I just finished up with Ys Origin, so I thought of giving it a review.

Story

Story definitely isn’t the focus of this title. There is a story, there are characters, and things happen, but none of it ever feels particularly important. I found myself neutral to most of the characters, and by the time I found myself starting to like some of them, the game ended! Part of this may be because I’ve never played any of the Ys games before this, so there might be some context I’m missing.

There are supposedly 3 campaigns, each with their own character, but as far as I’m aware they all have the same gameplay loop save for the differences in character abilities.

From the 1 campaign I’ve completed, I wouldn’t say anything negative about the story, but I found it nothing particularly special.

Graphics

This game came out in 2006, so it definitely does look somewhat aged. I love it though. Looks are subjective, however, so I’ll put a few screenshots below so you can form your own opinion.

Gameplay

This is a very repetitive game with a lot of grinding. My playthrough lasted about 15 hours, though I never felt the need to take a break from the game. If you’ve played something like Persona 3, think of this whole gaming taking place in Tartarus; though a bit more interesting to look at. There are about 5 settings overall, and each has its own unique look, mechanics and soundtrack (side note: this game has a great soundtrack!). While the core gameplay is largely identical throughout the game’s runtime, it remains varied enough. This game is the right length for a gameplay loop like this. The only major thing breaking this gameplay loop are the boss fights, which were something I particularly enjoyed. I’m generally not the biggest fan of boss fights in general, but they work very well in this game. I was able to clear most of the bosses in 4-5 attempts max AND without using a guide (save for the final boss).

Speaking of guides, there were a few instances when I found myself needing one for things like finding a specific key or using a specific item (evil ring, anyone?). These moments were not very common though.

Something which doesn’t exactly help the repetitive nature of this game is the grinding aspect. You will need to grind, and sometimes, this looks rather ridiculous. One of the mechanics of this game is that enemies don’t die permanently; they’ll respawn if you exit an area and then enter it again. A lot of my time grinding was spent going in and out of these areas, spamming the same set of attacks, and repeating this until I gained enough XP to level up or SP for whatever upgrade I needed.

Performance

I played this on a Playstation Vita. For whatever reason, this game is locked at 30 FPS. It’s playable at that framerate, however, the Vita is perfectly capable of running the game at 60 FPS. I used VitaGrafix to do this. Even if you don’t overclock, the framerate will fluctuate around 60 FPS, but overclocking pretty much locks it at 60 save for a few boss fights with flashy animations.

Conclusion

I think you have to be comfortable with grinding if you’re going to enjoy this game. If you’ve played a few JRPGs here and there, you should be good to go. Just know what you’re getting into.