Ys Origins is more than just a simple hack n’ slash action role-playing game! Solving puzzles as you climb the Demon Tower and its unique boss battles make the game a truly magical experience and a great way to jump into the Ys series. Ys Origins may suffer from information overload and feels a little outdated it is still a game that you should consider trying out, especially if you’ve ever been curious about the Ys series.
I never thought I would be able to have the chance to get into the Ys series. I’ve always wondered about where to start if I ever did and when I first started playing the pronunciation of the title of the game wasn’t the only thoughts running through my mind. I had heard about the series for a while, but I had never played any title of the series. I thought how could I jump into a series that has over seven entries in the series and where do I even begin? Would I be confused if I started with Origins? Well, I was very excited to hear that Ys Origins was a prequel to all the other games in the series and was ready to jump in and see what the fuss was about.
Ys Origins (pronounced eese) is a single-player action role-playing game developed by Nihon Falcom that was originally released back in 2006 on Microsoft Windows and is just now making its way onto a Nintendo system. Although it was released for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Xbox One in 2017, I believe that the Nintendo Switch is where it really belongs, making it feel like a big adventure inside your backpack or pocket…depending on how big your pockets are!
With Ys Origins, you can begin your adventure as two different protagonists. You can play as Yunica Tovah, a young and dedicated ax-wielding girl who isn’t very skilled with magic and is a heavy hitter or Hugo Fact, a straight to business magician boy who is skilled at magic and uses a magical staff with lasers to bring down his enemies. Yunica and Hugo play very different from one another and go through similar trials as they climb what is known as The Demon Tower looking for two twin Goddesses who have mysteriously disappeared. Their stories also focus on magic and learning more about the lore of the Ys series as a whole. Along the way, they face demons and even human enemies as they climb the tower and learn about themselves, their powers, and the world they live in.
Chopping Down Your Enemies!
What impressed me the most about Ys Origins was how easy it was to learn the battle system of the game! I got the chance to play as Yunica and Hugo, but I mainly stuck with Yunica and her ax. Her weapon is very quick and used to chop down her foes. I wasn’t the best at controlling Hugo and found it harder to hit enemies as a face pace with magic lasers and his staff. With Yunica, the game feels like a hack n’ slash dungeon crawler while with Hugo I found myself struggling more to fight enemies and using more strategies.
The controls of the game has you using different abilities, even abilities used for attacks to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles, which at times I found very impressive and sometimes very tedious. It worked most of the time and sometimes doesn’t work with the major bosses of the game. The first two bosses of the game are different for both Yunica and Hugo. Yunica fights a towering demon and in order to defeat him, you have to attack his stomach while dodging his deadly fire attacks and then climb his arms while he is confused and chop away at his weak spot. With Hugo, however, you get into a fight with one of the human villains of the game, making the player have to attack more at a distance. For me personally, I found Yunica’s boss battles more enjoyable because of the faster pacing and unique boss fights. Hugo’s fighting style just really wasn’t for me.
Ys Origins can be a Magical Experience!
One thing that Ys Origins isn’t lacking is content. Its replay value is pretty high even if you’re not a major fan of the series. After playing as Hugo or Yunica, you can go through the story with another character you didn’t play as, making the replay value of the game pretty high. After completing Yunica and Hugo’s story, you also get to play as a third character who we’ll leave a secret so you can experience it yourself!
Being stuck in The Demon Tower the whole game may sound a bit dull and contained at first, but after playing a while, the environment is something I found pretty special about the game. The character you play will be similar to a 2D sprite model, but the environment of the Tower is in 3D. The graphics gave me a very nostalgic feeling like I was sitting in front of a box television or computer on the floor enjoying my favorite game and going well with it being on the Nintendo Switch.
As you climb the Tower, the environment of each room changes. On the earlier floors it feels like you’re in a tower, but then one room has sand making it a desert or flames like a volcano. As I would climb I would always wonder what the floor above would look like. This makes Ys Origins seem like you’re not trapped in a tower the whole time, although it would have been nice to see the outside world that Yunica and Hugo are from.
Magical Overload!
One big problem with the series, especially in the beginning was the introduction of characters. Right off the bat,
after waking up and speaking to what seems to be a magical tree, you are introduced to over six characters in the first 15 minutes of the game. It was pretty difficult remembering names and knowing who they were. This is why at first I began to wonder if it was right for me to start with Ys Origins as a first Ys experience. It would have been more enjoyable to slowly introduce characters and take small steps into the lore so that new players could easily understand and adapt to the world of Ys. Honestly, not knowing who each character was and why the main characters were talking to a tree, in the beginning, was a little overwhelming. But, from some of the characters that I do remember like Roy and Miuscha.
Another thing that seemed off about Ys Origins in the length of the game. It was pretty short. Although I only finished Yunica’s story, I was able to get close to the end of the game in about 8 hours or so. If Hugo and the secret character’s stories follow the same path but with different enemies, one would assume that their adventures would take the same time to complete unless you pump up the difficulty. This would put the game length at about under 30 hours, so you probably shouldn’t expect a long and grand adventure. Hugo and Yunica have different bosses and enemies and the slight change in the story wasn’t enough to keep me from getting tired of scaling the never-ending tower even with the environment changes, especially with Hugo.
The difficulty level also seems to be a little off. When I was playing as Yunica I noticed that even when grinding, when moving to a new area the difficulty would rise greatly and be nearly impossible to beat. One of the bosses made me feel like I got lucky beating it after taking about 30 minutes of slowly chipping away his health. It felt like I was playing on hard mode even though I selected normal mode. I feel like this ruins the experience for those and even easy mode may pose a challenge to newcomers. I would recommend those who are new begin on easy and after going through one character’s story bumping up the difficulty and seeing how you so. Falcom could have solved this problem by fixing random difficulty spikes the player is unprepared for.
It was also because of the information overload that I had a hard time getting into the story. Dialogue also seemed to be copy and pasted from Yunica and Hugo making it hard to get a sense of personality from the two, especially Yunica. If the characters had their own unique dialogue and responded a little differently to the situations they were in, then Yunica and Hugo would have felt different from one another instead of their fighting mechanics just being different.
Conclusion
Ys Origins is more than just a simple hack n’ slash action role-playing game! Solving puzzles as you climb the Demon Tower and its unique boss battles make the game a truly magical experience and a great way to jump into the Ys series. Ys Origins has a very high replay value and rewards its players for wanting to play and learn more about the world by even letting you play as an extra character! It’s refreshing to see a JRPG series come into the gaming world and beloved by many that aren’t from Square Enix. Even though I am a huge fan of games from the company, I’m very glad to see other companies come out with successful JRPGs and add flavor to the community. Ys Origins may suffer from information overload and feels a little outdated, Ys Origins is still a game that you should consider trying out, especially if you’ve ever been curious about the Ys series.
