Forming a part of the Ys IV lore and considered a game in the core series, Ys: Memories of Celceta is a Vita exclusive JRPG following a protagonist called Adol. With a cliche plot device, the game starts off with Adol as clueless as the player, having lost his memory and the whole game revolves around him regaining lost pieces of his memories. The story starts off being slow, which is on par with the game play at that point. You will spend a short painful while as the game presents a fairly comprehensive tutorial such that you can learn your ropes. However, this also means that it's quite boring and uninteresting and it is only once you are introduced into the first dungeon does both the story and action get better and actually motivates you to keep going on.
As mentioned, the star, Adol, has lost his memories and through a series of events, he accepts the task of mapping out the Great Forest. Adol is actually one of the only ones to ever have entered and come out alive (and sane). Although this changes during the game in which any idiot can get in and out easily... Your task is then then to map out the forest which translate to traversing every single area. This game encourages you to explore and rewards you with milestone gifts as your map completion percentage rate inches closer and closer to 100%. Of course, throughout the story, you will encounter characters who will eventually join your party, until you get six playable characters, each with distinct skills and weapons. While each character's playing style isn't completely unique and distinct, there is enough variety. For example, one character uses throwing knives which means you can attack some distance away while another uses gauntlets which are more powerful but you have to be right in front of an enemy.
Or another character would use a spear which only jabs in front and the main character uses a sword, which sweeps enemies allowing effective crowd control. Couple this with continually learning new special attacks and it doesn't feel as if each character is just a palette swap with the same move set. Memories of Celceta is an action RPG, throwing away the strategic turn based battles for a more hack and slash affair. It is fast paced and is very fun to play. While simple, there are enough options to keep it fresh and interesting. Once you have had your first taste of a battle, you are itching for more and it's the prospect of more and more battles that keeps you charging forward and developing a "explore the next area before I put down the game" mentality. It gets very addictive one you've learned a few more skills and get more party members.
It's a simple to learn battle system, one button to attack, one to guard, one to dodge, one to switch characters, one to use a variety of special attacks and one for an ultimate attack (okay, that sounded a lot more complex in text but trust me, it's easy to pick up). There will be times where you will end up mashing buttons but there are some timing required for some enemy encounters. Dodging or guarding at the perfect time right when an enemy attacks will give you an advantage boost, such as slowing down the enemy. Also, each character has different weapons and one of three attack types, which you can exploit on enemies as they will have certain weaknesses. That said, the brisk pace of the action often hits a wall with the numerous dialogue scenes which seems to go very slowly.
It's not that the content of cutscenes are boring, it's just that the text boxes have text appearing too slowly without an option to change it in the settles (you can keep tapping the button or touchscreen but it gets annoying and is still quite slow) and you're forced to wait for character animations to play through. Voice acting is limited, there will be random words during story moments where it will be voiced but by and large, you will be reading most of it all (and you'll start to recognise that they have only recorded the same few words that gets repeated...). As you would expect, you will encounter boss battles. However, the way you defeat them is pretty much just how you would defeat a normal monster, it just takes a bit longer. If you're playing on Normal difficulty, there is no real strategy involved as you would mash your attacks, firing off some skills here and there and still be able to make it out.
Yet, some bosses will spice things up a bit, such as taking down their legs before you can hurt them, figuring out a pattern or a minigame type boss battle set underwater. Sadly, a lot of the boss battles (especially all of the earlier ones) are arbitrary. They are there just for boss battles, they have no significance to the story and it is this fact that makes these bosses seem tacked on. It's still a lot of fun, especially when bosses are usually much bigger than you are. In terms of equipment and gear, you get the standard weapon and armour system (one weapon slot, one armour and two accessories). However, there is a significant customisation process called refining and reinforcing. Basically, you use the materials you obtained from defeating monsters to make better materials which you can use to reinforce your weapons and armour. It'll give the equipment some specific traits.
