REVIEW: Ys X: Nordics is a simple yet robust Action RPG with a bit of a slow start

I have to make a confession: I’ve never been an enthusiast of Action RPGs as a whole. This isn’t to say I don’t see their innate quality as games, I simply never quite saw the appeal of trying to navigate push and pull with big numbers and standard fare RPG mechanics on top of having to move around and fight. I have always much preferred turn-based RPGs, where I have the luxury of taking my time and planning out my strategy as meticulously as I’d like. As such, Ys X: Nordics was a big step out of my comfort zone, and one I anticipated to be interesting at the very least. However, I’m pleased to say that my feelings going in were unfounded, and that Ys X is a fantastic game that’s not only made me want to play other recent Ys titles, but has also made me yearn to try out more games of this type with renewed vigor.

What makes Ys X special is a large combination of things. From starting the game up, the plot immediately gets rolling and doesn’t waste much time with exposition. After a scuttle with pirates on a tour ship, perpetual protagonist Adol Christin finds himself stranded at the island town of Carnac. After a series of strange events (including a pair of magic handcuffs), Adol is forced into an alliance with one of the pirates who attacked his cruise ship: the “pirate princess” Karja. Soon after, Carnac is attacked and the villagers are all scattered across the region, kicking off the primary conceit: an ocean-wide rescue mission!

Despite how rip-roaring the pace of Ys X’s plot is, it never felt like it undercut the story of its cast. From troubled relationships with parents to unresolved burdens of guilt, every character that boards your ship in search of Carnac’s residents has a distinct backstory that’s carefully woven to set up intrigue throughout the game. While most of it is optional and set to the side, I found myself engaging in it every moment I could. Without going into too much detail, I quite enjoyed the tale of a particular old-timer you run into quite early on in the game. His story remains a faint mystery as a backdrop of the main plot, but its conclusion is immensely satisfying and caps off one of the game’s best moments. Ys X’s story slots right in with the rest of the franchise as a great iteration of the concept—a simple plot that has a lot of heartwarming moments and great execution.

Of course, you can’t have an Action RPG without the action, and Ys X delivers wonderfully in this field. Movement feels very free-form and not at all constrained by things like poor camera or sluggishness in the controls. Even when my only turf to move around on was Carnac’s town, I already knew I was in for a treat with how nimbly Adol was gliding around. It’s good that Ys X focused on having this kind of stellar movement, too, as the game is full of pseudo-platforming segments that demand a decent amount of precision and understanding of momentum and inertia. Also impressive is the amount of unique traversal options on the land, among these being a grappling hook of sorts and a hoverboard imbued with magic. These serve as conduits for simple but fun overworld and traversal puzzles that break up the combat in each area, while simultaneously providing lots of faster ways to move around when you master them in tandem. I even managed to skip some set-pieces during my time with the game by utilizing the momentum well!

That combat, though! This was the main draw for me in my time spent with Ys X. I went in completely unaware of how much I’d enjoy the combat system, and at first my thoughts on it were full of friction. When you’re controlling just one character alone, it’s serviceable. You have a variety of skills and attacks you can learn over the course of the adventure, and you’ve got basic blocking, dodging, and combos. This is how you’ll spend the first hour or so, and it didn’t leave the absolute best impression on me at the time given the limited suite of moves you have. This all changed when Adol teamed up with Karja for the rest of the game, however, and it’s where Ys X’s combat began to truly shine. At a glance, all it adds is an instant switch mechanic and the addition of mana handcuffs, but these two additions elevate Ys X’s combat up to greatness.

The switching allows you to use Ys X’s skill chain system really effectively. To prevent players from simply equipping the best skills and repeatedly using them, Ys X has a clever system. You can still do this, but your SP will drain very rapidly and you’ll soon be locked out of using them. However, you can circumvent this by “chaining” different skills in a sequence. As long as you don’t use the same one twice in a row, you get a small SP cost reduction that gradually increases per skill used. Early on it still drains a lot, but when you combine this with the fast switch mechanic, you can cycle through both Adol and Karja’s skills with ease, allowing you to cut SP costs down tremendously. This system creates a really fun efficiency loop that lets you tear through standard enemies like paper.

