JRPG Talk | Ys Heroines: Niena

Being one of the major elements in the Ys series, Ys Heroines is a topic I have been interested in discussing in depth ever since I took a deep dive into this legendary Falcom series 15 years ago. However, for various reasons, I only began writing this series now, starting with the heroine from what I consider the weakest Ys iteration, Ys V’s Niena.

Despite the overall weak execution of the game and its aesthetic design, which has aged poorly, Niena’s concept is well-crafted and without a doubt a worthy part of Ys continuity.

As such, I do not even mind Niena being the first candidate for this particular JRPG series, which I expect will eventually cover all Ys entries. It also serves as a good foundation in anticipation of future remasters of the series.

In Ys V, Niena is a young girl whom Adol initially rescues during his quest to gather four elemental crystals and find the lost alchemy desert kingdom of Kefin. After building a positive reputation with her, Adol learns about her identity.

Niena is the foster daughter of a Xandrian adventurer named Stein, whom Niena met three years prior to the events of Ys V. Stein found Niena during his own quest in a completely amnesiac state, unable to remember her past life. She only had an ocarina and a wing-like mark on her back as clues to her origins.

Despite this, Stein treats Niena with genuine affection, as if she were his real daughter, and the relationship becomes mutual. At the time of Adol’s arrival, Niena has been running her father’s store while waiting for his eventual return, as he continues his quest

However, after Niena’s encounter with Adol, the events surrounding her begin to accelerate once again, as a shady and sinister group attempts to kidnap her to complete a particular ritual. This chain of events ultimately leads Adol into a pursuit of her kidnappers, which brings him to his primary destination: Kefin.

Given that Ys V’s thematic formula is a revisit of Ys I & II, Niena’s archetypal design follows this pattern as well, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In essence, Niena draws inspiration from both Feena and Lilia.

From Feena, she inherits the amnesiac aspect as well as a hidden divine origin. From Lilia, Niena inherits the archetype of an ordinary, pure young maiden who becomes closely involved with Adol despite the brevity of their encounter.

While Niena’s current design may appear rather plain due to an illustration style that has aged poorly, she would still be a worthy addition among Adol’s potential partners, given Falcom’s capacity at their current state.

Near the end of Ys V’s storyline, Niena’s true identity is finally revealed, which explains why the shadow ruler of Kefin spares no expense in retrieving her.

She is a creation of Kefin’s mad alchemist Jabir, designed as the replacement core of the Philosopher’s Stone, a key magical artifact that sustains Kefin’s unprecedented prosperity, albeit at a deeply unsustainable and sinister cost.

The Philosopher’s Stone is a powerful alchemical artifact created from the White Emelas body of the divine Eldeen, Aisha, through Jabir’s treachery. This allowed Kefin’s prosperity to continue for over five centuries. However, even the core of a divine race such as the Eldeen eventually began to deteriorate and sublimate. Thus, Jabir devised a replacement solution, which led to the creation of Niena.

In a sense, Niena is one of the finest examples of artificial life created through alchemy. She possesses a perfectly human appearance and refined beauty, designed to contain a fragment of divine essence as a substitute for the White Emelas body of the Eldeen. However, through a strange twist of fate, Niena was spirited away from Kefin three years prior to the events of Ys V, effectively delaying Jabir’s sinister plan until Adol could ultimately put an end to it.

In essence, Niena represents the sacred component required to sustain an unholy existence born from corrupted human ambition.

Upon Adol defeating Jabir, the tether sustaining the Philosopher’s Stone begins to break apart, immediately causing great instability within Kefin. Before everything collapses, however, Niena fulfills her original purpose as the replacement core of the Philosopher’s Stone, buying time for Adol and his comrades to escape from Kefin, sacrificing herself in the process.

However, if Adol manages to obtain Aisha’s White Emelas fragment, the Eldeen Aisha offers to sacrifice herself as penance for the tragedy of Kefin, liberating Niena from her destined role entirely. Adol then carries her safely out of Kefin.

Deeply grateful for her new life, Niena wishes for Adol to stay with her. However, understanding the nature of her savior, she willingly lets him go and begins her new life with her new family, patiently waiting for Adol’s return someday.

Despite Ys V being one of the weakest adaptations in the Ys continuity so far, Niena’s character design remains one of those hidden gems that makes the series worth salvaging for a proper remaster.

What makes Niena resonate with me, despite the glaring flaws of the game, is that she stands as a living testament to Adol’s heroism. Adol could have resolved the danger within Kefin without saving Niena from her fate, and no one would have blamed him.

Instead, he chooses to go out of his way to save a pure soul he has only just met, acting purely out of altruism with no expectation of reward. More importantly, this is not just a simple rescue—it is a decisive, extraordinary act that actively severs her tragic fate and allows her to exist beyond what was seemingly predetermined.

This is only one example among many of Adol’s deeds, but it reflects a consistent pattern in his journey. When you look at his actions across the series, it becomes clear why he is regarded as a legend in the JRPG space: someone who repeatedly refuses to accept tragedy as inevitable, instead bending its course through sheer human will.

Given the magnitude of what her savior has given her, it is natural for Niena to develop affection toward Adol out of eternal gratitude that cannot be repaid within a lifetime. As such, she can only offer herself to Adol with full sincerity, even though Adol never seeks such repayment. Even so, Niena would undoubtedly make a good wife candidate should Adol ever decide to settle down if he one day ever gives up adventuring.

Hopefully, this first attempt at the Ys Heroines article series is solid enough. In a way, choosing Niena as the first subject has its own merit, because her current state in Ys continuity feels like an unpolished gem that requires only a little refinement to reveal its true luster.

She may come from one of the weakest entries in the series, but that also makes her an interesting starting point—because her value is not defined by presentation or execution, but by the narrative potential she still manages to carry underneath it all. In that sense, she fits perfectly as the opening subject of this series: a reminder that even flawed installments can still produce meaningful characters worth revisiting.

My next heroine in this series project will be either Olha from Ys VI or Dana from Ys VIII. If it turns out to be Dana, I will have quite a task ahead of me, as I will need to write an essay worthy of one of the strongest heroines in the Ys series—one who can seriously contend with Feena, the long-undisputed champion of Ys main heroines.

Either way, the next entry will likely set a very different tone, and I look forward to exploring how Falcom continues to shape its heroines across very different eras of Ys.