If you liked Memories of Celceta then it's safe to say you're probably going to like Lacrimosa of Dana. For one thing, the narrative is significantly more developed, better conveying its raised stakes and regional lore than Celceta did. Moreover, the general gameplay experience, although mostly iterating on the same systems that Celceta had, is more expansive due to the much improved world geometry, introduction of raids and hunts, jumping, and improved QoL features (e.g. increased Adventure Item slots). Celceta's level design sometimes became quite monotonous because just about every environment was a series of winding corridors, but Lacrimosa of Dana consciously avoids this by using large rooms and verticality to keep things interesting.
The only aspect of intentional game design where Ys 8 trends backwards is the crafting system, which was, for whatever reason, simplified considerably from Celceta. In Celceta, you could synthesise weapons and armour with different materials to confer specific bonuses, like an increased chance of inflicting elemental debuffs or lifesteal. Ys 8 does away with this in favour of an entirely linear upgrade system with no option for player customisation. You can still, in theory, inflict debuffs with specific accessories, but the build-up is so minimal on higher difficulties that it's not worth it.
Lacrimosa of Dana's characters are generally archetypical with a few exceptions; but because even non-playable NPCs and castaways have some level of interaction in the form of sidequests, gift-giving and services, they're still fairly likeable. The game heavily incentivises building a rapport with these castaways as well, as their aforementioned services can be upgraded as a result. Moreover, you can get miscellaneous item rewards, stat bonuses and even different endings if you engage with Castaway Village sufficiently by getting high grades in Raids/Hunts and doing side quests.
Combat requires that you get a good handle of Flash Dodge and Flash Guard so that you can both improve your own damage with guaranteed crits and slowed time, *and* your defence with i-frames. Enemies and bosses have more extensive movesets than their Celceta counterparts, which means there's more to look out for. Thankfully, the addition of jumping means that even seemingly impossible mobbing scenarios (e.g. simultaneously aggroing all the primordials in the Pangaia Plains night mission) can be finessed if you know what you're doing.
Unfortunately, some enemies are still exceedingly broken no matter how much you've mastered the game's systems. For example, Bullfrodons in the Eroded Valley area are damage sponges that can–within a literal microsecond of aggroing them–pivot in place to face you and kill your entire party with an unblockable and undodgeable tongue grab (which has terrible horizontal hitboxes) before you've recovered from the animation of a single basic attack input. Many late-game enemies, like the Giesaur, Dandale and Parekhan also have obnoxious roars that stun every party member within a 35 metre radius that they will constantly abuse with no telegraph to get cheap hits on you when you've otherwise been playing perfectly. Even the true final boss is guilty of this, with the only difference being that its particular roar also inflicts the Paralysis debuff on you.
Lacrimosa of Dana's OST is exceptional and amongst the best in the genre. "Eroded Valley", "Obscure Sentence", "A Slow and Deep Breath", "Neglected Temple", "Crevice of the Archeozoic Era", "Corridor of the Lost Ages", "Volitional Decision" – just about every other area has a catchy theme that reflects its respective mood and atmosphere perfectly.
Even compared to another 2016 JRPG which released only a month after it, Tales of Berseria, I think Ys VIII is nominally better than it in every aspect aside from party member characterisation. And Tales of Berseria is also a great game, so that's saying a lot.
