Ys X: Proud Nordics review

For nearly 40 years, Ys has been sending the thrillseeking Adol Christin on adventure after adventure. With each new game comes a new setting and, typically, new mechanics that tie in thematically. With 2024’s Ys X: Nordics, that approach took on a viking flavour, with seafaring as a major part of the game, ship battles aplenty, and a revamped combat system designed around a pair of sworn Shield Brethren. A year and a bit later, Ys X: Proud Nordics delivers the definitive version of that game, with additional content and a raft of tweaks. 

Set between Ys II and Memories of Celceta (Ys likes to jump around), Proud Nordics sees Adol stranded in a chilly northern archipelago following a viking attack. A few mysterious, fateful encounters later, Adol finds himself imbued with a rare magical power that allows him to kill undead monsters that have started popping up. Turns out the princess of the vikings from the earlier attack, Karja, has the same power, and the two find themselves bound together by both fate and choice—enemies turned Shield Brethren—in a battle against a growing undead scourge. 

Adol is his usual silent protagonist self, albeit with plenty of personality coming through in dialogue choices and his facial expressions during cutscenes. But as always, he’s more of a perspective character for the story unfolding around him: in this case, a coming of age story for Karja, an undeniably fierce warrior who still has a lot to learn about the world and her place in it. With that comes plenty of humour, drama, and surprisingly tender moments. Ys has always been more about rollicking adventure tales than complex narrative; that’s true of Proud Nordics, too, but the rich characterisation of Karja in particular adds a welcome degree of humanity. 

With Karja also comes the cornerstone of Ys X‘s revamped combat system: Duo Mode. You can control Adol and Karja independently and switch between them at will, but hold R2 and they act as one, attacking simultaneously or combining their guard to defend against attacks that would otherwise be unblockable. Duo Mode is powerful but can chew through SP quickly, and the unique strengths of each character mean they’re still plenty useful as solo characters fighting separately. The strength of this system isn’t just Duo Mode’s raw power, but how fluidly and seamlessly you can shift in and out of it as the situation demands. 

With that, juggling three different sets of skills—solo Adol, solo Karja, and Duo Mode—becomes the key to Proud Nordics’ combat. Encounter design leans into that, with plenty of creative variations on the basic premise of mixing up Adol’s fire and Karja’s ice attacks before dishing out some big Duo Mode pain when there’s an opening. It’s still the same energetic Ys combat at core, but Duo Mode puts a fun, unique twist on the formula. 

The other big part of the Ys X picture is sailing, in keeping with the viking theme. While most of the game’s “main” exploration and action takes place on land, crossing the seas is a bigger part of the game than you might expect—far more than simply being a way of getting from A to B. There are plenty of islands and other landmarks to discover, obstacles to get around with a growing suite of ship abilities, and enemy pirate ships to trade cannon balls with. The naval combat, in particular, has a lot more depth than you might initially expect, thanks to a wide array of ship upgrades, different types of unblockable ammunition, and enemy variety. What could have been a barebones minigame ends up being a rather captivating part of the game, and a fun deviation from typical Ys action. 

There’s a tradeoff, though, when it comes to level design. Compared to the intricate maps seen in Ys VIII and IX, the small islands that make up much of Ys X feel bland and forgettable. The series’ trademark navigational tools—including a rather delightful magical hover board—still play an important role, but most maps feel too constrained to really make the most of them. Some bigger islands and dungeons occasionally open things up a bit more, and lean more heavily into the puzzle solving and exploration side of things, but even that feels like a shadow of what the last couple of games achieved.

This undercooked exploration seems like one thing Nihon Falcom really wanted to address with Proud Nordics: the centerpiece of this new version is a giant island that cuts a lot closer to Lacrimosa of Dana in terms of sprawling level design and tool-based exploration. It’s a self-contained thing with its own storyline, and although you won’t be able to fully explore it until later on, it unlocks fairly early in the game—meaning it’s always there to dip in and out of to get your exploration fix. It doesn’t entirely address the earlier criticisms, but it’s a welcome addition all the same. 

Beyond that, Proud Nordics comes with a new optional performance mode supporting 120 fps, the addition of new wind currents for faster sailing, and an assortment of balance tweaks and other small but useful changes: a higher mastery cap for skills, new types of mana seeds, upgrades for exploration abilities, an optional display of the current map’s collectible progress, and so on. The jury’s still out on whether Proud Nordics warranted a whole new version rather than just a DLC, and anyone who bought the original Ys X is still right to be annoyed at having to buy the whole game again if they want these additions. But for anyone who hasn’t picked up Ys X yet, Proud Nordics is the way to go. 

Reviewed on PlayStation 5.
Review code provided by the publisher.