Ys Origin Review Summary

Excellent boss fights, superb music, and emotional story are marred by repetitive three-playthrough structure, high grind, and lack of Chinese support.

Excellent, fair boss fights: Boss fights are challenging, fair, and feature clear patterns and hitboxes, providing a strong sense of achievement. The encounters are numerous, varied, and well-designed throughout the game.

Superb and memorable music: The soundtrack is consistently praised as awesome, incredible, and phenomenal, with a memorable main motif. The music significantly enhances the overall experience.

Beautiful graphics and art: The game boasts beautiful and stunning graphics, especially in cutscenes and artwork. The visual quality is consistently praised for its aesthetic appeal.

Engaging and emotional story: The game features an engaging and captivating story that evokes strong emotions. The narrative is interesting and pulls players into the world.

Repetitive three playthroughs required: The game forces players to complete three full playthroughs to see all story content and the true ending, but levels and enemies are nearly identical each time. This feels like outdated game design and leads to significant tedium.

High difficulty and grind: Higher difficulties require heavy grinding to progress, and bosses are extremely hard even on Normal mode. Nightmare difficulty and boss rushes demand extreme dedication, making the game feel unbalanced.

No Chinese language support: The game lacks official Chinese language support on Steam, despite adding other languages. A fan patch exists but breaks achievements and can be broken by updates.

Cannot skip cutscenes: Players cannot skip dialogue or cutscenes, which is especially frustrating when dying without a checkpoint forces them to rewatch long sequences. This is a common complaint across multiple reviews.

Requires Cheat Engine to adjust values: Many cheats don't work, forcing players to use external tools like Cheat Engine to modify game values, indicating poor design tolerances.

Multiple unique playable characters: The game offers three playable characters with distinct combat styles, abilities, and story perspectives. Players can experience different gameplay mechanics and narrative angles with each character, enhancing replayability.

Engaging story and narrative: The story is praised as engaging, with interwoven character scenarios and a true ending that ties together the multiple playthroughs. The narrative depth adds to the overall appeal.

Action RPG with challenging combat: Ys Origins is an action RPG featuring fast-paced hacking and slashing, boss fights with pattern-based mechanics, and a challenging difficulty across multiple modes. The combat requires skill, strategy, and learning enemy patterns.

Replayability through story routes: Each character offers a different storyline and perspective, encouraging multiple playthroughs to see all narrative angles. This enhances the game's replay value significantly.

Different abilities per character: Each playable character has unique skills and move sets, such as melee, ranged magic, and fast aggressive styles. This diversity adds depth to combat and strategy.

Steam Deck compatibility: Multiple users report the game works well on Steam Deck, some with minor tweaks like adjusting resolution or using Proton GE. Performance ranges from smooth 90 FPS to requiring specific settings.

Crashes and freezes: Users report occasional crashes and freezes, with some fixed by the 4GB patch or specific version rollbacks. Notable bugs include freezes in specific chapters and on certain floors.

Graphics and display bugs: Some users encounter red-green graphical bugs and potential shadow issues in one location. 21:9 monitor support is missing in cutscenes.

Controller configuration issues: Controller deadzone settings require adjustment for optimal use, though button functionality works fine otherwise. Controls are customizable.

Great for Ys fans: The game is highly recommended for fans of Ys and action RPGs, especially those who have played Ys I & II. It serves as both a good introduction and a continuation of the series.

Highly recommended overall: Many reviewers give the game a strong recommendation, often scoring it 9.5-10/10 and urging players to buy it. It is considered excellent value and a must-play.

Worth full price: The game is considered worth buying at full price, with many saying it is worth every penny. It is of high quality and offers good value.

Great for action RPG fans: Fans of action RPGs, JRPGs, and even Souls-like games will enjoy this title. It is recommended for players who like challenging combat and classic gameplay.

Play on easy to avoid frustration: Some suggest playing on very easy or easy difficulty to avoid frustration, as the game can be quite tough. This makes it more accessible.

Community fair range: $15.00 - $25.00.

Game completion: 30.0h.

Story completion: 20.0h.

Ys Origin initially frustrates with a steep difficulty curve, grinding, and repetitive early floors, but enjoyment clicks after players overcome tough bosses, unlock new powers, and reach higher floors where enemy variety and music improve.

Friction: steep learning curve; need to grind for levels and upgrades; repetitive early combat and areas; tedious shared dialogue across character routes; clunky keyboard controls (suggest using controller); same puzzles solved identically in each playthrough.

Unlock drivers: new enemy types that break combat monotony; unlocking new character skills and powers; ascending to higher floors with better music and environmental variety; beating seemingly unbeatable bosses provides euphoric satisfaction; choosing a character with cooler skills can hook players earlier.

Newcomer Discoverer: Plays on Normal or Easy, uses controller, focuses on story and combat without extensive grinding. Motivation: To experience an accessible entry into the Ys series. Stance: buy.

Veteran Completionist: Plays multiple playthroughs sequentially, explores each character's unique moveset, often on higher difficulties and with recommended play order. Motivation: To fully experience narrative depth and mechanical variety by completing all character routes. Stance: buy.

Achievement Grinder: Plans multiple playthroughs on various difficulties, grinds for levels and upgrades, uses guides for efficiency. Motivation: To achieve 100% completion including all achievements and extra modes. Stance: sale.

Steam Deck: Ys Origin is a well-regarded action RPG with significant stability issues, including a near-universal crash at the ending, and additional controller/display problems. While the core experience is praised, technical flaws hinder full enjoyment.

Linux and Proton: User reviews indicate the game runs well on Linux and Steam Deck, with a minor requirement to use GE Proton for cutscenes. No major compatibility issues or anti-cheat blockers are reported.

External guides: User feedback reveals a strong reliance on external guides and wikis due to obscure puzzles, mazes, and missing in-game context for the series timeline. Players depend on walkthroughs and lore resources to progress and understand the plot.