In “Ys IX: Monstrum Nox”, we have another Nihon Falcom game building upon “Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana” and also a few things from previous games.
And as Nihon Falcom president Kondo Toshihiro said, he wanted to bring the game towards adventure and he did so with this ninth game.
Adol Christin and Dogi, the adventurers arrive in the prison city of Barduk.
Doesn’t take long for Adol to be arrested for his adventurous past and locked in prison. This is where he is taken by Aprilis and given special abilities and together with others who have special abilities, must take on the Monstrum.
For the most part, I enjoyed the game thanks to its characters. I really like the move sets for each character and that is a plus of being able to have several characters (3-4 at the most) and you can advance their move sets.
For the most part, I think the game is one that curious JRPG fans may want to partake in if they wanted to try an “Ys” game for the first time.
The storyline is captivating, the characters are cool and the moves and battle system is easy to pickup and keep one busy for many hours.
What didn’t I like about the game? I felt towards the end, they tacked on many side missions for the sake of getting enough Nox to open a sealed area. I think tacking them on so much towards the end, kind of tired me out and I was starting to get tired of the game and wanted to move on. I guess, I liken certain side missions to like watching a filler episode of an anime you enjoy. There are only so much filler episodes on can’t take? The same with these side missions that felt tacked on.
I did notice a glitch but maybe it’s only on my end where audio kept going out at times and the only way to get it back is to save the game, close it completely and load my last save file. But maybe it’s just on my end…it didn’t happen too much for the first half, but it did happen quite a bit towards the middle/end of the game.
But for the most part, I enjoyed this game a lot and I do recommend it!
