Ys IX: Monstrum Nox Review (Reii)
YS 9, oh god, where do I even start with this?
It's bad, but not that bad, it's good, but not that good. A quick final score for YS 9 is a 5/10 or even, a 4/10.
Here's why:
Poor stories, this is a major downgrade compared to YS 8, I cannot withstand how boring it gets as the story progress. Character arc is bad, none of them are interesting due to the blandness in every one of them. The plot twist was okay, side quests are annoying, I swear this game made me skipped the later side quests dialogue because its super boring and had very little impact/relation to the main story. Way too many talking overall, doesn't feel like I am having an adventure.
Poor BGM, I cannot find this more annoying than anything else while exploring the prison city of Balduq. BGM get cut off when you're about to fight a boss, very unnecessary.
Poor graphic/character models, jesus what happened here? CS 3 is released in 2017 while YS 9 is released in 2019, how the hell can they look so much different when YS 9 is released in the later? CS 3 graphic was great and I have completely 0 issue with it, but hell YS 9 is straight up ugly, terrible shading as well. Not to mention that Monstrums' costumes are absolutely horrendous.
Poor exploration, what make YS 8 exploration feel so rewarding and fun is because we have no idea how the next area going to look like while YS 9 is just, city, plain city with bunch of tall buildings, and huge wall around the city and gray, lots of gray. I've never felt this demotivated in an open-world game ever. Not only that, you are also blocked by visiting another area of the city unless you fill up Nox gauge and defeat Grimwald Nox to unlock the next area, annoying and stupid. To fill up Nox gauge you are forced to beat enemies otherwise good luck at hard stucking, even YS 8 don't do this bullcrap.
But why am I recommending the game then?
As much as I hate everything I listed above, the game overall is fine, I've never encountered any bugs or errors, the combat is fine as it is still the same as a face paced action JRPG, gift gauge mechanic make me feel like I am playing Genshin as a spiderman, big casts behind the scenes like Ayane Sakura, Ayane Sakura and Ayane Sakura (yes I am a big fan of Ayane Sakura) skills look great compared to YS 8, love the way how Falcom included Azure Petals into the exploration and reward you with previous characters like Dana that possess the NPC and "talk" to Adol.
So, is YS 9 really worth your money and time? Probably not, but because I am diehard fan for JRPGs so I will say yes and if your wallet is full or you are a fan of YS series/Falcom fanboy. Otherwise, look somewhere else, there are better JRPGs out there waiting for you. One wise word though, never have high expectation for YS 9 because of how great YS 8 was, you just cannot compare both of them because you will find YS 9 is a joke.