Played AND finished Ys Seven?

[Red Hairdo]

I was wondering just how many people touched Ys Seven AND finished it here: I'm under the impression not as many people finished Ys Seven as they finished, say, YsF or even Ys Origin. But I might be mistaken.

In any case, that poll is for checking exactly what it asks!

As for me, yes, I did.

I might voice my thoughts on it all later, in some other topic: this topic should be spoiler-free.

[Xalphenos]

Bought the LE when it came out. Still haven't touched it.

[Pal]

I haven't finished Seven. 20 hours savefile stuck in the Sea Sanctum.

It's just that the repetitiveness in Ys combat is more obvious in Seven so it gets much more boring. Mostly because switching characters to deal high damage kinda breaks the pace. The skill system is less spammable than Felghana or Origin so you're stuck dealing low damage to enemies and it takes almost forever. The party system kinda breaks the pace too since you'll want all of your characters leveled up so you're switching characters around every single time you level up. Bosses are the other side of the coin though, they remain as awesome as they ever were.

Make no mistake, I think Ys Seven is an excellent game. It's just not quite my cup of tea when it comes to Ys games.

[SkyeWelse]

I finished it right after it just after it was released from XSEED. It's a pretty nice game through most of it and has some nice twists and turns at various points in the game. The game especially becomes very interesting near the end of the game and Aisha was a very likable 3rd main character.

-Thomas

[Red Hairdo]

Pal/Wyrdwad

I disagree and agree with you both on some points.

First and foremost, though, regarding both SP gain and boss battles: both change DRASTICALLY among the difficulty settings.

The easier the difficulty setting you choose, the more SP (and maybe Extra Skill Point?) you get from charge attacks and perhaps from even normal attacks. So if you play on Easy, you have the potential to use skills more often than someone playing on Nightmare etc..

Regarding boss battles, when someone says bosses were easy and especially that items were spammable, one can easily tell said person could be playing on anything, BUT on Nightmare. It really, really makes a difference: you carry many less items, and the bosses are a lot stronger and tougher (I wonder if they gain extra attacks too). At least enough to make you learn the patterns well for most boss fights, else you won't survive, and of course, to put the Perfect Guard into constant, good use. (Unless if you are really overleveled or something.) Beating the last boss, a bit underleveled and underequipped, took me almost a whole hour!

Let's see... About skills not being as spammable as they were in YsVI/F/O, that's not necessarily true: difficulty setting aside, it mostly depends on if you already got the Wind Seal (more SP gain and quicker charge attack) and if your active allies are equipped with certain types of accessories. For example, trying giving your non-controllable active party members the "Energy Orb", which you find almost near the Sea Sanctum's end or craft gathering materials after entering the dungeon after that: whenever your allies walk (which they will while you fight etc.), you'll get good amounts of extra SP; It really makes a big difference. I find myself constantly, non-stop using skills in Ys Seven even without being equipped with SP usage reducers (of 1/4 and 1/2) and using Adol (instead of someone like Elk, whose skills are the cheapest), and that too on Nightmare. Of course, it means I time my charge attacks with flash guards well enough to time these things out the best way I can without losing the pace, and it all was slower before I got the Wind Seal.

About having to level up everyone in your team and that slowing things down, that, too, is also easily avoidable: equip the non-active party members the "Knight's Crest": it's the only accessory that is of use to them (until they reach level 99 anyway): it makes them gain as much experience as active party members, pretty much. You get one in a Treasure Chest in the Abandoned Town of Edona, and you can eventually buy more of them in Zanzibar's store. It's what I did.

I guess that's all.

[lailmith]

I agree with Pal and Wyrdwad in some points too, but that's not good thing really here :s

As for repetitiveness I'm with Pal, it just feels more obvious and tiring in Ys Seven than it is in OiF/Origin/Ark. The game is long one for Ys game and I feel it's also a bit fillerish on some points. The party system feels slower than bracelets etc (I have said this hundred times, party system is not made for platoforms like PSP, PSP just doesn't have enough buttons - only one way to rotate sucks).

As for bosses, I'm with Wyrdwad. There were few exceptions, but most of them were quite boring.

Yea, surely it may be different on Nightmare, but hell, this is Ys game. Hell, not going to start the first play through with Nightmare, since normal has been ok for me with other Ys games.

And it doesn't help at all that you get new set of equipment (from shop) each time you go to a new place, and for every character. Works ok when you have 3 characters but when you have full 493 characters, it is kinda tiring to farm few hours to get new set of equipment only to start farming for a new set after 30 minutes of play again.

Yes, I have played and finished Ys Seven but since it is quite tiresome to replay, it will take time before I will pick it up again. Maybe once I'll do a Ys marathon.

[Pal]

Notice how most of your solutions rely on specific difficulty/item/weapon/party settings Hairdo.

Which, I guess, is exactly what I didn't like about Ys Seven it tried to be more of a traditional JRPG and I guess I wasn't so fond of the change.

In fact, the only part about the game I REALLY liked was

SPOILER: Click to show

the fight against the Enraged Titano. Where incidentally you have no other party members and pre-set equipment and items thus making you rely on pure reflexes, Flash Guard and whether you learned Sword Dance at that point or not.

So yeah, I guess I didn't like Seven because it wasn't a linear button masher arcade hack n slash. And I never thought I'd say that about any game.

I think I'll try to finish it already, after all I'm so close to the end.

[Red Hairdo]

Not really, the only real difference is the Wind Seal, and getting it was no different from getting swords/bracelets/artifacts later on in Ys VI/F/O.

