Review | Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana

A short Ys review

What do we have here? Another port? Sure, bring them on! Ys: The Oath in Felghana is a 2005 action role-playing game developed by Nihon Falcom. A part of the Ys series, it is a remake of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (1989). It was first released for Windows in Japan in June 2005, with an English localization by Xseed Games in March 2012. A PlayStation Portable version was also released in Japan in April 2010 and later in North America and Europe. Finally, the remaster, Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana, released in Japan in April 2023 for the Nintendo Switch and in May 2024 for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.

If you love Origins, you're going to love this one. If not, expect more of the same, just a bit better. I'm a fan of the Dana sequel, and all these earlier games are kind of dated, especially when it comes to the camera and visuals, but the combat still holds.

Are you ready to follow Dogi and Adol on another adventure? This time, in a small Redmont Town where weird occurrences happen.

Story and the characters

I've always thought Ys was more than just random Adol adventures through every entry. Lacrimosa of Dana was obviously the exception, so all of these starting Ys games are really simple, and not much in terms of story and character lore. Not that I mind, this is mostly an action-adventure game, so having a story is welcome, but not overly important.

You can watch a prologue movie/scene from the main menu, and then start the game with that in mind. Adol is revisiting Dogi's town where some weird stuff is happening, and with time everything comes to light. The events are short, often happen after some major boss, and then you're off to a new dungeon. After playing many Legend of Heroes titles, somehow you get the feeling they will present a better story, but it's just a placeholder. Like I said, not a problem, but collecting lore for characters doesn't really scratch any itch, and all characters are easily forgotten.

The game looks ugly even on PS Portal, but we are not here for the graphics, are we?

Game design, exploration

I see this game visually as the PSP era of the Trails series, Azure and Zero. It's the same engine, same backgrounds, same ugly characters. I was never a fan of it, but the music and the lore were enough to get beyond such surface-level impressions. Music here is great, awesome even, and the fast-paced action with a couple of neat abilities (such as double jump!) is what makes the experience fun.

Each dungeon is a set of linear hallways, some split paths, chests, and a boss fight. You quickly gather more abilities like fire, wind, and earth magic, which don’t just give you more attack options, but serve as a longer jump or defense against attacks. Dash and double jump just add to the experience, in a good way. I don't get Dash though, it was weirdly incorporated.

Without complicating things, because they aren't complicated, think of Felghana as a fun action RPG where you gather cool equipment and progress to defeat challenges along the way. Each challenge is unique and the experience is 10 hours long, and serves just enough to have fun without dragging too much.

Poor Adol, he needs to survive so many games, and he never ever got defeated, right?

Combat

I love it. I love the fast attacks, jump, and diagonal dashes when combining the magic. Every boss fight is a treat, and it comes with unique movesets and a couple of camera frustrations, but you need to learn the fight and conquer it. I love a decent and fair challenge, and mostly that is the case here. The dated camera is not helping, and that is probably my main issue with the game; it's just too much of old mechanics which were not updated to be fun and not frustrating.

Sometimes you can't see what happens or how the hell to avoid some attacks, and that was my main issue, alongside the dash that just doesn't work as intended. I have no idea how to avoid some attacks in later boss fights; dashing was just not working properly.

What I love the most is how fluent the movement feels, and how good it is to kill enemies and collect their leftovers. If you want to max out Adol, be ready for some heavy grinding, but if you plan to beat the game on Inferno, it's almost a must.

Yes, Ys is bloody — not really, but Dogi just can't catch a break.

Side Content

With a couple of quests and equipment to find and to max out, there is not much else in the game. You can fill the monster book or character book, but that's it. It was enough; if these segments were longer they would just be boring. This way it happens naturally, you finish them, move along.

The biggest challenge is the Time Trials (which come with a power-up cheat code, weirdly) and replaying the game on each difficulty to unlock all Illustrations. I can't really say that replaying the game is fun because you can carry over some bonuses and with that there is almost 0 challenge, so 6 times for some pictures? Hell no.

Moving on to... some other Ys game? Maybe the latest entry, when they decide to ship to Europe.

Conclusion

Ys: The Oath in Felghana is a fast, focused, and (just a bit) challenging action RPG that shows its age in visuals and camera issues but still delivers satisfying combat, great music, and a fun (although shallow) adventure. It may not offer deep storytelling or modern polish, but for fans of classic Ys gameplay, it’s a tight and enjoyable experience worth the ride. And still better than Origins, thats for sure (at least for me).