Remember, Remember

For those curious, it's pronounced Eece:  Memories of Cell-set-ah.  It's also quite good.

Way back when the Silver Anniversary Edition was announced, something in the back of my head piped up.

"You want that."

"Well yeah, I know, but-"

"You want that."

"I do."

So I decided I was going to get it.  I had not played an Ys game prior to my purchase, even though I was given ample opportunity to do so, considering three (four, technically?) of them are on the Playstation Network and are fully compatible with the Playstation Vita.  In truth, they were games that I always -wanted- to play, but never pulled the trigger on.  The hilarious part is that the day Memories came out, Ys I & II Chorincles, Oath in Felghana and Seven all went half-off, so I went from owning none of the Ys games to owning just about every one of them that I feasibly -can- own at the moment.  (Origins is PC-only and we all know how well that works out for me)  Of course, I still -hadn't- played Memories at that point, so I spent a ridiculous sum of money combined on Ys games on that same day without having an inkling to their quality in my own opinion.  It was a risk.

If Memories of Celceta is anything to go by, it was a risk well worth taking.  I've been spoiled with Action RPGs, I believe, as I always seem to pick the ones that nobody else would pick right off.  Phantasy Star Portable 2 (built from Phantasy Star Online, of course), Soul Sacrifice and NieR are probably my top favorite Action RPGs that I can think of at the moment, in terms of pure gameplay.  (Yakuza and Sleeping Dogs are more Beat-em-Ups than anything)  There's just something very...fitting for all three games that I enjoy in a way that only translates into pure Action games rather than other Action RPGS.  (Like REVENGEANCE and the two I just mentioned, of course)  However, Memories of Celceta manages to encapsulate this type of thing as well, and it does just work for me.

Perhaps it just feels responsive in a way that I get.  Which is a weird thing to question or quantify, but when I see reviews mention Assassin's Creed being responsive and LittleBigPlanet as -not- responsive, well....I sort of start to question what -I'm- doing differently.  In the end, I think it's just that I just approach games differently than some, which leads to a different playstyle which just sort of compounds these types of issues.  So all I can say is that it's snappy and fast-paced, I tap X to dodge roll, I slam square thrice for a mini-combo that I end with Rising Slash from a press of R and Circle.  For now, at least.  I find it a bit difficult to get back into the basics after I was, indeed, introduced to a little bit more of the complexities of the game itself that due to a misunderstanding between myself, three hours of sleep and a Vita system update to look at my profile information caused.  (As in, in my haze, I neglected to switch to Ys and save before I updated, meaning it closed the game....which hadn't been saved for -hours-)

Memories of Celceta is the type of game, however, where that quite large loss of progress wasn't an issue.  I would've liked my other skill back that I learned in that time.  I would've liked the better gear back that I finally got after finishing the four quests available at the start.  I would've -liked- to not have to do that again, however, I was not at all bothered that I did.  Memories is just -fun- to play, full stop.  Thus I was fine with playing that part over again with no fuss - in fact it was just as much fun as the first time through.  That's how you know you've got something special, that's for sure.

As far as the actual Limited Edition content goes, it's pretty great, actually.  The cloth map is nice and large and begging me to actually be put up somewhere, but I would have to frame it first and all that stuff.  I haven't had a chance to listen to the CDs just yet, but they are definitely CDs, and they come with 64 songs from the entire Ys franchise....which is damn impressive and almost worth the extra money by itself, I'm sure.  The bulk of them are Arranged versions rather than the original sound version but...well, in most cases, I'm going to consider that a good thing, since while music on classic systems is nice, it's not great for everything.  The compass....works, I imagine as I admittedly don't know how to properly read one, but it's rather nice looking as well.  And the 120-page strategy guide/manual/journal/art book is clever and beautiful, being something that I want to look at all the time, but don't want to ruin anything for myself - I would have preferred hard-bound, of course, but I won't be picky.  It was definitely worth the extra cash, like all the LE's I've gotten this year.  Publishers are really on the ball with these damn things lately.

that soundtrack shocked the hell out of me - that's how you do it, Aksys/Marvelous AQL!