Why you might not like Ys X: Nordics

Ys X naturally isn’t perfect, and these were my biggest nitpicks throughout my playthrough.

It’s a surprisingly slow burn

In the past, Ys games were generally no-nonsense action-RPGs. After only a handful of minutes to set up the story, the older entries generally threw you headfirst into adventure and carried that energy until you reached the end credits. By comparison, Ys X spends much more time establishing its cast and setting the stage for its story. To its credit, it sprinkles in combat throughout its introduction, and does at least make its tutorials go by pretty fast. Still, the game doesn’t quite hit its stride until Chapter 4, even though I still had fun up until that point.

The enemy variety is a bit weak

As much as I loved the combat system of Ys X, I did wish it had more unique challenges to test my mettle. The pool of common enemies is surprisingly limited, with the same foes popping up in almost every single dungeon in the game. One miniboss appears a double digit number of times before the game ends. You could argue this is a good thing for action game newbies, since you’ll have several opportunities to learn how to perfectly parry each enemy’s attacks. Still, I did feel corners were cut in the enemy design.

The game does give its enemies some new attacks as you progress, so it’s not all the same from start to finish. I also never felt a feeling of repetition sink in thanks to just how quickly Adol and Karja unlock new special attacks to level up. Still, once I saw some of the crazy bosses that pop up in the final act, I wished I’d seen those kinds of challenges throughout the entire game.

It’s visually a little bland

Ys games generally operate on modest budgets, so cutting-edge graphics were never on the table for Ys X. Still, as I sailed from island to island, I found locations started to blend together, since they mostly looked the same. I can’t say for sure if Ys X recycles textures from Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, but I did consistently feel I wasn’t looking at anything new.

To be fair to Ys X, the characters themselves are wonderfully expressive. There are some really fun cutscenes that endeared me even more to the main cast of characters, so the graphical budget was invested wisely overall. Again, this just felt like an area where corners were cut. Given the state of the game industry right now, I personally can’t hold this too hard against Falcom.

Older Ys games had stronger soundtracks

I want to be very clear here: Ys X has very good music. This is the first Ys game to feature Shuntaro Koguchi, and his contributions capture the catchy hooks and energy that have made past entries in the series so memorable. There are several tracks in the game that I have repeated nonstop since I finished the game, which includes an absolute banger of a final boss track.

Still, the soundtrack of Ys X doesn’t quite evoke that sense of awe that past games in the series consistently captured. That “Ys moment” where the adventure kicks off while some of the best video game music you’ve ever heard in your life plays never really came to me, even though I still enjoyed the tunes. Bafflingly, some of the strongest songs in the soundtrack are criminally underutilized. One song that could have easily evoked that “Ys moment” was relegated to the end credits! Again, this is a very good soundtrack by RPG standards, just a weaker one by Ys standards.