Spoiler alert! I played both Ys VIII and Ys IX this year. IX is gonna be a bit higher, but let's talk about VIII first.
This year I got super into the Ys franchise. It's one of the longest running JRPG franchises, having started the same year as Final Fantasy and Megami Tensei, and the year after Dragon Quest. Unlike all 3 of those, though, Ys is one continuous story. The story of the adventurer Adol Christin. The story starts out simple enough: Your ship crashes on a deserted island and it's your job to search the deserted island to find the rest of the passengers. It doesn't stay that simple for long though. It's never that simple, is it?
So much happens along the way. So. Fucking. Much. I won't spoil MUCH but I will give an example: Most games would have the bit about someone in your fledgling town secretly being a serial killer as an endgame twist. Here, they die by the end of Chapter 2, because that's just the tip of the iceberg. Prepare yourself for one hell of a long (but never boring) journey should you choose to set foot on The Isle of Seiren.
