Ys X Nordics Made Adol Younger to Appeal to Younger Players, Says Falcom President

The president of developer Nihon Falcom, Toshihiro Kondo, was recently interviewed by multiple Chinese outlets in the lead-up to the launch of the latest mainline entry in the Ys franchise, Ys X Nordics.

Thankfully, two of these interviews, by outlets Bonfire and A9VG, have been translated by Falcom community member Hansuke and several collaborators. These discussions are quite dense and address plenty of facets regarding Ys X Nordics and the franchise as a whole.

One question asked about why protagonist Adol Christin was made considerably younger in this adventure, occurring right after the events of Ys II. For those unaware, the oldest we’ve seen Adol was 24 in Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, and he’ll be back to being around 17 years old in Ys X Nordics.

Kondo replied that to expand the player base to younger users, especially given the Switch’s audience, they found it best to make Adol younger so he’d be more appealing.

You can view the question and response from the A9VG interview below, translated by Hansuke and edited by Karvan:

Q: This story comes right after the adventures of Ys I and II, which can be said to be quite early in the timeline of Adol’s overall adventure. What were the reasons for deciding to set the latest installment in this time period…

Kondo: “Falcom has looked at the player base of the Ys series, and there are a lot of those who have been playing since Ys I & II and many who have been with the series since Ys VIII. When we were working on Ys X, we were thinking about how to reach a new group of players, and given that users on the Switch platform are a younger audience, we set the age of Adol at a younger age in the hopes of attracting more young players to this game.

In addition, the tenth installment will have a return-to-its-origin feel to it, which led to the relatively young Adol being chosen to go on this adventure. In previous installments of the Ys series, Adol was always adventuring in different locations one after another, and there weren’t too many chances to get to know companions of a similar age as him.

This time, the story is set at the age of 17, and the characters that come into contact with Adol are all teenagers of a similar age…”

Ys X Nordics will occur between Ys II and Memories of Celceta, making it the new third canonical entry in Adol Christin’s adventure logs. The gameplay has undergone a significant shakeup, with there only being two playable characters this time around.

Special maneuvers can be unlocked via story scenes and exploration, allowing for environmental interaction. Further, in solo mode, the character you’re not controlling performs actions judged by their own discretion. Adol will be controlling a ship for combat and island hopping, too.

Unused Ys Seven concepts are being utilized in this outing, too. Ys X Nordics will allow players considerable explorative freedom, enabling naval travel with a recruitable crew and ship combat.

Be sure to check out our extensive coverage of this game for story, gameplay, and character details.

Ys X Nordics will launch in Japan for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch on September 28, 2023.

Ys X Nordics will also launch in Traditional Chinese and Korean for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch on September 28, 2023, the same day as the Japanese version.