Perhaps the single most addictive quality of Ys: Memories of Celceta revolves entirely around an ordinary old map. It’s this PlayStation Vita-exclusive hack-and-slash adventure’s only real mark of how far you’ve come, and how far you still have to go. As you travel around questing, meeting new people, and slaying devious monsters, the map becomes Celceta’s cornerstone. Indeed, your entire adventure orbits around it, as you slowly increase the percentage of the map uncovered.

Adol is back.

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Chaotic action-RPG combat is the name of the game.

Interestingly, Ys: Memories of Celceta – which is a reimagining of the two decade-old Super Famicom game Ys IV – has a 25-hour plot that also hinges on filling in more of that map, at least in the beginning. At the outset, stalwart Ys hero Adol Christin is in an amnesiac state, and, after some early introductions, eventually asked to explore the surrounding forests that dominate the region of Celceta by those curious about what may exist in the unknown. While exploring, Adol – as well as the party of characters you slowly build around him – stumble upon his lost memories, filling in the gaps in Adol’s mysteriously hazy brain. And, in true JRPG fashion, things begin to unfold, as Celceta’s predictable “save the world” slant comes to the forefront.The unfortunate thing is that Memories of Celceta most glaring weakness is its story. It’s not necessarily poorly told, it’s just extremely disruptive. Conversations – some interesting, others not so much – typically carry on for way too long and happen way too often. Memories of Celceta is an action-RPG – and a really fun one at that – but it’s heavily weighed-down by predictable chatter and unnecessary exposition accompanied by occasionally endless cutscenes. This isn’t Wild Arms, Final Fantasy VI, or any other RPG where the story is riveting and truly important to the overall experience. If anything, Memories would have benefitted if the story was scaled-back.Strangely, such complaints are simply a testament to how fun it is to actually play, because it’s then that Memories of Celceta really gets to shine. Its mechanics are fluid and easy to understand, with a slew of options – like unlockable skills associated with each character -- that make it feel unique, challenging, and engaging. The cast of characters that join Adol on his adventure, from the charming Karna to the bulky Duren, each come packing his or her own weapon types, as well as strengths, weaknesses, and personalities. So while Adol uses swords and specializes in slashing, Ozma prefers piercing with his spear, and Calicia likes to strike with her maces. As a result, each character plays differently.Memories of Celceta’s combat is inspired. It feels great, striking a great balance in difficulty (which can be altered) without feeling arbitrarily weighty or overtly arcadey. You can move around quickly, whether on-foot or via teleportation devices, and there’s a decent variety of enemies to vanquish. The experience system is a bit confusing – it seems that if you fight weaker enemies, you cease collecting experience for it – but considering Ys stresses non-linearity while not necessarily requiring an epic amount of backtracking, you should be pushing forward into newer and stronger enemies at a decent clip.All of the necessary conventions of the JRPG are found in Ys: Memories of Celceta, though the degrees in which they satiated a hardcore fan of the genre like me vacillated heavily. There are villages, towns, and cities to explore, all with their own native populations to speak with. There are plenty of stores that allow you to buy new weapons and armor and freshen up your inventory of curative items, giving you plenty of reasons to run around outside of towns, grinding out some coin so you can buy the latest and greatest for your party. And since merchants may occasionally turnover their stock and the citizenry will have new things to say, it pays to return to old locales every now and then.Unfortunately, there are some underdeveloped and under-used aspects of Memories of Celceta that could have been better executed. I love that there’s an upgrade system accompanying the weapons, armor, and accessories you buy, but it comes off as so unnecessary and unimportant, especially when the high cost of upgrading is juxtaposed to the insanely common nature of most of the materials you’ll need to actually upgrade. Likewise, no JRPG is complete without a healthy amount of side quests, but Memories comes packing a scarce number of them, and most of them aren’t only mundane in nature, but trivially easy to complete. It’s especially disappointing that these quests become available in bundles of three or four, and that they’re typically only found by reading a given town’s announcement board. I wish the side quest system was a bit more organic.There are more juxtapositions worth noting when it comes to aesthetics. Ys: Memories of Celceta has subpar in-game graphics with gorgeous character illustrations often overlaid over the screen during cutscenes. Indeed, there’s nothing pretty about Ys when you’re playing it – which doesn’t exactly affect the quality of the experience – but the character art and the menus are gorgeous. Likewise, while Memories of Celceta totes an impressive, catchy, and atmospheric soundtrack, it was disappointing that voice acting was so sparse, seemingly cutting in and out on a whim mid-conversation.