Ys X Nordics was one of my favorite games of 2024, but unfortunately, I never had a chance to review it. At the time, I was moving, and maybe in my emotional state, the impact of playing the game alone in a half-finished room hit harder than it would have otherwise. Like so many times in my life, Adol Christin saved me from myself. I regretted at the time not having the words to say that.
This is what brought me to an impasse when reviewing Ys X: Proud Nordics. On the one hand, I never got to put my feelings into anything substancial, save for a ‘Best Games of 2024’ I put together back then, which I still think Ys X earned its place on. On the other hand, it was presented that this wasn’t DLC, but a new game, boasting new content, being sold as a full game release. Given that it was announced only a few months after Nordics released this, making this feel like the worst version of a longstanding JRPG practice. Splitting the difference felt like a tall order
After around 100 hours into the game, I felt like I had the wherewithal to do so. Or, at least figure out who I am trying to speak to. Spoiler alert, its myself, I’m speaking to myself. I am the audience for this because I loved the original, and that hasn’t changed in the year between releases. It’s the same game, more or less, so it would be hard to sit here telling people there is no reason to buy this adventure; it’s outstanding. Maybe this version offers you value, maybe not, but at its heart its everything that I never got to review the last time, so here we are.
For the uninitiated, or more so, the people who need to get initiated, Ys is a long-running franchise that is approaching its 40th anniversary (next year). Almost every game sees players take the role of Adol Christin, an adventurer who has long since died, leaving behind the books he wrote chronicling the many adventures of his youth. From a human standpoint its like reading a story long since left, sorting through the claims made, and wondering just how much is true. Even Adol has multiple lines claiming he embellishes his own adventures, though, since he is a mute lead, the player gets to make that choice.
This story, the Normans’ Paradise Lost, is set shortly after Adol’s first adventure, making only three games set before it. This actually makes it a great place for players to jump in for the first time, as the only references to things that have occurred are when lead characters discuss the titular land of Ys (pronounced Eese if you were wondering, with a short double e sound). References are also made toYs IV: Memories of Celceta, which is fairly easy to find now across PlayStation or PC, with this game serving as a stopover for Adol and his ally Dogi as they travel there. Basically, you have the perfect direction to go if you end up enjoying this Nordics, also serving as a trip down memory lane to when Ys VII was influencing combat (which was pretty much right up until now).
This time around, Adol travels through the Obelia Bay, which is drastically different than anything prior as it is made up of interconnected islands rather than typical land. Ys VIII, for instance, saw him trapped on just one island, so take my word that this is a step up. Here, we are introduced to the Normans, a seafaring people who semi-confusingly draw from two groups of historical figures. On the one hand, the adventure largly boast this vibe, the game draws heavily from the pirates of the 1700s. Added on top of this, while Normans sail typical frigates, culturally they draw from the Norse Vikings, including phrasing like Hárr, which was typically a proclimation to the god Odin. If those gods exist in this land, it is unclear, but this serves as a great example of how Ys borrows from the real world to create fantastical and relatable journeys.
A typical trope the series employs, ironically, often through shipwrecks, is locking Adol through some twist of fate to his new location. The occurs here, but what honestly sets it apart is just how much freedom is still afforded after it. On top of that, we see his typical misfortune switch around as the players are given a ship to explore with, where much of the game will play out. Adol is introduced to the Norman Princess Karja early, who serves as the deuteragonist, feeling like an extension of the best feature from VIII, in which players also took the role of the character Dana.
Here, though, both characters are allies from the jump, linked together by a pair of magical handcuffs and setting off on a sea-faring adventure to discover the forces at play that linked them. They don’t have much time to do this, however, as the sea-faring town of Carnac is burned down by a mysterious group of big bads, which then sees the two attempting to track these people down and thwart their plans, rescue the citizens of Carnac, and by extension, the the communites among the islands, and solve the mysteries surrounding all of this.
The drastic shift to this formula from previous titles is that the relationship between Adol and Karja forms the crux of the experience. As such, the game ditches the party system and only allows the player to switch between these two characters. Adol plays as he has across former titles, a fast swordsman who fights through a flurry of blade swipes, with Karja taking a heavier axe-swinging style. There is one form of party member that has appeared before dealing with flying enemies through a ranged attack. Ys X: Proud Nordics has mechanics to circumvent this, but they never quite feel as convenient as being able to just shoot them. One of such tools is the mana string, forcing you to essentially pull yourself to enemies out of range, which is subject to some of the textures and platforming, which are fun right up until you have no control.
