Impressions on Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga

Thanks to the kind folks at refint/games, I had the chance to play Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga, a remake of the PSP party fighter featuring oodles of your favorite Falcom characters.

I am not a professional game reviewer and I am not unbiased. I love this series, and it’s exciting for me to have had a sneak peak at the latest installment!

However, I want to focus on the presentation of game itself, its quality as a party fighting game, and its worthiness as a remake specifically for people who are already fans of the franchise.

Enhanced Game Features

refint/games has provided a full list of enhanced features here on Steam, but there are a few particularly noteworthy ones:

• Rollback Netcode
  • If you’re in the fighting game community, you’ll know that Rollback Netcode is the expected standard for online play. It’s a very technical bit of coding work, but it helps ensure as little lag as possible with a more seamless experience.
• Offline Multiplayer
  • With the ability to not just play Ys vs. Trails on the go, couch co-op/multiplayer is a very much hoped for addition!
• Input Remapping
  • A point in favor of accessibility and customizablity, you can now change all of your input buttons to make the fighting experience truly your own.

A Cavalcade of Familiar Faces

Perhaps the best feature for extant Falcom fans: a great number of your PSP-era favorites, in beautiful new hi-def artwork.

Aisha is, in my humble opinion, one of the best party members in the series. I was happy to see her show up here alongside other under-appreciated Ys Seven characters like Mustafa and Cruxie. If you weren’t as big an Ys Seven fan as me, well… Time to go back and play it. Because otherwise it’s mostly going to be them and a few fan favorites like Geis or Chester.

I’m also quite glad that I recently finished the original Trails in the Sky game so that I had more context for (most of) the opposing characters. But I wouldn’t say that any prior knowledge of the Trails series is a must for Ys fans. You’ll have plenty of fun interacting with your Ys Seven (and other) favorites through a story that I saw one reviewer describe as adjacent to “cozy fan-fiction,” which I think is neither inapt nor a negative thing. It reminds me quite a bit of the enjoyment I got from seeing my favorite Persona 3 and 4 characters interact in the Persona Q series.

Notably, refint/games did a fantastic job with the visual remaster here. The loading screen images are beautifully upscaled, the character portraits are seamless and crisp. And yet the actual character battle sprites haven’t lost the charm of the PSP era despite a small technical glow-up.

Fun, Button-Mashy Combat

More familiar, perhaps, to the Ys fans playing, the game’s combat will have you dashing rapidly around the 3D map and mashing on buttons to dodge, attack, jump, and guard.

It may look like Ys Seven, but to my fingers it feels more like the high points of Ys Origin or Oath in Felghana.

The Story Mode’s inclusion of customizable accessories and skills also helped me utilize Adol in some very different ways over the course of the game, first leaning into a more hack n’ slash style and ultimately going to a juggle-heavy set-up. And the items, skills, and upgrades you unlock are persistent: they can be used to customize your characters across all the game’s varied modes.

Depending on the stage and opponent you might be able to take a more methodical approach to combat, but more likely than not you’ll be spamming your best abilities and attempting poorly timed (but very generous) guards against your opponent’s super abilities.

Ys vs. Trails feels fun to play as a party fighter, but those looking for a well balanced esport – you may want to look elsewhere.

For instance, I never quite got the hang of ranged characters like Aisha or Mishera. I’m not sure if it’s a balance issue or a me issue, but they always felt at much more of a disadvantage compared to the run-in-and-fighters.

Everything also feels relatively tame in this game until you meet the unbridled chaos of a 1v1v1v1 match. It can be quite fun, but also quite messy.

Story Mode is Nice, with a Caveat

Clocking in at about two hours for my first play through on Adol, the Story mode provided a fun if melodramatic plot to experience as I met with characters from both franchises.

I found that the classic Ys trope of “if you can’t beat the boss, just gain a level” to be a funny inclusion, but also that it took away from the inherent skill of a party fighter like this. While my personal skillset did certainly expand as I played, I never felt like I *had* to actually get good at the game, because I could always just grind it out.

This is, of course, offset when you beat the story mode for the first time as you unlock two other difficulties to play through, but these just bump up the base levels of the enemies. You can also find more difficulty by playing through the level-matched Arcade Mode.

I also am aware of having barely scratched the surface of story-based unlocks for this game. There are five stories to play through (Adol, Estelle, Geis, Kloe, and Tita) in total, but from what I’ve read the actual content doesn’t change just a ton.

Missing Multiplayer

Unfortunately, I really struggled to find online matches that weren’t pre-scheduled. I hopped on for several nights in a row and couldn’t seem to find any open lobbies. Don’t expect readily available matchmaking for this title.

Final Thoughts

The original Ys vs. Trails entry was a fun but otherwise inessential expansion of Falcom’s beloved franchise. Alternative Saga hasn’t put enough into the game to make it a must-buy for people who aren’t already Ys or Trails fans, but it’s also true that refint/games has delivered a really solid remaster at a really solid price point.

I’d love to see a second installment, and one where they perhaps leaned more into the party fighting genre. Why not include mini-games, or even a board game mode? At times this first entry feels a bit like it’s masquerading as both a serious fighting game and a more casual one.

If you’re a fighting game purist this may not make it to the top of your wishlist. But if you already love Ys or Trails, you’re in for a genuine treat.

I’m excited to chip away at this game and its massive achievement list when I’m in the mood.