Inspiring a Classic: Revisiting Ys Seven in 2024

Ys Seven was released in Japan in 2009, and released in North America and Europe the following year. It's the ninth of Adol's adventures, taking place after the events of Lacrimosa of Dana and The Ark of Napishtim but before the events of Monstrum Nox. The game is available on PC (through Steam and GOG) and PlayStation Portable. Many aspects of Seven went on to inspire Lacrimosa of Dana, which in turn was iterated on to make Monstrum Nox. With Nordics releasing next month, let's take a look back at the game that inspired one of the most popular games in the Ys series.

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The Story

Ys Seven takes place in the kingdom of Altago, on the continent of Afroca. After a long-running war against the Romun Empire, Altago is finally open for travel. Adol and his best friend Dogi travel to the kingdom on a ship thanks to the recommendation of a pirate they met in Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand who appears in The Ark of Napishtim. Knowing the pirate earns them an audience with Altago's king, thanks to the pirate and his crew siding with Altago in the war against the Romun Empire. This gets the pair out of trouble with the Dragon Knights, the kingdom's military, after interfering when Raud is harassing a young flower seller named Tia.

The king of Altago, a man named Kiemarl, asks Adol and Dogi to look into an ancient shrine that was unearthed by a recent earthquake. While the Dragon Knights were unable to find anything, King Kiemarl suspects there's more to the shrine that a famous adventurer might be able to find something the Dragon Knights couldn't. From there, Adol and Dogi's adventure begins.

Similar to Ys 8

Ys Seven's second half will feel familiar to anyone who remembers Lacrimosa of Dana's story. In a lot of ways, it makes Lacrimosa of Dana feel like a larger-scale and improved version of Ys Seven's story. Where in Seven the late-game calamity threatens the destruction of Altago, in Lacrimosa of Dana it threatens the destruction of the world as a whole. However, in both games, you meet a wide variety of characters whose stories and struggles you come to care about.

The Gameplay

Ys Seven was the first in the series to feature a party system. Where in previous adventures Adol took on monsters by himself, in Seven he's accompanied by Dogi and seven other party members. The active party can only ever consist of three characters, but experience gained is still shared across both the active and inactive parties. It expands upon the element mechanic seen in the games made in the Napishtim engine, where instead of Adol switching between three pieces of elemental equipment, the player switches between three party members with certain attack attributes. The other two active party members are controlled by AI, including movement, using skills, and collecting resources.

Ys Seven gives a brief tutorial over two of the attack attributes - Slash and Strike, for Adol and Dogi respectively - where it goes over what types of enemies will be weak to Slash or Strike. However, it never does this with the third attribute, Pierce. Unless players are familiar with the system from Lacrimosa of Dana or Monstrum Nox, the system becomes a guessing game to figure out which enemies are weak to which type. Lacrimosa of Dana improved upon this by adding enemies' weaknesses to their UI, as well as adding the mechanic that attacking enemies with the weapon type they're weak to will Break them, stunning the enemy while granting the player a large bonus of SP.

Similar to FF9

Seven makes use of a similar system to Final Fantasy 9, where some skills are only usable when the party member has a certain weapon equipped. Skills consume SP when used, and SP is gained by attacking enemies. Four skills are usable in combat (one for each of the face buttons), which can be assigned from the Equip menu alongside weapons, armor, and accessories. Using the skills enough times levels them up, which both increases their damage and allows them to be used even with a different weapon equipped. Skills' levels in Ys Seven cap out at level 10, versus Lacrimosa of Dana and Monstrum Nox where the level cap for skills is 3.

Many elements of Seven's gameplay went on to be refined in Lacrimosa of Dana. Resource gathering in Seven is done by repeatedly interacting with resource locations - in Lacrimosa of Dana, harvesting a resource is as simple as attacking the resource point once. The party members' AI in Seven is more prone to navigation confusion than in Lacrimosa of Dana or Monstrum Nox, the SP wheel can be upgraded to have more max SP, and learnable skills are no longer tied to what weapons are equipped. Lacrimosa of Dana and Monstrum Nox also both feature the ability to have multiple slots for gear that grants a party-wide effect, while Seven only ever allows for one such effect to be active.

The Soundtrack

Like many games in the Ys series, Ys Seven has a stellar soundtrack. Its final dungeon theme is one of the best in the series, and one of Seven's tracks is even remastered and reused in Lacrimosa of Dana, much like how Origin remastered and reused many tracks from Ys 1 and Ys 2. Much like many other aspects of the game, Seven's final dungeon theme feels like it went on to inspire the final dungeon theme of Lacrimosa of Dana.

Final Thoughts

With Lacrimosa of Dana being such a popular entry in the Ys series, it's interesting to look back at the game that inspired it in so many ways. Ys Seven is a great game, even with some of its flaws and the quality-of-life features it lacks. Its success led to the creation of Lacrimosa of Dana, which has brought many more fans to the Ys series thanks to its popularity. If you're looking forward to Ys 10: Nordics, then Ys Seven is a great game to play while you wait.

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This article was written by Meagan Denton.