Excellent port for another great Ys game.
I had a really good time on my first play-through for Ys IX, it’s a game that takes most of theExcellent port for another great Ys game.
I had a really good time on my first play-through for Ys IX, it’s a game that takes most of the good stuff from Ys VIII, and adds its own spin to things, with new interesting gameplay mechanics.
Among those, we can now glide around for a limited time, or climb walls by running onto them, and other additions in the form of special powers, called “Gifts”, each one coming from a different Monstrum.
Being a Falcom game, I expected good character development, and yeah we got it, for sure. All of the characters in the game have really wholesome moments and interactions, and their backstories and things we discover about them are, as usual, quite interesting, especially for the main cast of Monstrums.
I won’t talk spoilers so if I talk about any of the Monstrums, it’ll be by their Monstrum name, and I have to say I liked all of them, their individual gameplay/combat style and personality traits, but my favorite is, perhaps, the Doll, she had a very curious backstory, but overall all of them are pretty decent.
Being the Ys game where we can play as the oldest version of Adol Christin yet, I can see how Falcom used this opportunity to pay some good tribute to most of the past adventures our red headed friend has been involved in but, as usual, the references to past events and characters/locations are normally pretty subtle (or let's say...not very "disrupting", because there's a really not subtle at all big reference to the previous games, and it's part of the main plot).
I’d say 95% of this game, like any other in the series, can be played by anyone new to the series, without major issues. Only those who’ve played all of the previous games, will get that extra reward for understanding all the references, they are there, sure, but nothing a newcomer needs to worry about (just make sure to play the older games, anyway, someday :P).
It was really fun and interesting to see the quite different ways we got to explore the Balduq Prison, but explaining why would be spoilers territory; I'll just say that part of it felt like playing the very first Ys games, but in a modern setting/game. Closer to the end, It was a predictable "twist" in the story too, but I enjoyed it.
If you have played Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, the combat in Ys IX is pretty similar, feels quite smooth and responsive, as usual, especially when playing at high frame-rate.
I enjoyed the soundtrack in this game, in particular "Dreaming in the Grimwald", felt like straight out of Castlevania, but in Falcom's style, quite awesome track IMO; "Heart Beat Shaker" wasn't bad either; of course "Cloaca Maxima", early on in the game and "Glessing Way!", really...there are many bangers in this game, but some come in late areas of the game, still...amazing music overall.
As for performance, the game has been running great at maxed settings on my Ryzen 5 3600 and RTX 3060 Ti, 1080p at 1.5x Sampling Rate (resolution scale), it stays above 100 FPS in most indoor areas and above 60 outside in Balduq. At 2.00x Sampling Rate, certain parts in the city can drop the FPS below 60, mostly due to HBAO+, Shadows and stuff like that, but that's a lot of resolution there (4K in my case, since my native resolution is 1080p) and when there's lots of vegetation like that field at the Agricultural district, yeah, that can make the frame-rate dip quite a bit but it's fine at 1.5x scale, which would be around 1620p resolution for me.
Or you can also drop the PCSS Shadows and their Quality a bit, if you prefer to stay at higher resolution rate. Overall, performance is pretty scalable in this version of the game, as expected from a PC port by PH3, and I do hope Durante and his colleagues do continue to work in all of the Falcom games that will come to the PC in the future, because they have proven once again that they get the job done, with these high quality PC ports we’ve been getting from them.
We can even play with Mouse and Keyboard without major issues (I did play with M&KB for a while to test it), as all the keys can be remapped, making the experience even more customizable than using a gamepad which, on the other hand, using a controller might be a better choice for many, normally Ys games have always been decent games to play on mouse and keyboard on PC, even the older games in the series.
All in all, great game, with a very high quality port, I enjoyed the story, the characters, the setting (a big change compared to the Isle of Seiren from Lacrimosa of Dana), the exploration, finding all the chests I could, trying to map all the areas, get to know better the NPCs, etc. You know, typical Falcom games stuff, and I do like all of that, Falcom games are like “good for the soul” for me, they make me happy, I think it’s the way the characters and NPCs are in all these games, it’s a trademark of Nihon Falcom, for sure.… Expand
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