Ys IX: Monstrum Nox

 Switch
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 36 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 36
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 36
  3. Negative: 4 out of 36
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  1. Nintendopost24
    Jul 10, 2021
    9
    The Switch port of YS IX has received special care. The game is smooth and although some technical concessions have been made, it doesn't have to be ashamed of the comparison with the PS4 version. This new opus is a continuation of its predecessor by doing better in certain aspects such as storytelling, characters and travel, but does less well in others. Its linear side, which somewhatThe Switch port of YS IX has received special care. The game is smooth and although some technical concessions have been made, it doesn't have to be ashamed of the comparison with the PS4 version. This new opus is a continuation of its predecessor by doing better in certain aspects such as storytelling, characters and travel, but does less well in others. Its linear side, which somewhat restricts exploration contributions, and its overall too austere artistic direction are undoubtedly the most obvious flaws. However, its ultra dynamic gameplay, its narration, its soundtrack, and the audacity of this prison atmosphere still place it in pole position of the best opus of the series. A real success and a Switch port that offers us one of the best action-Rpg of the year.

    Full review, in french, on my blog Nintendo Legacy. You can follow me on Twitter @NintendoLegacy1    … Expand
  2. AtelierRann
    Jul 10, 2021
    8
    Great Ys game! And even more to grind while playing portable.
    Atm it doesn't look the prettiest game on Switch but is ok and very playable. I'm sure the devs will bring a patch to make it better soon.
    Fun combat and interesting story. When the game first came out on PS4 it needed a couple of patches for it to run better, so I'm sure the same will happen to the Switch version. But honestly,    Great Ys game! And even more to grind while playing portable.
    Atm it doesn't look the prettiest game on Switch but is ok and very playable. I'm sure the devs will bring a patch to make it better soon.
    Fun combat and interesting story. When the game first came out on PS4 it needed a couple of patches for it to run better, so I'm sure the same will happen to the Switch version.
    But honestly, is good enough to enjoy it!    … Expand
  3. derfolo
    Aug 15, 2021
    9
    I loved Ys VIII on Switch, so I was excited to try Ys IX! My sense is that it wouldn't matter if you have played this series before--you are introduced to the two main characters, Adol and Dogi, and the new characters would be new to everyone else anyway. The negative reviews you see here are not about the game, but rather on how the game performs on the Switch. So let's get that simpleI loved Ys VIII on Switch, so I was excited to try Ys IX! My sense is that it wouldn't matter if you have played this series before--you are introduced to the two main characters, Adol and Dogi, and the new characters would be new to everyone else anyway. The negative reviews you see here are not about the game, but rather on how the game performs on the Switch. So let's get that simple stuff out of the way: the graphics are limited by the Switch hardware (what game doesn't?), and I experienced some annoying glitches where the game would crash from time to time for no apparent reason. (This occurred at least 3 times for me.) If you can move on from these flaws, the game is amazing! It starts a bit slow, but as you gain abilities and gear, it really comes in to its own. I remember when I was first able to zip around on the rooftops of Balduq, and I wanted to explore every single part of the city. The game is a blast from that point forward. 9.4/10, I would definitely recommend this game for fans of RPGs or JRPGs.… Expand
  4. Steyraus
    Dec 16, 2022
    2
    Terible performance on switch, ugly and chopy.....Even worse, To much dialogue and reading, ended up giving up on the story and just enjoyed the stock Ys combat. Ys games have always had great stories told in a way that dosent detract from the gameplay. Ys 9 fails in this completely, there hours of mind numbing dialogue mixed with Dull quests that simply have you running from one npc andTerible performance on switch, ugly and chopy.....Even worse, To much dialogue and reading, ended up giving up on the story and just enjoyed the stock Ys combat. Ys games have always had great stories told in a way that dosent detract from the gameplay. Ys 9 fails in this completely, there hours of mind numbing dialogue mixed with Dull quests that simply have you running from one npc and back again..Easily the weakest Ys game I've ever played. How did they go from a Masterpiece like Ys 8 to this????.Even though the combat is still good it's not as good as Ys 8 either.. Please get a smarter writer for the next game.… Expand
  5. Tortor
    Jan 3, 2022
    4
    This game is ugly and dated. Honestly this could be mistaken for a late Playstation 1 or early Playstation 2 game. This isn't helped by the mostly city and grey dungeon environment you're being surrounded by for 80% of the game.

