Various Thoughts

Playing Memories of Celceta, the third Ys IV iteration, after Lacrimosa was a very bad idea. Not because of the plot/character connections (which are superficial), but because of the technical quality; it’s no better than Seven. Arguably worse:

While it’s true you eventually get the ability to warp at any time, for the first half of the game or so your fast travel is restricted by pointlessly color-coded monoliths. Worse is how ‘gamey’ it is, with bizarre obstacles constantly being placed in your path that can only be overcome by using a particular party member’s controlled ability. The new GUI is also a problem, both due to the ease of being able to accidentally click on the Inventory/Item buttons when you’re trying to simply attack (continuously attempting to move the camera via mouselook is a nasty habit) and because the ‘cancel’ keybind doesn’t work on all screens when bound to the right mouse button (you have to manually click the onscreen cancel/back button). On the positive side of things at least the combat itself hasn’t deteriorated and this does mark the first appearance of Flash Dodging… so it’s not all bad.

Finished it in ~20.5 hours with 100% map/quest/treasure/monster completion at level 57. The storyline this time around is notable for being something of an origin story despite taking place after Felghana, and in that respect it’s decent. The ‘modern day’ part however unfortunately focuses on the winged race and Darkling descendants (both of which are terrible) in a manner similar to Origin; the whole ‘blatantly false god that everyone worships like a god’ trope really needs to go (which, if Lacrimosa is any indication of future direction, may actually come to pass).