Ys Celceta – Final Thoughts on the Game

Played through Celceta twice — once on Normal and once on Nightmare. I gotta say that it’s a pretty fun game but there are some issues that I wish Falcom would fix (via downloadable update):

• Character AI — They can get super goofy at times and run around in circles. It’s easy to stop this by switching to control the character but still, it shouldn’t happen. This isn’t as offensive as the stupidity that’s been brought over from Ys SEVEN where the characters will ignoring enemies to continually try and get at a material they can’t reach at a harvest point. Again, a switch to the character will solve it but come on, why would they even do that in the first place?
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• Bugs — There are times where player input will be impossible. I actually managed to reproduce an issue in the Silver Space (白銀の間) where all characters will become frozen (from being hit by a beam from a 3-faced monster) and all user interaction became nullified. The enemies will continue to attack but you can’t do anything like access the menu and the characters won’t unfreeze. There are also cases where the game will show you an outstanding treasure chest in a dungeon that doesn’t even exist as well as chests that don’t show up on the mini map (on a second playthrough onward) even though all the other ones in the vicinity do. >_>
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• Inability to skip cutscenes on new game+ — It’s kind of annoying to have to sit through everything even with the fast-forward option on. I suppose there’s just too much extra code to include to give the option to skip scenes entirely. Or maybe Falcom’s just too damn lazy.
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• Slowdown — It’s noticable in certain areas of the Forest of Dawn where there’s a lot of enemies. I think there’s a part in the Path of Plateau where it happens too even though there isn’t a bunch of enemies. I take it the background and stuff play a part in that one.
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• More variety for the group configuration bonus. — Uh … forgot what it was called and too lazy to check the manual right now. ^^ (I already stored the game away.) But like, there were only 2 types, IIRC — one which had something about damage and another for increased frequency of obtaining rare items. I think the bonus should have been character based instead of weapon type.

General thoughts:

• Like Ys SEVEN, the battle system made the game. Battles are fast and really fun! I can’t remember SEVEN too well but I’m pretty sure they honed the mechanics in this one.
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• The dungeon designs are all right. Not all that crazy about them since there’s still a lot of “hand-holding” where everything you need to access another area just happens to be nearby and all. No real challenges or skill needed at any point. Honestly, even though I’m not all that great with platforming, I do like the designs from Napishtim, Felghana, and Origin a lot more than SEVEN and Celceta.
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• I wasn’t all that crazy about the Personal Actions since if you ended up disliking a character and never using them, you’d be forced to swap him/her in just use his or her PA. Even so, I do kind of wish there was a dungeon that made you use every single Personal Action (except maybe Dulen’s since all he does is open chests). ^^
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• Totally wasn’t crazy about the puzzles in the game because they felt kind of tacked on; like they existed only to make use of the Vita’s touch screen. There were also too far and few of them which makes me wonder why they were even included.
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• Michey is … ugh. Such an ugly design. Stupid Falcom. Please don’t make that thing your official mascot.
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• Part of the northern area of the Forest of Dawn sure could have used a waystone.  All in all, they were located in convenient spots.
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• I really liked the way side quests were handled where you can see where the quest giver is on the mini map as well as the location of targets were. Well, the latter is true for most of the monster elimination quests. I believe SEVEN had you running around towns and speaking to everyone unless you were using a walkthrough which would tell you who to specifically look for.
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• Easy mode is hilarious. I think the G.Pikkard spawn rate is insane since it only takes a few screen refreshes for it to appear and you can easily kill it if you have beefed up characters and equipment from a previous playthrough. There also seems to be a lot more monster carcasses that remain on the screen + much MUCH easier to get rare drops with the Silver Axe equipped. When this game gets localized, I am so starting on Easy. XD (I only did a new game+ with it for Time Attack and Boss Rush. XD)
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• Nightmare mode is a bit of a joke if you have maxed out characters and near maxed weapons + armour. ^^  I barely had to use potions in any battles even though I totally suck at flash guarding and executing flash moves. 😛 I just roll around like crazy. ^^;

If I think of anything else, I’ll add it later. :3