Thank you refint/games for sending us this game to review!

Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga is a rather unique and interesting time capsule look at the Falcom of 2010. Originally released on the PSP only in Japan, it came out after the entire Trails in the Sky trilogy was released, as well as after Ys Seven. Since the PS Vita wouldn't even be released for another year or so, and Falcom was not releasing games for home consoles or PCs during this window of time, PSP games were their primary (only?) outlet for their creative energy. Ys vs. Trails in the Sky was also released just a few months before the next arc of the Trails series, The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero. It is during this unique time in Falcom's history when they decided to release this tribute to their flagship franchises, Trails and Ys.

Ys vs. Trails is an alternate story (hence the title) where heroes from the world of Ys and Trails are pulled into another dimension based on the world of Xanadu. The Dragon King puts everyone but your chosen hero under a spell where they think they need to defend that evil tyrant, and it's up to you and your new friend Lappy to rescue your friends from the Dragon King's grasp and hopefully put a stop to his evil plan.

The gameplay is rather unique for a Falcom title. The format here is actually of an arena fighting game rather than their more normal RPG (role-playing game) or action RPG. You fight between one and three other opponents trying to deplete each other's health bars. You win when all enemies run out of health and are defeated while you still have remaining health.

The game engine and graphics are based on Ys Seven, so if you played that game, you have an idea of what to expect. You see everything from an isometric view, at a high diagonal angle. Your chosen hero can move anywhere in an arena, and neither the characters nor the arenas are all that large. Many are based on various locations in the Trails or Ys universes, along with some plot-relevant additions. There's nothing quite like disrupting the quiet countryside of Rolent with some grueling combat.

There are quite a few modes of play available. The main single-player content is the Story Mode, which has you play through the mystery of why you are in Xanadu as one of five characters; three from Trails in the Sky, and two from Ys. The main arc of the story is largely the same between them, but who you encounter and in what order changes a bit. The banter between characters also changes, keeping things somewhat fresh despite a fair bit of repetition. For long-time fans like me, the Story Mode has the most to offer if you love these characters as I do.

The full playable roster is a decent-enough selection. Of course, Trails in the Sky has a really lovable cast of characters, and eight characters from Sky are included in the playable cast. Ys also has a good representation, as it includes the Ys Seven playable character cast as well as one from The Oath in Felghana. As this game came out just a few months before the release of Trails from Zero, this is actually the first-ever appearance of Lloyd as a character, playable or otherwise. Outside of the playable characters, there are a ton of cameos of many kinds; more on that in a bit.

Outside of Story Mode, the other main single-player mode is Arcade Mode. This mode is kind of the opposite of Story Mode; here, you just fight stronger and stronger enemies until you fight the final boss, without any commentary or story to speak of. In Arcade Mode, you can choose from any of the playable cast that you have unlocked so far.

Unlocking characters, stages, assist characters, items, art, music, and so on is a major part of the experience. There is most definitely quite a bit of grind involved here; it may be more than some would prefer. The grind involved is quite severe, and one of the biggest downsides to the game if you're the type to unlock everything and get the achievements. I normally would be, but this game was just too much. Some gamers will download a save file to unlock everything; for me, I wanted to see how you do it, so I instead hacked my game for more money to get there instead.

Every battle, win or lose, you gain Experience Points, Mona Points (money), and Battle Points (BP). Experience is used to level up the character you are playing as; each can max out at 99. Mona Points are used in the Mona Shop, where you can buy permanent upgrades for a character, accessories, unlocks (stages, music, movies, art, and so on) and even pay money to level up your characters. BP are the rewards that unlock what money cannot. It's also meant to show your overall proficiency level.

There are a lot of ways to unlock BP. You gain some for each battle, so it does slowly accrue. However, while a few points here and there helps, eventually unlocks require thousands or even tens of thousands. Fortunately, in addition to Steam's achievements, there are other in-game ones that unlock BP once completed. These include tasks like completing the Story Mode with a character (there are five) and an additional bonus when completing all of them; completing Arcade Mode with each character; getting each character to level 99, and so on. There are quite a few, and more than enough to unlock everything if you put effort into them. They are quite difficult and time consuming to unlock, though. But once you do, you're rewarded with every character, as well as some levels to play in. Most of everything else has to be purchased in Mona's Shop.

I can't emphasize enough how much grinding is required to max out everything. It took me just shy of 30 hours to unlock everything with cheating. I could see it doubling that if you had to earn all of the Mona Points and BP the hard way.

Fortunately, the combat itself is pretty fun. Being based on the Ys Seven engine, of course it is. Action is smooth and lively. You can attack, jump, dash, and guard. Flash guarding is possible, though the timing isn't easy, so I just dashed/dodged when possible, and guarded when I was probably going to take a hit. Each character has six skills, though they can only keep four of them equipped at a time. Choosing skills wisely plays a big part in optimizing each character. Do you go for the cheap ones you can spam, or do you go for big flashy ones that make a lot of hits?

