Ys Origin review for Nintendo Switch

I?ve long had a soft spot for the Ys series. Going back to Ys Seven on the PSP — about a decade ago — I?ve always found time to sink a fair amount of hours into each new game in the series, and that includes Ys Origin when it was rereleased on the Vita about four years ago.

In other words, I went into Ys Origin on the Switch pretty much knowing I would like it. While the game departs a little from the usual Ys formula — more on that in a moment — it?s still exactly what you?d expect from a modern Ys game, and, consequently, it can?t help but be a solid action RPG.

As I said, though, it is a little different. Rather than fighting through wild lands with Adol and Dogi, Ys Origin takes place hundreds of years before the first game in the series — which means, of course, no Adol and Dogi. It takes a little getting used to the new characters here, especially since one of them is a mage rather than a warrior, but eventually the game settles into a solid rhythm.

If you?re going to nitpick, you might even say that the game settles into too much of a rhythm. One of the joys of modern Ys games is that the maps seem genuinely huge. In Ys Origin, by contrast, it sometimes feels like you?re fighting in dungeon after dungeon, without any real variety to break it up. I mean, it?s a dungeon-crawler, so that?s kind of the point, but it still feels a little same-y in places.

Still, even without some of the series? usual trappings, Ys Origin can?t help but be fun. It may be a slightly different take on what the Ys series has offered in recent years, but for fans of the series, it?s well worth checking out.

DotEmu provided us with a Ys Origin Switch code for review purposes.