For weapons, you can add traits such as poisoning the enemy, freezing it, healing yourself whenever you deal damage and more. For armour, you can reduce the probability of attracting specific status effects. I really like the way that you have the freedom of what type of status effect you want your weapon to inflict by this process, instead of being forced to have a specific weapon (which would be superseded) or a specific move. Graphics are decent but will definitely not blow you away. It takes on a shiny tinge and will feel low res, especially compared to some of the prettier Vita games out there. It is not PSone level and feels more detailed than PS2 games but yet it still feels undefined and blurry. Even the character models don't escape this low res feel. I think I've read somewhere that it was based on the Ys Seven PSP engine which would explain this.
Character portraits, which are pieces of art, on the other hand, looks crisp and amazing. It makes me feel that it would have been awesome if we could have gotten 2D cutscenes here and there similar to the vein of the Tales of series, Persona and other JRPGs. The first thing you would notice in the beginning cutscene is the awkward and walking in which the characters appears to be half sliding across the screen. Slightly disappointing there but you get used to it. The music is great and there are some great tunes. It's not really something that you listen to outside of teh game as it needs context but it pulls you into the atmosphere and I can't fault it. It lends itself well to the action; this is an action RPG after all so we needed some fast pace music to match what's happening onscreen.
As the whole game effectively takes place around a forest and its surrounding areas, there are only so many different environments you can have. Still, the developers has done a great job at making each section look different, you still get to explore the forest, underground ruins and cities (fantasy style. Memories of Celceta don't have any futuristic machine heavy type cities). Green comes up a lot, whether from the fields or vegetation lying around and that's what makes it seem as if the locality is limited when it's not. One of the best things is the exploration, maps are unbelievably large. Each time you get to a new area, it will take some time in order to uncover it fully, especially discovering all the collectibles and treasure chests. Once you've uncovered the whole map, it's crazy when you realise how big it is.
Something that is surprising but I guess to be expected is loading screens. There are loading screens between each area and while it isn't too long (a few seconds), as they appear so frequently it can get a little bit annoying. You get the feeling that something as simple as entering and exiting a house shouldn't even have a loading screen. Yes, it is a minor quibble but it is there. On the other hand, warping from one end of the map to the other end is quicker is expected, there's still a brief loading screen but it's the same length as just exiting a house... I don't know whether to praise the developer or question them (you would expect loading a large map to take longer). In addition to the main storyline and collectibles, there are side quests. They are usually very simple affair, mostly being fetch quests. It's still welcome and there isn't a horrible huge amount to pad out the game.
An awesome touch is that each time a story event is over and you return to a previous city, NPCs have updated dialogue to reflect those events. This is something that a lot of other JRPG's need to do as it makes it feel less artificial and makes the world more immersive. It also gives the player incentive to talk to NPCs again to gain more insight into the story. It's good that Memories of Celceta threw away the JRPG tradition of save points, you can save anywhere, literally. In the middle of the dungeon? Check. In the town or field map? Check. It allows you to pick it up anytime and stop anytime.
The whole journey will take approximately 20 to 30 hours, depending on how fast you like to go (e.g. finishing all quests, exploring everywhere, not skipping cutscenes). Sadly, after all that investment, the ending is a disappointment. Granted, this is a replacement game for the canon of Ys IV but at the very least, provide some closure to the story like what the characters' futures hold and what happened to them. As it is, after the final boss battle, the game effectively just ends abruptly. There is a New Game Plus mode in which you retain everything except key items but the only new thing in this mode is "Boss Rush". This mode gives you your chosen party at predetermined levels and fight through all the bosses of the game, the aim is to defeat the boss as quickly as possible.
The game's hardest difficulty is Nightmare mode. I wouldn't recommend playing this on your first go but if you choose it as New Game Plus, the game is still quite easy, except for the bosses. The bosses in Nightmare mode provides a much bigger challenge, you will have to rely more on timing your dodges and guards. You cannot mash the attack button to overpower bosses because the level caps at 60 and later bosses are near that level cap. It makes you think and look out for attack patterns adding in a higher focus in strategy. Ys: Memories of Celceta is a fantastic JRPG. It nails one of the most important elements: which is fun gameplay. While the story isn't the most captivating and the graphics can be improved, it is a solid game that's well worth your time.
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