How Ys X: Proud Nordics on Switch 2 refines Falcom’s dual‑character combat and seafaring ideas, and what longtime Ys fans can expect from this enhanced port.
Ys has always been at its best when Falcom gives Adol something new to bounce off of, whether that is a cursed island, a prison city, or a stranded crew. Ys X: Proud Nordics keeps that tradition alive by tying him, sometimes literally, to Karja Balta and shoving both of them out onto the cold waters of the Obelia Gulf. The upcoming Switch 2 version is being pitched as the definitive release, with expanded content and meaningful mechanical cleanup layered on top of the original Ys X: Nordics.
This preview focuses on how that plays out in three areas that define the game: its aggressive dual‑character combat, its ship systems out on the gulf, and the adventurous but surprisingly earnest tone Falcom is going for. It also looks at what series veterans can expect from this particular port in terms of performance and features.
Cross Action combat: Adol and Karja glued at the hip
Proud Nordics continues the big mechanical swing Ys X first took: instead of the three‑person parties from Ys VII through IX, combat is built around Adol and Karja operating as a single unit. Falcom calls this Cross Action, and it splits the action into Solo and Duo modes.
In Solo mode you directly control either Adol or Karja. Adol leans toward the quick, familiar swordplay fans will recognize, while Karja hits slower but harder. Switching on the fly lets you route around enemy resistances and weave together combos that feel closer to modern character‑action games than older Ys entries. Skills still level up with use, and as in Ys VIII and IX, frequently used skills evolve into stronger variants, so there is a satisfying progression even within your basic toolkit.
Duo mode fuses the pair into one controllable entity. Movements are heavier and attacks more deliberate, but guarding in this mode charges a Revenge Gauge. Burning that meter turns Duo skills into screen‑shredding payoffs that reward patient, defensive play instead of pure aggression. Proud Nordics doubles down on this by rebalancing enemy health and resistances around using those empowered skills, which should reduce the temptation to mindlessly mash through fights the way some players did in earlier games.
What matters for longtime fans is that the rhythm of combat is different without abandoning what makes Ys feel like Ys. There is still generous animation canceling, sky‑high mobility, and the sense that you are never more than a dodge or two away from turning the entire fight around. But with just two protagonists, reads and counters matter more. Where Ys VIII let you drown encounters under a blizzard of party skills, Proud Nordics wants you to master a smaller move list and really lean into stagger windows, guards, and the Revenge system.
Mana Actions, traversal, and the new island
Around that foundation sit the Mana Actions, a set of traversal and utility abilities that essentially replace the old party‑tool structure. Mana String acts as a grappling hook and telekinetic tether, Mana Ride lets you skim across water on the Gullinboard and lock into rail‑like paths in dungeons, while Mana Burst and Mana Sense add combat and puzzle utility through elemental blasts and temporal slowdowns.
In the original Ys X these tools sometimes felt underused, particularly in the more linear early regions. Proud Nordics’ headline addition, the new Öland Island arc, is very clearly designed to address that. Öland’s dungeons and side areas are more vertical and knotty than many of the game’s early maps, with puzzles that demand you juggle multiple Mana Actions in sequence. It feels much closer to the exploratory highs of Ys VIII and IX, just compressed into a single bespoke region.
For returning players, that is the real draw of the new content. Öland does not rewrite the early hours of Ys X, but it does give the back half of the game a stronger sense of escalation, with a new late‑game boss encounter and a suite of score‑attack arenas, Mana Ride races, and the Muspelheim time‑trial dungeon. Those challenge modes appear built for players who have wrung every ounce of efficiency out of Cross Action combat and the traversal kit.
Life on the Sandras: sailing and ship combat
Outside dungeons, Proud Nordics leans hard into seafaring. Adol and Karja command the Sandras, a nimble ship you steer around an archipelago of small islands, naval battle zones, and trading lanes. In the original release, that sailing layer could feel like busywork, padding out the runtime with long stretches of uneventful ocean.
Falcom has taken another pass at this for Proud Nordics. Each slice of the Obelia Gulf is now seeded with more optional naval encounters and dynamic events. Clearing out clusters of enemy ships generates powerful wind currents that cut down on travel time, and reclaiming islands from Griegr control flips them into permanent fast travel anchors. The result is a loop where every diversion pushes you toward smoother, faster traversal instead of dragging the pace down.
