Review: Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana Is a Refreshing Blast from the Past


Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana Review

Being a Western Ys fan has certainly gotten easier in the last decade or so. For a very long time, the odds of any given release in the series getting a localization was hit or miss. More miss than hit, really. That changed in the twilight years of the PSP, when Nihon Falcom hooked up with XSEED to bring a number of its games overseas. One such title was the PSP version of Ys: The Oath in Felghana, the superb remake of the third game in the series. The two companies have once again joined hands to bring that game to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4/5 with Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana.

The word "remake" gets applied in all kinds of ways in this wild hobby of ours, but Ys: The Oath in Felghana would probably qualify as one of its most extreme forms. It's essentially a new game that follows the narrative framework and world design of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. Originally released on the NEC PC-8801 in July of 1989, Wanderers from Ys broke from the pattern of the first two games by shifting to a side-scrolling format. While the game was well-received at the time, it would prove to be the only time the Ys series would use that style of gameplay.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana
Screenshot by Siliconera

Following the release of Wanderers from Ys and the departure of series creators Masaya Hashimoto and Tomoyoshi Miyazaki, the series had some very rough years. Ys IV had two largely distinct versions, neither of which was developed by Nihon Falcom. Ys V brought the series back in-house, but didn't make much of an impact. It was a Super Famicom release in 1995, so that might not have been entirely the fault of the game. Whatever the reason, when Nihon Falcom returned to the series a few years later, it was in the form of Windows remakes of the first two games.

Things got back on track with the release of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim in 2003 for Windows PCs. It sported a spiffy new engine, and had the good fortune to be picked up for a global release on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable by none other than Konami. The work done on this game was carried into yet another remake, this time of Wanderers from Ys. Titled Ys: The Oath in Felghana, it released on Windows PCs in Japan in 2005 and the PSP globally in 2010, with a global PC release coming in 2012. While it told the same story as Wanderers from Ys and featured most of the same locations, the gameplay was more in line with the rest of the series and just about every aspect of the original was expanded upon.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana
Screenshot by Siliconera

We're a ways past 2012 now, however. That PC version is still kicking, of course. PC games are nice that way. Otherwise, you have had to dig out an PSP or Vita to play Felghana, a prospect that gets more inconvenient as time goes on. Fortunately, Nihon Falcom has ported the game to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4/5 in a slightly enhanced form as Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana. It appears to use the PlayStation Portable version of the game as its basis, which makes a certain degree of sense. It was the newest version up until now, after all. Things have been touched up a bit visually, and a few modest new features have been implemented.

The real star of the show here is simply that the game itself is now available on these consoles, though. Yes, Adol (awkwardly) fills the silence in conversations now. You can choose your preferred version of the soundtrack, and swap between the original portraits or some new ones. Otherwise, you're looking at all of the same content as the PlayStation Portable release. That's not a bad thing, but if you're looking for a lot of new additions you won't find much here. A remake of a remake, this is not.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana
Screenshot by Siliconera

With that said, Ys: The Oath in Felghana is an excellent action-RPG, and that goes just as well for this new version as it did for previous ones. At least for this writer, this era of Ys hits the sweet spot between the somewhat thin earlier entries and the multi-character, somewhat long-winded modern games. The story and characters are relatively basic in Felghana, but they're present and help make the world feel bigger than it really is. Adol and Dogi return to Dogi's hometown, and it turns out trouble's a-brewin'. It's up to our red-haired hero to save the day while Dogi is presumably off smashing through walls like the Kool-Aid Man.

The town of Redmont serves as your hub on this adventure, with each of the paths leading from its outskirts taking you in the direction of a different area of interest. You'll be dealing with these areas in a more or less linear order, as opening up them up usually rests on either a story trigger or an ability you'll earn in an earlier spoke. You can return to previously visited areas with your new abilities to score some extra upgrades, and the story will occasionally take you back to some locations to open a new path. Not exactly a massive world, but the areas are just big enough to require exploration without feeling too overwhelming.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana - Redmont Town
Screenshot by Siliconera

You'll frequently return to Redmont, allowing you to take advantage of its shops to pick up useful items and equipment upgrades. You'll need quite a lot of money and ore to stay up to date with your gear, and this will sometimes encourage a bit of grinding. Nowhere near as much as the original Wanderers from Ys, but gold in particular can be scarce as the game goes on. Leveling up can also help with tricky sections, but Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana leans more on your reflexes and skills over having the best gear and a high level. The easier difficulty levels give you a comfortable ride, but even the Normal setting requires the player to put in a little work. The more challenging difficulty settings are a genuine test for any action game fan.

The gameplay in Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is fast-paced and tense. You will often be crowded by your enemies, and there are plenty of hazards and environmental features to keep in mind as you dance around those hostile forces. The boss battles are thrilling, with plenty of fun patterns to learn and liberal amounts of things that will dispatch the inattentive player in a hurry. It feels good to master each encounter, because Adol is like a whirling dervish of death when you've got a handle on things. When combined with the quick movement speed and outstanding soundtrack, it's very easy to get in a zone with this game. That's the mark of a quality Ys entry.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana - Combat
Screenshot by Siliconera

That zippy pace results in a game that you can easily wrap up within ten to fifteen hours, which some players might balk at. I think it's as long as it needs to be, with very little in the way of unnecessary filler. It also provides some satisfying incentives to replay on higher difficulty settings, with an interesting New Game+ feature. The game allows you to pick some cheats using points earned based on the difficulty level you beat the game on, so if you want the full Tiny God effect you really do need to push yourself to the limit. Big risk, big reward.

For this review, I played the Nintendo Switch version of the game. By and large, it runs nicely on the platform in both handheld and docked mode. There have been some light graphical improvements made, but this is still a game from the mid-00s at its core and the texture maps and geometry often reflect that. The framerate on the PSP version could get dicey in busier sections of the game, and while this Switch version is considerably better in that regard, it does still sometimes dip when there's a ton of things going on. One would hope the PlayStation version would smooth that out, but I can't confirm that. It's a little disappointing, but I doubt it will be gamebreaking for most.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana - An Encounter with Elena
Screenshot by Siliconera

The best thing about Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is simply that it gets this immensely enjoyable action-RPG onto more modern platforms. The port is solid though not flawless, and not much has been added for this go-around. I would argue that The Oath in Felghana doesn't need more than we already saw in the previous versions, though. I'm not sure if a series like Ys could get away with a game this lean and mean anymore as a brand new installment, but it's one classic that I always like to have at hand thanks to how breezy and satisfying it is to play. A great game then and now.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana will be released on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 on January 7, 2025.

The post Review: Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana Is a Refreshing Blast from the Past appeared first on Siliconera.

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