Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA |OT| Adol Christian and Dana's Big Hole

Ah, ok. Then I am a bit further than you.

About the boss at the end of chapter 2


Edit: good to hear that the game is really hard and it is not just me. I thought I was going crazy when I read some comments that even on the hardest difficulty it is not really challenging.
I will try to improve my timing on the dash.

Imp the Dimp said:

Which chapter are you at? Not sure if I can click on that spoiler tag because I'm in chapter 3. Either way, using the guard is the right choice as far as I can tell. It's pretty easy to time, well easier than a parry in a Souls game for instance.

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Just parrying is the safe route but it makes fights take way longer and riskier overall. Because you can stack the dodge and parry together off the same attack and the fact you can refresh them even while active still it ends up with you moving and attacking at hyper speeds doing 100% crits while the monster moves slower for you to keep chaining dodges and parries in the extended active frames of the monsters attacks

Kafkaswaffle said:

Edit: good to hear that the game is really hard and it is not just me. I thought I was going crazy when I read some comments that even on the hardest difficulty it is not really challenging.
I will try to improve my timing on the dash.

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Those people are full of shit or just abused healing items. Inferno no healing/recovery items are 2-5 min fights of nonstop attacks ever 1 or 2 seconds with being only allowed 1-3 mistakes *so 9 mistakes max with 3 characters tho they get hit so sometimes you only get 1 anyways and if characters die they get no exp so do you reallllllllllly want to beat stuff with adol dead?*

This is a series known for being very challenging

I'll try to incorporate the double combo if I can. So far I found it quite easy to pull the parry off reliably, but I've not gotten truly stuck yet to the point of desparation. Gargantula took the most tries for sure.

And how do you abuse healing items? Asking for a friend.

And I agree it's definitely not an easy game on nightmare. Armchair badasses need to calm down.

Imp the Dimp said:

And how do you abuse healing items? Asking for a friend.

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Most of the game wasn't nearly as hard as I had expected, that much is true. This was my first Ys on inferno and first party system Ys (but my fifth Ys overall) and I was expected to have to drop at some point. It's definitely extremely fast compared to a lot of the well known challenging games of today though, so I can see some people finding the timing very difficult. It also peaks way harder than anything in something like a Souls game. I didn't really need more than a few healing items (which you find just playing the game normally) per boss in more than I think three boss fights until late in the fifth chapter.

The endgame boss rush is a meat grinder though. I just noped out (item spam) at that point. Crazy difficult compared to the rest of the game.

Just finished the game. Awesome.

Can't say anything bad about it. Played on ps4 pro and it was an amazing ride.

SavoryTruffle said:

Spoiler: Avoid unless you absolutely need

Cruberries, Coconuts, Mangoes, and Dragon Tree Fruit can easily be farmed from standard gather points. You always get at least one and 4 can be traded to Dina in town for a revive. Once you get the drop up equipment (standard drop up gloves and rare drop up accessories) you get 3-5 per point. The points then respawn every few times you warp or every story event that passes. If you figure out a cycle moving between multiple locations with high point count, you can easily gather 10+ revives in about 2 minutes. Even on inferno, you can carry upto 36 revives using only standard revive items.

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Oh I actually kind of know that. Doesn't really strike me as abuse. I stock up after every hard boss.

Imp the Dimp said:

Oh I actually kind of know that. Doesn't really strike me as abuse. I stock up after ever hard boss.

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It's kind of a grey area, in the same way level grinding is in general. I think it's closer to abuse in this game, simply because the difficulty plummets so severely, but it's also clearly an intended option in a way cheese often isn't, so I can see it either way.

Healing items pretty much negate all the challenge which is fine and all if people need them, but going from 3 mistakes allowed to 30+ is super drastic xD

I don't expect people to spend up to 2 hours mastering bosses in a game that chews you up and spits you out over and over as fast as this one does xD But it was super satisfying :)

Two questions:

1. Is there a tier list for playable characters? I swapped Sahad for but I'm not sure what to make of her low damage and not so great initial skills. She's way faster and more fan than Sahad though.

2. What should I do about normal enemies who seem way too tanky and dangerous to be worth the time? Like those huge crabs during the first night mission or the giant gorillas in chapter 3 - I don't see why I should bother with them? 1 gorilla is worth 10x monkey XP, and killing 10 monkeys is trivial in comparison.

