Ys X: Proud Nordics Review

Ys X: Proud Nordics arrived less than a year after the original Ys X: Nordics, positioned by publisher NIS America as the definitive way to experience Falcom's latest entry in its long-running action-RPG series. Judging purely by the content added, that positioning has merit — this is a substantial expansion, not a coat of paint. Judging by how Falcom and NIS America chose to sell it to the fans who'd already bought the original, the response has been considerably less charitable.

A genuinely large content addition

Contrary to some early characterisations of Proud Nordics as "just a new island," reviewers who've spent real time with the new content describe something considerably more substantial. One detailed breakdown lists five new overworld areas on the added island — several larger than entire regions in the base game — alongside six new dungeons including Muspelheim, a repeatable post-game challenge dungeon with randomised loot and enemies, five new bosses folded into the time-attack boss rush mode, a new racing minigame, an endless wave-survival naval mode, and new story threads that multiple reviewers say lay meaningful groundwork for the series' future direction. The level design in the new areas draws specific praise for improving on some of the base game's flatter, more corridor-like sections, with more verticality and environmental storytelling than the original island content.

The new story content is a particular highlight for series fans. Reviewers single out expanded characterisation for Karja, the game's co-lead, as some of the strongest writing Falcom has done for a companion character in years, and the new final boss of the added content is repeatedly called one of the most memorable encounters in the collection, paired with a soundtrack reviewers specifically praise as a highlight even against some criticism of the base game's music. Quality-of-life changes — a streamlined skill-leveling system, upgradeable Mana Tools, better collectible tracking on the map, and save transfer from the original Nordics release — round out a genuinely thoughtful expansion of the underlying systems.

The pricing model has done real damage

That said, almost none of the negative reviews are actually about this content — they're about how it was sold. The core complaint, repeated across a large share of the negative review base, is that Proud Nordics launched at close to full price for what amounts to a large expansion bolted onto an existing release, while owners of the original Ys X: Nordics were offered only a modest upgrade discount — around 34% in most reviewers' accounts — that wasn't even made available until roughly two weeks after launch, conveniently after the window for claiming pre-order bonuses had already closed. Multiple reviewers describe feeling explicitly targeted by that timing, having supported the original game at launch only to be denied the same bonuses being offered to new buyers of the "definitive" version.

A second, more specific complaint compounds the frustration: the original Ys X: Nordics included a co-op multiplayer mode, and Proud Nordics quietly drops it. Several reviewers point out the irony directly — this is the entry in the series built specifically around a two-character duo combat system, which several reviewers say made it the single most natural Ys game for co-op, and that exact feature is now gone rather than carried forward or improved. Combined with the pricing structure, a meaningful portion of the review base frames this less as a normal definitive edition and more as premium-priced DLC dressed up as a full re-release, with several longtime Falcom supporters explicitly saying the experience has damaged their trust in day-one purchases from the company going forward.

The base game remains divisive on its own merits

Underneath the release-model controversy, Ys X itself continues to split opinion in ways that predate Proud Nordics entirely. Newcomers to the series and reviewers coming from earlier entries like Ys VIII and Ys IX generally rate the combat, animation work, and Karja and Adol's central relationship highly, with several calling it their favourite entry in the series to date. Longtime veterans are considerably more mixed: multiple detailed reviews describe exploration as padded with low-value loot behind a "detective vision" mechanic that encourages constant button-mashing to find treasure chests, boss design that falls short of Falcom's stronger action-focused entries like Ys Origin or Oath in Felghana, and a naval exploration loop some compare unfavourably to open-world checklist design more associated with other publishers entirely. It's a reminder that Proud Nordics inherits both the real strengths and the real structural criticisms of the base game it's built on, for better and worse.

Weighing the upgrade decision

For anyone sitting on the fence, the practical calculus reviewers keep landing on is fairly consistent. If you've never touched Ys X in any form, Proud Nordics is simply the best version of the game to start with, and the controversy around its release model is largely irrelevant to that decision — you're paying once for the complete package rather than paying twice. If you already own Ys X: Nordics, the maths is far less favourable: the upgrade path costs a meaningful amount of money for content that, while substantial, several reviewers frame as more appropriately priced as standalone DLC, and the missing co-op mode is a genuine downgrade rather than a neutral trade-off. Waiting for a deeper discount, rather than buying at launch prices, is the advice that recurs most often among reviewers who felt burned by the original timing.

Final Verdict

Ys X: Proud Nordics is a difficult release to score cleanly, because the two halves of the experience pull in opposite directions. The new content itself is substantial, well-crafted, and adds real value for anyone experiencing Ys X for the first time — new players are well served buying straight into this version. But the way Falcom and NIS America chose to sell it to the fans who supported the original game at launch has generated a level of genuine anger that's hard to ignore, between the delayed and shallow owner discount and the loss of a co-op feature that made this specific entry stand out. Recommended for newcomers, especially at a discount; existing Ys X: Nordics owners have every right to feel this one asked too much for what it actually offered them.