Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana review — Judging a cover by its book

You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, so I won’t. After all, this is a video game review. In the case of Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana, the cover just happens to be the most notable point of discussion. Everyone already knows that The Oath in Felghana is an all-time classic…or maybe you don’t even know what an Ys is? Well, my point is that this re-release creates a situation where I need to judge the cover by its book rather than the other way around. Oath was released nearly 20 years ago and has been widely available for a long time; this Memoire version simply wraps it in a shiny new cover of visual presentation.

Regardless of the form you play it in, Oath stands firmly as the best entry point for getting into Ys. Ys as a series goes through several phases featuring dramatically different gameplay and narrative styles. Oath exists in a perfect middleground between what Ys started as and what it would later become, perfectly encapsulating what makes Ys adventures engaging.

Oath uses a variety of gameplay ideas to forge a game with a sharp yet straightforward difficulty curve. Part hack-and-slash action game, part platformer, and part RPG, virtually every screen of Oath asks you to assess the situation and carefully blend your skills. On one screen you may need to carefully climb a vertical shaft of platforms, while navigating around enemies between each jump. On another, an enemy that requires tricky maneuvering could be situated between pockets of spikes or lava. Depending on your equipment and level, these challenges can range from mild to outrageous.

As an action game, Oath contains a notable depth in its deceptively simplistic combat mechanics. Basic sword slashes serve as the starting point, but your abilities extend beyond them when combined with aerial maneuvers and magical abilities. Magic in particular injects an element of strategy into its combat beyond just knowing when and where to attack enemies. Fire hits from a distance, wind racks up damage quickly and prolongs your ability to stay in the air (useful for avoiding enemies or crossing large gaps!), and earth overcomes enemy defenses while granting you some temporary invincibility. Recognizing what tool matches with each challenge keeps battles engaging far past the basic thrill of cutting through whatever stands in your way.

The extensive lineup of bosses naturally serves as the crowning jewel of Oath’s game design. Each foe pushes your mastery of the combat mechanics to its limits in new and interesting ways. I generally prefer having to truly learn and dodge attack patterns versus how later games tie your success to parry timing, and Oath specializes in the former approach. From sword fights with your rival Chester to that slightly obnoxious fire dragon that you need to keep chasing down, each fight feels intense and satisfying to complete. Admittedly, timing your earth magic for invincibility during the game’s later fights invokes some parry-esque feelings in my heart.

On top of its sharp game design, Oath also cuts straight to the point. The game moves at an incredibly snappy pace. Before you know it you’ll be moving on from chatting up townsfolk to blowing through dungeons and then moving onto the next location. The quick pace allows the game to grip you and not let go until it’s over. Oath condenses all of the mainstays of an RPG into the kind of game that you can fully complete in a weekend.

Yet at the same time, Oath never feels particularly rushed or empty. The story is solid and features some fun twists and turns. Every character in town has a surprising amount of dialogue when you talk to them and they regularly update their verbal repertoire as the game progresses. There are even a small handful of side quests to complete. Oath captures the feel of a full RPG while executing on it in less than half the playtime of most of its contemporaries. It’s a sharply designed and efficient game through and through: one easily worth playing if you’re new to Ys or replaying if you haven’t touched it since it was released on PSP.

If you were someone who played Oath in the past, you might be surprised to learn that little has changed since you last tried it. This Memoire version essentially just brings all of the PSP and PC version content to consoles, meaning you can speed the game up to play at 1.5x or 2x speed, listen to alternate soundtracks, peruse an art gallery, and have access to a variety of configuration options. Between these and the extensive amount of extra difficulties and boss challenges, Oath covers about every base you could possibly want to cover with a game like this.

Previous releases of Oath covered its bases so thoroughly that this new version only really adds one new feature: updated character portrait art. I’m not a big fan. The original art has a distinctive roughness to it that the more generic style of the new art bulldozes over at best. At its worst, the new art makes the characters look noticeably worse. I don’t think I can forgive whatever the heck they’ve done to Dogi – his face just looks off.

When it comes to judging this book’s new cover, two questions sprang to my mind. First, does the character art update make Oath feel modern? Not really. Modern entries like VII and X use a much more striking and distinctive art style than this. Second: does it fit the game? Also not really. Truthfully, the game as a whole doesn’t look modern with its prerendered characters and other stylistic touches. The new sterile art clashes with the plucky visuals present throughout the rest of the game. On top of that, the cutscenes were not updated to match the new art style, so you’re seeing the original designs anyway.

The new art mainly comes across like wasted effort. Maybe some analysis somewhere shows that someone somewhere might be somewhat more likely to buy Ys with cleaner artwork, but I can’t imagine it makes a significant difference. Thankfully, the change is completely optional and you can swap back to the original art at any time.

If anything should have gotten another look art-wise, it would be the 3D textures. This Memoire release seems to up the resolution of the visuals and call it a day, similar to how it might be if you were running the PSP version in an emulator. This results in some occasionally ugly looking pixellated textures that were obviously not meant to be seen in HD, often conspicuously plastered onto bosses. I don’t mind this a lot, but it’s strange to think that this wasn’t a priority when compared with the 2D art.

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