Notes on Ys IV: Mask of the Sun

Spoilers!
People talk about going back to the first Pokemon in the second Pokemon, but nobody's talking about putting half of Ys I in Ys IV.
What a lame bunch of villains. It isn't even entirely clear what they think they're going to get out of this, let alone what they'll actually get. All that monster stuff seems like a distraction from their plan if anything.
Waiting for story sequences before you can fight a boss for real works better when your attack is not running into them and hurting yourself if they're invincible.
Dying on bosses because they were invincible works better when you don't have to read the dialogue or sit through the earlier phases every single time.
The earlier bosses were fine though.
This is an Ys tradition, but making the player go through a bunch of narrow corridors at the end when bump combat is all about maneuvering is an unfortunate decision.
Leaving aside the villains, the heroes were also lame and the minor characters lacked character. The starting lost item miniquest in Ys I gave the world and people more flavor than the entirety of this game. Overall this game deserves my most "feels like an Ys knockoff" rating of Xak/10.