Another year, another good Ys port from the fine folks at XSEED. Clearly Hyde Inc. was able to learn from their growing pains from their first port -- Ys SEVEN -- because as far as I can tell, there were significantly less issues with MoC on launch than its predecessor. The folks over at NIS America could learn a thing or two from this port -- the best I've heard from someone defending the Ys VIII PC port was that in "only" crashed 15 times during 50 hours of gameplay. You want to know how many times MoC crashed on me? Zero. Granted, I started playing the game roughly a week after launch, so I may have benefited from some later patches.

Memories of Celceta is an interquel, taking place between Ys II and Oath in Felghana. It's Falcom's own take on Ys IV, which was previously farmed out to two other companies -- Tonkin House's downright mediocre Mask of the Sun for the Super Famicom, which was considered canonical by Falcom until MoC came out and Alfa System's The Dawn of Ys for the PC Engine, generally considered the best of the bump combat-style Ys games. Of course, neither of these versions came out in North America or Europe in any official capacity, so MoC gets the edge on that front.

The game starts with Adol wandering around the town of Casnan, having completely lost his memory. He stumbles his way into the local inn before collapsing. Once he recovers, he makes the acquaintanceship of Duren, an information broker, who decides to help Adol, as he has a reputation for finding adventure (and therefore, useful information). Soon after, they are tasked by the local governess Griselda to explore and map out the mysterious forests of Celceta. Throughout the journey, Adol is reintroduced to people he met on his previous journey (one he has unfortunately forgotten) and finds many mysterious artifacts, stumbling upon another world-ending crisis as he often does.

Memories of Celceta runs on a refined version of Ys SEVEN's engine, thus the party system from the previous game returns. This game also manages to add a new defense mechanic: the "Flash Move". If the player's character is able to dodge an enemy attack at a specific moment, the enemies onscreen slowdown for a brief period, similar to Bayonetta's Witch Time. Unlocking new special attacks is also different from the previous game, they're obtained by defeating a set number of "difficult" enemies. Frankly, I think I preferred the old system. The original release also included various touch puzzles that exploited the Vita's touch screen and touchpad, but later updates allowed them to be performed with standard controls (to make the game compatible with PSTV). The PC version allows players to use their mouse or the controller, which is a nice touch.

XSEED and Hyde did a much better job on the graphics this time around, managing to even offset the filters present in the original Vita version of the game -- though a similar bloom option is available in the game. On top of that, they managed to even exceed (ha ha!) Ys SEVEN's 60 FPS, offering 120 frames per second and even uncapped, though the latter isn't particularly recommended.

So just like the previous game (and every other Ys game XSEED's released on here), I'd recommend you pick it up if you're in the mood to play a damn fine action RPG. As with the previous game, it's a little on the easy side -- I did my first run on Hard Mode, just like with SEVEN.