The first thing you’re greeted with when you start Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA is the beautiful artistic character design and the beautiful soundtrack. And that’s when you’re only as far as the title screen. The game blends the fun of a hack-and-slash action RPG with a deep, engaging, and enjoyable story that is just as much fun to play as it is to sit back and watch.
You start Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA filling the shoes of the protagonist Adol, a self proclaimed adventurer, who is serving as part of the crew of a ship crossing the sea. The opening scenario of the game gets acts as a natural tutorial of the game, giving the gamer the ability to get used to the controls and get a feel for navigation in a neutral setting. Things go awry for Adol and the ship soon into the voyage as the ship is attacked by a mysterious creature. Adol attempts to fight the tentacles of the creature on the deck, which introduces how to fight in the game
Suffice it to say that the result of the encounter don’t go the way everyone hopes and the ship is sunk. Adol soon awakens alone on the shores of a mysterious island. After Adol meets up with another castway or two, including the captain of the sunken ship, they set up a basecamp and begin to look for more survivors with the ultimate goal of eventually escaping the island.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA is a beautiful game with a stellar presentation. The game not only boasts an amazing soundtrack but also bright, bold, and engaging visuals. The game is at its heart an action RPG, but there is much more than that to the game. It very much feels throughout the game that you’re playing through a movie or visual novel with the narrative of the story given as much importance as the action throughout. The care an attention paid to the different castaways in the village made the camp feel more like a home.
The game makes use of a battle system with strengths and weaknesses. The various protagonists which you control through the game, as you add many possible members to your main trio party, have an attack attribute which is colour coded. Some of the enemies which you’ll fight display a matching colour as their weakness. Switching to and attacking with this party member will give you a better chance at landing a critical blow and ‘breaking’ the enemy.
One nice element in the game was the ability to control the direction of the other two members in our party quickly. At the press of a button it’s possible to make your party either go on the offensive or stay on the defensive. You could hold them back if you were trying to make a quick getaway or have them on the full frontal if you were looking to lay the beatdown on the various monsters on the island.
The island is also pretty huge.
Exploring the island is a key feature to the game as you search for and gather castaways. As you find people, their talents can help you. Like a weapon smith that can strengthen your weapons. Or a tailor who can fashion armour and accessories. Locating and rescuing other castaways will not only get you closer to your goal of escaping the island but also add valuable skills and resources to help you reach that goal. You’ll also find items, food, and animal parts on the island. These can be crafted or cooked to create items or medicine. You can also fish and forage for food items.
While exploring the island the developers made good use of natural obstacles to keep the player headed in the right direction. Cleverly there were some obstacles which you needed a set number of people to clear effectively. So if you didn’t have enough people you had to steer clear and head in another, story driven, direction.
This direction also leads you into the inevitable large boss monsters.
As you play you’ll learn more powerful boosted moves as you level up which can be assigned to a combination of buttons. They use energy which slowly restores as you land regular attacks, which means that you won’t have to store them up for the boss battles. You can fight in full force with all enemies, including the boss monsters.
There are also raids. At points in the game the village becomes attacked and nearly overrun with monsters. Your team and the other castaways defend the village. You get points and earn item rewards depending on how well you do. There are ultimately areas which you can’t reach in early stages of the game, but finding “adventure gear” will give you new abilities which may unlock these areas to further exploration.
I had no real complaints with the game and my only real critique comes from the camera in the game. There was nothing wrong with the camera persay, however I would have loved if the camera could be adjusted with the gyro sensors like is done in Splatoon 2.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA is a beautiful game with a fun arcade like battle system, engaging story with solid voicework, and an amazing and balanced soundtrack. If you’re a fan of JRPG titles this is something that you will enjoy.