What I found really impressive was how the perfect guarding system didn’t over-centralize the combat. While it’s immeasurably important and is your access to big damage in situations where you can’t squeeze it out, there are also attacks you can only dodge via quick movement and stepping around. Enemies and bosses don’t just go one at a time, either. Carefully managing where I can safely take damage and what skills or techniques I can use within a big crowd of enemies was enrapturing, particularly in the late-game where they throw all types of enemy attacks at you in diverse pairs. All of this together, combined with erratic boss attack timings, really helps keep the combat engaging many hours in. The only complaint I have is that Ys X doesn’t introduce its mechanics soon enough. Many of my deaths and restarts were in the game’s earliest boss fights and dungeons, where there wasn’t a lot of equipment or skills to use, and where knowledge of this guarding system would have dramatically helped. The developers were perhaps a bit too cautious about overwhelming players with new mechanics, but it would’ve been far better to have more of a choice in these spots rather than less.

As a nice cherry on top, Ys X’s approach to level-ups and stat progression is simple and fun. When I first saw the big progression-skill-tree-looking screen, I felt wary. I’ve never been a big fan of stat trees, but Ys X’s Release Line system is more of a glorified stat control grid. It’s as simple as it is fun: you can create and find Mana Seeds throughout the game, and they’re placed in little nodes, which then augment stats and sometimes grant unique attributes or effects in combat. It’s about as deep as you want it to be while also giving you a ton of control over your stats. This general theorem of “complex, yet simple” permeates well beyond the combat systems, as even the game’s crafting and equipment enhancing mechanics just operate on items and materials you can find by exploring the world and defeating enemies. These systems all work together to reward both combat and exploration of the pretty large islands scattered across Obelia Gulf, and I was hooked! It even got me in the mood to explore many optional quests off the beaten path, simply because you can still gather materials and work your way through the game’s progression systems smoothly while doing them.

Ys X’s claim to originality in the franchise is the sailing and ship combat, though. This aspect of Ys X is…..fun, but not as much as the regular movement and exploration. Your ship, the Sandras, starts off slow and plodding, and sailing around takes quite a bit of time. This problem melts away as you upgrade and gain access to faster means of sailing, but it’s still far chunkier than the grounded movement in a way I didn’t find super satisfying. The ship combat is also an acquired taste, falling victim to the same issues. It’s really all about endurance, steering the ship correctly, and aiming your strongest armaments until whatever you’re aiming at sinks. It wasn’t outright bad, and it was certainly an alright distraction and change of pace, but if they return to the concept I hope it can be refined into something tighter.

The Sandras also provides one of the best aspects of the game’s overworld travel: the hub. As you rescue Carnac’s citizens, you gain access to their services on your ship, which quickly turns your travel device into your main hub of operations. Being able to simply do all of my shopping on my ship cuts back on tedious backtracking, and it kept me more invested in the game’s plot as it rolled along. The most backtracking I’d ever do was for side-quests that took me all around the map, but otherwise? The facilities on the Sandras are more than capable of giving you everything you need on the go. My only complaint is the abundance of loading screens on your ship. You can’t access these facilities from a menu or anything else, so you have to sit through some very small loading screens as you walk around to do all of your purchasing and upgrading. And now all this talk of loading screens brings me to the only aspects of this port that brought the experience down in any notable way…..

It’s hard to shake the fact that the Switch is aging from my mind as I play Ys X. The game runs fine enough for a majority of its locations, albeit with a pretty compromised frame-rate. The moments when it dips, though, it dips VERY hard. I found it happened more often docked than undocked, but it was pretty distracting playing through a ship skirmish and seeing the frame-rate nosedive when the gaggle of enemies spawned. The loading screens also range from acceptable to unnervingly long, the most notable instance being at the very beginning of the game, oddly enough.

Suffice it to say, Ys X is a reminder of just how old the Switch is; and while I do appreciate being able to play it on the go, a mode that allows for better performance at the cost of visuals would have been excellent in making these ship skirmishes more appealing to actually partake in. Pop-in is evident, too, throughout the game. It’s never more than a mild distraction, and it’s clear it was implemented to keep the game’s performance solid in the more densely populated areas, so it’s a fair compromise in my eyes.

Ultimately, Ys X: Nordics is a fantastic RPG. As a Switch port this late in the console’s lifespan, it’s serviceable, and I still find it easy to recommend as the frame-rate issues and general performance don’t drag the combat and story down enough to warrant any caution. The game’s got plenty of difficulty customization options that you can toggle and tweak at your leisure, and while I found the game to be pretty comfy on Hard difficulty, there’s a lot there if you’re having trouble—including an option that makes battle terrain less jagged and more defined, so you’re not brushing up with the platformer-lite elements while you’re trying to manage enemy mobs. If you’re looking for a great action game you can sink about 30 to 40 hours in that has a well-paced story and great combat, Ys X: Nordics is right up your alley. Just be wary of those big boar looking enemies…..