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Despite being a little rough around the edges with a few odd gameplay decisions and a weak story, Ys IV: Memories of Celceta remains a fun 15-20+h action-RPG that – due to its self-contained plot – should be enjoyable for franchise newcomers as well
Before moving on to talk about the actual game itself, let’s quickly go over where to place Memories of Celceta in the Ys franchise, as this might be a bit confusing. Ys: Memories of Celceta takes place between the events of Ys II and Ys III: The Oath in Felghana, which makes it the fourth entry in the franchise to play if you’re following the “story order” suggested by DigitalEmelas. That said, the story of Ys: Memories of Celceta is self-contained to the point where even newcomers to the franchise shouldn’t have any trouble following the story, since protagonist Adol has not only travelled to a new land but also lost all of his memories as well.
While this explains where to put Ys: Memories of Celceta in terms of story, there’s more to be said about what kind of game Ys: Memories of Celceta actually is – but feel free to skip this next paragraph if you’re not interested in more details of the game’s history.
This Steam version, which released in 2018, is a graphically enhanced (but offering no new content) port of the 2012 PS Vita game of the same name. Said Vita game, which was developed by Nihon Falcom, is actually a remake of 1993’s Ys: Mask of the Sun (developed by Tonkin House) and Ys: The Dawn of Ys (developed by Hudson Soft). This might sound confusing at first, but the explanation is actually quite simple: From 1987 - 1989, the first three Ys games were developed and published by Nihon Falcom. However, after completing Ys III in 1989, the creators of the series (Masaya Hashimoto and Tomoyoshi Miyazaki) left Nihon Falcom and went on to establish their own studio (“Quintet”, responsible for Act Raiser or Terranigma). As a result, Nihon Falcom outsourced the development of what should be the new Ys IV to two other studios, who had handled various port of the previous Ys games: Tonkin House, now responsible for the Super Famicom version of Ys IV, and Hudson Soft, tasked with developing the PC version instead. While the two resulting games might share the same setting, basic plot and characters, they actually differ in terms of enemies, levels, story delivery and more. Afterwards, it was Tonin House’s Ys IV: Mask of the Sun that went on to be considered the “canon” version of Ys IV for a few years – at least, until Nihon Falcom themselves decided to create a now-canon version of Ys IV with the 2012 PS Vita remake we’re seeing ported here: Ys: Memories of Celceta.
As a remake, Ys: Memories of Celceta does not make use of the “Bump System” present in Ys I & II (or the original Ys IV games) but went with a tag-team party system similar to the one from Ys Seven instead. Up to three chosen characters from your party are fighting at the same time, two of which are controlled by AI – pressing a button switches the character the player is currently controlling. Apart from evading and guarding, normal attacks build up “SP”, which in turn can be spend on unleashing select skills – unleash enough, and you’ve filled your “EXTRA” gauge, which allows for one especially powerful attack. Basically, Ys: Memories of Celceta is about switching to the right character for each enemy (the right attack types equals more damage dealt), evading/guarding against enemy attacks and performing combos through attacks and skills in real time. It’s not an especially deep combat system, just spamming attacks/skills should work well enough on lower difficulties, but it’s fast, responsive and flashy enough for a good time regardless.
Coupled with this satisfying real-time combat is exploring the Forest of Celceta, the main “gimmick” of Ys: Memories of Celceta. Exploring the semi open-world map isn’t only demanded by the story and necessary to reach the next quest objective, but mapping the areas beyond that also rewards you with additional items, Adol’s memories and materials used to create/refine various equipment. Furthermore, a NPC gives you additional rewards based on your map completion percentage, which really drives home just how much Ys: Memories of Celceta wants to be a game that’s all about adventurous exploring and fighting through uncharted territory – complete with the occasional dungeon featuring small puzzles and boss fights as a highlight, of course. Typical for a Nihon Falcom game, Ys: Memories of Celceta also features an exceptional soundtrack, with more than just a few fantastic tracks that immediately get stuck in your head.
But while the combat is fun, the music fantastic and the exploring usually rewarding enough to be worth the occasional detour, Ys: Memories of Celceta unfortunately isn’t without its faults as well. The story, while usually not the strong suit of the Ys games to begin with, is largely predictable, quite cliched and frankly overall uninteresting. The characters, including the party members, are mostly shallow and the story just stops abruptly once the credits start rolling, rather than actually ending and giving closure to the various characters.
In terms of gameplay, there’s the unnecessarily unfriendly fast-travel system that only starts to actually become useful halfway through the game for some reason. Similarly, the ability to sprint is granted far too late in my opinion, especially since the (mostly uninteresting) side-quests do require a bit of backtracking at times. But even sprinting and fast travelling doesn’t help with the map completion at the end of the game – achieving 100% can be quite painful since the game doesn’t do a great job of showing you what smaller areas you’ve missed exactly. Additionally, some maps require the player to “hug” every border and crevice in order to “uncover” some of the far-away map borders necessary for 100% completion – an annoying decision.
Lastly, while it’s great to have characters with multiple abilities – Adol can collect his memories, Duren can open locked chests and so one – switching to the right character can be unnecessarily time-consuming during the late-game dungeons that require abilities from all party members. The same goes for artifacts required for puzzles, which can only be switched by going through multiple menus as well. Speaking of menus, it's also fair to say that Ys: Memories of Celceta isn’t the best-looking game out there – its Vita origins are quite clear, from puzzles that obviously used to require a touchscreen to the small-sized maps, an overall low-detailed world with few enemy types and characters as well as the general UI structure.
Still, overall Ys: Memories of Celceta remains a fun 15-20+h action-RPG that doesn’t overstay its welcome unless you’re going for all achievements. Satisfying combat, fun exploration and a great soundtrack make this game a good choice for action-RPG fans, even if it might not reach the heights of other games in the Ys series. Since the plot is mostly self-contained, newcomers to the franchise shouldn’t be afraid to try this game as well, although there are admittedly even better and more popular games in the Ys series to start out with.