Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is a humble action RPG, created and brought to us by Falcom and XSEED Games. As mentioned in our preview, the experience of platforming, slaying monsters, platforming, and building combos while discovering many magical secrets in the land is exactly what Adol, our protagonist, is known best for.
In this particular adventure, along with his long-good friend Dogi, Adol returns to a familiar town where things have gone somewhat awry. With the help of the many denizens, and most notably, the very charming young woman Elena Stoddart, a means to normalcy must return, at the point of our young red-headed amnesiac hero’s sword.
Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana
Developer: Nihon Falcom
Publisher: XSEED Games, Marvelous
Platforms: Windows PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch
Release Date: January 7, 2025
Price: $29.99
Combat, as in any Ys series is the large selling point of its series’ long-running wake of success. Incredibly responsive sword swinging that never seems to stop as you travel through the many regions.
While not only gratifying, it’s very lucrative to build very large combos of monster kills as more are defeated within a small time limit, and more bonuses are rewarded. These bonuses vary between culminating temporary stat boosts, as well as the quintessential XP boost to provide Adol with even more power through level-ups.
Combat itself isn’t very deep or in need of a proper tinkering system as the likes of something closer to Kingdom Hearts. The combat’s fast-paced straight-to-point gameplay results in some of the most satisfying moments one could have in an Action RPG.
To aid Adol in ways outside of the sword, magic rings will be found as you get further in the game which gives the option to cast spells of various elements. These spells can be further enhanced with magic crystals, which in most cases are rewarded by thoroughly exploring dungeons that may contain them.
The spells are at their greatest when they expose an enemy’s weakness or are out of range, but most importantly, they are needed to solve puzzles.
The story, without revealing too much, will have you eventually meet Elena’s handsome blonde prince-like brother Chester Stoddart. A young man who reeks of ambition, however, there is more to the man, as insisted by his young sister Elena.
The story leaves a lot of questions to the player for them to speculate what his intentions are and where his allegiance stands. Is he with the town or the corrupt Count McGuire, a monstrous man who wishes to have the humble town removed from the face of the earth?
As Adol travels through the handful of regions throughout Felghana, he becomes not only stronger from his trials but also more involved in the unfortunate conflict between the town and the count. Kind of like Castlevania but more weeby.
The music and sound effects work well with the fast action as well, though since there’s so much happening during the experience of combat and exploring, I didn’t take a moment to appreciate the score of music.
Once I took the chance, I was moderately amused, but certainly not to my usual standards from artists such as Hitoshi Sakimoto, composer of Final Fantasy Tactics. While not the most memorable soundtrack, it does the job well, and hearing the wolf enemies die in howling pain sounds funny.
The overall experience between exploring dungeons and learning more about the story is a perfectly paced balance of storytelling and gameplay. However, there is one rather large fly in the soup that might be off-putting to the less initiated into a YS series entry: the boss battles.
Even in the easiest settings, bosses will destroy and end poor Adol’s life if boss patterns are not studied and taken into account. They also bloated health pools, so even after their patterns are memorized, it takes a long time to get them down.
Players will need to take the time to grind and look for every possible resource to upgrade their available weapons, shields, and armor via gold and upgrade ores if they hope to stand a chance. I was able to defeat every boss, but it did seem questionable how demanding the boss fights were.
In some cases, being hit by the boss might result in being hit multiple times to being nearly killed in one single punishing moment. Challenges should always be welcomed in any game, and The Oath in Felghana is no exception to that rule, I applaud Falcom for standing by this decision, but some gamers might not be ready for what awaits them.
Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is a very humble experience through and through. A young man wielding a sword sets out to save a town and make cute friends along the way as well as many other memorable characters.
Adol may not be able to remember them himself being the professional amnesiac that he is, however, I will not forget this experience. Fantastically tight and responsive action combat, a light-hearted story, and dungeons to explore are what Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana promises, and it delivers.
Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana was reviewed on a Nintendo Switch using a code provided by XSEED Games. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is now available for PC (via Steam), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.