    Be prepared to see a lot of grey, everywhere, all the time. It gets really old seeing these sort of repetitive environments. Unlocking a new area didn't excite me    This game is ugly and dated. Honestly this could be mistaken for a late Playstation 1 or early Playstation 2 game. This isn't helped by the mostly city and grey dungeon environment you're being surrounded by for 80% of the game.

    Be prepared to see a lot of grey, everywhere, all the time. It gets really old seeing these sort of repetitive environments. Unlocking a new area didn't excite me because it was nearly completly like the last area you were in.

    The plot and quests felt like a chore. It really felt like a very old school style Jrpg from the early 2000s. This game really didn't try at all to do anything new and instead stuck with this really dated quest structure. I felt like I was running one meaningless and lifeless errand after the next. Occasionally the side quests add some personal stories but nothing grand or adds to the main plot it really felt like fluff material.

    The only saving grace with this game though is the fighting feels really fun. The real time action is super fun to see how to combo moves together and mix and match certain abilities. The RPG mechanics though don't go much more then that. Armor and equipment do not add any significant differences that are noticeable other then survivability. The amount of abilities for each character is also limited so the mixing and matching definetly hits a wall at some point. The lack of custom options really causes a lot of the mechanics with this game to run dry. I was definetly bored out of my mind by the time I reached the end. All those flashy moves do, in fact, get old when you see it over and over. Frame rate takes a dive when things get too crazy too (which is often). When more then 4 monsters show on the map and every character is blasting off their moves with all these particle effects the frame rate drops to like 10fps to 15fps for nearly a whole fight until it slows back down. So this is like hitting a wall from having too much fun. The moving around the map felt nice. I found all the options to run up walls, drift through the sky and use a wire to get to places made zooming through the city fun and finding collectibles.

    The plot is so basic of basic. You're essentially just trying to escape a city that you're trapped in. Everything you do is a step closer to escaping. The subplots going on with politics feel so poorly paced that it's barely something you could ever care about as not enough time is given to these other subjects to care about them. You're essentially confined to a check list you need to do to achieve your main objective to get out of this ugly grey city.

    The characters are fine. They each get a chapter dedicated to them which I found very interesting at first. Everyone felt fleshed out in their own ways thanks to this. They do sorta run out of steam by the end though as the story doesn't spend a lot of time revisiting any of them after their chapter is over.

    Overall, this isn't a game I'd recommend to anyone. I'd honestly be too embarrassed to recommend something so ugly but once you start playing the issues with the characters, plot and gameplay just pile up.    … Expand
  6. Strider97
    Jul 10, 2021
    6
    Note the game itself is great. The problem lies in the horrible performance on Switch. Bad framerate, textures, and resolution. The game is very chunky in framerate. The resolution is very low even docked. Leading to a lot of shimmering effects. Very blurry textures. The combat is great. The music is great as always. I just cannot recommend playing this on Switch. Either get it on PS4 orNote the game itself is great. The problem lies in the horrible performance on Switch. Bad framerate, textures, and resolution. The game is very chunky in framerate. The resolution is very low even docked. Leading to a lot of shimmering effects. Very blurry textures. The combat is great. The music is great as always. I just cannot recommend playing this on Switch. Either get it on PS4 or wait for a patch if there is one.… Expand
  7. Sunshadow87
    Jul 5, 2022
    9
    Antes de hacer la review de este juego voy a dejar clara una cosa: si no has jugado a ys antes y estas interesado en ys 9, juegate primero ys 8 ya que es un juego superior a este; si ya jugaste a ys 8, pillate ys 9 que lo gozaras como un enano. Dicho esto, paso a la review.

