Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta (NS)

The PlayStation Vita was a commercial disappointment, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean its game cupboard was completely empty. In fact, the system hosted a handful of worthwhile exclusives, including but not limited to Tokyo Xanadu , Severed , Wipeout 2048 , Killzone: Mercenary , and Ys: Memories of Celceta . Luckily for those who missed out on the unnaturally short lifespan of the Vita, many of these titles are now available in other forms and on other platforms. That’s certainly true for Memories of Celceta , which landed on PC and PS4 after it debuted on Sony’s handheld in 2012, and arrived for the first time on Switch last month under the name Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta . The story of Revelations in Celceta is identical to that of Memories of Celceta . The hero of the franchise, Adol Christin, stumbles into the frontier town of Casnan, dead tired and missing all his memories. There he encounters Duren, a beefy information dealer who crossed paths with Adol before his bout of amnesia. When the two of them prove their valor in a nearby mine, the Governor-General of Casnan approaches them with an enticing offer: enter the vast, uncharted expanse of the Celcetan forest and return with a detailed map of the area, to better serve the empire. As the heroic duo explores the forest, Adol’s memories begin to flood back, and the veil is slowly lifted on a dangerous scheme that threatens to engulf the entire region. In terms of storytelling, Revelations in Celceta , like its predecessor, earns high marks. The idea of an amnesiac protagonist is nothing new or innovative, but it provides a satisfactory springboard into the game’s drama. And boy is there a lot of drama. While Adol revisits familiar places to regain his lost memories, he runs into old acquaintances dealing with their own high-stakes issues and obstacles. Villagers missing. Waters poisoned. Unidentified antagonists working toward some nefarious goal. As Adol works to solve these conflicts, he becomes closer with his companions (each of whom has their own cathartic moment), understands more of himself, and pulls at the thread of a larger conspiracy. Towards the end of the game, as more and more obfuscated information is finally made clear, it all starts to make sense. The subtitle Revelations in Celceta really is the perfect choice; the game delivers revelation after revelation, many of them unexpected and eye-opening. It also delivers a fantastic real-time combat system, which leverages the talents of Adol and his friends. Out in the wilds of Celceta, you’ll manage a party of three adventurers (pulled from six possible characters). You’ll control only a single adventurer at a time, but can issue basic commands to the others. More importantly, you can switch to them at any time with a press of a button. Since each character has a unique collection of special moves, as well as a specific offensive type, it’s important to tag them in at the right moments. This tag-team system is great for a couple of reasons. For starters, it gives you access to six characters with special skills and weapons, allowing you to find your favorites. For another, it introduces an element of strategy to the action. Do players opt to keep one representative from each offensive type — slashing, striking, piercing — in order to take full advantage of enemy weaknesses, or compose a party based on who has the best buffs or AoE attacks, regardless of type? The lone flaw in the system is the lack of nuanced tactical commands in the heat of battle. You can only tell your party to be generally aggressive or conservative. Still, combat is a highlight in the game — perhaps the highlight. And that’s not due only to the party system, but the nuts and bolts of fighting as well. As Adol, or any of his allies, you have access to a few basic commands. You can swing your weapon in a four-hit combo, guard against enemy attacks, and evade. This is all snappy and punchy, but not especially complex. Luckily, early on the game introduces skills. As you take down tough foes and earn experience points, you’ll learn new abilities you can use in the thick of battle. Adol, for example, learns Rising Edge, which sends monsters upward where they can then be juggled. You can equip up to four skills per character at a time, giving you a lot more control over the battlefield. What’s more, developer Nihon Falcom was quite generous with the number of available skills per combatant. Each character gets at least 10. Combat is elevated even more by the Extra gauge, which allows each character to perform a devastating finisher, alongside a couple of advanced defensive maneuvers: flash guard and flash move. If you guard just as an enemy attacks, you’ll execute a flash guard, which nullifies damage, fills your SP and Extra gauges, and makes your attacks critical for a short time. If you evade just as an enemy attacks, you’ll execute a flash move, which makes the whole party invincible for a brief window and slows down the action around you. Overall, Revelations in Celceta is at its best when it allows its players to roam the wilderness, fighting dangerous monsters. It’s somewhat less exciting in towns and dungeons. Don’t misunderstand: there is a lot to like. In the handful of settlements that dot the vastness of Celceta forest, you’ll experience important story beats and gain access to more powerful weapons and armor. And you can experiment with a dizzying weapon/armor reinforcement framework that allows you to alter eight different statistics for each piece of equipment. Using minerals, animal parts, and plant pieces, you can adjust attack, health absorption, critical hit rate, SP accumulation, poison, paralysis, burning, and freezing. It’s surprisingly deep. The problem is related to side-quests. They’re just not that thrilling or rewarding. Most of the time, you need only to deliver a certain item to the quest-giver, or slay a mighty beast out in the wild and report back. I often found myself longing for a more involved quest that was particularly important to a party member or NPC — something with material rewards and an emotional pay-off. Now, there is one unusual, entertaining quest in Selray where you have to take over the job of the local grocer, but it’s the exception to the rule. As for the dungeons, they’re quite good in general. Each one has lots of swarming monsters, helpful loot, and a few light, quick puzzles to solve. Some even have an interesting gimmick. The dungeon near Comodo village demands that the party use a special item to shrink down to miniature size and navigate tiny burrows, for example. The biggest issue is the final dungeon, which overstays its welcome in a big way. Just as the narrative approaches its climax, the game sends you into a lengthy dungeon with three independent zones, each with its own intricate puzzle to sort out. It destroys the sense of momentum. It also gives the impression the game is stalling for time, which is strange because Revelations in Celceta is already a substantial adventure. You’ll need roughly 25 hours to see the ending (roughly twice as long as Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana ), plus you get New Game+ and Time Attack after the credits roll. Speaking of Oath in Felghana , that game and this latest Ys remaster/port have something in common: not a whole lot that’s new. The main novelty of Revelations in Celceta is a re-recorded, re-interpreted version of the soundtrack. That’s not exactly a reason to double dip if you already own the game on PSV, PS4, or PC, but what makes matters worse is that the new arrangements, courtesy of Mitsuo Singa, are generally inferior to the originals from Hayato Sonoda, Takahiro Unisuga, Saki Momiyama, and Tomokatsu Hagiuda. The modern tracks are more energetic and driving, but lack nuance. It would have been great if Falcom had used this Switch version as an opportunity to revisit the game’s graphics, textures, and lighting, but, alas, this latest iteration of the game is more or less what you’d find on PS4 and PC. Actually, in portable mode, it looks a touch worse, even if it mostly hits the 60 fps target. The image is soft and there are quite a few blocky edges. If you have access to a Switch 2, I recommend playing the game there. On Nintendo’s newest hybrid, Revelations in Celceta is sharp and crisp, and benefits from a stable 60 fps and incredibly short loading times. Pro tip: turn on boost mode while playing undocked; it’s a game-changer. The age of the Vita has been over for a while now, but luckily many of its finest games, including Memories of Celceta , live on elsewhere. Thanks to the PS4 and PC versions, as well as this brand new Switch port, the game can find a new audience and build a new fandom. And while this Nintendo iteration doesn’t add much, it preserves the base game, which is a dependable, valuable action-RPG with an engaging narrative, excellent combat, and lots of worthwhile content. Full Article – https://www.vgchartz.com/article/467475/ys-memoire-revelations-in-celceta-ns/