Ys IX: Monstrum Nox
Adol Christin. What can you say about the main character of the Ys series? He’s got to be one of the most bad-ass characters in the gaming world. He has wielded countless legendary blades, slayed numerous gods and has even survived a couple shipwrecks. Our newest journey brings our red-haired adventurer to the Prison City Balduq.
At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the environment of Ys IX. I’ve played every entry except 1,2 and 5 (never released officially in English). They all tend to take place in environments that are mostly nature or pretty remote. This time around your surrounded by a massive city of stone. After a while though, it grows on you and you enjoy how much effort was put into the inhabitants and locale. There’s even little sub-stories you can follow with NPCs if you spend time talking to them. One of them is a newly arrived merchant who ends up opening her own street stall selling cheeses. By the end of the game, the very end, when I was about to leave Balduq and end the game I had to pause and just look around. It was actually a sad experience to leave the city behind for me.
If you’ve played Ys VIII the gameplay is nearly identical except for the inclusion of a mechanic called “gifts.” Gifts are special powers each of the playable characters have to help traverse Balduq. Techniques such as running up walls, gliding or breaking down damaged walls. These also help you traverse the dungeons as you unravel all the mysteries the prison and the city hold.
The story starts out with Adol finally being arrested by the Romn Empire and thrown in prison. Dogi doesn’t have a warrant for his arrest, so we pick up again with Adol making his daring escape from the prison. On his way out a mysterious woman shoots him with a magic bullet, unlocking a mysterious power that turns him into something dubbed a “monstrum.” A monstrum is a person that’s been given immense powers and abilities to fight off invasions of supernatural creatures that inhabit the are of Gllia, where Balduq resides. As the story progresses we eventually join forces with the five other monstrums to fight these invasions, while uncovering the source of them and other weird happenings. We also learn why Adol was chosen to be a monstrum.
There’s a lot to uncover in Balduq and we do eventually get to explore some of it’s surroundings. The battle system is, of course, incredibly fast-paced. Be sure to bump up the difficulty if you’re familiar with action games, especially if you’ve played Ys before. I had to play two levels over normal, on a mode called nightmare to begin to feel any challenge. Once you get to the nightmare mode it really puts your reaction speeds to the test to dodge and guard to gain an advantage.
One really nice (some may not enjoy this) feature is that every point of interest is displayed on the mini-map for you. Be it extra side-quests, special events (such as finding a silly French Axolotl that sells you items) or other collectibles. I’m not a completionist but I nearly found everything there was to find minus some character entries and a couple bestiary entries. I found this addition to the mini-map made me feel the developers really respect my time, without being too hand-holdy about it.
I played on the Switch, as I wanted to have the portable version for Allie to play when she’s ready, as she loved Ys VIII. I pre-ordered the collectible edition and it was definitely worth it. Performance on the Switch is… alright. It took me about 4 hours to adjust to the quality of the graphics and the framerate. There were only a handful of times where I noticed a significant framerate drop, but it didn’t bother me too much. It’s still a marvel they got it as optimized as they did on the Switch.
Ys IX is a great addition to the series, and I put it on par with it’s predecessor. By the end of the game, I couldn’t tell you which one I enjoyed more. I cannot wait for what comes next for Adol and Dogi. Whether it’s a new entry or a remake of 1, 2, or 5 you can guarantee I’ll be playing it.