Game has been pretty great. Feel like the pacing was good and never hit that point where it felt like a drag in the middle that I feel in a lot of RPG's.


Think I'm getting close to the end.

DeuceGamer said:

Think I'm getting close to the end.

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You're not too far off but still have a solid few hours to go.

iamsirjoshua said:

You're not too far off but still have a solid few hours to go.

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Cool, thought I was getting pretty close. Been a good one. I'm kinda glad there is more because...

Turned out force edge was the key to success. Thanks for the tips. That skill is quite a bit more powerful than the ones I used before, to put it mildly.
On we go on my nightmare run.

Nice!

Imp the Dimp said:

Two questions:

1. Is there a tier list for playable characters? I swapped Sahad for

Spoiler

Ricotta

but I'm not sure what to make of her low damage and not so great initial skills. She's way faster and more fan than Sahad though.

2. What should I do about normal enemies who seem way too tanky and dangerous to be worth the time? Like those huge crabs during the first night mission or the giant gorillas in chapter 3 - I don't see why I should bother with them? 1 gorilla is worth 10x monkey XP, and killing 10 monkeys is trivial in comparison.

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Sahad is best crushing always unless you need to farm items then the other character is better, the second pierce character is ideal for no healing runs because of the range attack he gets his ult is hilariously op as well and Adol is the best of the slashing force edge and his final skill are stupid.


For farming exp it's all about exp per munite so if lots of little end up more after a minute then that's better

QisTopTier said:

Healing items pretty much negate all the challenge which is fine and all if people need them, but going from 3 mistakes allowed to 30+ is super drastic xD

I don't expect people to spend up to 2 hours mastering bosses in a game that chews you up and spits you out over and over as fast as this one does xD But it was super satisfying :)

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I think that YS has the advantage over other games like dark souls where even though the boss fights are incredible hard, they are also incredible short (unless you are way underleveled) so in that sense the game has this "one more time" feel with bosses where you really want to beat them fair and square, also since you restart the fight inmediately after dying, isn't as tedious as DS games where you have to go from the respawn point, to the boss area at the risk of being killed by a regular minion

Imp the Dimp said:

Is there a tier list for playable characters?

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The only constant I found online was that Adol is the best character by a huge margin. There seems to be debate over everyone else.

I generally found that character quality came down to two things: bread and butter skill and versatility. Adol is the best because Force Edge is the best. Most other characters gain power boost at certain points because they gain a certain skill. The character you spoilered becomes great when you get Flame Swing but gets progressively worse because she never gets a better skill. Hummel is great at Guilty Raid and then again at Prominence Shot. Laxia is the only character in the game I tended to use more than one skill at a time with, and for that reason I would play solo with her if I ever do a solo run, but she doesn't have any crazy overpowered skill either.

Hummel's ultimate seemed great, but it was bugged for me and randomly did zero damage. =/

Kafkaswaffle said:

Turned out force edge was the key to success. Thanks for the tips. That skill is quite a bit more powerful than the ones I used before, to put it mildly.
On we go on my nightmare run.

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I'm at this boss now and I had a pretty good first try, but ran out of bleed healing items. I'll slay him tomorrow. Just for reference, what level were you? Adol is 32 and the boss is 35, leading me to believe I'm slightly underleveled.

SavoryTruffle said:

The only constant I found online was that Adol is the best character by a huge margin. There seems to be debate over everyone else.

I generally found that character quality came down to two things: bread and butter skill and versatility. Adol is the best because Force Edge is the best. Most other characters gain power boost at certain points because they gain a certain skill. The character you spoilered becomes great when you get Flame Swing but gets progressively worse because she never gets a better skill. Hummel is great at Guilty Raid and then again at Prominence Shot. Laxia is the only character in the game I tended to use more than one skill at a time with, and for that reason I would play solo with her if I ever do a solo run, but she doesn't have any crazy overpowered skill either.

Hummel's ultimate seemed great, but it was bugged for me and randomly did zero damage. =/

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OK thank you

Imp the Dimp said:

I'am at this boss now and I had a pretty good first try, but ran out of bleed healing items. I'll slay him tomorrow. Just for reference, what level were you? Adol is 32 and the boss is 35, leading me to believe I'm slightly underleveled.

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For me, Adol was also 32, so no need to worry. Good luck.

Damn, already in chapter 4. The game is soo good.

