Review by: Brandon "Raval Ore" Cackowski-Schnell

Tracking the lineage of Ys: The Oath in Felghana can be more convoluted than the trying to figure out the various parentage combinations on your average day time soap opera. The game is a port of a PC game that was itself a retelling of a Ys game from the Super NES, Genesis and Turbo Grafx-16. Oh and it's also the second in a trio of games being rereleased on the PSP in reverse chronological order. Confused yet? If the notion of playing a port of a PC game or the idea of jumping midway into a trio of games makes you somewhat leery, don't be—Oath in Felghana provides plenty of accessible, fast paced action RPG combat that emphasizes using your blade and magical powers over reams of dialog and character progression.

The Ys games center around renowned adventurer Adol Christin, he of the red hair and snappy sword moves. Adol heads to Felghana with his traveling companion Dogi and upon arriving finds that Felghana is in dire straits. Not only are monsters terrorizing the land but the local count has been doing some economic terrorizing of his own by slapping the citizens with huge taxes and forcing them to work on the construction of his tower. His latest action has been to shut down the quarry that acts as the main engine of the land's already fragile economy. It's a well told story, neither bogged down with excessive narrative nor completely unapproachable to new users. Sure new players may not recognize the series' recurring characters but as someone entirely new to the Ys games, I never felt like I was missing out on anything.

The game emphasizes the "action" part of "Action RPG" and Adol is well suited for taking on monsters. The controls are extremely tight and simple enough for players that are new to the series or the genre to jump right in. Adol has a sword combo that can be combined with his jump and double jump with different effects depending on whether Adol is on his way up or on the way down.

As you progress through the story you'll acquire three magical bracelets that confer elemental powers on Adol -- powers that have both an offensive side as well as a navigational side. The wind bracelet turns Adol into a tornado of blades and allows him to hover across chasms, the earth bracelet gives him an invulnerable dash attack as well as allows him to crash through walls. All of the bracelets can be cycled through with the tap of a shoulder button allowing Adol to easily switch up his magical attacks based on the beasties he's currently facing. Landing hits and getting hit yourself fills up Adol's boost bar allowing you to let loose with a momentary boost of power that not only strengthens Adol's attacks but reduces the amount of damage he takes and at later levels, allows Adol to regenerate health.

That last bit is important as there are no healing items to buy in the game. Monsters will drop heals, but the best way to stay healthy is to learn how to avoid getting hit. This strategy becomes even more important in the frequent, varied and impressive boss fights. Whether facing a burrowing, crystalline worm, a massive dragon or a trio of magical maidens, learning the attack patterns becomes the key to survival. You will most certainly die the first time you go up against these bosses, and you'll probably die a whole bunch after that as the bosses always have five to ten times more health points than you do. They usually can only be damaged at certain times and with certain powers and once again, you don't have anything to heal you in battle.

It can be very frustrating to keep dying, especially at the harder difficulty levels, however it is also satisfying when you defeat the boss and are awarded with a new level for your troubles. Luckily the game knows how hard its bosses are and offers save points right before the fights so that you can reload a save and level Adol up a bit. The game will also allow you to temporarily lower the difficulty during the fight in case you want to keep trying, just not as hard. It's ok, I won't tell anyone.