Ys X final review

in

The difficulty is inconveniently unbalanced and ruinous to the experience.

I am experienced with Ys games, and video games in general. Usually normal mode, designed for kids and young people, or people who don't play 10+ hours of video games a day, is too easy, and hard mode is more like "normal mode" for someone as experienced with games as myself. Ever since game companies started incorporating AI cheating so there is one difficulty and one difficulty only no matter what setting, games have been horribly disappointing, like Ys X.

On hard mode, the normal adventuring is trivial, but the boss battles are absurdly difficult. That does not reflect my experience of adventure in real life either. Boss battles in real life are extremely easy, because those people are typically brutes, tyrants, and criminals who bought their way to success without skill, intelligence, or talent, or otherwise were born into privilege with delusions of grandeur that have no basis in reality. Normal adventuring for people like me is much more difficult and rewarding because of all the people who have been cheated out of careers by criminals, bribery, and violent white collar crime by people who were born into money or otherwise were hobbled by delusions of genetic inheritance.

I would very much like the difficulty to be standard per setting for all players and not modified or adjusted by the AI to match the player's individual ability. Your subjective understanding of what is "hard" or "enjoyable" in a game is not anywhere near my own and the inferiority of your understanding ruins what was fun and enjoyable with Ys VIII and Ys IX which were my introduction to the series and among my favorite games.

Kindly unfuck yourselves, release a patch to remove the malicious code that hobbles your game's performance with its artificial unintelligence, or do better with the next game. I'd rather not have to change the difficulty every time I transition from dungeon navigation to boss battle, to not have to be annoyed by constantly having to pick up the two characters who are at 5 health without healing items. Just kill them and provide a game over. Do not force the player to constantly be at critical health and getting knocked out. Absurdly inconvenient and boring.

5/10