Y's 9 because the theme of family is used more since they use the ACTUAL family members in the game can reach those highs very well, but as an ADVENTURE game, as a game I want to REPLAY, Ys 8 is an absolute masterpiece. Also the music is some of the best Falcom has ever made in 8. I still replay 8 either completely or just spend 30 min going around the map and listening to the music while killing dinosaurs. Truly great.
Yeah Doll is the best "team mate" in this one, she was pretty much a permanent party member for me once I got her. Just gave her a new damage type accessory.
For me the most eyecatching element in Ys 9 is the clothing design. It's really superb. Just check Raging Bull or Doll's costume, and even some of the NPC's clothes are really well made like Carla's.
@Hi_Nu Ver 0 Zero_Tester I played 5 up until right after I saved my wife and another game distracted me. I later found out I was 2 major boss fights away from beating the game
I think overall I still prefer 8. I liked the setting more and 9 just takes a very long time to get going. But the characters are amazing. Either way you should play both if you haven’t. Fantastic games.
9 took til chapter 5 for me get into it. Up til then I was just cruising along, not excited to see or fight anything. Ofc I still liked the combat but that was pretty much the only thing that pushed me forward. The setting, level design, characters, soundtrack and story of 8 were way better imo. I usually don't like exploring in games but 8's actually made me want to explore, which is high praise from me
@@Walamonga1313 agreed. the island was a far stronger setting and vibe compared to 9 for me. still enjoyed 9 but 8 has a certain special sauce I can’t put my finger on that makes me love it especially
Played the demo for ys9 yesterday. I had never played one before then and I was shocked at what I had been missing out on all these years. I am def gonna go back and play as many as I can get my hands on. Just have a few games to finish before I dive into this series fully.
For most enjoyment, start with the more primitive games and work you way forward. They are all good but the combat is very basic in the older ones. Ys seven (psp game) and forward is where the games start to feel more modern.
@@TheKnutification yeah I decided to start with VIII. That and IX are the two that grabbed my attention. I liked origins too. Everything else I'll get to.....eventually 😂
I just finished Ys 8 a week ago and have already sunk 15 hours this week in Ys IX Both are really brilliant and absolutely fun! Played 8 on Hard. Playing 9 on Nightmare. Music is amazing as well!
I think what makes 9 stand out is that everything and everyone adds to the world building of Balduq (the prison city). In more ways than one, everything is like a network which connects to the central. I do agree that 9 takes its time to tell the story and build the world, but man is it worth it at the end. I feel like in 8, you can get lost and enjoy just exploring the island and fighting monsters but compared to 9 8 doesn’t really built to the final conflict. I loved Dana but I dont think the rest of the cast of 8 compare to 9 since 9 characters are part of the world building (whereas in 8 they were just allies). 8 is a great game because it has the proper hook and visual (and aural) presentation. 9 is a great game because the world that you are in feels personal and the story allows you to feel the pain I think more since everyone is affected. I can understand why folks don’t like 9, especially coming from 8. 9 looks less colorful and the game makes you work for the story. Going from 9 to 8 has the inverse affect, you can see parts of the game that don’t connect to the plot and make the game drag a bit. Here’s to hoping Falcom adds content in the future to 9 like they did 8.
