Ys VIII: Lacrimosa Of DANA

[Ike]

Speaking of, this got an official novelisation which also got translated https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lacrimosa-Dana-Officially-Licensed-Novelization/dp/1940076986/

[darksnowman]

16 hours ago, Ike said:

Speaking of, this got an official novelisation which also got translated https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lacrimosa-Dana-Officially-Licensed-Novelization/dp/1940076986/

Oh, nice. Now you bring it up, I remember seeing that mentioned on RPGamer or somewhere last year. You read it? I'll definitely want to give it a look sometime after I get through the game first. 

Last thing I did was the Ghost Ship. Got gunman Hummel in the active party for a while now. Felt like the conversation at the end of it with Captain Reed lasted longer than going through the ship. Still, a location like that is always welcome. Then, back at camp we got the ability to warp. Which is a bit weird since I've been able to warp around the whole time so I'll have to see what the new implications are exactly.

Previously in this chapter, I spent a fair bit of time bumbling around with Dana on her tod. Apparently a door was ripe for the opening in her underground area but for whatever reason when I went to it nothing happened. I looped around the available rooms several times, checking for a switch or something to interact with, then headed outside to see if there were any sidequest icons I could hit to up her virtue and potentially open that door. All to no avail. Turns out (and speaking of warping), you just have to come at it from the "most recent" warp point. Which makes sense once you see it because her objectives are listed at each warp point on her map! Not that getting through that door was required to progress the story, I'm just enjoying the act of playing the game so I'm happy to go wherever there is something to get on with. 

Next up, there's two or three new sidequests in the camp and I only covered like ~83.3% of the Ghost Ship so I want to see if I can board it again.

[Ike]

On 23/01/2024 at 3:38 PM, darksnowman said:

Oh, nice. Now you bring it up, I remember seeing that mentioned on RPGamer or somewhere last year. You read it? I'll definitely want to give it a look sometime after I get through the game first.

I bought the Kindle version, haven't got round to reading it yet. If I like it I might pick up the hardback version, no idea why it's so expensive.

[darksnowman]

On 25/01/2024 at 8:58 PM, Ike said:

I bought the Kindle version, haven't got round to reading it yet. If I like it I might pick up the hardback version, no idea why it's so expensive.

Reckon I'll go the Kindle route too based on the pricing. 

I'd think I was in the epilogue portion of the game now if I hadn't checked the chapter count online back during the game trial to judge my chances of finishing this for free. 

There were some nice scenes with the entire group of castaways and I even got to see a snippet of what it looks like when they're doing their part during raids. 

After some consideration, I opted for "Let's Avenge the captain! Together!" because I decided it'd be what they'd want to hear to gee them up.

With Oceanus (weird they say it "oaky" with a hard c), our biggest threat to getting safely off the island out of the way, Dogi and co just need to wrap up the shipbuilding and we're off... or so you'd think. There are still a few areas I need more castaways to access and adventure gear to get, so the Valley of the Kings must be about to cough up something to string us along some more.

Which is fine by me, needing to see the final FMV isn't what's been propelling me through—there's a definite hint of investigative metroidvania to how I've been going about things. I just can't help but assess where else I can go each time I nudge the story destination forward. The segmentation of the island is a benefit, imo. It's upfront with what each locale contains. Love that from pretty much everywhere you can look around and see smoke wafting up from the distant basecamp. Though it always makes me wonder why the castaways you come across—especially those that seem to be coping just fine on the hostile island—didn't try to get there themselves.

Noticed I've been dependent on the potions that replenish 60% of your HP a pop. Think I should have a go at cooking since I've amassed a decent list of recipes by this point. Also behind with weapon upgrades for the first time in a while and there's always Master Kong to catch up with... so perhaps before progressing the story a few detours are in order. I want castaway Silvia to come out and about with us. If she was an active party member we'd rip this island to shreds in two shakes of a primordial's tail.

Edited January 28 by darksnowman
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[darksnowman]

I put in a session and finished this. Thought I was content with it being a quaint little story about castaways with nods to the greater world and series (presumably) of Ys. Thought I was happy for it not to go places. Thought it evoked a wonderful sense of adventure as it was. Thought this game I started during the game trial and was wrapping up all this time later would have no business in my GotY 2024 reckoning. I thought wrong. This will take some topping. Elation, confusion, relief and more shades in between; my emotions ran the gamut during that finale. What. A. Game. And the credits were so short! Well done those people. Bravo. 

Did everything pre-final boss except a pair of chests (no map icons for them that I could see), missed two enemies and several fish. Oh and I failed one side quest during the game trial because I didn't know I was about to hit the point when it expired. Didn't make that mistake again! And one pesky check box was unticked with "???". Maxed out the weapons, maxed out the village defences, maxed out relationships (bar maybe one if it depended on that side quest), explored all areas 100%, did all the hunts and raids. The topnotch gameplay made it a breezy ~65 hours. A pleasure to play.

Just been checking online and it seems the stuff that opens up is for challenge purposes. If I hear different and there's more story, I'll be on it quicksmart, otherwise it's time to let this one rest, reflect on the journey it's taken me on, and try to resist slotting Ys IX straight in.