I'm really enjoying the game, but man, resolution is ROUGH on Switch version (undocked). Reminds me of Xenoblade 2.

Kind of make me wish they would make a version visually closer to Vita's, but at 720p60 fps.

HeRinger said:

I'm really enjoying the game, but man, resolution is ROUGH on Switch version (undocked). Reminds me of Xenoblade 2.

Kind of make me wish they would make a version visually closer to Vita's, but at 720p60 fps.

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Agreed. Though I personally did find XB2 to be better despite the overall lower res due to its artstyle. Ys VIII doesn't look as pleasing and has the lower res which really sours my experience of Ys overall.
But I also liked Xenoblade more in other areas like characters and gameplay so that did help definitely.

Completely agree on the Vita port idea.

Up to chapter 5 now and it feels like the game's getting easier. I'm 1st trying every boss without too much trouble. I wonder if it's one of those games where the difficulty peaks in the early chapters when you pick a hard difficulty setting. I remember that popular Fire Emblem game on DS or 3DS where the first two or three missions were the hardest in the game when you played on the highest diifficulty setting.

Awesome game still but chapter 4 had too many story interruptions.

There were like 3 or 4 pretty easy bosses on my inferno playthrough one I killed in less than a minute in confusion. The game spikes back up eventually

Do shelved characters gain less than 100% XP? It seems so.

HeRinger said:

I'm really enjoying the game, but man, resolution is ROUGH on Switch version (undocked). Reminds me of Xenoblade 2.

Kind of make me wish they would make a version visually closer to Vita's, but at 720p60 fps.

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The performance of the PC version increased by like over 100% at the very least in March-April, but by then the development of the Switch version was surely long underway. Considering the Switch review versions had in-between text that was also present in earlier PC versions, it's probably safe to assume they used one of the interim builds as a base for the Switch version (and let me tell you those had severe performance bottlenecks).
If they had waited a bit longer I'm fairly certain the Switch version would be able to handle its current visuals without aggressive dynamic resolution and with 60fps.
But faster > quality, right.

I'm at the fight now after 39h. How much more to go? Man, I'm gonna 100% this game for sure. I just wish the framerate was better. It's pretty close to being a stuttery mess. Certainly one of the worst 60 FPS games I've played in a while. It never runs at 60 FPS when you need it to.

Imp the Dimp said:

I'm at the Oceanus fight now after 39h. How much more to go? Man, I'm gonna 100% this game for sure. I just wish the framerate was better. It's pretty close to being a stuttery mess. Certainly one of the worst 60 FPS games I've played in a while. It never runs at 60 FPS when you need it to.

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There's still a good chunk of the game to go. If you're there after 39 hours, maybe 15-20 more?

What platform are you playing on? PS4 and patched PC should be a good 60 fps while Switch is meant to be 30.

PS4 Pro and it runs terribly to be honest. I'm happy to hear there's so much more left!

Imp the Dimp said:

I'm at the

Spoiler

Oceanus

fight now after 39h. How much more to go? Man, I'm gonna 100% this game for sure. I just wish the framerate was better. It's pretty close to being a stuttery mess. Certainly one of the worst 60 FPS games I've played in a while. It never runs at 60 FPS when you need it to.

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Wut, I didn't experience this. Do you have boost mode on?

QisTopTier said:

Wut, I didn't experience this. Do you have boost mode on?

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Run with L1 through the village and you'll see the 60 FPS drop.

Imp the Dimp said:

Run with L1 through the village and you'll see the 60 FPS drop.

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Oh I didn't care about the village. I noticed it there a bit but you never fight there so didn't really mind it.

I've darted around places with 15-20 dudes trailing behind me just fine throughout the game

QisTopTier said:

Oh I didn't care about the village. I noticed it there a bit but you never fight there so didn't really mind it.

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It stutters very often, I just mentioned the village because you can easily reproduce the effect. It seems to only ever run at 60 FPS when little happens.

Imp the Dimp said:

It stutters very often, I just mentioned the village because you can easily reproduce it. It seems to only ever run at 60 FPS when little happens.

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Shrug, never noticed due the nature of flash guard and dodge slowing the game down all the time natrually was in that state for a majority of my playtime haha

I noticed some frame drops in my ps4 pro, but nothing game changing like Qis said

Imp the Dimp said:

It stutters very often, I just mentioned the village because you can easily reproduce the effect. It seems to only ever run at 60 FPS when little happens.