I love, LOVE you played and beat the Switch version. The switch is all I have and I admit I felt a little upset when I first started playing and it just was not optimized well (even though the graphics dont look demanding). You excited me because you actually played through the whole title on switch vs other reviewers that probably only log a couple hours in. While I was upset at first, I quickly got over it. The game is so freaking good. I love the characters. I love exploring the city and finding treasure (like the jrpg for MEtroidvania fans). This series is so good. I fell in love with Origins, then I scored a copy of Lacrimosa from the Nis reprint event for 40 bucks. Then got this one for 48 on amazon. I doubt they will, but I hope they port over more Ys games to Switch. Keep up the good work. You got my JRPG love ignited once again! My all time favorite game is Final Fantasy IX
I loved both games, as I've loved pretty much every modern Ys (starting from the PSP), but I can't say I agree on calling IX a masterpiece. I mean, it's a fantastic game and I enjoyed it a ton, and I would agree it's kind of an upgrade in terms of gameplay, even if very small (I don't ask for more, since VIII was already fantastic). That said, while IX is a great game, I do consider VIII a masterpiece. The biggest differences for me are in terms of story, where I did prefer the Lacrimosa of Dana story as a whole, but maybe more importantly, while the city and prison where cool in their own right, I feel it doesn't come even close to exploring the island in Ys VIII. The powers from the monstrums where a nice addition for movement, but it's more about the adventure sensation the island gave. While on the island I felt I had a whole world to explore, in the city at times I did feel kinda "trapped" (well, technically I was). Just loved the idea of exploring an island, finding castaways, etc. Prison Adol had cool puzzles and dungeons and all, but I think they don't even come close to the solo Dana dungeons in Ys VIII, and as a whole I loved working in the different timelines between Dana and Adol, sometimes looking at some places how they look "now" vs how they used to look. I will agree that the cast of characters might be better in IX, since I feel there's generally more development for them, generally speaking, while VIII had a couple characters that felt quite secondary. Also, although I do love our lovely doll in IX, I still do think that the best Ys character is Dana, and part of the reason IX has a better cast is because VIII was much more focused on its heroine, Dana. Ys IX was a fantastic game and I honestly enjoyed it a ton (I did get my Platinum trophy, after all) and will likely play it again at some point in the future, but that said, if I have to choose between Ys VIII and Ys IX, for me it's still an easy decision: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. At least until Ys X comes out, it will still reign supreme for me as the best Ys to date. But man, I'm already hyped about a future Ys X, and it hasn't even been announced yet.
Just played both Dana and Monstrum Nox back to back over the past few weeks and I fell in love with both. They are just wonderful games with even more wonderful stories and characters. I am about to start (right now actually) Celceta and I hope it too is a good game. But bottom line is these Ys games are severely underrated and not very well known as I had never even heard of them until I got lucky with a suggestion from someone just like you recently. I am glad I took the advice and tried this series as the characters are so well crafted and presented.
I grabbed this game last week but am still at the end of Persona 5 R and have to beat the last dungeon first. Its killing me because I love Persona 5 but am so ready for Arise. lol
@@NeutralGloomBot So far Arise is really fun. What I really like is that if you buy the PS4 editions (its what I got) if you get a PS5 later you just download it.
I totally agree for most parts, especially I also think that this darker kind of story is much more appealing than the one in Ys 8. But in the end I felt a little bit disappointed, because it was basicly the same game - it could have been a standalone addon. After I finished and loved Ys 8, I played all other games and every numbered main line entry added something new. So I simply was expecting more from part 9. Also, I think that the story was artificially constructed just to match all the gameplay elements and narrative style of Ys 8 (but then, inside this narrative all this parts fit together, so Falcom did a great job on this)
I love dark stories but the one in 9 didn't grab me til like the last 2 chapters. It never had me as invested as 8's, plus the world didn't have me nearly as interested either. I preferred 8's characters and soundtrack too. Really the one thing 9 does better is vertical gameplay
Just finished 9 a couple weeks ago. Great game. I definitely enjoyed it more than 8. Not that 8 was bad but it did start to drag in the later hours. I agree with this dude. Controls were amazing, combat was super fun but ys games always have fun combat for me. Better characters. Better more cohesive story, although I don't get how adol didn't get super angry or even really seem to care that the lady cursed him. I love when you sprint with doll and its like she is on skates. I didn't use hawk that much. I barely ever used the dude in the wheel chair. I forget his name. The soundtrack in 9 is great. Origins has an incredible soundtrack.
