Ys Memoire The Oath in Felghana Review (Switch) – Oathbreaker

Ys Memoire The Oath in Felghana or Ys III, as it was called before 2005 when this remake released on the PSP, has been re-released on Nintendo Switch as a remaster of a remake. Although it’s been available on Steam for more than a decade at this point, it’s nice when Falcom shows some of the older releases some love with some mod-cons, turbo mode and a bit of voice acting.

In the wake of Ys X Nordics earlier this year, you can now play a bunch of Ys games in order on modern hardware – Nordics, Memories of Celceta, then Oath in Felghana. After that though, there’s a gap chronologically where we are missing Ys V as readily playable, we have Ys VIII on PS4, and then old versions of Ys VI and VII (only really available on Steam), before we reach Ys IX Monstrum Nox, the furthest along chronologically. Perhaps Falcom are gearing up for more of these remasters in the coming years.

The numbering system has just become confusing at this point, so getting rid of the III and using ‘Memoire’ is helpful. Oath in Felghana is not the remake that Celceta was a few years back (which also lost its IV), but a remake from 2005. So it’s relatively retro in style and more akin in looks to the recent Zero and Azure Trails games albeit an action title. But don’t let that put you off diving into one of the classics of the series.

As per usual in an Ys title, red-haired protagonist Adol Cristin just kind of washes up in a new place, which in this case turns out to be Redmont in the land of Felghana, hometown of Adol’s long-time adventuring partner-in-crime, Dogi. The town is amok with monsters, and the political situation is fraught, the new lord in the area imposing high taxes and cutting off villagers’ incomes. In the middle of this we find two of Dogi’s childhood friends Elena and her brother Chester, on opposing sides of the town’s divide. Chester’s working for the bad guys, and is a piece of work, let me tell you.

As an Adventurer TM Adol just gets right on sticking his nose in, saving villagers from the despotic lord, defending the town and getting thoroughly embroiled in the whole sorry situation. Soon you are pretty clearly the re-embodiment of an ancient warrior and destined to save the land, find four statues etc. It’s not the deepest of narratives, especially not when compared with Lacrimosa, Celceta, or the more recent titles, but I stayed interested in Chester and Elena even as I grew heavy-lidded at the destined warrior statue shenanigans.

The Oath in Felghana both shines and frustrates in equal measure in its combat. It’s a fast, frenetic and satisfying real-time combat system just played out right on the same field maps, and it’s a lot of fun. You can combo attack with your sword, jump to dodge, shoot ranged magic attacks and otherwise whirl around like you do on all the other more modern entries since. But here it’s an isometric or 2D view.

But it’s exactly that unchanged retro feel that can be the hardest thing to grapple with here. Oath In Felghana has a turbo mode and a few modern touches, but it’s by no means a remake; there are no modern controls, jumping to dodge made no real sense to me for many hours in, there’s no modern block or dodge mechanic, and it’s retro-hard. You will be thanking the sweet merciful gods at Falcom for these ickle-baby super-easy difficulty modes, and the awesome make-the-boss-a-little-easier-each-time-I-fail option. One major caveat to this though is there didn’t seem to be a way to change difficulty (beyond the aforementioned retries in bosses) during the playthrough – if you begin to find it too tough to progress, you’ve got to start from the beginning again. I hope a toggle is patched in, as I really wanted to lower the difficulty and just carry on.

Monsters regularly maul you to pieces in seconds, but the key to success lies often in your own speed and jumping. Enemies drop EXP, but also DEF+ ATK+ and Health ups. Those health ups are key, because this RPG has no potions! Nothing. You get your health back only if an enemy drops health, and if that doesn’t scream twenty year old system nothing does. You are also constantly building a gauge that allows for a nice ultra-powered up few seconds, and the health ups during that time are enhanced depending on how many monsters you can take down quickly.

Personally I found it fun but very easy to get frustrated with. It’s the kind of system that going to have its advocates, but for those coming into the series cold, or off a more modern title, it’s a high bar to entry here.

Outside of combat there isn’t a huge amount to say about Ys Memoire Oath of Felghana. You can explore Redmont, and buy an extremely restricted few pieces of equipment. There’s a blacksmith who will upgrade your gear the teeniest, tiniest stat point, for hefty price tags, to the point I wanted to tell him to stuff the whole enterprise. But outside of town, every other map is a combat map.

Graphically there’s a lot to love if you’re a fan of retro JRPGs, especially the early 2000s era. This is a remake from 2005 and generally even to this day Falcom’s work is around a generation out of date in looks. This means it really looks like late 90s, like Tales of Eternia, or Star Ocean Second Story, albeit a little rougher than either of those.

It’s a charming aesthetic, and one that I have loved in many other Falcom titles. It’s virtually the same engine as the Trails in the Sky games and the Crossbell arc of Legend of Heroes that they were using from around 2003 to 2011. It is early in that engine’s life, same as the first Trails in the Sky title. Much like the recent re-releases of those titles, Falcom has added a few extra snippets of voice and a turbo mode for getting through the game faster, but where Turbo works as intended in a turn-based JRPG like Trails, in Ys the Turbo mode just meant you needed even faster reflexes than usual. I turned it off very shortly after starting, so that I’d have some kind of chance in the combat.

Much of the game’s important narrative scenes are fully voiced, although a lot of the characters have fairly annoying overdone voices. Dogi’s long-term voice actor seems to be consistent with other games which is nice. There are a few earworms here and there, one or two dungeons where you won’t mind the theme you’re listening to while getting relentlessly pasted, but overall I didn’t notice much about the soundtrack.

Ys Memoire The Oath in Felghana is mercifully short, coming in at around 15 hours. There’s side quests and such that might take you longer, and there’s probably a fair sway in that depending on how difficult you find the combat. That said I don’t think most players will be seeing the second half of the game. There are areas and bosses so far beyond the realm of balanced difficulty on just the normal mode, and so little narrative and story to justify that onslaught of retries that playing becomes, that I don’t think I’m beyond the pale saying most players will just give up.

This particular entry has garnered a well-deserved reputation as the hardest Ys game there is and a very steep learning curve for anyone joining the series. Thankfully this edition gives much easier difficulty settings that will allow far more players to see far more of the game.

I’m really glad I was able to try it out, but I’m swearing off The Oath in Felghana, at least until there’s a further patch to change difficulty mid-playthrough.

Ys Memoire The Oath in Felghana is available now for Nintendo Switch (review platform).

Developers: Nihon Falcom

Publisher: Nihon Falcom

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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