you're a fan of action RPG's, this is the game for you. It's lightning fast, free of clutter, and controls amazingly well. My only gripe is, and this is true of all Ys titles unfortunately, the storyline and characters are very weak and generic. While the gameplay itself stands out very well, I could have cared less why I was doing whatever it was that I was doing.

Grab it if you're a fan of straight out, fast paced adventure games. Don't buy it if you're looking for a moving narrative and a ton of mechanical depth.… Expand

This is one of my favorite PSP game so far. Right up there with Ys Seven, Lunar, Crisis Core, Gurumin, and a few other PSP gems. Ys Oath in Felghana is simply amazing. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys was not one of my top Ys titles, but this remake is definitely near the top. The music is perfect, which is usually the case with the Ys series. The action is never dull, the graphics/art style are pretty good, and the gameplay never disappointed. The only thing that holds it back a little, just a little, is the story. Granted, it's a remake of a 20 year old game, but the story is not that great. It serves it's purpose, and it's not a bad or boring story, it just isn't epic or anything grand. The voice acting is great though, no complaints from me on that aspect. This game is all about the gameplay though, and like Ys Seven, it is perfect. Ys Seven and Ys Oath go about the gameplay differently, there is only Adol in this game that you control, and even though I did enjoy the party system in Seven, I am glad to be back to the traditional 1 man wreckin crew that is Adol Christin. This is a shorter game than the previous YS PSP release, Ys Seven, but I also feel it is an overall better made game. Definitely worth picking up.… Expand

Simply put, this is one of the worst games ever on the Playstation Portable System. Ys: The Oath in Felghana has absolutely nothing to offer and does a number of things wrong. Platforming is bad. Voice-acting is bad. Story is bad.