Ys Vs. Trails In The Sky: Alternative Saga Review (Nintendo Switch)

Nihon Falcom is a game developer that likes to have fun with its game ideas and concepts. About 15 years ago, as they were finishing Trails in the Sky the 3rd as well as Ys Seven, they decided to test their new Ys engine by making a game all about their most recent entries coming together titled Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga. It was initially stuck on the PSP and only released in Japan. After years where Falcom fans have had to use an English patch on a modded PSP or PS Vita, we finally have a remaster done by refint/games available globally and for modern platforms.

Game Name: Ys Vs Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga
Platform(s): PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch (Reviewed), PC
Developer(s): Nihon Falcom
Publisher(s): refint/games
Release Date: October 10th, 2025
Price: $34.99

Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga has the cast of the Trails in the Sky trilogy and the cast of Ys Seven wake up in a brand-new world called Xanadu. You can choose one out of five starting characters to begin the story. You can choose Adol, Estelle, Klaudia, Geis, or Tita to traverse Xanadu as you make your way to defeat the Dragon King. You are joined by Lappy, who will be a Pom or a Pikkard, depending on whether the person you choose is from the Trails games or the Ys games. Your character of choice will be fighting a lot of one-on-one fights, as the rest of the cast has their entire reality rewritten as working for the Dragon King. Each time you beat them, you have them join your party to defeat the Dragon King.

Traversing Xanadu

When you start up the story mode, your character of choice wakes up with Lappy telling them their goal. You will be taken to a screen displaying a map of Xanadu, with flags indicating the directions you can choose to go. Each flag houses a new person you can fight. When you get to the end of a section, you will start a boss encounter. Certain boss encounters let you select a second person to join you in the fight. In the entire story mode, you will play as only the character you chose. Even if you do get more people in your party, it just adds a new face to the encounter, not a gameplay change.

Combat in Ys Vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga is built upon the fighting system from Ys Seven, but with a bit more added on top. One button is your attack button. You can press it multiple times for a combo or hold it for a charge attack. As you dish out damage, you will gain SP. You can use your SP to use one of four special attacks. As you use special attacks, you gain Extra meter, which is the HUD under your character’s portrait. Once it is full, you can use your Extra Skill. This depletes the whole meter, but it does a huge damaging attack.

You and up to three other characters can be on a stage at once. In story mode, you are going to be seeing a lot of one-on-one fights. Stages are varied in a lot of ways. Some are flat-out arenas that become a brawl. Some are lengthy stages that get higher and higher with wind that can help you reach the higher points of the stages. Many of them are locations within the two series. You can go to the Bright home or even to Crossbell in these stages.

A lot of this game, like many fighters, is reacting and countering your opponent’s moves. You have a dash button, a jump button, and a guard button. If you use an Extra skill, your character is invincible for the duration of your character’s move. I would wait sometimes to use mine when I was getting bombarded or about to get hit by an enemy’s Extra skill. You have a stamina gauge too, so don’t get too comfortable with dashing out of the way or guarding for too long. If your stamina gauge gets broken, you will be stunned and can’t do anything until your stamina gauge refills.

Another component of your character is your level. Each character you have access to has an individual level. The more you use them, the more experience they will gain. In Story mode, the enemy level will be telegraphed to you next to the flag you select. In arcade mode, the level of the enemy will always match your current level. You also have access to the Shop. The Shop has accessories you can buy and skills you can buy for individual characters. These accessories are going to be how you build your characters. Each character has an AP limit, and equipping accessories requires AP. Each accessory has a different AP cost. As you level up a character, they will have a bigger AP limit, meaning you can equip stronger accessories.

Budget of the Ys Seven Engine

The main engine of Ys Seven was made for the PSP. You can tell based on the in-game models of these characters. They are very blocky and polygonal. The overall presentation of it on the Nintendo Switch version of the game is better than how it ran on the PlayStation Portable, but it still isn’t the greatest visually.

Even if the in-engine gameplay may not look the best, the art scenes and the art style impress in spades. Each character has art when they speak or when they are in the story. There are also wallpapers you earn throughout the game. All of this art is fantastic and rendered beautifully. I loved unlocking more and more art for the gallery collection.

New Enhancements

The best new feature of Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga is the voice acting. The entire story mode from all five characters’ viewpoints is fully voiced. When it comes to Nihon Falcom, it is a rare case when an entire game is voiced. The localization is wonderful and showcases some of the best-voiced dialogue in either series we have heard. Olivier’s Matt Mercer and Estelle’s Stephanie Sheh are standouts when it comes to their voiced dialogue.

One big plus in the game is its multiplayer aspect. There is crossplay across all platforms. There is also good rollback netcode. The game plays smoothly. I played Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga on the Nintendo Switch 2, but it was the Nintendo Switch version of the game. It ran at a full 60 FPS. It played smoothly and I didn’t notice a single dip in frame rate as I played.

Even though the visuals aren’t going to attract on their own, the enhancements to the visuals are a significant improvement. I did a small deep dive on my post for when refint/games shared their overview page from Steam. They are still a much better improvement as a whole. The backgrounds, the posters, and the models are all better cleaned up than what it would have been if all we got was just a port of the old PSP game.

Ys Vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga

Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga is a game I was never expecting to see the light of day. It was stuck on the PSP and was never brought outside Japan. I am really happy this game is available to buy and that we get to see more of some of the best characters Nihon Falcom has ever created. This is probably not the best game if you are unfamiliar with how Ys games play or unfamiliar with either of these franchises. It is a great collab for both. It is a game for the fans and it isn’t ashamed of that.

Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga is available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: Ys Vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga was provided to us by refint/games for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.

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