When it comes to exploration on land, Adol and Karja have a free range of movement. You can run and jump around as much as you please, but there are also Mana Actions which give you more options to traverse. For land exploration there are three types of Mana Actions: Mana String, Mana Board, and Mana Burst. The Mana String allows you to grapple onto certain points or enemies and pulls your character toward that point. This can be used in both exploration and combat to your advantage. The Mana Board is what it says it is, it’s a board that Adol and Karja ride that helps them traverse over land and water with great ease. Mana Burst is a charged attack usable by Adol and Karja, and its effect varies depending on who uses it. For Adol, you have a powerful flame attack that burns down obstacles. For Karja, you have a freezing attack that can be used to create ice platforms in pools of water. All three actions are useful in their own ways, but I found myself using the Mana Board most of the time. While the String and Burst are useful, I tended to use them only when it was absolutely necessary to progress.
The solid land mechanics are really well done in Ys X. The Cross Action System, while a bit confusing at first, is very cohesive and fun once you get used to all the different aspects. Whaling on enemies with the multitude of skills at your disposal, both independently and together as a pair, made for a fun time all-around. It was especially great seeing all the different Duo Skills Adol and Karja can perform together. Their movements are so fluid and they’re in perfect sync with each other. This is honestly the best in-combat chemistry I’ve ever seen Adol have with another character. My biggest complaint with the system had to involve the dodge and Duo Guard mechanics. Dodging Speed Attacks was made a bit too easy. All you had to do was hold down the dodge button and run around and you automatically evaded Speed Attacks. As for the Duo Guard, it felt like they made the mechanic too strong. It was as if the Duo Guard was almost unbreakable, save for a few attacks by larger enemies or bosses. You could shell up for as long as you wanted and then just open up to punish foes. Some type of gauge to limit how long you could hold the Duo Guard would go a long way to making it less of a cheap maneuver. I also found combat to be not that challenging overall, even on Hard difficulty. I found the most difficulty early on in the game when I was trying to figure out the system, and in the Endgame against an optional boss. Other than that, it was mostly smooth sailing. This again can be attributed to the dodge and Duo Guard mechanics. If those were tweaked just a little bit, I feel the challenge could be upped a bit. Despite my gripes, I had a lot of fun with the combat. But if you’re looking for something more challenging, you might want to up the difficulty level a bit. Land exploration was solid, so I had no problems in that department. Also, I appreciated the return of the fishing minigame. It’s always great seeing what type of aquatic life is in the new region Adol explores. Overall, another solid outing by Falcom when it comes to anything involving controlling the characters directly.
Now we leave the land and head to the sea. New to the Ys series is the ability to explore the open seas with your own ship. During the naval sections, players control the Sandras, a ship Adol and Karja took control of in Carnac. Controlling the Sandras is actually similar to how you control Adol and Karja. The analog stick controls the Sandras’ movement; the dash button (L1) allows you to Mana Sail, which gives the ship a burst of speed; Standard Projectile shots are performed with the cross button; the triangle button launches powerful EX Armaments; holding the R1 button and pressing one of the face buttons lets you perform Special Projectile attacks with differing effects; holding R2 allows you to defend attacks with a Mana Barrier; and holding the circle button allows you to decrease speed. When sailing the seas, you can enter battle with enemy ships, find floating pieces of cargo, discover new islands and sea life, fish for tuna, talk with the Sandras crew, and tackle Recapture missions. Fighting enemy ships is pretty straightforward. You use all armaments at your disposal to sink enemy platoons all while trying to evade, or defend, against their artillery. Some ships can be boarded, and these have a Durability gauge. Once the gauge is depleted, you can board the ship with Adol and Karja, defeat waves of enemies, and sink the ship. Honestly, I didn’t see ship combat much unless there was a mandatory story fight or I tackled a Recapture mission. Recapture missions are two-part assaults on Griegr-controlled islands. The first part of the mission takes place on the sea where you have to take down the barriers protecting the island. Next part takes place on the island itself, and here you control Adol and Karja. Depending on how well you did in the naval stage, you can get added benefits for the second stage such as increasing the Revenge Gauge fill rate and decreasing the amount of damage you take. Completing a Recapture mission gives you rewards depending on how well you did, and reveals places of interest in the sea around the island’s location. These can be islands you can explore, merchant ships you can purchase from, Carnac residents that need saving, and so on. If you really want to explore all of Obelia Gulf, completing the Recapture missions is a must.
