Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana

The long-running Ys series has been a blind spot for me until my gaming buddy Joel kept bragging about how good the Felghana PSP release is. After convincing me to play at least one Ys game and recommending this one in particular—in return for posting his Top 25 GOAT so here’s that social pressure you wanted!—I caved in and bought the second re-release version for the Switch called Ys Memoire.

Wait, second? Apparently, The Oath in Felghana is a remake of the 1990 Ys III: Wanderers from Ys, and Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana, the game I played and we’re talking about here, is a remaster featuring voiced dialogue and higher quality texture works compared to the 2005 Ys: The Oath in Felghana. The 2005 one was initially released on Windows and only received a PSP port in 2010, but it does feel like the perfect game to play on the go, for reasons we’ll get into shortly.

This Ys game is, much like the others, an action RPG, with heavy focus on combat. in a semi top-down perspective with a fixed camera angle, you, the red-haired hero called Adol, will be swinging your sword(s) at countless enemies, gain new powers as you progress, and of course level up to boost some stats. While that sounds very average Joe-ish, there are a few ideas that make Felghana (or Ys in general? I don’t know since this is my first one) stand out.

First, there are no potions to replenish HP: enemies drop small icons that are immediately consumed as you walk over them which give temporary boosts to attack, defence, HP/MP regen, … and the trick is to keep them coming. The bonuses gradually fade so as long as you stay in combat and keep the killing machine online, you’re all good. If you manage to barely get out alive, the next screen will give you a lot of trouble as the only way to heal is to go back into the fray—or backtrack to find a save point that also acts like a teleporter. This is a double-edged sword: the first few hours I was struggling and cursing as I was severely underpowered and had yet to upgrade my gear. At that point, grinding can be a valid strategy.

Second, you don’t really sell old gear: every weapon acquired fits into a pre-set slot that’s upgradable twice. This felt a bit archaic to me, but if you think about the game’s roots, many of the 1990 mechanics are still there. Also, it doesn’t hurt to try and be a little bit different compared to the overload of other action jPRGs.

The Oath in Felghana is a relatively short game, clocking in at about ten hours, which is a plus for me as I’d rather not grind endless hours just to pass a certain boss level gate. The downside of fitting a sprawling game in such a small time window is that while it felt like it was supposed to be epic in breath and depth, the world map and just the one town you explore felt a bit too… local? Constrained? The fact that you can run from the town gate to the castle that’s supposed to be an entirely different section/world/whatever makes the world feel small instead of vast.

While the game tries to go all Metroid on you, most of the backtracking sections are not obligated ones and the dungeon layouts all felt quite linear. There’s the odd “high wall dead end, oh I guess I need a double jump power-up” thought that turned out to be correct and I enjoyed trying to score all chests that net much-needed ore to upgrade your gear but I wouldn’t say the world map is the best aspect of the game—I think the combat is. I also liked the fact that some sections you do revisit get tougher as you level up as more difficult enemy variations suddenly spawn in. As for the story, it’s straightforward and forgettable. As is the stereotypical big boobed manga art of the renewed version in my opinion.

Oh, and speaking of bosses… There are plenty of them and they all hit very, very hard. I had a lot of trouble beating the first and after enough tries just gave up on the last. After a few deaths you can thankfully reduce the difficulty for the boss fights but for most battles that needed four or so tries anyway it felt like the best way to approach these is to just let myself get killed the first two times. My confusion with the camera angle and the timing of the attacks might be the biggest cause of frustration here. I don’t mind difficult boss fights but for some reason couldn’t gather enough patience to sit them through for this game.

For those of you who played and enjoyed the game but never played the original 1990 one Ys III like me, zoom through this YouTube playthrough to find striking similarities between that game and Felghana—from the sound jingle when opening up a chest to the structure of the dungeons! I found that to be a very nice touch.

Well, ok, not exactly. In the first Dularn encounter (at 36:43m), who was simply called Dulan, the reward is a Long Sword and not a Fire Bracelet, and his cheesy “I AM DULAN! COME!!” text also got a much needed upgrade, but many of the core principles remain. My appreciation for the game is bigger after seeing how they tackled the 2005 remake.

Besides the simple but high octane battles, another strong point of Felghana in particular is the soundtrack. For instance, listen to the track of Valestein Castle, originally composed by Yukihiro Jindo and re-arranged by Yukihiro Jindo. If it’s not the battles that will get your blood pumping, it’s the music that will.

In the end, I enjoyed my time in Felghana. It was better than I anticipated but not as great as I had hoped. Other Ys games might help out (longer, party system and other playable characters, battle combo system, …) but most reviews will tell you that The Oath in Felghana is one of the most streamlined versions. I’m glad I now know a little bit about the series. It’s best to approach this game by thinking it’s a 1990 game with a beautiful 3D sauce poured on top of it. Just be sure to gather enough Ravel Ore to upgrade your gear in due time!