Players can now experience Ys classic The Oath in Felghana on modern consoles with a very minor facelift.

Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is a remaster of Ys: The Oath in Felghana (2005 PC, 2010 PSP), itself a remake of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (1989). It’s a simplistic but entertaining action RPG experience. While it’s a vast improvement over the original Ys III, you don’t get much more than what’s offered in the original Oath in Felghana, aside from playability on modern consoles.

Adol Christin, the red-headed adventuring hero of the Ys series, visits Felghana, his friend Dogi’s isolated homeland. Recently, its residents have been suffering under the rule of the cruel Count McGuire, and monsters have begun appearing in the land, spawning from mines and ancient ruins. It falls to Adol to unravel the mystery and stop the Count’s plans to awaken an ancient power that will threaten the people of Felghana.

While Ys III was a 2D sidescroller, Oath in Felghana reimagines the action in 3D while maintaining a sense of verticality by giving Adol the ability to jump. It makes the dungeon design more interesting than I expected, with more directions to explore and traps that can cause you to plummet. Discovering hidden rooms or platforms feels rewarding and encourages careful exploration, and there’s plenty of variety to see over the game’s runtime.

Combat is fast-paced hack-and-slash action that feels mostly simple. You can slash with your sword, perform upward or downward leaping attacks, and use a magic ability that can be charged for more significant damage. You’re encouraged to fight quickly and furiously, with bonuses and powerups that will stack but expire on a timer if you don’t kill monsters. Difficulty is uneven. Regular enemies are easy if you’re in a level-appropriate area. Meanwhile, boss fights represent a steep difficulty spike, requiring quick reflexes, careful timing of magic abilities, and attention to patterns. Approaching bosses like regular encounters will lead to a quick death.

Adol’s magic abilities double as traversal tools. For example, the wind spell’s spinning sword attack lets you greatly increase the distance you can jump, while the earth spell’s dash will allow you to break down cracked walls. Of course, these also become crucial for combat, particularly against bosses. I quickly learned just how vital the dash’s brief invulnerability window can be.

The only downside to this breezy action RPG is how little the remaster offers. While the character portraits seen during dialogue get an optional facelift, the game’s textures look particularly ugly in high resolution. The sprites hold up pretty well, but the environments definitely don’t. It’s a bit of a disappointment after seeing how gorgeous games like Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake look.

If you own the PC version of the original Oath in Felghana release, there’s little reason to pick this up. However, if you’ve never played the game, Ys Memoire is the best version to experience. It may be simple as far as an action RPG goes, but besides some of the graphics, the game doesn’t feel dated at all. Despite its age, this relatively bite-sized adventure is refreshing and worth your time.

Ys Memoire: Oath in Felghana will be available on January 7, 2025, on PlayStation 4 / 5 and Nintendo Switch, previously on Steam for PC.

Overall Score: 7/10

Played on: PS5