    La saga ys nunca decepciona en cuanto a lo que son rpgs de acción frenetica, y aunque lacrimosa of dana puso el    Antes de hacer la review de este juego voy a dejar clara una cosa: si no has jugado a ys antes y estas interesado en ys 9, juegate primero ys 8 ya que es un juego superior a este; si ya jugaste a ys 8, pillate ys 9 que lo gozaras como un enano. Dicho esto, paso a la review.

    La saga ys nunca decepciona en cuanto a lo que son rpgs de acción frenetica, y aunque lacrimosa of dana puso el listón demasiado alto para ser superado seguramente (la dinamica de ese juego debido a su historia es bastante única e irrepetible en lo que respecta a jrpgs), este ys 9 se defiende aunque con algunos fallitos que le hacen desmerecer parcialmente.
    En primer lugar, la historia sigue siendo realmente buena y descubrir el misterio de lo que esta ocurriendo en la ciudad prisión y de por qué hay 2 Adols nos mantendrá pegados al mando. El combate sigue siendo ágil y divertido. Algunos de los personajes que nos acompañan resultan también interesantes.
    En esta ocasión el gameplay esta organizado en un bucle que se repite en cada capitulo: explora la ciudad, realiza misiones secundarias y mata enemigos para rellenar el marcador de "nox" y abrir los portales de los combates de asedio, que al superarse abrirán nuevas zonas a explorar, donde se encontrara la siguiente mazmorra del juego para pasar al siguiente capitulo. Aunque puede llegar a hacerse algo repetitvo algunas partes de este bucle, debido al estupendo gameplay esto es fácilmente pasable.
    sin embargo como digo el juego tiene algunos fallos:
    - Caidas de frames y rendimiento general. Esto ocurre sobre todo en la parte de exploración de la ciudad, pero realmente no es reseñable, excepto si te encuentras con un enemigo que posee un ataque que genera una niebla oscura que mandara tus frames a tomar por saco (por suerte este no es muy común).
    - Inicio muy lento. Cuesta bastantes horas de juego que este realmente arranque y te enganche.
    - Explorar la ciudad por X vez puede resultar tedioso.
    - Los gráficos... siguen siendo prácticamente idénticos que en ys 8 O.O... No es un punto que me resulte muy molesto pero considero que deberían dar un salto con respecto al juego anterior. Hablo especialmente a nivel de animaciones de los personajes que... en fin... parecen de juegos de hace 5-10 años...    … Expand
  8. Vinzkill
    Jul 14, 2022
    9
    A very Good Ys game. at first I was getting a little bored the city has no life, all grey, making missions around the city feels like a chore but thankfully I endured all of it because the story gets better at the later parts. Its almost in the end where they stitch up fragments of the story and you finally enjoy the story as a whole. I think ys 8 is a little bit better ecperienceA very Good Ys game. at first I was getting a little bored the city has no life, all grey, making missions around the city feels like a chore but thankfully I endured all of it because the story gets better at the later parts. Its almost in the end where they stitch up fragments of the story and you finally enjoy the story as a whole. I think ys 8 is a little bit better ecperience overall. Ys 9 has better battle gameplay, i think. Ys 8 is 10 for me and ys 9... is well 9 :)… Expand
  9. PMG-Writer
    Aug 7, 2021
    7
    NIS America managed to successfully implement another game-like title with the implementation of "YS IX: Monstrum Nox" on the Nintendo Switch. Thus, the storyline is a good 25 hours of fun and gets you into many tasks and exciting battles. At the same time, the game's story makes up for a lot. Thus, you will also find the New Game Plus mode in the new version and many secrets and forgottenNIS America managed to successfully implement another game-like title with the implementation of "YS IX: Monstrum Nox" on the Nintendo Switch. Thus, the storyline is a good 25 hours of fun and gets you into many tasks and exciting battles. At the same time, the game's story makes up for a lot. Thus, you will also find the New Game Plus mode in the new version and many secrets and forgotten items with it. Unfortunately, the technology can't keep up and looks outdated in places. If you still want to experience an interesting story and can overlook the technical deficits, you'll get a fun title for your Nintendo console with "YS IX: Monstrum Nox".… Expand
  10. arwat23
    Sep 6, 2021
    6
    The game is a solid "okay" game. The story is interesting and mostly engaging. The gameplay is great (although a little too easy compared to YS VIII). The rare voice acting is pretty good and nothing is too cringy (a problem in many JRPGs that are dubbed). But the biggest issues, especially on the Switch version, is the graphics and performance. This is not optimized for Switch, there's noThe game is a solid "okay" game. The story is interesting and mostly engaging. The gameplay is great (although a little too easy compared to YS VIII). The rare voice acting is pretty good and nothing is too cringy (a problem in many JRPGs that are dubbed). But the biggest issues, especially on the Switch version, is the graphics and performance. This is not optimized for Switch, there's no other way to describe the performance. This game looks like another port of a Vita game, except it's not and it runs worse than the previous game in the series. I'm honestly a little baffled how they made a game that looks like a GameCube or PS2 game run considerably worse than a Vita port that was already running pretty bad on Switch hardware. If the Switch can handle Xenoblade 2 (probably the most graphically impressive looking game on the Switch), it should be more than able to handle a game that looks like it was built for the Wii at best. I'm not ripping on the art style or last-gen graphics to be clear. I actually like the art style. I'm ripping on the optimization. I mean, even the PS4 version has some performance issues (you know, the console that is basically a generation ahead in terms of power compared to the Switch). If I wasn't a fan of the story and some of the characters, I doubt I would have been able to handle the maybe 5 FPS this game drops to during many of the battles.

