Ys: The Oath in Felghana

Is this the quintessential classic action rpg?

A couple years ago, I completed Ys Seven (after a long time leaving it incomplete), discovering the Ys series in the process. This game franchise is one of a kind. It can be compared with plenty of series, as it borrows from a lot of them in a pretty unique, and yet familiar way; a mix between the fantasy and gameplay of The Legend of Zelda, with the exploration and progression of Metroid.

It seemed to me like a franchise worth exploring, so I set out to do just that. Eventually, I acquired Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana and Ys Origins, both for the Nintendo Switch.

The franchise follows the journeys of Adol, the red-headed adventurer protagonist of the series, across the lands and seas of Ys. There is no overarching story between games, but they are still in the same world and chronology. I like to think of every game as a chronicle, an old tale passed down through generations. You can honestly play any game in any order, and have fun with each self-contained adventure.

But why did I choose this title instead of the other ones I have on Switch?

Close to the end of 2024, my favorite podcast Into The Aether announced their next season would be all about the PSP. Because of this, I decided to look into the other Ys games available on the system: Ys Chronicles I & II, Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim and Ys: The Oath in Felghana.

So, after asking around in the Discord server and looking some things online, I realized that the latter is considered one of the best in the franchise, a representation of the best stuff the series has to offer. I had already seen what Seven had, so I wondered how different Felghana would be, so, the decision was made.

Some backstory

Ys: The Oath in Felghana is actually a remake of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. By looking online, I realized that the original title is actually considered to be the black sheep of the franchise. Similarly to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Wanderers from Ys opted to go for a 2D side-scrolling perspective, instead of the topdown style of previous entries, changing the gameplay significantly, it also got rid of the bump style combat, requiring a button press to attack, like most action rpgs. Therefore, it received a mixed reception, depending on who the player was. Quite a bit of newcomers liked it, but the fans felt betrayed.

Regardless, after some time, a remake of the game was made using the same engine as Ark of Napishtim, with an updated look featuring 2D assets in a 3D environment. It expanded the original story and dungeon design, and updated the gameplay to the modern age.

This remake is a complete revamp, it is absolutely remarkable. It goes above and beyond what even masterpieces like Metroid Zero Mission manage to accomplish, as it restructures the whole game to a new dimension with no real compromises. It is probably a better remake and treatment than what more recent remakes like Link’s Awakening are. Even though as a game, it may not be as popular.

The remake came out in Japan back in 2005, got a PSP port in 2010, the PC version got an English localization in 2012. The PC version was ported in 2023 for modern platforms as Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana and localized in English this year. I convinced Wouter to play it too, and he ended up beating it faster than me, and writing a review for it too.

Enough praise, I haven’t even talked about what the game is about by itself!

The story

Adol, the red-headed adventurer, goes to Felghana, birthplace of his friend and companion of his travels, Dogi. As soon as they arrive, they rescue a girl being sorrounded by dangerous beasts. She is Elena, a childhood friend of Dogi, whose brother, Chester, has been missing for months.

They soon realize that the sorroundings of Dogi’s hometown, Redmont, has been filled with dangerous monsters, and their only source of income, the raval ore mines, are inaccesible because of the threat, affecting the economy and wellbeing of everyone. To make matters worse, some people, including the town’s mayor, have been trapped in the mines.

Adol steps up and volunteers to rescue the missing miners and goes on to the adventure. Soon enough, he’ll discover the reason behind this curse on the region, and he will have to save the day once again.

He will traverse, unexplored caves, abandoned temples, the depths of a volcano, the icy top of the mountains, and plenty of dungeons on his quest to bring peace to the lands once again.

The story is serviceable, there are some great action moments, there’s betrayal and plot twists, there are wholesome times and sad scenes. I don’t think it’s a masterpiece, but it’s definitely a classic heroic tale. Pretty nice stuff.

The gameplay

This is a traditional hack & slash action RPG. Just press the attack button until the enemy dies and you’re good. But don’t worry, there’s a bit more than that.

Defeating enemies will grant you a variety of loot. health, mana, gold, raval ore, and boosters. The latter will improve your exp rate, your mana regeneration, or your damage output. Of course there is a hit count that can jump through the roof as you attack the hordes of enemies that come your way, it is a very satisfying gameplay loop, as potion drops keep you going as long as there are enemies around. It ends up being a pretty fun mayhem of destruction—as long as you have leveled up equipment and the right magical attacks.

There are three types of magic in this game. Fire, Wind, and Earth. The first lets you throw fireballs, the second lets you swing your sword in a circular motion (like in A Link To The Past!) and float for a bit, and the third lets you dash forward and parry/attack with your shield, being able break some walls too.

Other than your basic stats, you can also enter boost mode where attack, defense and speed are increased for a short period of time, the bar takes a while to fill up, but unleashing an hit chain with boost mode on is incredibly fun! Boost mode gets even better later on, letting you recover health while it’s active.

There is a basic equipment system, you just keep buying upgrades with money and raval ore. There is no way to sell old stuff, but there is a lot of money to be gathered, although ore can be a bit hard to come by at first. There are also a few items you can buy, and some hidden in the dungeons throughout the game to aid your adventure, no potions though.

Save points are easy to come by, and they fully heal you after contact with them, you will soon get an ability to teleport to any save point at any time (except during boss fights) which will prove useful. Traversal is quite quick, and the map is small, so walking around is not bad at all either.

