Ys X First Playthrough: Endgame
0It's time to explore the final area of the game and see what's waiting at the end. (And before that, also catch a couple more fish.)
This game has taught me not to get my hopes up in any regard... and the final area completely reinforces that, being composed entirely of extremely bland gray rock surfaces. Sure, the skybox looks cool, but that's about the only interesting thing here. The enemies still seem to be rehashes of the same dozen or so enemy types that have permeated the entire game. There are a few interesting segues here or there for optional items, but these maps seem excessively straightforward and barren for just how large they are, and that can even cause exploration to drag out. This doesn't scream "endgame" to me; if anything, it screams "still in development, subject to change".
Then there's the matter of final plot points and confrontation. The game has been making it pretty blatantly clear for several chapters just who the old man was, so there was no surprising twist there whatsoever (although Karja apparently missed the memo). Given what Lila said earlier to the effect of Rollo not truly being evil but rather being occupied by some evil force, I expected that to be paving the way for some true larger-than-life final boss... but there was none. This has to be the most underwhelming ending to an Ys game I can remember: the final boss isn't even a "bad guy" per se, so the conflict is practically over before it's over, and the only surprise is that there is no surprise. (The final boss was also way more reasonable than the superboss, but I guess that's par for the course.)
...Okay, correction: the one surprise ended up being HOW HARD THE BACK HALF OF THE STAFF ROLL GOES! Seriously, where was this energy at the beginning of the game when there was no real OP?!
I won't go so far as to say I regret having spent the time to finish this game, although for how universally bland it was in every category, it absolutely does not warrant being as long as it is; this did indeed wind up being my longest first-playthrough of an Ys game, despite being the weakest entry the franchise has seen in multiple decades.
What I will certainly do is advise anyone else eyeballing Ys X to avoid paying full price for it, because Falcom absolutely doesn't deserve that for the most phoned-in entry of the entire franchise. While I already assumed the franchise had peaked at VIII, I didn't expect it to ever slide nearly this far downhill, and I certainly don't expect it to ever recover. (If it does, maybe that'll be the surprise twist this game's plot was missing.)
00:00 - Starting the final area
24:32 - Last-minute fishing and other prep
50:06 - Continuing the final area
2:00:03 - The final door
2:41:17 - Epilogue and final thoughts
3:58:26 - Addendum to do something I forgot