Review by: James Fudge

Sometimes less is more, and in the case of YS SEVEN, certain elements (specifically storytelling and character dialogue) should have been minimized to create an experience that makes sense and is more streamlined. Sadly, this did not happen. Instead YS SEVEN serves up some of the worst storytelling I’ve encountered since the last Uwe Boll movie I accidently launched on Netflix. This is a real shame, because if developer Nihon Falcom had taken a minimalist approach to its storytelling (something that it successfully employed in the classic PC Engine game that started it all), it would have been easy for me to recommend, as the gameplay itself is actually quite good.

To illustrate my point, here's an example of how characters in the game deliver dialogue that drives the story into the ground. Let's pretend that we are at a lake fishing, and we have just caught a giant fish:

Begin Horrible Scene

Character 1: "We are at the lake!"

Character 2: "I just caught a fish at this lake we're at!"

Character 3: "This lake is great because we catch big fish here!"

Character 4: "..."

Main Character: "Adol agreed that this was the greatest fish EVAR."

End Horrible Scene

That's how most of the dialogue between player characters and NPCs unfold. The conversations are about as probing as listening to a 1ST grade class discussing Clifford the Big Red Dog -- though I suspect even that conversation is more compelling than anything found here.

Another irritation is the way protagonist Adol Christin is presented; instead of letting him speak directly, the developers decided to deliver all that he says via a third-person narrative. This makes absolutely no sense because we know that Adol is talking but he is not allowed to do so in a direct way. Perhaps this is to preserve the character’s strong silent protagonist persona, but instead it gives the impression that he is a big, dumb empty vessel... with red hair.