YS: The Oath In Felghana Premium Edition PSP

As I've said in other reviews/first impressions I have given, I have a mild (alright heavy) obsession with RPG games. I have an extra special love for handheld RPGs as they allow me to stomach some of my wife's less than desirable television shows while being in the same room (I'm looking at you Bridezilla's). So, when I found out a new Ys game was coming to the PSP, there really wasn't any option of me not getting this.

Ys (pronounced eace as in Peace) is a series that has been going on for some time. All I know of the previous iterations are that they had a nice following of fans. I'm a late comer to the series with Ys 7 being my first foray into the red headed wonders world. The story of Ys games usually revolve around a voiceless main character named Adol Christian with his fiery red hair and ability to woo the ladies and his heterosexual life partner Dogi the strongman with blue hair. Usually there is some evil to conquer and in this game it's no different. The game begins with the duo returning to Dogi's homeland where he quickly finds an old friend in danger. Adol rescues the girl and the two are escorted back to Dogi's home village. After some catching up, Dogi heads off into the mountains to find his former master while Adol is left to wander around. It doesn't take long for things to spiral out of control as word of a corrupt leader searching for mysterious artifacts in the mines catches Adol's ears and he is trust into a grand adventure to save the town and the world from the evil that lurks in the surrounding areas. Sounds epic doesn't it? It is, but it's also standard fare. The way this game differentiates from the others is through the excellent voice acting.

That's right, there's voices. And they are pretty good too. The story is told from a narrators point of view describing the life and times of Adol and Dogi. Since Adol doesn't have a voice actor, the narrator describes what he is saying to people. Dogi does have a voice actor and it's pretty spot on to what I'd thing Dogi would sound like. All of the other main characters in the game also have spoken lines and I found myself thoroughly enjoying them throughout the first couple hours of the game. When people speak, a portrait pops up on screen as they speak their lines. The portrait will change depending on mood and story while sprites in the background can be seen. You've seen it before, but Ys: The Oath in Felghan really hits it on the head and does a great job with it.

If you played Ys Seven like myself, you may find that this game is a little different. This game is actually based on Ys III from back in the day, so I'm guessing that may have had something to do with the choice, although it's most certainly not a bad one. You no longer walk around with two other companions receiving their help as you attack and move around the world. Adol wanders around by his lonesome and handles puzzles and enemies on his own. While navigating the world you will pick up different skills such as fireballs, a spinning sword trick, etc. These help in combat, but more importantly they help you get past puzzles and world obstacles that are strategically placed in areas. When you first come across these areas, you will have to make a mental note and return later when you have the proper means to get past it.

The combat in Ys is actually pretty fun. You are going to be spamming the X button a lot as that is how you attack. You attack in real time and for each press of X, you swing the sword. Hit X fast enough and you'll do some impressive moves. Square casts magic and O allows you to jump. That's something else about Ys, you can jump and it's a pivotal way to get around the world, especially after you acquire double jump. Triangle sets off a boost that increases power and some of your special moves. The combat is fast paced and very action oriented. You'll mow through most enemies with ease, but bosses, they are another story altogether.

The boss monsters in the game can vary between utterly easy and insanely tough. The first couple bosses were pretty darn tough too. I found myself dying multiple times and noticed something I haven't seen in many games. If you die a lot at a boss, there is an option to decrease the difficulty. This is awesome, especially for people who don't want to restart a game to change difficulties because they can't beat a boss. The difficulty is ever so slightly decreased and while the challenge still remains, you are given a slight edge over the competition. The bosses will truly test your ability to learn from the environment and the bosses cues to eliminate them. For instance, there is a group of enemies who get stronger the more of them you kill, so you need to damage them to the point where each is hurt a lot, then whipe them out one by one to stay alive. It's tricky, but fun to learn little secrets like this.

Something that I rarely talk about in games, but in Ys is fitting is the music. The music in Ys is awesome. You are given the option of three different versions of the music. The first, I believe, is from the PC release of the game back whenever it came out originally as Ys III. The second option is a more refined cut of that old PC version which I'm guessing was in another port of it? I didn't play the original so I'm not sure. The final is a completely new version of the songs done for the PSP game. It's a lot of fun to switch between them and fans of the original are going to eat this up. I'm sticking with the new version because it sounds best but for those of you who played the original and the songs may bring back memories of playing the game, it's there and waiting for you.