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I don't have this problem on PS4 Pro, but an occasion hiccup does happen.

You could try going to settings and setting your resolution to 1080p if you're on a 4k TV instead of automatic or if you shut super sampling mode off if you're not on a 4k TV. A lot of games won't run at the higher resolution if the system is shut down to 1080p and the super sampling mode is off. This gives big performance gains in certain games, Witcher 3 for example. IDK if it'll work here, but you could try it. Also, make sure boost mode is on.

Thinking of playing this game next. Is the PC version "fixed" yet? Or I should wait a bit longer?

Elven_Star said:

Thinking of playing this game next. Is the PC version "fixed" yet? Or I should wait a bit longer?

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Some people still get crashes, but that's the only real issue now. But it can be a big one depending on your luck. I played it for 60 hours and got a few crashes. It was annoying, but since the game constantly autosaves I never lost any progress.

But I don't know if they are going to patch it anymore, so waiting might not help.

Elven_Star said:

Thinking of playing this game next. Is the PC version "fixed" yet? Or I should wait a bit longer?

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I played the latest version and it was very solid for the time I tested it (I had already beaten the game, so I hopped around all my saves for a bit). That's not enough to test for crashes, but performance was great for me. I do recommend forcing vsync in your graphics card control panel.

It's worth testing out if you already own it. I would wait for more impressions before buying.

Comic Obsessed said:

I guess is more similar to Tales because of the action-oriented gameplay and party members.

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I can work with that. Thanks;

adam prime said:

I would classify it as a mix of: Dynasty Warriors (combat) / Monster Hunter (world structure of different hub levels) / Star Ocean 3 Til the End of Time (filling up your map % and battle) / Xenoblade (exploration and uncovering a map)

Is that enough game mashing to describe one game?

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Thanks for the effort, but since i haven't played most of those :-)

I'll finish XC2 first and give it a go.

Sorry if this has been answered before, but I searched the OP for info about the plans for patches (I read it somewhere on this forum). Is the Switch version done now, as in the patches are all done? I've bought it, but was waiting for it to be fully patched.

Tailzo said:

Sorry if this has been answered before, but I searched the OP for info about the plans for patches (I read it somewhere on this forum). Is the Switch version done now, as in the patches are all done? I've bought it, but was waiting for it to be fully patched.

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Yup, all the big patches are already up. I had no problems with the game and the text localization.

Rasec said:

Yup, all the big patches are already up. I had no problems with the game and the text localization.

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Thank you :)

This game will be my next game after Octopath, and before Valkyria Chronicles 4. :) I'm feeling excited! Ys 7 and Celesta were both awesome on handhelds.

I'm still hoping for a patch that might optimize the game a tad more; the way they did with the PC release as well. It's nowhere near being a horrible port but it's the weakest version of the game at this point imo in terms of resolution and framerate (stability) when looking at the hardware capabilities. I want Ys on Switch to be the best it possibly can be and atm that's not the case. The Vita version as well as the PS4 one seem to be much more capable when looking at the respective specs. Too bad it's hard to go back to the Vita due to the missing content.

The constant switching from blurry to sharp and vice versa is driving me nuts. You can't even escape it in static cutscenes or even standing still.

I don't play switch in docked mode but I'm almost considering it. Is the resolution fluctuating better or worse that way?

Docked works better in my experience but I only played around 2h docked so far while putting around 18 into handheld play.
People on here noticed rather aggressive dynamic resolution when docked as well, though.

Elven_Star said:

Thinking of playing this game next. Is the PC version "fixed" yet? Or I should wait a bit longer?

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We've put a lot of work into it since launch and now stand by the updated version. Any of the major issues reported at the start of the release have been patched out, though due to the nature of PC development, some issues may occur based on a specific hardware setup. We recommend that you check that all of your drivers have been updated (most of the issues we've received lately have been user-driver based).

So no more patches planned?

Great game! Playthrough was a pleasure.

I hope for the PC port to get a bit more work done to it. Aliasing is rampant (i.e. when you match 1080p display with Medium rendering, which is supposed to be 1080p rendering), anti-aliasing solutions range from poor af to non-existent (the FXAA is an absolute joke and only makes things look even worse, while not everybody can afford to render the game at a higher res than their display res), and the textures have yet to get any sort of filtering. Not to mention the opening movie is out of sync with the music.