// KOTAKU — GAMING
How Ys VIII’s Unique Take On The Apocalypse Made It So Compelling
Ys VIII is one of my top 3 JRPGs of the past generation alongside Dragon Quest XI and Persona V. An incredible action RPG following the adventures of Adol, it came out from Nihon Falcom in 2016. I’ve played its direct sequels YSIX and X, and while both were good, there was something special about VIII that still makes it my favorite in the series.
Revisiting it again almost ten years after its release, I felt like I was meeting up with old friends. In particular, I loved the second half and that’s because it does something very few games can pull off; it switches main protagonists and crafts an even better story in the second half with its new heroine.
There’s another reason this game has meant a lot to me. Mike Fahey’s review was what convinced me to play it in the first place and the last exchange I had with him was a DM thanking him for getting me into the series. I thought about that a bunch as I played through the game again.
I actually wrote a few years back how much I enjoyed the first half of the game as Adol and company build a survivor’s village. The game succeeds in making you care about almost every NPC (except for Sir Carlan). This time, I want to dive into the end game and explore what makes it so great even now.
The game begins with Adol and company shipwrecked on a mysterious island called Seiren. He has to rescue the stranded members, build a village, fight his way through a bunch of prehistoric primordials, track down a serial killer in their ranks who murders one of their key members, Captain Barbaros, and eventually find the ancient ruins of a fallen city on the northern part of the island. Throughout the whole journey, Adol gets visions of a woman named Dana, but he’s not sure who she is or why he keeps seeing her in his dreams. I figured there was some connection between the two that would come to the forefront as the game progressed since she is the eponymous heroine of Dana’s Lachrymosa.
The combat in this game is sublime. It’s so much fun to fight your way through hordes of enemies as you uncover items and castaways in the new sections of the island. With exhilarating music and fluid animation, Ys VIII has some of the best fighting in any action RPG.
Fortunately, the story is just as good with a focus on the NPC interactions. Some of the most poignant moments are the ones players share with the villagers. As their bonds increase, you learn more about what motivates each of them. I enjoy doing sidequests in RPGs, but am not a completionist that feels I have to do every single one. In the case of Ys VIII, I wanted to complete it so I could get closer to all the villagers.
Hummel was one of them. A cold transporter who is very practical in his approach to relationships, he’s generally distant to Adol and the villagers. When your bond reaches the max level, he reveals that he was from a family of transporters, but hated their dark legacy and connection with society’s underbelly. After an argument with his dad, he left his home in order to pursue his dreams of becoming an entertainer. Many years later, with a clown mask on his face, he met his father in an alley. He’d been fatally wounded trying to deliver a package, but made his son promise to deliver the package even though he didn’t recognize him.
It turned out his dad was carrying critical medical supplies for a back-alley doctor. The medicine treated a rampant disease, including some of the kids who came to watch him perform. Hummel, realizing that people could do good even in society’s underbelly, took up the mantle once again, but as a different kind of transporter.
He shows this altruism in one of the toughest side quests in the game. The party has to rescue the egg of a kidnapped Saurian by entering a plain crammed with hundreds of lethal monsters ready to rip them to shreds. It’s a mad jaunt from one end to the other. The fact that it’s the generally calculating Hummel initiating the quest gives us a glimpse into his more caring side.