Great game to begin the 3D Ys games with

Do it...

Fun overall, but has some significant problems. Not a good jumping in point to the series, but worth playing if you like the world setting and lore.

The good:
-Combat is pretty fun and responsive, as usual with Ys games.
-If an area is too hard, you can always grind up levels which makes a big difference in your attack and defense.
-The story ties together a bunch of lore from 1/2/Celceta/Oath, though you don't need to play those earlier games to understand what's mostly going on. It's more of a nod to fans of the earlier games.
-Lots of ways to explore out of sequence if you're into that sort of thing, and the story progression points you to where should go next quite well.

The bad:
-Just going to get this out of the way now, the way you activate the dash jump is probably the worst platforming mechanic ever designed in a 3d platformer. Thankfully it isn't required to complete the game, but the best accessory in the game is locked behind one of the most frustrating platforming sequences I've ever had the misfortune of playing. Eventually I was able to nail the timing 95% of the time, but... it's just not gratifying. You can tell that the developers probably didn't even like the mechanic because they only used it extensively in one dungeon.
-The balance between regular mobs and dungeon bosses is completely out the window. You'll be going through a zone killing mobs in 2-3 hits, and then when you encounter the boss you're only doing 1-3 damage per hit to a boss that has well over 1000 hitpoints. This can be overcome by going back and grinding to outlevel the boss, but then the boss battle goes from being too hard to being too easy.
-Speaking of the above, USE MULTIPLE SAVE SLOTS. There's a section in the mid-late game where there's a 'point of no return until you complete this quest' barrier, and it involves a boss battle. I was only saving to one save slot, and when I came across the boss I was doing 1-3 damage against its ~2000 hp. So I had a *very* long slog of a time to get though this part, with my only other option being to restart the game.