These two characters can act independently of each other, though they can’t move far from each other. What they also have access to is a joint attack in which they attack in a rapid-fire manner in unison to tear through enemy shielding or health. This unified approach to a two-person attack brings with it a minor overhaul to the typical risk-reward system from previous games, still seeing well-timed dodges and guards offer benefit, but a slightly altered one to work with this new approach. It is an extremely minor touch, but soon into the experince its obvious this was the right choice.
Both combat styles also have their added benefits, encouraging the player to switch between them often. Fighting as individuals allows your secondary ally to passively heal and prolong the fight. The reverse of this coin is much more damage but both party members are vulnerable to damage, with enemies being ableto hit wide areas in the action-oriented combat. There are also three sets of skills, one for each character, and dual attack ones, allowing you to mix up your attacks and giving you plenty of additional elements to level and improve as you progress.
In a similar vein, the actual structure of level progression is also changed to something both streamlined and more complex. Both characters share a core level, meaning all exp items and gains affect both equally. Where both characters can improve separately is on an unlovable depth chart that spheres can be placed to improve each character, and can honestly make the base stats range dramatically on both, but also let you customize to your playstyle.
For instance, I preferred Karja’s heavy style but needed more speed to her swings, and added a bunch of speed-based orbs to her chart to make her strikes a lot more fluent. Conversely, Adol got most of my strength buffs for similar reasons. This is mixed into systems like buffing your character’s weapons that allow you to feel strong yet still vulnerable. In this game, even more than others, one bad reaction and you can see the enemy tearing through you more than the other way around.
Bosses serve as the ultimate showcase of this, with all requiring the player to tear through at least one set of armer then drain health slowly. Close-quarter combat requires a focus on the duo combat style, with quick switching between offense and defense, since attacks can start piling up and draining your health. Dodging can only be done in solo mode, with this style again allowing your second party member to heal, so you will find yourself trying to back off and regroup like this a lot. Enemies do not have that magic ability to attack and instantaneously drag the attack directly, only giving a strategic distancing some heavy value to claim victory.
All of this is directly related to experiences that had already existed in Ys before. What’s new is that sailing is a major part of the experience. One might even say an equal amount to being on foot. The mechanics at times feel dated, but this is a compliment if ever there was one, feeling as if it taps into the PS2 zeitgeist and steals one of the funnest mini-games that ever existed. You spend much of the game leveling your boat by buying upgrades as you find materials, with it being the main way you traverse the world.
Since combat doesn’t directly improve your ship, almost all combat in it is optional, with the Ys X: Proud Nordics putting rewards on participating in the combat. The real reward is mostly that it is so good. One such in-game reward, though are wind streams, which makes traversal with it faster, if you are wandering around to locate new points of interest. Harder enemies drop more loot, so farming cash or base materials this way is most of it, but later on, special items that are typically found on foot gum up the works more than the standard materials dropped by sinking ships or picked up in flotsam.
The oceans you will sail around are also large, hence why unlocking windstreams is so benifitial to unlock. There are a lot of islands to find along the way, almost every one of them having something to do on them too. Even if you are just hunting down treasure chests, there is plenty of fun to be had as the game reveals in the discovery around it. This, however, isn’t all, as a multitude of islands, you will land on some new mystery to get lost in, or some new person to help. Points of interest also scatter the world that help flesh out the Obelia Bay as a place worth exploring.
Side quests largely survive on how much fun the rest of the game is, though, with most of them sending you to clearly indicated areas, completing a goal there, which is often fetching an item, and then returning. There are some glimpses of depth in here, with several missions having at least some connection to the great supporting cast that you acquire throughout. You get a look at more of their personality or past, but still do so by going out to grab something, then returning. These tasks can boost your level, with one later one helping jump 10 levels and accidentally outpace the story for a time, but they don’t evolve much over the narrative.