Skills are easy to trigger; since I tend to play on controller, I would hold the right bumper and press one of the face buttons. You can also activate Support characters with the right trigger; these characters are once per battle, but can offer some quick and useful powerups like additional strength, healing, and more. Some of the effects are quite overpowered. These can be chosen per character, though it takes a lot of playing to unlock them all.

Every character also has an Extra skill, which can be used whenever the Extra gauge is completely filled up. These are unique per character, and cannot be changed or leveled up. They are very powerful, and can easily change the course of battle. The effects range from a flurry of quick attacks to a satellite blasting the opponents from the sky.

Battles are often fast and furious. Some characters have quite powerful magic and ranged attacks, in addition to more close-ranged ones. As you might expect, they are all balanced differently. For example, Adol is fast and furious with his many attacks, while Dogi plays more like a slow tank. I personally prefer faster characters more than slow ones generally, but there are exceptions. Geis may be slower, but he packs quite a punch. Other super-slow characters, like Agate, may hit hard, but aren't really to my tastes.

As you might expect, accessories also make a huge difference. Some make you hit harder, while others make you live longer. There are also some that help you use your skills or Extra more often. There's a lot of variety, and some are also incredibly overpowered. Like with Support characters and skills, it's all a part of building our your preferred fighters.

It has to be said that refint/games didn't just do a simple PSP to PC (or console) port and call it a day. Virtually every aspect of the game is enhanced, and sometimes substantially. The frame rate is doubled to 60 frames per second (fps), rather than the PSP's 30. The texture resolution is increased, sometimes substantially. The PC version supports arbitrary resolutions and aspect ratio, including ultrawide support. A local multiplayer mode was added, so you can do couch competitive play on a game originally meant for a handheld. There is also LAN mode and online play using rollback netcode. They even implemented hybrid local and online play! There are so many additions to the game that refint/games wrote three separate articles to explain them all. It also plays flawlessly on Steam Deck and desktop Linux. I was even able to play it on my Android phone via GameNative (PC emulation software)! They did a fantastic job with this game.

Graphically, it looks really good considering the limitations of the source material. The sound and music are stellar, as is common with Falcom games. I absolutely loved hearing the many incredible tracks from Ys, Trails, and to my great delight, Xanadu Next. That game's soundtrack is really great. There is even more that can be unlocked from the Mona Shop; I believe the game offers around 100 tracks to listen to, and I love most of them - in some cases, I bought the soundtracks!

The folks at refint/games also added full voice acting for every character! They used the modern voices in English for each of the characters where possible. The voice cast is perfect for existing fans of the Trails and Ys franchises - I was very, very impressed.

It's hard to overstate how many cameos and little Easter eggs there are for long-time Falcom fans. The art/pictures, the intro movies and trailers, the music tracks, the Support characters, and even the mascot Mona - all references to Falcom of times past. With that said, there are some spoilers, especially for Trails in the Sky; make sure you've played through Sky the 3rd before playing this game if spoilers concern you. It's honestly not all that bad, but if you look for spoilers, there are a few to be found.

When it comes to appropriateness, there are some issues, but most of them aren't a common occurrence. Action violence is, and it's central to the game. Red lines escape characters when they lose, and it looks like it could be spraying blood perhaps. There is moderate curse word use, though again it's not that often. Words like 'h*ll', 'd*mn', 'sh*t', and 'b*st*rd', are used, though rarely. 'God' used inappropriately handful of times in the Story Mode. Magic is used, and there are status effects like burning, frozen, and so on.

As for sexual content, it's fairly tame with a few notable exceptions. In the gameplay itself, it doesn't show much, though there are a few Support characters who do have some jiggling breasts when activated momentarily. Most of the characters do not have this issue. On the other hand, in the photo gallery and during loading screens (they share the same photos), some women are shown in a hot spring (though covered with towels). There are others in revealing outfits as well on the still gallery pictures.

Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga is a flawed but fun game primarily aimed at Ys and Trails fans from the era of its original release. As someone who has played not only all of the Trails and Ys titles, but most of the other Falcom games from that era as well, I really appreciated what it had to offer. However, if you aren't already an established fan, it's a tougher recommendation. It's still a fun game with solid core gameplay, but Story Mode is still a bit shallow compared to what you might hope for from Falcom, and grinding to unlock everything can be a chore. It's a game that I love because I love Falcom games, not because it's a masterpiece or anything. Thankfully it's priced well, and refint/games did an absolutely stellar job localizing it and making it not just feature-complete - but above and beyond. They added local and online multiplayer to a game that never intended to have it! Incredible.