Nice. I will get it eventually, but on the PS4. Action games needs to have good framerates. Currently I’m enjoying Tales of Arise. Quite good , I’m loving it:
agree with you on everything. cant stop playing. also this game is much more fun to explore, despite liking an island setting more. Adol's choices are a nice touch too
if you ask me, the thing that made me love ys IX more than ys VIII is the side quests. they were all connected their own side quest chains that focused a lot about the characters and helped develop most of them and even connected a bit to the main story. i haven't felt that even a single side quest was stupid or unnecessary and this comes from a gut that doesn't like doing side quests much
Ys 8 for me - Ys 9 was just a bit too drab and samey (Oh hey, ANOTHER dark cavern!), and I preferred building out the camp by rescuing shipwrecked people, loved the raids, loved the music a lot more. But Ys 9 absolutely nailed the characters - I didn't care much about the party members in Ys 8 (apart from Dana of course, her story was great) but I did care about the monstrums and the antagonists in Ys 9.
Yeah definitely got tired of the "All caves lead to Baldug Prison" type of exploration. I did really enjoy the gifts alot more than adventuring gear in Y's VIII though. Another complaint of mine was the Monstrum Nox's. Unlike Lacrimosa of Dana where you could essentially skip most the Beast Raids if you wanted to, with the Nox's they are almost all mandatory as they prevent you from proceeding into the area you need to go to progress the story. Also you have to unlock the Nox's in the first place by either doing all the various sidequests in that chapter or grinding Lemures around the city until the Nox opens up. I didn't dislike doing the sidequests but having it all feel mandatory (unless I want to enemy grind) just so I could do what was essentially a less interesting Beast Raid (sorry but protecting the village was far more appealing than protect the Sphene) was a major gripe I had with the game.
I played Ys: Oath in Felghana and really enjoyed it, but then somehow forgot about this series. Now a few weeks ago I tried out Ys 9 and it blew me away. Definitely in my top 5 of this year. I enjoyed it even so much that some of the other Ys games landed on my christmas wish list
I will say, the main reason I personally prefer 8 is the variety of locations. 9 was mostly the dreary city with a few instances where you got to leave and explore the outside while 8 was set on an island with a variety of bright and colorful locations.
This is a fun video format. Next duel could be: Final Fantasy IV vs. Final Fantasy VI Dragon Quest VIII vs. Dragon Quest XI Tales of Vesperia vs. Tales of Berseria
2 great games, I really liked Ys 9 because of the new ways of exploring the game with monstrum capacities, and the battle system was crazy ! But I slightly prefer Ys 8 because for me Ys is about exploring giant unknown and wild areas, it lacks a little exploration like that in Ys 9, if it had less dungeon/city exploration and more opened wild areas Ys 9 would be the best of the best !
I’m happy you enjoyed it. Y’s 8 is on of my most played games on my switch..I started 9 before the patch, then I preordered the Oled…so I put it on the back burner till I receive Oled..I’m hoping it looks a little better on that screen. Hopefully the new screen don’t show all the flaws.
I was so close to sending you a copy of Ys IX my funds just never accomodated me. Glad someone else had the same idea! Hope to help you out in the future.
Its not that I didn't enjoy ys 9 but yeah I really thought it was a step back from ys 8. It seemed a little easy and lacked that feeling of exploration. I don't know, it just felt more simple and I wanted them to take a big step up of course. I also liked the story and characters significantly more in ys 8.
ys is probably the most solid long time running series there is, without any big flaws.. really love every game there. sadly cant say the same about trails (cold steel arc -except cs3- was a low point regarding falcom games in general :( )
@Diag Tot really? I think TOCS1 was great. Soundtrack, characters, linked attacks makes the combat more dynamic... I know TOCS gets a lot of hate but It has lots of good things to offer too
I thought Cold Steel I was great from the music, the character interaction in battle, and see character growth and personal struggles. My moment was during the Nord Village. Alisa look up at the night sky and raise her hand to the sky then imagine that she can escape from her dysfunctional family which feel like burden to her. So while this is happening this awesome music plays! Cold Steel I has the best character driven story while the second was also good too. I get that game isn't for everyone, but some can relate to the characters and their problems.
I played both VIII and IX on the PS4 and platinumed both. I honestly like music from VIII; characters from both are great; but to 100% it has to be IX. I really do wish that Aprillis was a party member like Dana was, but both are amazing games.