The dungeon design can be confusing sometimes, especially those with cliffs and voids you can fall off from, ending up in lower levels of the dungeons, and having to make it back up—although there will usually be rewards hidden in such places. The paths are really quite linear and clear, most deviations are only one or two rooms long, and will usually reward you anyway.

The lack of potions is probably one of the most interesting gameplay choices, it will make boss fights harder, as there are no drops to pick up there. However, as long as you are leveled up and you have the right equipment, the game is not that difficult.

Speaking of difficulty, the game is tough as nails, yet really forgiving, letting you retry quickly any boss fight, lower its difficulty at will, or load a savefile at any point. Dying in the world is no issue either, the game will let you retry in the same room you died on, no annoying backtracking to be found—unless you’re searching for chests and the like.

The boss fights

Boss fights are actually one of the staples of the Ys franchise, they are really difficult, I can recall plenty of examples when I was playing Ys Seven , and the same is true for Felghana.

The bosses in this game are quite varied, and you will have to figure out their attack patterns to have a chance at defeating them.

Some bosses will be like playing a space shooter, avoiding lasers and shooring firebals, others will be like a 2D platformer, in a bridge instead of an arena, and others will make use of the full 3D environments.

Timing attacks, platforming, using the right magic at the right time, I think the design of the bosses is really good, and as long as you are in the right level, with the right equipment, there will be no issues.

Not all bosses are created equal, and some of them are not completely fair, as some attacks are pretty much unavoidable. I got stuck plenty of times, but when that happened, I just lowered the boss difficulty and didn’t look back.

They are a fun challenge for those willing to git gud, and they are easy to dismiss for those that just want to experience the rest of the game. I personally had a mix of both! Got plenty of satisfying victories, and plenty of “ah I’ll just skip this one” moments. It’s just a game, the point is for you to enjoy it! Honestly though, just overlevel a bit and most issues will vanish.

The audio

OH MY!! The music keeps the whole game flowing in a wonderful state of absolute adrenaline. From the overworld theme, all the dungeons, the boss battle themes. The music just rocks, and the emotional scenes also hit even harder because of it. The theme that plays in the menu screen is truly phenomenal as well, all around, great.

They mix electric guitar with piano and violin, and the song loops are much longer than your average RPG. They did a fantastic job revamping the soundtrack, compared to the original game from the 90s. And the best thing is that both the remake and the classic sountracks are available in the settings. For this one, the new compositions are definitely the way to go.

Falcom really knows what they are doing when it comes to their sountracks, both for Ys and for the Trails series, you just gotta give it to them.

The game is, apparently, not well dubbed, at least in the English PSP version, newer ports are probably better.

I personally applied a Japanese undub patch, so it felt like watching an anime. It worked great during typical dialogue scenes, but sometimes, if the character was actually talking with a certain timing (instead of waiting for a button press) the audio would cut out midway sometimes, no biggie tbh, as subtitles were still there, just kinda jarring and obviously not a problem of the game, but the patch itself.

The graphics

I played 80% of the game on my PSP 3000 and it was a complete joy! Any pictures of it look a bit weird though, because of the PSP’s resolution and the graphical style, however, in the moment it looks great.

The game, as mentioned before, has a mix of 2D assets in a 3D environment. I was slightly mixed about it because I quite liked the 3D character models of Ys Seven, but it grew on me pretty quickly.

It is kind of similar to Donkey Kong Country, with characters modeled in a retro 3D claymation style which I found really endearing, and very much a nod of the classic game. The rest of the world is pretty standard, it has an isometric perspective to it, and all the textures are really well made. Sometimes they are way too detailed though, making it difficult to see things in the PSP’s screen due to the hyper-saturation on the small screen. Playing the modern ports (or the PSP version with PPSSPP like I did) make this a non-issue.

Dialogue scenes will feature anime-style character art, the PSP version looks like old anime while newer ports use a more modern, kinda generic style in my opinion. I loved the PSP art and I really enjoyed some of the detailed drawings made during some big story moments. The game also features a couple of 3D cutscenes with anime-style shading. They looked pretty good I’d say, but they are not the same quality as what can be found on other PSP games; still, a welcome addition for a remake.

Overall thoughts

Somehow this became a review with different sections, I guess I had way more to say about this game than I thought. Huh.

Just like with Ys Seven and pretty much every non-Metroid game I play, I took my sweet time with Ys The Oath in Felghana.

My playthrough begun very early in 2025, in January 10, during a short vacation I took from work right after Christmas. It impressed me a lot then, as I struggled with the first boss fight quite a bit, however, as soon as I saw the “Lower boss difficulty” option after I died, I knew I would have a great time with this game.

I made small progress month after month, in small chunks of time I had available. Due to its design, it was pretty easy to do. Another neat detail is that the game features journal entries, in a similar fashion to Dragon Quest, the journal will remind you of every achievement and significant story event you did before, from beginning to end. This was extremely useful especially when I took breaks beyond a week long.

The Oath In Felghana provides everything an action RPG should have. Fun hack and slash combat, a really fun magic and boost system, a compelling story and characters, plenty of variety in dungeons, fun side-quests (although some are missable), challenging boss battles, plenty of save points, teleports and of quality of life features (you can even disable falling from cliffs for specific moments, which is such a nice touch).

As long as you are okay with dying sometimes and needing to do a couple of grinding sessions (leave room, go back in, kill everyone, repeat) and deal with similar caveats present in classic action rpgs, I believe that Ys: The Oath in Felghana will be a joy for everyone who gives it a try, as it was for me.

This is day 78 of #100DaysToOffload

https://fosstodon.org/@joel/114629101739105427