Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Steam) Review

Player(s): 1
Platform(s): PC (via steam), PS4, Nintendo Switch, PSVita
 
NIS America and Falcom bring us the next installment of the Ys series. I will begin by saying this game was a surprising change and note that this review is for the recent Steam port,

You begin your adventure by controlling Adol, our main protagonist. You are on a ship called the Lombardia, on your way to your next destination by working as a crew member. Suddenly you are attacked, and after a fight with a tentacled monster, you end up shipwrecked on a deserted island. 

Now the first thing you are tasked to do is to explore the island. You find a sword and are immediately attacked by monsters. As you progress you find your first companion, Laxia, and together you make your way deeper into the island. There you find the captain of the Lombardia and begin your first proper quest to find as many survivors of the crash as possible. In total there are about 24 and finding them opens up many different options to your castaway camp. For example, finding certain castaways adds blacksmithing, a shop, a doctor you can purchase health items from, and so much more. 

While exploring the island, Adol begins to have dreams of a girl in apparently ancient times. During those dreams we get to see her life in becoming a maiden of the Great Tree. This girl is Dana, the second main protagonist of the game, and who you also get to play as within these dreams. With her powers she also has visions of a great disaster that will destroy all of her land. Playing as her you do all you can to stop this mysterious threat. 

It’s here where the game splits into two different sections where you get to play as Adol and Dana. You switch off back and forth until later on in the story where things merge and you have both characters in your party at once. 

This game was an absolute joy to play. Starting it off I thought I would have a standard Japanese RPG but it pleasantly surprised me. The more I played it the harder it was to stop. Next thing I knew I was completely wrapped in the story and I just wanted to go more and more. In total I think I ended up with over 60 plus hours into the game. The main story gets extremely captivating and doing side missions give you tons of lore that goes deeper. I often found myself staying up late to keep going just a little bit more.

Each castaway you rescue has their own sets of missions to accomplish leveling up their rank towards you which come with their own rewards. There are plenty of side quests, hidden items, hidden cutscenes, and dialogue options. I spent a lot of hours trying to do as many of these side quests as possible. 

On top of all the quests you have there are also raids in this game. Every now and then you have monsters that attack your village and it's your job to defend it. This is where all your castaways come together to attack and drive the monsters back. You can upgrade your defenses and add lures to attract monsters to make it easier to defeat them. You can upgrade your village gates so they can take more damage and hits. If these get broken and the monsters get through, its game over.

Graphically this game is absolute gorgeous and looked amazing. The character art in the menu is beautiful and the actual gameplay looked amazing. There were a few hiccups where things would stutter and frames would drop when there were a few too many enemies and flashing moves being used up at the same time but it didn't affect gameplay too much.

As fun as this game was there were a few issues I did encounter though. The first and most annoying thing that would happen is input lag. There were a lot of moments where I would click in the mouse to attack and the game wouldn’t register it. At first I thought it was my mouse but after switching it to a brand new one the problem would persist. It got to be a little too frustrating during key boss battles and I would take heavy damage and almost die, indeed I did die a few times because it wouldn’t recognize my attack or dodging inputs. I would recommend you play this game on a different platform like the PS4 or the Nintendo Switch until the PC issues get fixed.

The second problem I had but wasn’t as big of a deal was this games pacing at times. Sometimes I felt like the story went too fast into certain moments and things would happen quickly and I was left scratching my head. The game was still enjoyable though so I let that slide. 

My absolute favorite thing about this game though has to be the music. There were so many different tracks that added to the immersion. Boss battles had upbeat and heavy rock themes while simple exploration and forest areas had a more relaxed and tranquil tone. I would visit certain areas over and over and not get tired of the music. I loved the music so much I went out and grabbed the OST just so I can have it to listen to when I can. 

Another thing I enjoyed about this game were the monster designs. Most of the monsters and creatures were very creative and there was little to no repetition of enemies. Each area had their own specific monsters to defeat and most of the bosses were actually pretty difficult. They looked like something out of the Monster Hunter series and I love the monsters from those games so this was a welcome surprise

Overall this game was fantastic with very little issue. All of the characters were well written and there were a few twists that I enjoyed. Falcom and NIS America knocked it out of the park with this one and I can't wait to play the next game in the Ys series. I’m actually going to go back and play a few of the ones I missed previously.  All in all I had fun playing this game and I would hands down recommend this game to someone who wants to shift and play something different. 

-Nestor

For More Information on YS VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana:
http://ysviii.com/

---

Story: A
Graphics: B+
Sound: A++
Value: A
 
Overall: A+
 
Pros:
+Amazing Music
+Fun Gameplay
+Lots to Do
 
Cons:
-PC Port Has Issues
-Minor Repetition In Parts

---

Disclosure: This game was provided free by NIS America for the purpose of review.