I play video games since I am 3 years old. Back in these days, my brother had a Nintendo 64 with Super Mario 64. I watched him playing and fell in love with video games. The excitement was incredible, it was a whole different world for me. Since then, I am playing all different kinds of video games, Nintendo games (espacially Zelda and 3d mario), but also Sony (Crash and Spyro) and later everything on PC. But over the years, these feelings were falling apart. Maybe because i was getting older (I am 25 now), or maybe because i am playing for so many years right now. I saw everything and nothing can surprise me anymore. Sure, there a really incredible games out there, but most of them i can only appreciate

But why im am telling this? Ys VIII brought back those feelings. And it's hard to say why, because it's basically "another YS game". And if you only look at the core meachanics, you are right. It does nothing new or innovative and I already played Tokyo Xanado with very similiar combat. So how it is even possible?
All aspects harmonize perfectly with each other. And to tell why, I try to chronologically describe my experience with this game:

It all starts when you first enter the island. You are shipwrecked and your goal is to escape the island. The first track on this island, Sunshine Coastline gave this feeling of a new adventure with a clear goal perfectly. And normally I don't speak about music, because it's way to subjective. But in this case it's fitting the situation so perfectly, I've rarely seen anything like this. So you playing this game, explore the island, meet other shipwrecked people and have strange dreams at night. Especially noteworthy is the fact, that every shipwrecked is a person with a name, backstory and dreams. It's nothing special for Falcom games (with Trails or Tokyo Xanadu), but in most (j)rpgs, the people are just NPC's with the only purpose to make the world more lively. And in YS, I always had a similiar feeling. For me, they are just action rpgs with good gameplay and a mediocre story. The main protagonist Adol is basically Link with a few (voiced) lines and the main story is just to have adventures. but here, Adol is just the vessel to experience all the other persons

So they combined the strongest aspects of YS and Trails and created a perfect game for me. But this is only the first half and I was already a big fan of this game. But as soon as you reach Gendarme Mountain, everything i told so far was nothing compared with the feelings I had during this part of the game. The area behind this mountain and which you can finally see at the top made me a child once again. And the stroy went from "escape the island" to the whole situation of Dana. And her story was my biggest surprise with some huge twists.

It's fast and very precise from the movement. I like the different playstyles of the party members and with the evade and guard mechanic, it's very deep. The balancing was perfectly solved. In other Ys games, nightmare difficulty was very unbalanced, but here, it's just an enjoyment to read the movements of the enemys. Your Party takes less damage than you and always survives with 1hp left, but then, they don't attack anymore. So they found a good solution for the bad AI sometimes.
You can also do Sidequests to deepen the relationship with all the other characters.
The only aspect i really don't like are the interception battles. There are far too many of them and it's very annoying to get them on S rank. But I wouldn't say frustrating.

I hope you can understand me at least a little bit right now. Those feelings were very difficult to describe for me.
So, is Ys VIII a perfect game? No. But if you like action jrpgs or a good story with strong characters and fun gameplay, YS VIII is one single enjoyment for you. I loved every second in this game and this is something special with 80 hrs playtime.
Falcom are developing one gem after another and they know exactly about their strengths. Other studios want to be everything for everyone, but Falcom is always focussing on the core of video games. Why are we playing video games? To watch a movie? To have a challenge? To look at beautiful graphics? To have innovative gameplay, even if it's no fun? Maybe i'm getting old but most games don't have this "magic" anymore and I'm truly grateful to experience this feeling with YS VIII once again. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

[h1]the best YS game and a true masterpiece[/h1] I play video games since I am 3 years old. Back in these days, my brother had a Nintendo 64 with Super Mario 64. I watched him playing and fell in love with video games. The excitement was incredible, it was a whole different world for me. Since then, I am playing all different kinds of video games, Nintendo games (espacially Zelda and 3d mario), but also Sony (Crash and Spyro) and later everything on PC. But over the years, these feelings were falling apart. Maybe because i was getting older (I am 25 now), or maybe because i am playing for so many years right now. I saw everything and nothing can surprise me anymore. Sure, there a really incredible games out there, but most of them i can only appreciate But why im am telling this? Ys VIII brought back those feelings. And it's hard to say why, because it's basically "another YS game". And if you only look at the core meachanics, you are right. It does nothing new or innovative and I already played Tokyo Xanado with very similiar combat. So how it is even possible? All aspects harmonize perfectly with each other. And to tell why, I try to chronologically describe my experience with this game: It all starts when you first enter the island. You are shipwrecked and your goal is to escape the island. The first track on this island, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNgph1g422Q]Sunshine Coastline[/url] gave this feeling of a new adventure with a clear goal perfectly. And normally I don't speak about music, because it's way to subjective. But in this case it's fitting the situation so perfectly, I've rarely seen anything like this. So you playing this game, explore the island, meet other shipwrecked people and have strange dreams at night. Especially noteworthy is the fact, that every shipwrecked is a person with a name, backstory and dreams. It's nothing special for Falcom games (with Trails or Tokyo Xanadu), but in most (j)rpgs, the people are just NPC's with the only purpose to make the world more lively. And in YS, I always had a similiar feeling. For me, they are just action rpgs with good gameplay and a mediocre story. The main protagonist Adol is basically Link with a few (voiced) lines and the main story is just to have adventures. but here, Adol is just the vessel to experience all the other persons So they combined the strongest aspects of YS and Trails and created a perfect game for me. But this is only the first half and I was already a big fan of this game. But as soon as you reach [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDllGOPr-Vg]Gendarme Mountain[/url], everything i told so far was nothing compared with the feelings I had during this part of the game. The area behind this mountain and which you can finally see at the top made me a child once again. And the stroy went from "escape the island" to the whole situation of Dana. And her story was my biggest surprise with some huge twists. [h1] Gameplay [/h1] It's fast and very precise from the movement. I like the different playstyles of the party members and with the evade and guard mechanic, it's very deep. The balancing was perfectly solved. In other Ys games, nightmare difficulty was very unbalanced, but here, it's just an enjoyment to read the movements of the enemys. Your Party takes less damage than you and always survives with 1hp left, but then, they don't attack anymore. So they found a good solution for the bad AI sometimes. You can also do Sidequests to deepen the relationship with all the other characters. The only aspect i really don't like are the interception battles. There are far too many of them and it's very annoying to get them on S rank. But I wouldn't say frustrating. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] I hope you can understand me at least a little bit right now. Those feelings were very difficult to describe for me. So, is Ys VIII a perfect game? No. But if you like action jrpgs or a good story with strong characters and fun gameplay, YS VIII is one single enjoyment for you. I loved every second in this game and this is something special with 80 hrs playtime. Falcom are developing one gem after another and they know exactly about their strengths. Other studios want to be everything for everyone, but Falcom is always focussing on the core of video games. Why are we playing video games? To watch a movie? To have a challenge? To look at beautiful graphics? To have innovative gameplay, even if it's no fun? Maybe i'm getting old but most games don't have this "magic" anymore and I'm truly grateful to experience this feeling with YS VIII once again. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.