It's also hard for me to decide which Ys game is better. I liked the story in Ys 8 a bit more, but Ys 9 had the better characters and the better atmosphere. I liked the darker, gothic-like style of Ys 9. I think they both deserve the first place. Ys 8 and Ys 9 are easily the best Ys games. I agree, Ys 9 is the easiest Ys game. I finished all other Ys games on easy, but I finished Ys 9 on normal.
I literally just finished Ys IX and all I can say is "WOW!!" This game and Ys8 are both S-Tier games in my book. I love them both and I can't recommend them enough! Ys IX had the difficult task of having to follow up one of the greatest games of all-time IMO and it was as good as game as we could hope for honestly. It's bittersweet to finish such a wonderful game but what a fun journey it was. I LOVE this series! :)
To be fair, I would say the game and City of Balduq is fun, and it's superhero theme is definitely amusing in a wierd way, let's face it, Adol and his monstrum friends were totally superhero in this one. I also think that this game should be treated as it's own separate entity rather than comparing it to ys 8, just like how the other ys game were before. However my issue with the game is the story, sure it had lots of plot twists and I really enjoy them but it feels like the majority of game was spent on bunch fillers, for example one chapter is focused on stolen item and it's not just this ond chapter that feels more like a fetchquest than the main story. Still, as soon as it focuses at it's main story, that's when things turn really good, but I wish they really focused on the main story longer. Gameplay wise, it feels somewhat stiff and formulaic. Unless you're outside the city or dungeon, you need to touch these distortion thing to fight monster and to be honest, it feels like a random encounter seen in other Jrpgs like whenever you encounter a monster you enter a battle screen, and this is supposed to be Action RPG. Issues aside, I may sound like I'm complaining but I really enjoyed it, I'm just giving my unbiased opinion. Ps: I believe this game had the biggest dialogue i've seen from adol in a conversation in the whole franchise, I would seriously pay just to see Adol talk more!
I also wished Aprillis was playable even if only in boss rush or nox battles. Also the transition during the end credits was one of my favorite moments
8 is very good as a stand alone entry, 9 benefits a lot from the player having played past entries, one hidden quest and the final cutscene are a lot cooler with added context from past games. Gameplay is smooth, flash guarding has never felt so good. Slow start, strong finish, but the switch port has one major flaw: performance. If you can, get the ps5 version or the pc one, switch is still playable but only if you don't really care about the framerate issues(they occur almost entirely in the city).
Not sure if you’ve noticed but the epilogue for each characters are actually the CG during the credits. Doll and Aprilis have their own. It’s a bit light and leaves room for interpretation but there’s something at least
Graphics used in the video are from the PS4 or Switch ? Looking forward to buying it, but holding off because I expect some updates to fix issues mentioned by you.
I liked aspects of both games but I feel like Ys 8 was the more enjoyable one. It had an excellent story, great setting, fun combat, interesting characters and just an overall terrific game. Ys 9 still had some of the great aspects of Ys 8 but I felt like it prioritized the gameplay mechanics more so than the actual story. Still a pretty solid RPG though.
Ya they mixed Ys, persona 5 and movement from KH3, plus recycled most of the mechanics of raids and stuff from Ys VIII which to me didn't fit here, felt very tacked on story was decent, but not as good as VIII unfort, didn't feel original at all, also the game was strangely easy even on hard I took out the optional boss on the first try with no information, and last thing, all treasure is money or recovery items minus like 3 treasures, miss Ys memories of Celceta where the treasure was amazing so getting boxes was almost always a great item
I preordered the PS4 version, and although I haven't played much since I'm working on Lacrimosa of Dana, I loved what I've played. The concept with the monstrums really caught my attention. I don't see why people are ragging on it: it's amazing.
Picked up 9 today on ps5 for 35 bucks physical copy, since I rarely find these games on Disc. I bought right away, then got y’s origins on digital for 20 bucks
Ys 9 is still a very good game, but I definitely prefer Ys 8. The feeling of exploration and the soundtrack personally felt much better in Ys 8. I also liked the Ys 8 story more. It took me a while to get into Ys 9 story. In the beginning I could not even understand the monstrums helping Aprilis because of all this "I will explain when we right time comes" thing. I started to really like Aprilis at the end but at the start she felt like a Chuunibyou forcing me into a fight I don't want to do.
