Yeah, I've definitely never beat Ys Seven before, because I would have remembered that last boss, fucking hell.
I can't stand when games make me randomly play as different party members, all I pretty much never used besides Adol, Dogi, and Aisha/Sigroon. The first half of the game kept taking them away! Why should I use them? Ugh. The first phase of the final boss is the worst by far - it can only be damaged after you take out one of it's arm/heads, which then exposes the core for a short time. So you wail on that for a while, then it regenerates the arm/heads and it attacks more often and faster. Meanwhile Dogi was the only one I'd trained, really, and he's slow as hell. This is where I spammed healing items, for the most part - it felt cheesy but the fight was cheap as hell and I don't regret it. It's second and third forms were pretty fun, and didn't feel like bullshit to me, though I would have been very upset had I died on them because I did not want to play that first phase again lol.
Story spoilers: how many creation myths does the Ys series have? lol you have the Eldeen gods, the Tree of Origins or whatever from VIII that governs evolution, the dragons of Altago which may only govern Altago but it's implied all life started there? Or something? I mean who cares about the story, right, but it's just weird to think about how many "gods" the Ys universe has lol.
Despite the last boss, I still enjoyed Seven quite a bit, like all the games in the series. I'm a little sad it's over, now, to be honest. It's a fantastic series - every single game is good. Yes, there are some I'd recommend over others, but honestly... you really can't go wrong with any of them. It's a very, very solid series.
Final ranking:
1. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
2. Ys: Origin
3. Ys: Oath in Felghana
4. Ys Seven
5. Ys VI
6. Ys: Memories of Celceta
7. Ys Book I
8. Ys Book II
9. Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand
And because it's this series, my favorite music tracks from each game (of the versions I played, I mean):
Ys Origin:
Ys I:
Ys II:
Oath in Felghana:
Memories of Celceta:
Ys V:
Ys VI:
Ys Seven:
Ys VIII:
(and because VIII is my favorite in the series, a bonus track I already linked upthread)
Incredible series. Can't wait for IX. I don't really recommend playing these in story order! It's not a bad thing to do, but I didn't really learn much from it lol. Probably better to play them in release order, substituting the remakes for the original versions when possible. Who cares though, the whole series is
excellent.