Ys fans have been eatin' good in the 2020s. Ys 9: Monstrum Nox wasa smash hit, and Ys X: Nordics made a triumphant Western debut in late 2024. Following up on that success, The Oath In Felghana received a remaster in early 2025. This once-niche series is now finally getting the respect it deserves.
However, with Ys Memoire: The Oath In Felghana and Ys X: Nordics being released months apart from each other in the West, it makes them dueling games. If you can only choose one of them, which one should you go with? We’re here to break down the answer.
6Performance
Winner - Ys X: Nordics
While both games are polished, Ys X: Nordics performs better because it was designed for modern hardware. There is even an option in the Steam release to continue directly from where you quit the game without having to go through the title screen. The game is stunningly well-optimized and runs great on low-end PCs, Steam Decks, consoles, and gaming laptops.
Ys Memoire: The Oath In Felghana is a 2025 remaster of a 2010 PSP port of a 2005 PC game. There are bound to be a few graphical glitches, though actual game-breaking bugs are rare. We did run into a bug where Adol was stuck in a wall after falling from a height, necessitating a restart, but the likelihood of this happening to you is almost zero.
5Story
When comparing the two game’s narratives, we had to remind ourselves that Ys Memoire: The Oath In Felghana has a story at all. The game is light on plot, and what little is present isutterly cliché. It’s the same JRPG plot you’ve seen a hundred times about a vengeful brother being manipulated by a dark god that the protagonist fights at the end.
In contrast, Ys X: Nordics has a richer plot, more memorable side characters, and fancier dialogue. Neither game’s story is a Pulitzer contender, but Nordics pulls the win here.
4Visuals
Winner - Ys Memoire: The Oath In Felghana
This may seem like a surprising decision, as Ys Memoire is a remaster of a 2005 game, while Nordics was made with modern hardware in mind. Ys Memoire also has some very obviously graphical flaws that the developer didn’t even bother to hide, hoping the title could stand on the strength of its gameplay.
However, Ys Memoire: The Oath In Felghana has moredistinctive graphics, with 2D sprites overlaid on 3D environments. It is a far more eye-catching, vibrant, and visually consistent game despite the flaws. Ys X: Nordics, in comparison, has the same visual fidelity as the average PS2 title. Not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s certainly not unique.
3Sound
One of the most important facets of a Ys game is its music. It is a long-running joke in the community that Adol has an amazing rock band following him just offscreen, acknowledging the series' epic, if anachronistic, soundtracks.
In this department, Ys Memoire: The Oath In Felghana fares much better. Its soundtrack is arguably the second most important part after the gameplay. It is a solid mixture of J-rock, techno, and heavy metal. Even if some of the dance tracks are dated, they exude energy.
In comparison, Ys X: Nordics has a basic soundtrack. For much of its duration, it sounds like mindless metal shredding, and it barely ever edges near the foreground. There is voice acting in both titles, too, and it must be said that if voices could be on stilts, Ys games would be where you’d find those voices. However, Ys Memoire has the ‘less bad’ performances.
2Gameplay
Ys Memoire: The Oath In Felghana is both the simpler and the better game. Its gameplay is not bloated, and it forces you to use its simple mechanics in inventive ways to get past the challenges posed. Nordics, on the other hand, tries to do too much and ends up not doing anything as well as it should.
While Ys X: Nordics has a lot of variety, with naval combat and fishing andescape sequenceswhere you skateboard on a sheet of burning cedarwood, nothing compares to the simple button-mashing hack-and-slash of Ys Memoire.
1Verdict
It’s worth pointing out that The Oath In Felghana took 20 years to get an enhanced remaster. Ys X: Nordics, on the other hand, barely lasted one. Given that Falcom itself felt the need to update Ys X with a new version called Proud Nordics, it’s easy to see which game was built to last.
Sometimes the classic game, with a smaller budget and less production value, ends up having more heart. That’s not to say that Ys X: Nordics is a bad game by any means. But it does mean that, in appealing to a wider audience, it lost a bit of what made it Ys. In that respect, Memoire is a very good title for The Oath In Felghana’s remaster: every dungeon and every boss in the game reminds you of what makes this series special.