Omitting the Gameplay and Graphics, which we all know to be just as good as Ys VIII (except for the ability to climb, fly and whatnot, that is IX's best damn feature), I say that the story goes to interesting places. Yes, it is a slow burn, and Credo and Yufa could had benefited from a bit more writing polish, but everything else: dope. Love the contrasting way of the life on Balduq vs the supernatural Nox, and "the twist" was twice the fun as expected; even if, thanks to years of games and anime and manga, I kinda saw it coming. And I'm also salty about that character not being playable (they could have made it possible at the end, dammit), but both Tokyo Xanadu and Ys VIII had "enhanced versions" where they made playable those character that deserved to, and gave dear Dana much needed extended screen time (with added forms, too!), so here's to Falcom doing the thing and giving us an eX+ version with all that necessary stuff we lacked here. Regarding the music not reaching VIII's level of goodness, word around the Dandelion points to rea$on$ that prevented them from unleashing the full potential of Team JDK (some tracks need extra arranging and mastering to iron the kinks and make them acoustic perfection), but hey, I guess adding more to the engine and design to make the whole damn city traversable (walls, jump point, etc.) and ensuring it worked as well as it did must have consumed a lot of re$ource$. Still, pretty solid ost. I just hope they can make it up on Ys X.
I give edge to Ys IX for two reasons. 1)Exploration is much smoother than VIII. What I mean by this is you don't have to go into the menu constantly to swap out special items. In IX, its all bound to the controls 2) IX has much better antagonits. I appreciate what VIII did in terms of conflict, but having a clear antagonistic force in IX kept the story from feeling directionless like VIII did from time to time
Y's VIII directionless felt perfect because you were on a mysterious island and you didn't know what going to happen next. So you had to explore and find out.
yeah so easy.... I don't understand why the devs make the difficulty so easy.. The villains are also plain and bland, not unique like Ys8.. I can't even remember a name of the monsters,even the bosses..
@@callmeterry5371 Yeah I played Y's VIII on Normal and it was a decent level of challenge at first but once I got used to it I found it easy. So I figured for Y's IX I would step it up to hard. However it felt like it was even easier on Hard than Y's VIII was on Normal.
The story in ys ix is so great that it made one of the most memorable game story in my entire life. I love all casts in this game. [contain spoiler below] And i think you might have missed an illustration in the ending, one of it is a picture of Doll in her real human body, i saw that and it made me cried, i felt so happy that she’s finally get to know how it’s feel like to be a human.
I see. Well you love "Saber" (Fate)?. That Fate image at the back is cool. Anyways I need to watch YS IX. I will do it once I finish to watch the Trails series (again).
I got Ys VIII last year for like $25 on switch and I absolutely loved it! I've been waiting for this game to go on sale before picking it up but honestly, I'm starting to get a little impatient lol. I might cave and just get it at full price lol. Edit: Thank you for the spoiler warning!
I played Celceta, Ys8 and Ys9 pretty much back to back, because I bought Celceta instead of Monstrum (oops), and I think Ys8 is better. Not saying that Monstrum was bad by any means, but I found Dana's backstory the most compelling, the island setting more exciting than the city and the town building making much more sense. In Ys9, I do like the return of character specific movement abilities, and I LOVE that they give that ability to ALL party members once you have it. It might have helped if I had played more of the series, because there are a lot of series references. I knew they were references, but didn't understand them. However, I can't get over that Adol is basically a Power Ranger in Monstrum. It IS easier than Dana, but I didn't find that a benefit because I thought Dana's difficulty was perfect, this one felt too easy. If I was giving it just on my favorite "ADOLLLLL!!!" shriek, it would go to Ys9 and the blacksmith orphan girl.