Flash Guard & Charge Attacks, that's all needed to keep the action up.

Just tried to show how much one can push it, but none of that is needed.


Edit: I forgot to mention something important. Despite everything I said, while I REALLY like Ys Seven, it's true I do miss the YsVI/F/O system after a while. However, whenever I play any of those 3, then I start to miss Ys Seven's system just as much. And whenever I play either after a long time, I always go like "aah man, I missed this... so refreshing".
So I like having both engines. (As well as others like bumping.)

[Red Hairdo]

Sept 9, 2012 15:43:41 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

so I never, EVER play any video game on any mode above Normal when given the choice (with the exception of rhythm games, but difficulty levels have an entirely different meaning there).

I don't think it's any different. From any angle.

By the way, challenge = fun, too. And Ys Seven on Nightmare was "normal/easy" instead of "challenging" anyway. I just think if you ever replay Ys Seven you should try Nightmare: you'll find more fun in it, I believe: its difficulty is more balanced, leaning slightly towards the easy side.

[Red Hairdo]

To me, different beat patterns/speed are analogous to i.e. different SP gain/pacing.

Also, the patterns generally don't get changed in rhythm games; they get expanded upon (talking from Ouendan/EBA experience, haven't tried much else).

As for still preferring Normal over Nightmare, well, your choice then. Not much else to say.

[Kuro-chan]

W-w-wait. There are people here who DON'T start on nightmare?! ... I must be unique then.

My problem was I only played for about 15-20 minutes before going to bed a few times a week, so it took around 9 months to beat Ys 7 on Nightmare. Still, I thought it was worth every cent I put into the game. I got it new, around the time it came out. I would play it and play it... try to play optional bosses as early as I could. I wasted 90 minutes on the one desert boss (the centipede one that chases you around) and pushed my party up 3 or 4 levels without any of them dying. (This was before I went to the Sea Sanctum the 1st time around).

I don't think there is a perfect Ys game out there, but this one is among my favourites.

Also, I did not find the boss fights boring on Nightmare. I found them a pain in the butt, and I think THAT is how boss battles should be. I was only disappointed with the last battle when Adol is by himself facing the top part of the final boss. I had equipped the Gavel of Souls on him and it boosted his stats by (guessing) 130 points each. That made it a rather easy, one-sided match. The boss barely did any damage to me and I pummeled away at it's health without any skills. I did not even have the final dragon weapons either. I left the stones intact.

Sept 9, 2012 15:43:41 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

And on Normal mode, Ys Seven is ridiculously easy.

I tried Normal after Nightmare and found it to be a pushover. (Which probably makes sense since I played Nightmare). In Nightmare, the enemies took and dished out more punishment, plus I found they reacted a bit faster, giving you less time to guard / dodge stuff. Maybe I am right or wrong, but that is how it came across to me.

One thing I could never get to work right was the Flash Guard. I found the timing on it to be too tight and I would end up guarding at the wrong time, taking more damage in the process. I would rather try to dodge instead and hope for the best.

[Trebia]

I finished Ys Seven, too, and I have to say it is one of the best games I ever played.
It really absorbs you into the game´s plot, and the gameplay was very funny.
As a fan of Dogi, it was a honour to me play with my favorite character all the time (hey, I love Adol, too, but Dogi is Dogi XD),
I must start it again, and play the other modes, because it is one of my most favorite games (at the same place as Megaman, and that´s too much).

[schlagwerk]

I played and finished Ys SEVEN when the Japanese version first came out.
I bought the US release when it came out but didn't get halfway through the game. I blame because I had finished it before and SEVEN is a little more time-intensive (ie more talk, less action) than say Napishtim, Felghana, or Origins that I've played the crap outta.

[Kuro-chan]

DO THE VERTICAL BARREL ROLL! XD

Yeah, I hated the guarding. Dodging for me. Saves HP and you can still build up the charge meter with attacks, anyway. The 'only' time I bothered with guarding was against the two-headed turtle boss while playing Nightmare. Since my levels were too low (and I didn't want to start building up my characters 'just' yet), I found it a necessary evil to use it. The lack of potions you can carry did not help much either. o.o;

[Pal]

So I FINALLY finished Seven.

My final thoughts (all from a Normal playthrough):

SPOILER: Click to show

-Water Sanctum (and Ruins Island while we're at it) confirmed for most boring area ever.
-That Sea Dragon boss must have been a joke, he was really easy.
-I liked the Moon Dragon though.
-Annoying light puzzle in Well of Souls is annoying.
-Scias is a pretty anticlimatic boss. Dodge, attack with charged sword, Pentagram, Lunar Dragon Blade, repeat.
-So was Tialuna.
-Rul-Ende on the other hand, was such a huge step up in difficulty and such a long and chaotic boss that it isn't even funny. I'm willing to let it slide a bit though, since after all, you weren't meant to defeat the Root of All Existence, like the difficulty step up helped in giving that feel of "you can't win" that the Dragons kept warning you about. The last part, however I'll admit was rather fun since I only had Adol to focus on.
-The overall storyline I would say is on par with Origin's story. The unexpected plot-twist and sudden mood whiplash was rather good, Seven just manages to execute its story better since it's standalone, unlike Origin.
-No Time Attack? No Boss Rush? No New Game+? Granted, I never play any of those but I felt really unrewarded after going through all of that.

I still stand by what I said before, Seven just doesn't satisfy my inner Ys fanboy, I still find the gameplay to be slower and not as adrenaline pumping as the other games. But it's a fantastic game that managed to quench my RPG thirst and I'll keep suggesting people to try it.