I played and beat the PSP version of Ys: The Oath in Felghana a few weeks ago. Oath is a remake of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys, which was originally a controversial shift in direction for the series due to its 2D, side-scrolling perspective. Oath reimagines Ys III akin to the rest of the series’ top-down combat, while implementing some innovations of its own. Though Oath is the first Ys game I’ve completed, I did play a bit of the original game on the SNES quite a long time ago. I remember it not being very good.

As is typical of Ys, your player character is Adol Christin, a silent protagonist who is traveling with his mouthpiece/lover, the burly Dogi, when they hear that Dogi’s homeland is under invasion by monsters and other weird shit, so they set off for adventure, because that’s just what they do.

The plot of Oath is completely unremarkable, if serviceable. The voice acting quality is surprisingly great, but the storyline is short, shallow, and full of cliches (granted, this was originally an SNES game). Dogi is a pretty infectiously charismatic guy that’s simply fun to hear talk, but the rest of the supporting cast is rather stock (hell, even Dogi is, honestly). But, the plot isn’t the point of Oath.

Ys is an action RPG series. You slash and jump your way past various obstacles and monsters across the overworld and several dungeons to find some item at the end that advances the story. Typical stuff, but the gameplay is very fast and addicting. The moment Adol hits an enemy, a combo bar starts that builds the more you build up your combo. If you wait too long without hitting an enemy, the combo bar drops and you lose your bonuses when it’s gone.

By just attacking enemies, you can potentially gain twice the experience from killing them if you build up a high-enough combo. Sometimes enemies drop orbs which can increase your strength, defense, or the recovery rate of your MP meter for the duration of your combo. This combo system actively rewards you for constantly fighting, and the fast speed of combat keeps the player from getting bored. It’s a simple but effective system.

You can also find elemental bracelets through the course of the game that each have different effects in battle. You can hold down the magic button to make the effect stronger, and collect gems that go on the bracelets to power them up. Your MP meter gradually restores when not in use, and you can make it restore faster by picking up MP orbs and combo-ing enemies.

As you fight enemies and are damaged, another special meter will fill up that when at maximum allows you to activate Adol’s super mode, which makes him much faster and increases his stats. This lasts a short time, but can still be a lifesaver. I recall reading that the PSP version added the ability for the super mode to fully heal the player, so to compensate for this advantage, I played Oath on the Hard difficulty.

Enemies also drop gold which you can use to purchase new equipment or items, and you can find Raval Ore which is used for upgrading your equipment further. There are a small amount of sidequests and backtracking you can do to collect special accessories and other items which will help Adol in battle. You’ll probably want to do this, as Oath is a fairly challenging game and only a couple of hours long.

The enemies of Ys are little more than cannon fodder and nothing compared to the bosses, which can hit you for large amounts of damage. But for the most part, the boss battles in Oath are skill-based. The bosses have patterns to their attacks, and all of them can be avoided consistently once you learn how. You have to have good reflexes and a lot of patience if you want to win, especially against the hardest bosses.

But no matter how frustrated you are, the difficulty is never insurmountable. You can always upgrade your equipment or level up, and even one level makes a humongous difference in the power gap between you and an enemy. It’s a good alternative way out for less-committed players. It warrants praise how finely-scaled the leveling system is in general, as the max level is roughly where you want to be when facing the true final boss.

At the time of writing, I haven’t played many action RPGs, but Ys: The Oath in Felghana was definitely one of the better ones. It was very addicting, short, and sweet.