The Ys games are quickly becoming one of my favorite franchises on the PSP. I wish I had played the originals back when they were originally out but I missed them. I'm trying to make up for that now by playing every single Ys game I can get my hands on and I'm loving them all. Ys: The Oath in Felghana is a very well made game with a lot of love and attention to detail put forth by the devs. You can tell by playing the game that the developers really like making these games. This isn't a game only RPG fans will like. Actions fans will like it as well due to the heavy combat and metroid-esque upgrade system in dungeons and the world. The game is supposed to be around 10-12 hours or so but for a PSP game, that's actually a decent length. I'm looking forward to completing the game and will keep my eye out for any other Ys releases coming to consoles or handhelds in the future.

This game is just an absolute non-stop blast. I actually played the original PC version of it years ago, and this version is every bit as good as its PC counterpart. The graphics look slightly different in the PSP version but it's lightning quick, as anyone who's played Ys IV: Ark of Napishtim's PSP version can identify as a positive change. There's barely any loading between areas, the framerate never even approaches dropping, and the whole presentation is just top notch.

Many people have praised the voice acting. I'll agree, it's definitely competent, but some of the choices are a bit cheesy (and like a lot of B-tier videogame english voice-overs, overdone). I don't know if I got used to it or if it picks up as the game goes on, but I actually found the story moments late-game quite captivating. I've actually been playing the series since I was 6 or 7 (the original MS DOS conversion of Ys Book 1) and Ys 3: Wanderers from Ys was one of the first games I played on my SNES as a kid. Suffice to say, this game has almost everything from the first game, expanded about 500%. Dungeons are way longer, with tons of alternate routes and treasures strewn about. The overworld serves to quickly move the action between dungeons, and the main town is good-sized enough to offer a few quests off the beaten path but never so big that its navigation becomes a chore. The pacing is pretty good, with a pretty steep spike on every boss encounter. There are a ton of difficulty options--the highest, 'Inferno', is locked until you beat it on Nightmare. This will not be easily done.

The battle system is just plain glorious. X attacks, which combos into 6 hits upon repeated mashing. Attacking without pressing a direction on the stick will kind of auto-direct the attacks to the closest targets, making it easy to smoothly execute large amounts of foes. The game handles jumping attacks quite intelligently too. You have various attacks that can be performed aerially, dependent on whether or not you're holding a direction and what side of your jump you attack on. On the way down? Falling area attack that hits on all sides. On the way up? Moving? Quick strike that lurches you forward. Not Moving? Spinning attack that does damage to flying creatures. It's awesome--simple enough to allow ample use of every attack type, but fast enough that it never gets boring. Falcom should truly be commended, as it's just a fantastic battle system. On the easiest difficulties, enemies are limited in attacks and have low health, allowing you to breeze through dungeons relatively unscathed. On normal difficulties, you'll probably get to save points before you get hurt (due to the health items enemies drop) but it stays engaging. On Nightmare, you will rutinely die in some of the later rooms--making the game's great design that much greater. If you die, you can respawn from the entry to that room. If you die on a boss, you can retry him (and you will....oooooh you will). If you die a ton on a boss, you can swallow your pride and lower the difficulty. It's like Falcom made a checklist of every good feature that's ever been in a game, streamlined them, and combined them into a fast paced party of a game.

Keep in mind--if you're into beating games on their hardest settings (especially the first time around), be prepared to die a ton of times on most every boss. Assuming you aren't leveling to the point of killing any difficulty, boss attack patterns are fast, vicious, and constant on every single boss. Most require several minutes of perfectly-timed play to even have a prayer of getting through them....2 specific bosses come to mind where I'm sure I died in excess of 50 times. It's manageable difficulty in every case, however, and barring 1 or 2 instances of...irritating boss mechanics, it's truly a gem of a game boss-wise. It took me about 20 hours to beat the game my first time on Nightmare--at least it said that on my file. Counting the retries on bosses, it was probably closer to 25.

If you own a PSP and you don't own this game, I don't know what you're playing on it. This and Ys Seven are both must-own titles and truly show why the PSP is the absolute pinnacle of portable entertainment currently.

This is such a great game. The Premium Edition is a slick package that's well worth the money. I'm so proud of XSEED for continually bringing over all these awesome Ys games. (Pronounced Ease) This is full of great action RPG gameplay, many many hours of fun. Great graphics, music, gameplay, and overall atmosphere. It has such an old school feel to it. Buy it now, to encourage XSEED to keep bringing us U.S. gamers more awesome RPG's like this one!