Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana review

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is a remake of a remake. The title is a remaster of 2010’s Oath in Felghana for the PSP which was itself a reimagining of 1990’s Ys III: The Wanderers from Ys. Adding to that complicated legacy is that the game is also a spiritual sequel to Ys: The Ark of the Napishtim, one of the franchise’s rare missteps.

Given that kind of reiterative history, you might assume that Oath in Felghana could resemble the kind of misshapen utterance at the end of the telephone game. But fortunately, the team at Nihon Falcom have carefully preserved the game’s potencies, permitting a new generation of players to relish Adol Christin’s spirited adventure. Pleasingly, the inclusion of several quality-of-life features helps keep Felghana from feeling antiquated.

Redmont at Risk

Oath in Felghana follows the story of Ys III, which seasoned franchise followers will remember as the Castlevania-style adventure on the SNES and SEGA Genesis. Many of the character and location names were changed for the PSP version and that’s retained here, along with a few renovations to the game’s script. One of the most changes with Memoire is that there’s no longer a disembodied voice describing Adol’s conversations. Now you can opt for spoken voicework, bringing the game in line with modern Ys entries. Oddly, you’ll have to play with the analog stick, since direction-pad control wasn’t available on PlayStation 4/5 at the time of launch.

While the plot gets some fleshing out, the basic storyline remains the same.  Three years after the events of Ys 2, Adol and his traveling companion, Dogi, arrive at Dogi’s hometown of Redmont. After reuniting with old friends, the pair discovers that the local tyrant has been tearing Felghana apart, looking for four sacred statues with the help of Dogi’s childhood-friend-turned-rival, Chester.

It turns out that the statues have the power to summon powerful beasts and have been attracting violent monsters to the continent.  Adol takes it upon himself to retrieve the statues and keep them out of the clutches of the evil Lord McGuire, resulting in a rollicking twelve-hour trek.

Redemption for Napishtim?

Oath in Felghana‘s story remains rooted in the premise established by Ys III. However, the gameplay retains the isometric perspective of the PSP remake, which is based on the ill-received Ys: The Ark of the Napishtim. But before you stop reading out of sheer disappointment, know that the modifications made the combat system made the PSP version enjoyable, and that’s still the case here.

Adol is no longer required to be close enough to kiss his enemies before swinging his sword, and the game’s pace is much livelier.  Combos are still simple button mashes, but elements like magic spells and the boost gauge add just enough strategy to make each engagement unique and keep you on your toes.

No Ys-E Boss Fights

Dungeon crawling involves a great deal of puzzle-solving, as well as some light platforming, and although there are some points in the story that require you to back track, the areas never feel repetitive. Many of the JRPG location tropes are present, such as the inside of a dormant volcano, or an abandoned mine shaft, but they are all very detailed and seem fresh, despite the age of the source material.

One important disclaimer: boss battles in this game are much, much harder than the fights against basic enemies. Every big bad comes equipped with a handful of lethal attacks, all of which can be avoided, once you’ve learned the nuances of their individual patterns.  The result is that you will fight the same boss over and over again, doing a little better each time, until you finally defeat them without a scratch on you.

This type of abuse may seem harsh to players that never experienced the punishing 8-bit era but could also be very nostalgic to gamers in their 30s. Either way, you can’t deny that beating a boss that seemed almost impossible only an hour earlier can give an ego boost that no hand-holding HD platformer ever could.

Everyoung Adol

Given Felghana’s age, players might expect the visuals to be antiquated. And while the appealing spritework might not impress players acclimated to characters built from thousands of polygons, Adol, Dogi, and the rest of the cast still exude charm. From sixty frame-per-second fluidity, higher resolutions, skippable cutscenes, and redrawn (delightfully optional) character portraits, quite a bit of care was put into this revision. Sonically, Ys Memoire provides three different options, with the original soundtrack as well as PC-8801 and X68000 scores to choose from. Yet, if there’s one blemish on this edition, it’s that the remastered PSP version still sounds a bit compressed.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana was played on PlayStation 5 with review code provided by the publisher.