Naval combat itself mirrors the ground game’s risk and reward. You manage cannon angles and firing windows while paying close attention to the Sandras’ Mana Barrier, which serves as both shield and a kind of magical ram. Bringing an enemy vessel’s durability to zero opens it up for boarding, which drops you into a traditional brawl scenario that pays out with rarer loot. Some ships on the horizon are merchants rather than enemies, though the world’s corruption creeps in here too with imposters laid as traps.
Crucially, the Sandras is not just a vehicle but also a hub for progression. Recruiting crew members upgrades its core stats, unlocks on‑board shops, and introduces new sidequests that feed back into ground and sea combat alike. Victories at sea boost crew morale, which in turn enhances Recapture Skills and grants passive bonuses when you are on foot. That through line makes the seafaring layer feel more connected to the rest of the game than it first appeared.
Tone and storytelling out on the Obelia Gulf
Falcom frames Ys X as a northern seafaring legend, but it does not abandon the heart‑on‑sleeve sincerity that has defined the series. Adol is still the quietly determined axis the story spins around, but Karja is the emotional engine, a brash pirate whose worldview is challenged by the realities of Griegr attacks and the politics of the gulf. Their literally shackled partnership drives both character growth and combat mechanics, which helps the narrative and gameplay feel more tightly woven than in some past entries.
The broader tone lands somewhere between Ys VIII’s wistful isolation and Ys IX’s urban melancholy. Ports are cozy and bustling, but the sea is uncaring, and islands can flip from safe harbors to cursed battlegrounds without warning. The structure encourages a kind of episodic adventuring, hopping from one localized problem to the next while the overarching mystery of the Griegr and the gulf’s history slowly comes into focus.
Proud Nordics’ Öland arc layers on a companion story that adds more texture to that world without turning the game into a lore dump. Newcomers Canute and Astrid broaden the cast, and while their tale is not radical for the series, it aims to give longtime players a bit more context for where Falcom might be steering future Ys installments.
Why the Switch 2 port matters for Ys fans
For series regulars, the obvious question is what this Switch 2 version actually brings to the table beyond Öland and a tougher post‑game dungeon.
On the feature side, Proud Nordics on Switch 2 is being billed as the baseline definitive edition. The new island, Muspelheim, revised balance, and expanded skill mastery are baked into the core progression rather than bolted on as optional DLC. The Release Line system, which functions as a shared board‑like growth grid for Adol and Karja, has been retuned around new enemy variants that drop currency specifically used to push skills further, encouraging more experimentation with builds.
Performance is where the port diverges most starkly from earlier versions. Falcom and NIS America highlight high frame rate options on Switch 2, with reports of support up to 120 frames per second in compatible modes. Even if you opt for a 60 fps quality preset, the upgraded hardware lets the game lean on a new global illumination solution and more detailed environments that address some of the flatness players noticed in the original release. That upgrade is most evident on the more complex Öland maps and in large‑scale sea battles, where lighting, effects, and geometry density see visible boosts.
Compared to the original console and PC versions of Ys X: Nordics, Proud Nordics on Switch 2 is not only smoother but more cohesive. The sailing rework trims away some of the most tedious stretches, load times benefit from newer hardware, and the visual uplift brings the look of Ys closer to the ambition of its combat systems. It does not magically turn the game into something it is not, but it does make this version the clearest expression of what Falcom was trying to build.
Should veterans wait for Switch 2?
If you skipped Ys X entirely, Proud Nordics on Switch 2 is the version you want. It preserves the fast, responsive feel that has kept the series relevant while letting Falcom experiment with a tighter two‑person combat focus and a more systemic seafaring layer. The new content and tuning passes smooth out several of Nordics’ rough edges, particularly in its back half.
For players who already finished the original release on another platform, the calculus is trickier, and it will likely come down to how much you value cleaner performance and an extra island’s worth of content. What is clear, though, is that on Switch 2, Proud Nordics is not just a marginal upgrade. It is a rebalanced, slightly sharper take on Ys X’s ideas, and a promising sign of where Falcom might steer Adol next.