Adol Christin has seen and done a lot across the Ys series, from uncovering ancient conspiracies to battling dragons and world-ending gods. But as many adventures as he’s been on, he’s never captained a pirate ship — until now. Ys X: Nordics drops Adol into a seafaring adventure on a tropical archipelago, and it’s taking inspiration from developer Falcom’s greatest masterpiece, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. After watching a hands-off demo, I’m hopeful it can continue Falcom’s incredible rise to prominence.
For those who don’t know, every game in the Ys series stars the same protagonist, the legendary adventurer Adol, but takes place across different points of his life. The last game, Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, starred a 24-year-old Adol, while Nordics casts a much younger, bright-eyed, seventeen-year-old version. Ys is more of an anthology series, and while there is interconnected lore, you can jump in anywhere. It just so happens Nordics might be the best place to start yet.
This time around, Adol and his best friend Dogi explore the Obelia Gulf, an area made up of dozens of islands ruled by a band of pirates called the Balta Seaforce. With the help of another pirate named Karja, Adol hopes to free the area from the tyranny of the Balta.
This change in setting and story allows Falcom to lean into some wild new gameplay elements. What stands out most from the preview I saw is what a phenomenal leap forward Nordics already feels like for Falcom in general.
Much like the recent release of Trails Through Daybreak, Nordics drastically improves the quality of characters' animations and environments, with both combat and cutscenes feeling silky smooth. This is one of the most ambitious games Falcom has made yet for a handful of reasons, including a dual protagonist approach, new combat mechanics, and Assassin’s Creed-esque ship battles.
While Monstrum Nox veered off into new territory, Nordics doesn’t hide that it’s trying to build on the winning formula established in Ys 8. A big part of what made that game’s story and setting so compelling was its rich cast of characters and a sense that you were building something larger. Stranded on a deserted island, Adol had to explore and save villagers, which helped the base camp grow and unlocked new options, weapons, buffs, and gameplay features. It was a brilliant system that tied the narrative and game mechanics to exploration, deepening your understanding of both the more you found castaways.
Nordics uses that same idea by having Adol collect crew members that enhance the ship. Your ship is vital to getting around Obelia Gulf, and each crew member brings a new aspect to your combat abilities, like unlocking extra cannons. Each new crew member also comes with dedicated quests and can grant Adol and Karja items and abilities when on foot.
While my short demo didn’t dive into how complex the crew member system can grow, NIS America producer Alan Costa tells Inverse the upgrade path is “a little more detailed” than the castaway village from Ys 8. But even in that small snippet of gameplay, it’s clear Nordics has a bunch of features that tie into exploration and how you interact with the world. It’s clearly going to be a blast to dig into its systems.
Most of the demo revolved around a ship battle, followed by an on-foot dungeon to “liberate” an island. In both cases, the flashy action combat that’s always been at the core of Ys looks better than ever.
While Ys’ ship combat doesn’t feel as realistic as something like Assassin’s Creed, it retains the blazingly fast speed the series is known for. You have access to various forward and side-facing cannons, as well as ramming options, needing to manage cooldown times as you blow enemy ships to smithereens. It looks every bit as intuitive as melee combat, but importantly feels like something wildly new for the series at large.
Coupled with that, Nordics applies another huge change to the series: there’s no party. Instead, Adol and Karja serve as dual protagonists you can swap between at any time, with each one having a different focus. Adol is great at fast attacks that can lower an enemy’s defense, while Karja is a bit slower and good at dishing out huge damaging attacks after those defenses are lowered. This means you’ll want to be swapping between the two on the fly.
But there’s also another interesting option in how you can swap between Solo and Duo Mode. In Solo mode, the other character will act on their own, but Duo mode lets you use both characters simultaneously, unlocking dazzling team-up attacks that can yield huge damage. Ys’ combat has always been about speed and adjusting to enemies on the fly, and Nordics’ combat leans into those aspects more than ever. This is, again, a feature that’s built directly from the foundation of Ys 8, which made character swapping hugely important with different weapon types. The dual protagonist approach smartly simplifies things, while allowing Adol and Karja to shine in different ways.
An hour isn’t enough time to get a full picture of how a 60-hour RPG is going to pan out, but everything I’ve seen of Ys X: Nordics leaves me incredibly hopeful it’ll be another home run from Falcom. Ys 8 undoubtedly remains one of the finest action RPGs ever seen, and building on that incredible foundation, with better technology, could make Nordics a new high point in the series.