The benefit is that, similar to most Ys titles, many of these side quests offer you legitimate benefits. One of these is more crew for your ship that improves functionality. It is one thing the series has done great, as almost everything feels shockingly relevant to your journey. Not always, but enough times to make it valid. Each chapter offers a few of these, with the benefit being to do these as soon as you can, as they range in length of availability. It pads out the experience, but again, more excuses s, occasionally board them, then cut down everything in your way.
Unfortunately, while the characters are great, and the writing pretty enjoyable, the voice acting (at least in English) can be a little bland. The Japanese option is the standard go-to, with everything else probably a product of Falcom and NiS not being flush with finances, and I can live with that. The issue is that it’s a bit generic. In English, I’ll go further since you deal with characters of different inspirations that could be represented, but just aren’t coming off very similar across the board. The Normans, being inspired by vikings don’t have a single voice sounding of that region. In fact, when the first released, I made a joke that Karja comes off as very Brooklyn over anything else, which I stand by now. I would still say Karja is the best lead the series has produced to star opposite Adol, too.
All along this journey is the soundtrack that fans might have come to expect by this point. If you are a fan of Dynasty Warriors, having recently replayed and reviewed Origins on the Nintendo Switch 2, with both games using a heavy guitar-centric sound, heavily inspired by rock. Both on the ship and on land. There are shifts to this with a more traditional JRPG soundtrack to get lost in during cutscenes, adding to the emotional resonance of the journey.
It’s genuinely hard to quantify the newly added content that makes this version of Ys X: Proud Nordics, per se. There are quality of life improvements, but, honestly, the original version ran great, so were these needed? Can you even notice them? That’s the question, and I barely saw them. The additional cutscenes are also few and far between, only really serving the new gameplay content, not feeling like there is a noticeable new story beat till much later in the game.
As for that, you really only unlock the major addition to the game, a new island, which you can land on early but not explore until you have unlocked the many traversable tools that make re-exploring old areas so worthwhile. In fairness, there is a whole story tied to this area that progresses alongside everything, also, pulling you back at multiple points in the narrative to make forward momentum, with some points taking 30 minutes to an hour before I got locked behind the next point requiring a tool still needing to be unlocked to make progress. So, there is a decent amount here.
The problem is that it would be hard to say in any sort of fairness that QoL content couldn’t be added in patches, and the island could not have been a DLC added to the original game. Even the additional narrative would not have been a first for a developer to add in post-launch. Instead, you have a full release title, fully priced, that could potentially bar a portion of its player base from minor content (in the grand scheme of things) because they don’t want to buy the game a second time.
Verdict
Who exactly is Ys X Nordics for? Let’s start there, before we even factor in Proud. It’s for fans of action-oriented combat, for starters. The rapid-fire fights as you control both Adol and Karja against the Grieger armada and the undead fleet. With the ability to fight as both characters individually or as a unit, there is a pretty simple loop here, one that takes well past an hour 30 till it starts to fully click in your head just how much you can expand it. It’s also for fans of exploration, having an amazing world to get lost in, and a ship sailing mechanic that, while it might feel dated in some ways, I assure you, is better than many of the offerings today. Hell, it came out the same year as Skull & Bones, guess which game had me hooked? Hint, it’s this one.
This brings us to Ys X: Proud Nordics, and that’s where the conversation gets complicated. If this were some AAA juggernaut franchise, we probably wouldn’t be here. But it isn’t. There are probably a lot of players who haven’t enjoyed the standard release, or even played a Ys game, and there is nothing here that stops the franchise from delivering everything fans love about it. It’s just unfortunate that those fans are the ones it’s hardest to justify this title for. This is a franchise that embraces adventure and discovery above all else, so of course, this is the best opportunity to discover what you have been missing out on.
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Reviewed for PlayStation 5, also available for Nintendo Switch 2 and PC
A review key for this title was provided by Nis America for the purposes of this review.
Developer: Nihon Falcom
Publisher: NiS America
Release Date: February 20, 2026
Pros:
+ Rapid fire action RPG Combat
+ Great ship mechanics for exploration and battle
+ big sea fairing world to explore
+ interesting new narrative to experience, ontop of the already fantastic main story
+ Great entry for new players
Cons:
- Voice acting is slightly lackluster
- New content could have been a DLC instead of a full game
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Ys X Nordics Proud