This game is great but on a scale of 1 to 10 I'd say Dana was 0.5 points better. I too like the music a bit more. I think Dana LOOKS better in terms of scenery just cuz the island is big open and pretty, nox has a lot of bland corridors and tall buildings obstructing your view. Story is hard to say. Nox does start slower, but does get more interesting over time, and eventually I found myself wanting to play for the story just as much as the gameplay while Dana never really did that for me. I suppose I can agree with the cast. Dana and Laxia are really the only characters I cares about in Dana, and Nox they just seem more interesting on average, I do like Doll alot too. Gameplay, I like dana more BECAUSE its harder. Most Ys megafans like the difficulty, its why the games have so many difficulty settings and boss rush mode. So I think Dana is better for your average ys fan in gameplay. However without the difficulty issue, I dont think Dana is any better (or worse).
This entire video summed up perfectly how I feel between the two games (literally took the words out of my mouth, no joke) the only thing different was the game you ended up preferring. The funny thing about my opinion is that even though I gave most of my points to ys 9 in majority of the categories, I still prefer ys 8. Both games are excellent and I recommend them to anyone who has never tried them before.
Get it soon. YS games are hard to come by, from my experiences trying to get YS VIII last year and what Erick said about finding PS4 YS IX in this video.
Gameplay wise its hands down IX for me. Exploring the city from top to bottom, sometimes felt like Assassin's Creed, but better because it's Anime 😝 the different monstrum abilities, which You get as the game moves on, really gives You a puzzle element in the game, which previous games did not have, at least VIII did not have them to that level as far as I remember. Overall You are right they are both great games, but gun to the head if I had to choose one I'd go for IX. Second best game i played this Year. I even liked it better than Persona Strikers :)
I am curious how Tales of Arise compares to Ys VIII and IX. Love those types of RPG's and want to know if Arise is an innovation on the formula or something different
I've played all 3 games so I can give you my opinion on it Tales of Arise is definitely very different from Y's VIII or IX Y's games are more about dodging and hack and slash while Tales of Arise has it's combat more based around team combos. You can still dodge most of the attacks in Tales of Arise but not everything is dodge able however you get characters that can heal in Tales so this isn't as much of a problem. However leveling is far more important in Tales than it is in Y's as in Y's you can technically get through every fight unscathed if you are just perfect with guarding and evading while that's not the case in Tales. Also in Y's your allies essentially never get hit while they will be taking hits all the time in Tales of Arise. You can control any character you want in Tales of Arise and they each have different playstyles. You have up to 4 characters in your party at a time however you can still use the reserve party members to use their special ability even if not in the team. Each of the party members special ability can be used to deal with different threats such as Shionne can knock flying enemies out of the sky or Rinwell can interrupt enemies from casting magic etc. You do have abilities and regular attacks like in Y's however Tales isn't about generating points to use from regular attacks but more regular attacks are used to keep the combo chain going when you run out of action points (these generate quickly while not attacking) Healing uses CP which is a team resource however you get all your CP back when resting. The purpose of the combo system is that once you get the combo high enough on an enemy you can do a team takedown attack with a flashy animation that usually kills an enemy outright. Given the incredibly chunky health pools of enemies this is definitely something you want to shoot for. Also there is a mechanic called overlimit which if a member gets hit too much they go into a powered up state where moves don't cost any ability points for a while and it finishes with a burst attack which does a bunch of damage. Tales I definitely think leans more on it's story and characters than it does the combat or exploration. While the combat is still enjoyable the fights are usually fairly long and while you run into enemies on the map you then fight them in an instanced "arena" of sorts which slows down the pace considerably. The maps are fully filled in the moment you come to a new zone and there isn't much of a branching path outside of a few optional areas. The interaction between the characters is definitely the highlight of Tales of Arise for me and if you enjoy a good story with interesting characters I'd definitely give it a go. If the fun in Y's for you is all about combat and exploration you might be a bit disappointed as I think Y's does these aspects better
No fishing in Y's IX what a turn off! I'm glad you liked the game, but I'II wait for Y's X to see if it'll be an ambitious game with ton of new mechanics.
I do not know what on dev's mind that they excluded Hawk & Doll's ending scene. Especially for Anemona she didn't even appear on last waving goodbye scene.
