Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana puts players into the shoes of adventure addict and walking disaster magnet, Adol Christin. A traveling adventurer by trade, Adol keeps running into trouble. Oath opens with him visiting the hometown of his closest friend Dogi. Once he arrives, he gets embroiled in a mystery involving a statue, a magistrate, and more monsters than he can swing a sword at.

The core gameplay in Ys Memoire is simple but appealing. Adol is a standard hack-and-slash protagonist who has an attack button, and depending on when and where you hit the button, the attacks change. On the ground, it's a lengthy combo; if you're moving in the air, it's a dashing slash. If you're "standing" still in the air, you'll either do a powerful upper-slash that targets flying enemies or a ground pound that stun enemies; this depends on whether Adol is ascending or descending during the jump.

Eventually, Adol gets access to magic bracelets that let him cast spells. The first one you'll find in the game is the reliable Ignis Bracelet, which lets him shoot fireballs. This is done by tapping the magic button, with each spell cast draining some of Adol's MP. MP replenishes quickly if you're not using magic, so you won't need to be stingy. As the game advances, you'll find upgrades to the bracelets that enhance their power, such as allowing your fireball to charge up into one highly damaging attack.

The Oath in Felghana's most appealing feature to fans will likely be its difficulty. If you've never played the game before, it's very easy to assume it is a very basic beat-'em-up. While the core gameplay is basic, the enemy design is tough. It's a very fast game with constant repeated attacks from every angle. Bosses have almost no chill, and even the very first boss in the game demands your attention and effort to defeat, especially since you don't have the option to heal-tank through fights with items.

Ys Memoire adds some new features to flesh out the package. One is the addition of new "Refined" portraits for the character artwork to give it a more modern look. This is mostly a small cosmetic change, but it's neat. More importantly, you get the option to choose between multiple versions of the soundtrack based on different releases of the game. Considering Oath has an incredible soundtrack in every version of the game, it's a delight to have the option. It runs significantly more smoothly than previous versions of the game. For those who aren't fond of text-only dialogue, there's also updated voice acting, including actual acting for Adol.

Perhaps the most interesting addition is Turbo mode. It's common for Falcom games to add a Turbo mode these days, but for Ys Memoire, it's an entirely different ballgame. The original game already plays at a blistering fast speed, so being able to bump it up to 1.5x or even 2x speed means that the most hardcore of hardcore Ys fans can make one of the harder games in the series significantly more difficult. For those who haven't signed up for brutal masochism, it means that the downtime between dungeons goes by quicker.

What we've gotten to play of Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana feels like a solid remaster of an excellent game. The core gameplay and plot are almost unchanged, and the primary focus of the remaster is to modernize the visuals and audio. The addition of a Turbo mode also adds more intense pulse-pounding gameplay for longtime fans. If you're ever wanted to give classic Ys a shot, then Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana is shaping up to be a must-try when it is released on Jan. 7, 2025, for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.