Let’s talk about the boat

This is neither good nor bad in my book, but this piece wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t talk about arguably the most divisive part of Ys X. For the first time in the series, Ys X features a classic RPG-style world map that Adol’s group traverses via a boat. These segments are a game within a game, as you can get into battles with enemy ships and upgrade your vessel with materials you find on your journey. This is conceptually similar to the airship traversal from the Dreamcast classic RPG Skies of Arcadia, which means I can finally check “talk about Skies of Arcadia this year” off my to-do list.

I enjoyed this seafaring side of the game, but it doesn’t make the best first impression. Boat combat is wildly different from the game’s core battle system, and at the start of the game, your vessel is very slow. Pro tip: Wait to focus on traveling to marked locations on your map until you’re about halfway through Chapter Four. This is when you can start purchasing speed upgrades that make the boat way easier to handle, and you’ll actually start to spot points of interest in the distance that are worth traveling to. There’s no need to frustrate yourself trying to fill in your map and beat ship battles in the early game.

Funny enough, there is a toggle in the options menu to instantly max out your boat’s stats. So if you really hate the boat sections, you can at least circumvent it quite a bit.