Firstly, Ys is a retro JRPG game. It's the first in its serious and has apparently had a million remakes and ports. What drew me to this game in the first place was its artwork and for the simple fact of it being a JRPG.


The story of Ys 1 is classic tale of a boy becoming a knight to save a land from an evildoer, sounds typical but it's a classic for a reason and Ys throws in plenty of interesting elements to make it their own unique. If you're someone that's already a fan of classic anime and JRPGs, it's a story you'll enjoy.

You're sent to find the six books of Ys in order to free a land from a curse placed upon it. Monsters have appeared on the island in the last six months, a stormwall isolates the island from the outside world as well and there's worry about thieves stealing all of the silver from the island. Any small, tiny amount of silver will be stolen for some reason. You'll need to solve these mysteries, help a few townsfolk, encounter the thieves guild, explore abandoned mines, find the legendary silver sword and figure out what's at the bottom of an ancient shrine.

The game goes pretty quickly, but you do get a chance to "get to know" quite a few of the characters. My only complaint would truly be that it was too short. It's still fun and satisfying to interact anyway, everyone has their own personalities, after many story events a lot of the dialogue is updated for everyone in the entire world so it gives you quite a bit to find out. There's a lot of things you can miss if you don't explore though.

Overall, I enjoyed the story and the characters. But I am someone that enjoys cheese old anime so I'm heavily biased.


The gameplay was actually a bit to get used to in terms of combat. You use something called the "bump system" to fight monsters. Rather than clicking a button to swing your sword, you have to run into the enemies at the right angle to avoid taking retaliatory damage. Although, it didn't take long to get used to it and enjoy it. Later on in the game, it actually became something I appreciated given all the backtracking that I did. I'd say this type of combat definitely fit the game well, despite my poor first impressions.

The game does not have autosave, so you'll have to make sure to remember to save. It's easy to forget that nowadays. There's one point in the game where you will not be able to go back, so it's probably a good idea to make lots of saves between points of interests. If you're someone interested in going back and finishing things, as there's no new game+ in it either.


The graphics are a charming retro style that remind me of Chrono Trigger. Everything is such a beautiful pixel-art as well as quite a few cutscenes drawn in the old anime-style many of us love. Certain important characters throughout the game get their own scenes as well. Where they're using drawn portraits rather than pixel-art text boxes to represent them. The artwork for the landscapes and locations is also beautiful, there's a small touch that goes appreciated as well. During the final area, the background changes accordingly with the time and the higher you climb.


I'd give it an overall 7 out of 10. Everything combined from the artwork, the gameplay, the story, the characters and the overall lore of the world was very satisfying. I went in knowing nothing of the Ys series and I beat the entire game in three long play sessions. It took me about 7-8 hours to beat my first playthrough. I plan to do so again on nightmare difficulty and get all the achievements eventually. If your'e someone that enjoys JRPGs, this is definitely one you'll want to get. Especially at its cheap price.


The finally boss of the game was a bit of a let down. It was not a real fight imo, but I suppose you can make the argument that it fits in with the bump system of fighting that the game has. So it's understandable why it was the way it was. So while earlier I do praise the combat and thing it was a great choice for the game, the final boss was still a let down no matter how you look at it.

You'll need to have been paying attention too, because if you use the wrong gear against him, you'll never be able to beat him. And about a third of your game time will be spent in the final area. The amount of backtracking that you have to do is actually a bit insane. And there were some moments where I felt like just quitting for the day. But thankfully they didn't last very long. Definitely would recommend a guide on your second playthrough. I used no guide and found myself lost so many times. I had made it to the top of the tower only to finally realize there was an item I had needed to grab all the way down on floor 2. It was quite a pain. I do believe it may have been intentional to make this tower as insufferable as possible.

The game is incredibly short. Maybe we're spoiled by modern JRPGs but this game is short. Sometimes short can be good and not so overbearing, sometimes short can be a nice change of pace for you. Short can be a good thing for many people but this game only left me wanting more, and with how quickly things progressed through the story, it all flew by in a flash.

When you become max level and have all the best gear, the game is a bit of a breeze. Even the final boss, once you learn his gimmick, is quite easy. Just make sure at every pass you try to go for more than one hit at a time and you'll beat him in no time.

They posted a fix for the common issue of black screens during gameplay on the official website.


Well, on PC, it was running wonderfully then suddenly it started getting this really strange stuttering issue. Where opening your map or watching cutscenes will cause the game to go into a black screen entirely and it will freeze your PC and any other windows you have opened. Eventually it might catch up but it will chug along the entire way.

For reference, I am on a Ryzen 9 7950X with a 4080 super. No other game has this issue and unfortunately, it has made this game entire unplayable on PC. I love this game a lot, I finished it on steamdeck, but with it not performing well on PC, I have to change this to a "do not recommend" until it's fixed. It seems to not only be an issue with me which is something I looked into before editing my review. It actually runs better on steamdeck than a PC which confuses me, at least on steamdeck it would ONLY crash sometimes.




I have loved Fairy Tail for over a decade now, and when I had discovered there games for it, I fell in love even more. So I am heavily biased and quite the optimist with these games.

So far the mechanics are overall very similar to the first game, you run around accepting quests and fighting mobs, but they have changed quite a bit to that while keeping to the format.

- Combat feels more fun and not quite a slow turn-based style. In the first game, strategy didn't matter all that much anyway which is key to turn-based combat. But in Fairy Tail 2, the combat is much faster and you have to think a bit quicker on what to do. It may feel slow at first, but as you gradually level up and as the battles themselves pick up, the combat does as well. I truthfully have no idea what the other reviews are talking about when they say the combat is slow.

- Exploring the world is still similar, but a lot fewer loading screens and it's more in the open-world sense now. In the first game, you'd attack an enemy to begin a fight, it's the same in this but they've added something I think is a welcome change, which is once you out-level certain enemies, you can simply attack them on the overworld and they will instantly die. You don't need to go through the constant combat animations while running through low level areas. I enjoy the grind in JRPGs, but this is still a welcome change and grinding low level enemies is still satisfying.

- I also really love the addition of these campfire stories they've added. They give the impression that I'm also watching an anime, similar to some of the Star Ocean games. You get to learn more about each character, see them in situations that could make you happy or sad, it's just a wonderful improvement from the first game where each interaction like that was a simple conversation between two characters.

- The graphics in this game are a huge improvement, I've stopped to take a million screenshots because I'm always just in love with how it looks. Like Breath of the Wild, coming out of your shrine to the vast open world, when I leave down and head out into the open green field, it just radiates a happy and fun feeling of adventure!

- There are some issues though... for me, every issue I've had has been weird bugs... like my graphics are set to the absolute highest on a Ryzen 9 7950x and a 4080. So I'm sure that has nothing to do with it but the game being set to window/borderless has a strange bug of clipping into the other monitors despite the proper size being selected. This bug is fixed if you just change the resolution, then change back. But it shouldn't be an issue in the first place.

- Now, I have only played about 4 hours so far, and I'm very slow at progressing through games, but I wanted to write this because if you're like me, and you love Fairy Tail, I think you'll like this game. So far, I love it more than the first and it's made for such a wonderful Christmas gift! I'll add to this as I progress through the game!