Ys IX: Monstrum Nox Review

Exploration and Traverse have been improved over previous entries in the series thanks to the introduction of gifts, special powers specific to each playable monster, allowing them to pause at specific points along the Purple Line, discover hidden objects such as the Third Eye, launch a charge attack with the Valkyrie Hammer and much more. The locations in the game are designed specifically for the gifts, creating a new verticality never seen before in the franchise. In particular, the city of Balduq has hidden items that can only be purchased with the right gifts, making it even more rewarding to explore.

It is only in Chapter 4 that players start exploring locations that are not just parts of the city or the prison (small spoiler, I suppose, but not big) and none of them are particularly memorable compared to the landscape of Ys VIII.

Monstrum Gifts, the special abilities conferred by the game title Monstrum, are placed above the abilities that players can access in Ys VIII. S Crimson Line acts as Nero's demonic arm, Devils Cry 4 and White Cats Heaven Run let you run against walls and other puppets, while Third Eye, Renegade Shadow and Dive are more specialized. Each of them drains a track that appears on your character when one of their abilities is active.

Every time one of the Nox is finished, a new area of Balduq is opened up to explore. The Nox also plays in a raid battle against Adol and other monsters, where defeating waves of enemies interrupt the final boss battle. This is a mirror of the village raid that was part of the console version of Ys VIII, except that instead of a frequency scale, the player controls where and when the raid takes place.

Ys IX falls into a convenient pattern of completing enough side quests to unlock Grimwald Nox next, followed by a new area of Balduq to explore, leading to another attempt to explore the secret of the prison. The friends made by Adol in Ys IX become more important than Grimwald Nox with tower defense minigames appearing at key moments in the story.

You use monster loot to build defenses of gun towers that inflict invaders status, diseases, and sleep poisons to soften them before you jump into battle. It doesn't feel like a sophisticated tower defense game, and you can't decide what to do with it in some places, which means there's not much strategy in Grimwald Nox. The differences lie in gameplay and battle enhancements that make it one of the strongest contributions to the series, but it is the game, story development and world building that Y's games have never done before, creating a narrative experience that contradicts what the series has traditionally delivered.

As the latest entry in the series since the launch of Y's Seven, Monstrum Nox focuses on story and character development more than the first six entries in the franchise, taking a page from other popular Falcom series such as Trails series. This updated exploration, combined with a well thought-out story, makes it the best modern Ys game and a treat for action role-playing fans. With one of the sharpest focuses in history and narration, it means that Adol's previous adventures are more important than ever.

Monstrum Nox follows the returning serial heroine Adol Christin in the city of Balduq, known for its large prison system. While trying to free himself from prison, Adol finds a mysterious woman named April who shoots him with a magic bullet that turns him into a creature called Monstrum. The game begins with the prison escaping from the city's fortress, and Adol fights his way through a labyrinthine maze of tunnels and chambers that stretch out from the prison.

In prison he meets a mysterious woman called Aprilis, who turns him into a monster, a creature with supernatural gifts and the power to cast out monsters. With Adol's newfound powers, he must stop Grimwald's Nox from consuming Balduq.

The game begins with our red-haired adventurer trying to reach the city of Balduq, where he is told that his strange involvement in a series of catastrophic and inexplicable events in previous games justifies his arrest. The unexplained ability of the monsters to help him escape from the catacombs under Balduq's prison comes at a price: Adol is no longer in prison alone and with five other monsters, but instead, a mysterious figure named Aprilli has set up a trap with a mysterious barrier in the city to help her defeat the seedy creatures stalking the city.

Monstrum Nox brought the total number of Ys games to three, and although much of the game feels similar to its predecessor Lacrimosa Dana, there are plenty of new tricks and unique settings to keep things fresh. It's the kind of thing where killing enemies is fun, and the world is interesting enough to see what secrets it holds. You get up-to-date graphics and simple battles, but it is still a captivating game with a fascinating story.

The story begins with the main protagonist of the series, the red-haired Adol, when he appears at the gates of Balduq town where the majority of the game takes place as an intrepid adventurer who wants to escape from his dog hunting. A mysterious prison, interesting movement and exploration mechanics and lots of side tasks give the city a lot of flair. Monstrum Nox is a standalone action RPG in its own right, Switch version makes some compromises that are difficult to miss.