Game Review: Ys Online

Available on: Mobile

Ugh.

I have been a fan of the Ys games for a while. I played several of the previous entries on my PS Vita, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and more. When I found out that there was an Ys Online game coming I got excited. I’ve also played MMOs since the late-90s so the idea of an Ys game and a MMO combined really intrigued me.

I’m not a huge fan of researching a bunch before a game gets released these days. I use to play a lot of games as a beta tester, especially MMOs, and I got tired to getting disappointed that features were busted and never fixed, redesigned only to be worse than before, or even completely removed in some cases. But what it taught me was that anything I see or hear prior to release doesn’t always make it to release. I eventually settled on the thought that if something teased prior to release won’t appear in the game or will appear but not in the same fashion as it was previously announced then why bother looking at things like that and getting excited about something that may not be in the final product.

Thankfully, being that this is a mobile app, I pre-registered in the App Store for the game and was notified for the launch. I downloaded the game to my iPad and my iPhone only to have to wait a substantial time for the game to update and download more data.

I still hate the idea of Day 1 patches BTW. Either finish the fucking game before you release it or hold off until you can. To Hell with the stockholders who push for games to be released before their ready to protect, preserve, or increase stock values. Their greed damages my gaming experience and only serves to dirty their brand.

Anyways…

There is nothing new or special about this Ys game, if you want to call it that. Outside of a few familiar sounding names, the game looks and plays like every other cheesy mobile MMO out there. You more or less let the game do the navigating by autorouting to each quest. You can even let the game do all of the combat for you unless you’re just bored. There isn’t a lot of challenge or variety to the game. 

If you enjoy mobile MMOs then this might appeal to you but frankly, if you already have a favorite mobile MMO then you’ll probably just want to stay with it because this game doesn’t add anything to the genre.

Don’t get me wrong, the graphics are nice on my devices. Gameplay is smooth. I haven’t had any crashes. The game seems stable and solid in terms of programming quality. The downfall of the game is entirely in its lack of genre innovation and being little more than a clone of all the other mobile MMOs out there. The developer is clearly relying on name recognition for the Ys franchise to draw in players because they didn’t invest any time or effort in making a game that could do it on its own.