In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Nintendo dominated the handheld gaming landscape with its Gameboy and DS hardware lines. Sony entered the fray with the formidable PlayStation Portable in 2004. The handheld received robust first-party and third-party support during its lifespan, and its power meant it could handle games that Nintendo couldn’t.
Amid that development craze, Sony’s handhelds received a handful of games that were surprisingly crucial spinoffs to larger franchises. Imagine playing Final Fantasy VII Remake, seeing the black-haired Zack Fair, and not knowing who he is because you never played the original PlayStation Portable game where he was the protagonist, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. With the PSP long dead, leaving so many games stuck on unsupported hardware, important pieces of franchise history have been lost to time.
Thankfully, that’s changing. In recent years, many Japanese developers have been porting their old PSP games to modern platforms. That included a remaster of Crisis Core that bridged the gap between Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. This year, the PSP revival will continue with multiple ports, but a big one for RPG fans kicks off 2025. Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana brings a PSP remake of a classic action-RPG back to modern consoles. It’s not just a win for fans of Falcom’s niche series; it’s a way to keep another chapter of a long-running story from getting lost.
The Ys impact
Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana follows a young man named Adol Cristin who journeys across the world in search of new adventures. Apart from the first two games in the series, which are direct continuations of each other, the other Ys games are self-contained and scattered out of chronological order. For example, The Oath in Felghana is the third game in the Ys series, but the sixth chronologically (out of 11 so far). It sits between Ys IV: Memories of Celceta and Ys V: Kefin, the Lost Kingdom of Sand.
While it’s not too important to play the Ys games in chronological order, it’s still helpful to know the timeline for other details. For example, Adol’s friend, Dogi, accompanies him on most of his adventures. But he’s not present in Ys V. Why? Well, the ending of The Oath in Felghana explains that exact context. In fact, Ys V is the only game in the series that hasn’t gotten an official localization so far. If it ever gets one, then that makes Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana even more important as a remaster to all fans, both old and new.
Another one of Falcom’s franchises, Trails, previously suffered from a timeline issue. The Crossbell Duology was integral to the series canon, as characters from it appeared in later entries, and new players were often confused as to who they were. Falcom finally remastered the two games 11 years after the original PSP’s release date. Now, Trails players don’t have to miss any story context as they play subsequent entries in the series.
The Ys series is often credited for pioneering the action-RPG genre in Japan back in the 1980s. But how come it doesn’t have the same amount of popularity as other franchises that debuted back then, like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest? One of the many explanations is the franchise’s fragmented platform distribution, especially on consoles and handhelds.
Modern mainline Final Fantasy games have always found their homes on PlayStation and Xbox consoles, while Ys games jump all over the place. All of them are on PC, while some are on PSP, Vita, PS4, PS5, and Switch. The only Ys game that the Xbox has is the prequel. For those who want to get into the Ys series, you’ll need a chart, which can be intimidating for new fans.
By releasing remasters of older games onto more platforms, that increases the accessibility of the series and lessens the confusion over which games are available on which platform. The PSP digital storefront was shut down in 2021, and only a few select digital PSP games are backward compatible on the Vita. So the ease of access that Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana provides can’t be understated.
More than a new coat of paint
Along with providing extra story context to an ongoing series, the remasters of these PSP games are another chance to add new gameplay features, quality-of-life changes, and accessibility features.
One of the reasons why I was excited for Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana and other PSP ports like Crisis Core Reunion was the inclusion of Trophies on PlayStation. PSP games don’t have Trophy support, so that’s why when I played the original, I was fine with just a single playthrough. I saw the story to the end, and there was nothing left for me to experience. The Memoire version, however, adds difficulty-related Trophies for me to unlock, encouraging me to do multiple playthroughs.
While the Trophy list is just the same as the PC achievements list on Steam, Memoire also adds a new “Turbo Mode” which dramatically speeds up the game so that I can blaze through dungeons I’ve already completed during my first playthrough, decreasing the time needed to complete subsequent runs.
The PSP era was a time where larger developers could create smaller and more creative spinoff games of their iconic console franchises. But for smaller developers like Falcom, it was a home where they could cultivate an audience for their games that didn’t necessarily fit anywhere else. But in the modern era, PSP games serve a different purpose as they’re necessary to understand the lore of fabled franchises, thus facilitating their remasters.
With the release of Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana, I’m hoping the other Ys games on PSP will get the Memoire Treatment as well. I’d love to play Ys Seven with Trophy support, and I certainly don’t want to shell out exorbitant eBay prices for a UMD (universal media disc) of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim.
Ys Memoire: The Oath in Felghana launches on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch on January 7.