The Sandras sections are a mixed bag for me. Being able to explore the open seas really fits the game’s setting and narrative, but it could be better. Falcom took a chance implementing ocean exploration and naval combat, and they didn’t do a bad job, but it wasn’t amazing either. Handling the Sandras definitely isn’t like a simulation, it has a more of an arcade feel. For those expecting ship combat like Assassin’s Creed IV, you can put that out of your mind, it’s nothing like that. This isn’t a bad thing, the fantastical feats you can perform with the Sandras really fits into the setting of the Ys series. You can perform drifts and Mana attacks which normal ships definitely couldn’t do, even a massive Mana beam isn’t out of the question later in the story. Ship combat can get pretty hectic and fun once you upgrade the Sandras enough and tackle later Recapture missions, but I don’t think it’s enough. The ocean exploration would have benefited if enemy ships were roaming the seas along with you. This would’ve encouraged me to combat them so they wouldn’t attack me or get in my way. Instead, there are specific areas you have to enter to initiate ship combat, and I tended to just avoid them since it was easy to do so. Discovering islands is cool and all, but many of these felt similar to ones you may have visited before, and there are also islands which barely have anything on them at all. The most impressive islands I saw were those integral to the main story, but those are outnumbered by the optional islands with not much to offer other than an occasional Runestone or a Carnac resident who needs saving. There was one optional island that was very unique, but that’s one out of the many islands spread across Obelia Gulf. In past games, there were landmarks you could visit that were visually striking monuments or natural formations. These were removed in favor of discovering unique sea life across Obelia Gulf. While it was cool discovering different aquatic life like whales and dolphins, I think keeping landmarks in would’ve made ocean exploration that much more rewarding. It doesn’t have to be all the islands, but having a natural landmark every once in a while on one of these islands would’ve been nice. I did, however, really like the ship conversations you could listen to as you sailed the seas. If you played the Tales series before, ship conversations are pretty similar to skits seen in that series. With ship conversation, the Sandras crew talk about topics either relating to the main story or just random topics to pass the time. I thoroughly enjoyed these, and they made sailing the seas that much more enjoyable. All-in-all, the Sandras sections are just okay. The combat and ship conversations are a joy, but I wanted much more out of the exploration aspect. It definitely has the potential to be much better.
Visually, the character models (both for the main cast and enemies) look great. For those who don’t know, the illustrator for Ys X is toi8, and they have worked on other series such as Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, Fate/Grand Order, and My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer. They have a pretty distinctive art style, and Falcom adapted toi8’s illustrations very well into the game world. Adol’s youthful energy is captured perfectly in both his body language and expressions, as well as in his outfit choice. Karja looks both badass and cute at the same time. Their movements are very fluid, and it’s certainly a treat for the eyes seeing the two of them fight in cutscenes. The Griegr look great too. Some of them look pretty funny and not much of a threat, but the stronger ones, especially those of the Trident, look menacing and quite unique. In addition to the character models, the visual effects are a sight to behold. They’re super flashy when Adol and Karja use skills and Duo Skills, and during cutscene fights. This is exactly what I want from action games too, flashy effects that really capture your attention.
The environments are hit and miss. I liked how you could tell the difference between a Norman town and a non-Norman town based on the buildings throughout the settlement. I enjoyed exploring ancient ruins and finding remnants of the past, and it was pretty exciting finding Runestones now and then. However, the natural environments tended to blend and look the same across different islands, mainly the optional islands. Shadows also looked strange when hitting certain rock faces and cliffs. They looked like blinds or strange lines, certainly not natural at all. The ocean, in the best of times, looked beautiful, with the sun reflecting off its surface and looking visually stunning. However, at other times it doesn’t look like the ocean at all. When you look out into the ocean, it should look like it stretches for awhile, you shouldn’t be able to see an end to it. On certain islands when you’re at a high enough elevation, it looks like there’s an end to the ocean. The ocean looks more like a circular pool and just stops. It certainly made for a jarring visual, and this happened on a handful of islands. I also encountered a visual glitch of some kind while playing the game. Throughout my playthrough, white squares would pop up in the background. This happened every once in a while, but when it did, I definitely noticed it. It only happened for a split second at a time, but it was a bit annoying to see. I was also disappointed that new weapons didn’t have their own unique model, other than the ultimate weapons. In Ys VIII, every time you got a new weapon the model would change, and I found this little detail pretty cool. This is not the case with Ys X. It’s a minor issue, but one that did disappoint me. Ys X looks great, but these issues held it back from really being at the next level.
