Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana (Nintendo Switch) Review

Looking back on its 1989 older brother, it's amazing just how much 2005's Ys: The Oath in Felghana was such a monumental evolution from the 16-bit era. 3D environments, voiced dialogue and lightning-fast combat all brought the experience into the 21st century in a way that was inconceivable at the time it was first developed and epitomised what a remake should be.

Well fast forward 15 years from that and while Ys Memoire isn't quite on that level, this remaster certainly packs enough of a punch to justify both its existence and price tag on modern consoles.

In terms of story content, virtually nothing has changed. Main hero Adol and his friend Dogi - who originally appeared in the first two Ys titles - return to Dogi's homeland of Felghana before helping a young girl who was being attacked by monsters.

Returning to Redmont where monsters have appeared, Adol is suddenly thrust into helping the town's mayor and embarking on a wider adventure of stopping the local all-round bad guy and ruler Count McGuire from awakening an ancient and evil demon.

While this all sounds like standard JRPG fare - and it certainly has all those tropes and more - there's definitely an old-school Saturday-morning cartoon charm to the whole experience which does a lot to easily draw fans in.

Along with the voice acting and dialogue, which is firmly on the cheesy side of the scale - every character pops with their own personality. Coming through both in their visual and audio presentation.

Add to that a soaring remastered soundtrack that hits all the right notes of being both catchy and easily 'hummable', also including the ability to switch to the original score.

Even Adol - previously silent in the older releases - now sparingly speaks at various moments. Although his voice is certainly nothing to write home about in terms of the personality stakes. But even still, it's a pleasant addition and one that will give older fans a reason to revisit this remaster.

What also possibly helps with the personality of the cast in this adventure is that the developers clearly recognised the benefits of telling an efficient contained story that never outstays its welcome.

Unlike certain vast and unforgiving JRPGs some might be used to, Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is tightly curated into a 15-20-hour experience that gives all the hits with very little of the dreaded filler. There's one main town in this game, complete with a select cast of named characters, each with their own motivations and backstory. Don't expect a raft of filler side quests either, this is bare-bones - but in all the right ways it is arguable.

While some may worry about the variety on offer with only one main town, when so many other titles in the genre focus on the scale of their worlds, instead Ys focuses on the dungeons and keeping up the pace of the narrative on offer. There is a good variety of said dungeons here, each with their own biomes and little puzzles to solve. Each also comes with at least one boss fight - so there's plenty to do here and no shortage of twists and turns and adventure!

Where some might be a little disappointed is that graphically these dungeons and this world have only had a very minor visual touch-up from the PSP release from back in the day. There's definitely no concern about mistaking this for a modern title, with textures that harken back to the portability of the now modest portable device. That said, on the Switch particularly the game runs like a dream and the old school graphics don't do anything to detract from the previous charm alluded to above.

Above everything though, the real star of the show in Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is undoubtedly the combat. Adol has sword attacks, ranged spells and air attacks and all used in real time. The best summing up of the combat is that it is fast paced and fun.

What initially appears like it will be an easy game of button mashing, steadily ramps up the enemy variety and attack patterns and also Adol's abilities to combat them. The first dungeon sees Adol slashing spiders to death without thinking and it's easy to turn on the newly introduced turbo mode and take it for granted.

But by dungeon three, enemies will be blocking attacks, flying and casting their own spells. Throw environmental attacks involving the likes of lava into the mix and there's a lot to contend with.

The only quirk that proves a little irritating is that enemies literally respawn after moving between each scene.

Meanwhile dying resets Adol at the start of each scene with the health he had before his death. It means it is easy to get into the situation where the player has to carefully navigate back to a save point - and full health - through some tricky and sometimes chaotic areas.

Otherwise facing the irritating dilemma of reloading from an earlier save and potentially losing progress or engaging in a loop of dying and reviving to try and somehow make it back to safety.

It's a throwback to an older style of gaming, and a more unforgiving sense of difficulty, but one that feels a little at odds with the efficient storytelling and brisk pace The Oath in Felghana appears to want to engage in otherwise.

This all culminates in the boss battles, which are a real step up - in both scale and difficulty - from the rest of the normal enemy fights. From different camera angles, attack patterns and epic moves - some of the bosses here are frankly more reminiscent of a Souls-like experience.

That experience goes into both the positive and negative. While the scale and satisfaction at beating one of them is second to none, it's absolutely certain they will also leave some players with a palpable sense of frustration at dying possibly many times. That said, the thrill of taking on these beasts and eventually besting them is just an incredibly fun experience and the accessibility of the difficulty options means it is hard to be too critical given it is easy to make things more manageable.