    I know I'm being hard on the performance, but when the battles are suppose to be fast and engaging, seeing the game drop to the speed of a chess match is infuriating. It honestly feels like there was no optimization at all. The previous game (Ys VIII) was also poorly optimized, but at least it ran at a pretty stable 30 fps. That game was a playable and is one of my favorite JRPGs on the Switch. It just happened to play at a low resolution. It seems like the developers of this game wanted to prioritize visuals over performance (not sure why since the game visually looks kind of boring and monotone, especially compared to the previous entries).

    By no means is this a "bad" game in terms of story and gameplay. In fact, I'd argue this has a fantastic story and gameplay style that is unmatched in the RPG world. However, this is a badly optimized game and it dragged the experience down the drain to the point I have no reason to replay it. If I want to reply it, I'll borrow my friend's PS4 copy.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

95
#95 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2021

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
76

Generally favorable reviews - based on 19 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 19
  3. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. SECTOR.sk
    Jan 24, 2022
    80
    Ys IX will delight you if you expect dynamic gameplay, world exploration, a bunch of challenges and fast-paced battles.
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  2. RPG Fan
    Nov 17, 2021
    80
    Overall, I quite enjoyed my time with Ys IX. It is a generally fun and entertaining game, with action elements that are wonderfully honed. It is a shame that the graphics in the Switch port diminish the experience as much as they do, because otherwise the title fits rather nicely on a handheld system thanks to its polished control scheme and wealth of content. What could have easily been one of the best action RPGs on the Switch is held back by the visuals, though it is a testament to just how strong of a game Ys IX: Monstrum Nox is that I view it so fondly despite this port’s obvious flaws. I certainly hope that Adol the Red’s adventures will continue if they persist with Ys IX’s entertaining gameplay.
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  3. Starbit
    Oct 11, 2021
    60
    Ys IX: Monstrum Nox is the latest addition to the Ys series and at its core, this is a fine game that brings with it a marvelous combat system and good exploration mechanics. Unfortunately its poor performance on the Nintendo Switch, whether on a television screen or on the console's screen, makes the experience very frustrating, to say the least, and when situations with more than two enemies on the screen become extremely difficult to handle due to a loss of fluidity, it makes it a hard game to recommend.
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