Ark of Napishtim is the sixth game in the Y’s series by Falcom to come to the United States since the last one in almost 10 years.

     AoN roughly stays within the timeline.  I say “roughly” because although it is technically in the timeline, the game in itself has a very closed off story even though it takes place in the same world with some familiar faces.  It reminds me of the Xenosaga trilogy that is pretty much its own entity yet there are some familiar connections to the older Xenogears.  Adol Christine takes center stage again, as with the previous Y’s titles.

     Graphically the game has an updated old-school RPG look.  Sprite characters abound, but the power of the PS2 was obviously taken advantage of with sharper more detailed, and colorful 3D environments that add a nice touch.  Some of the locations grabbed my attention and made me feel more of a visceral connection with the game world.  Detailed towns and villages that make you feel like you are in a unique land and not a generic RPG.  Fields tend to be wide open sparse expanses that could’ve stood to have some varied vegetation thrown in, but they aren’t unsightly.

     The music in the game isn’t award winning, but it isn’t bad either.  A nice selection of location sounds.  The music could hold up to repeated listening.  I found the addition of every character being voiced, a nice touch.  Although it seems Falcom used talent from across the board.  Some of the voice-acting is superb, while others are laughable, annoying, and down right awful.  With a good sense of humor you can get a little distance out of this.  I found myself laughing, at least the first few times, at some of the ridiculous voices, and bad inflections.

     Gameplay leans toward hack ‘n slash.  Fans of Sega’s Shining Tears will be in familiar territory with the fighting.  Button mashing gets a bit monotonous, and with only a few different attack styles and magic attacks it doesn’t seem to get varied enough and stays old throughout the game.  Quests do a fairly good job at detracting from the repetitiveness of combat, from time to time.  Boss battles mix things up a bit with the need for an attack strategy.  I would’ve liked a bit more in the way of upgrading your character.  Strength, defense, and HP are your main stats as far as the growth of Adol is concerned, and increasing those are done solely by killing monsters.  You’ll find yourself in even more repetitive killing as you aim to boost Adol’s experience level.  The weapon upgrading is nice, if not a standard RPG trait.  Improving your weapon seems to fall in to large time chunks(at least in the beginning).  After a long quest you’ll find you can quickly upgrade swords 5 or more levels in one trip.  Limited item slots are filled with weapons, armor, and accessories as you progress, but it’s all pretty straight forward.  You just keep your armor and wait until you find or buy the next better piece.  Overall, if not for a very RPG-eque story, it would feels more like a hack ‘n slash plus, than a true RPG.

     The game offers a substantial amount of extras, and cheats.  Cheats are entered via a menu option that the game provides at the beginning.  These cheats can only be entered when starting a new game, not while during an existing game.  Side quests are abundant but not overdone, as well as hidden treasures sprinkled throughout.  There are also some nice extras upon completion.  Remember, this isn’t an FPS, it’s an RPG, once you complete the story there isn’t a whole lot in the form of replay ability to compare to other genres, but what it offers is nice.

     This newest installment of Y’s continues the adventures of Adol the Red, who has been the protagonist since the series began.  Although You play a well worn character, you needn’t have any knowledge of the past games to sufficiently enjoy the story.  Indeed, this really is an enclosed story with just references to the world it takes place in.  Veterans of the story will no doubt appreciate this, while newcomers need not worry about adjusting or catching up to speed.  In fact, I thought the story was good in drawing you in, holding your attention, and keeping you wanting more, but it really isn’t much more than a standard fantasy tale.  Adol’s adventures remind me a bit of Conan.  Good stories, but they have standard elements which make for easy replication.

Developer:

Falcom

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Publisher:

Konami

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Genre:

Action RPG

Release Date: