Ys: Memories of Celceta is a 2012 action role-playing game developed by Nihon Falcom. An installment in the Ys series, it was originally released for the PlayStation Vita in Japan in September 2012. It is Falcom's reinterpretation of the story previously adapted in Ys IV: Mask of the Sun and Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys, which were developed by other companies from Falcom's original concept.
The game follows series protagonist Adol Christin, who has lost his memories while exploring the forest of Celceta. Its gameplay expands the party-based combat introduced in Ys Seven with Flash Move, character-specific field actions, weapon reinforcement, and an exploration system centered on creating a map of the forest. Falcom later identified these systems as foundations for Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana and Ys IX: Monstrum Nox.
Xseed Games released the Vita version in North America in November 2013, while NIS America published it in PAL regions in February 2014. A Windows version was released internationally in July 2018. An enhanced PlayStation 4 version, titled Ys: Memories of Celceta - Kai in Japan, was released in 2019 and 2020. A Nintendo Switch remaster was released in Japan in May 2025 as Ys Memoire: Memories of Celceta and internationally on April 28, 2026 as Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta. The Switch version includes newly arranged versions of the soundtrack that can be selected in place of the original music.
Gameplay Ys: Memories of Celceta is an action role-playing game in which the player explores fields and dungeons and fights enemies in real time. The player controls one member of a party of up to three characters, while the remaining members are controlled by the game's artificial intelligence. The controlled character can be changed during combat.
Each character uses one of three attack types: slashing, striking, or piercing. Enemies may be vulnerable to one attack type and resistant to the others, encouraging the player to switch between party members. Characters can perform Skills by consuming skill points, or SP, and each has a more powerful Extra Skill that becomes available after filling a separate gauge.
The Flash Guard system from Ys Seven allows the player to negate an attack by guarding immediately before it connects. A successful Flash Guard restores SP and causes subsequent attacks to inflict critical damage. The game adds Flash Move, which is performed by evading immediately before an attack lands. A successful Flash Move temporarily slows the enemy and makes the player's party invulnerable.
Weapons and armor can be reinforced with minerals and materials obtained from plants, animals, and defeated enemies. Materials provide different enhancements, allowing the player to alter properties such as attack power, defense, status effects, and item acquisition.
Exploration centers on creating a map of the forest of Celceta. The map is filled automatically as the player enters new areas, and rewards are awarded for reaching specified percentages of completion. Falcom developed the mapping system to make the forest feel like an unknown and difficult-to-navigate region rather than a conventional sequence of connected stages.
Party members also possess personal actions used during exploration. These include opening locked chests, throwing knives to activate distant mechanisms, breaking obstacles, and identifying hidden objects. Magical artifacts grant additional traversal abilities, including shrinking the party, breathing underwater, and running up certain walls.
The original Vita version uses the touchscreen to access menus and select items directly. The rear touch pad can be used to issue behavioral commands to the other party members.
Plot The game takes place a year after the events of Ys X: Nordics, and about a year before Ys: The Oath in Felghana. The game is set in the land of Celceta, and begins when the series's protagonist, Adol Christin, arrives in the town of Casnan with amnesia for unknown reasons. Then, he meets an information dealer, Duren, who claims to have met him before. Governor-General Griselda, the local ruler, then hires Adol and Duren to explore Celceta and draw a map of it because neither she nor her government has a full map of the area.
While exploring the forest, Adol slowly recovers his memories of his previous encounters. He and Duren explore local villages and meet Karna, a warrior from Comodo Village, and Ozma, the village leader from Selray Village. Adol had previously met both but had no memory of meeting them. Both Karna and Ozma join Adol. They also meet antagonistic characters Bami, a witch who had been abducting villagers from Comodo and controlling them with magic masks, including Karna's brother Remnos, and Gadis, a beast tamer who attacked Selray and tried to take their Spardas, beasts the Selray villagers consider sacred. Adol also meets Gruda, an officer of the Romun army, who is sympathetic towards Adol's exploration.
Eventually, Adol's group arrives in Highland, a town near something called the Tower of Providence, where a mysterious being, referred to as a "god" by the locals, called Eldeel lives. They also meet Calilica, the daughter of the village chief, and Leeza, an apostle of Eldeel. Leeza explains Adol's memory loss is because of Eldeel, but that he should not have lost all of his memories. With Calilica's help, who also joins the group, they reach the Tower and meet Eldeel, a white winged being. Eldeel reveals he is an actual god and has helped humanity advance in the past, and has also already met Adol, but is currently sick. He briefly transforms into a black winged being with a malevolent personality, demanding Adol return something called the "Mask of the Sun", and passes out, his wings turning white again.
Immediately after, Adol and the group return to Highland and find it under attack by Gruda, Bami, Gadis, and an army of masked men, including Karna's brother Remnos, who is acting on his own volition. Adol's group repels the attack, but not before learning the masks Bami created are copies of the Mask of the Sun, which is hidden somewhere in the forest. The group arrives in Danan village and meet Frieda, a warrior from the village. It is revealed Danan is home to a group of Darklings, people who rebelled against the gods centuries ago and are trying to repent for their crimes. Duren reveals he is from Danan and has actually been protecting Adol the entire time. They are also shown that the Mask of the Sun is sealed in Danan. Shortly after, Gruda appears, revealing his is also from Danan and wants to use the Mask to access something called the Akashic Records, or the blueprints of the world, and rewrite reality to benefit humans. Gruda steals the mask and the group, along with Frieda, chase him to Elduke, where the Records are sealed.
At Elduke, it is shown Gruda and Eldeel are working together. Using the Mask, they enter Elduke but leave Adol and the group locked outside. They also learn from a being called the Grand Roo of the Mask of the Moon, which can turn Eldeel back to normal. They collect the Mask of the Moon, fighting and defeating Bami and Gadis along the way. Remnos also reveals he was on Adol's side the entire time and tried stopping Gruda's group from the inside but failed. Adol and the group use the Mask of the Moon to enter Elduke and confront and defeat Eldeel, using the moon mask to heal him, sealing away his evil personality. Adol and the party also ultimately defeat Gruda, who had used the Mask of the Sun to absorb the power of the Akashic Records into himself.
With no other options, Eldeel has the group destroy the Mask of the Sun by throwing it into Mt. Vesuvio, a volcano. If they destroy the mask, no one else will be able to access the Records again. They fight their way to the volcano. At the top, Adol fights and destroys a shade of Gruda, permanently destroying him. He also succeeds with destroying the mask. Adol is rescued from the volcano before it explodes. In a flashback, Eldeel grants Adol the title of "adventurer", which Adol is referred to subsequently in his adventures. After which the party parts ways and goes on with their regular lives.
Development and release
Background and concept The story of Celceta had previously been depicted in two games released in 1993: Ys IV: Mask of the Sun, developed by Tonkin House, and Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys, developed by Hudson Soft. Both games were based on an original scenario created by Nihon Falcom, but Falcom had not developed its own version of the story.
According to Falcom president and producer Toshihiro Kondo, the company had discussed creating its own Celceta game for more than ten years. Development began when the approaching 25th anniversary of the Ys series coincided with information from Sony Computer Entertainment about the PlayStation Vita. Falcom chose to develop a new title for the hardware rather than first gaining experience through a port, partly because the company believed that an original game would stand out among the conversions expected during the system's early life.
The game was Falcom's first title developed for the PlayStation Vita. Kondo said that preliminary research for the new hardware took time, but that the Vita allowed the team to create something closer to its intended design than had been possible on the PlayStation Portable. Touchscreen access to items, maps, and menus was intended to reduce the number of steps required during play and preserve the pace of the action. Internal testing reportedly found that testers generally preferred the direct touch controls to navigating the same functions with buttons.
Story and world design Falcom considered several approaches to the scenario, including following its original planning materials or more closely adapting the Super Famicom and PC Engine versions of Ys IV. The company ultimately decided to construct a largely new story and setting that could function as an entry point for players unfamiliar with the series.
Kondo said that the development team initially avoided studying the earlier Ys IV games so that their ideas would not be constrained by the previous adaptations. The team began consulting the older games during the middle of development, when it sought feedback from people familiar with them and selected elements to retain, particularly music and character references.
The team removed the earlier games' extensive connections to Esteria because explaining those characters and events would have made the story more dependent on knowledge of Ys I & II. Falcom instead designed the Celceta story to be understandable on its own, while retaining less prominent references to the wider series for established players.
Adol's amnesia was conceived partly as a way to place new players and the protagonist in the same position. Both enter Celceta without reliable knowledge of the region or Adol's previous actions. Kondo said that Falcom wanted the game to serve simultaneously as a 25th-anniversary title for existing fans and as a new introduction to the series.
The absence of Adol's usual companion Dogi was another deliberate break with series conventions. Falcom instead has Duren recognize Adol at the beginning, creating a scene intended to surprise experienced players who might initially expect the speaker to be Dogi.
Exploration and gameplay design Falcom considered the forest and Adol's lost memories to be the game's central concepts. Kondo believed that the earlier adaptations had represented Celceta primarily as a visual setting and had not fully translated the idea of exploring an unmapped forest into gameplay. The development team therefore introduced automatic mapping and rewards for increasing the percentage of the forest explored.