¡Buenos días! Just the other day I thought: hey, isn’t Ys pretty old and with a lot of history? And it’s true! It is pretty old, and it has a lot of history! And since I have played most of the games, who is better than me to make a retrospective on the franchise? This will be a series of articles, something similar to what Strategist did with Squaresoft. Today, with parts 1 to 4, I’ll be talking about what I know about the history of Nihon Falcom (the minds behind the Ys franchise), what Ys is and the first two games. Let us being!
PART 1: A PHOENIX RISES
Fun fact: their name comes from the Millennium Falcon, according to the Wikipedia.
Nihon Falcom was founded by some dude named Masayuki Kato in 1981, but they didn’t bother doing things until 1982, with a game called Galactic Wars. Afterwards they’d make some games here and there of questionable quality such as Super Mahjong, Horror House and… Private Stripper. Frankly, the beginnings of Nihon Falcom aren’t very elegant, so I am not surprised that I haven’t heard about these games until looking them up. But it doesn’t matter, because it wouldn’t take long for Nihon Falcom to strike gold. In 1984, they released Dragon Slayer, one of the most important and overlooked games of all time, because it pioneered the Action RPG genre (hell, even Japanese RPGs in general!). From that day onward, Nihon Falcom became known as the ARPG enterprise. I’m not going to tell you much about Dragon Slayer, mainly because I know nothing about it, but I imagine that it’s very rudimentary and basic. Dragon Slayer would spawn several sequels and spin-offs, the most important ones being Xanadu and The Legend of Heroes. You might have heard of this one through Trails/Kiseki. Aside from Dragon Slayer, they broadened their horizons and kept pushing new Ips, some more successful than others. The most important one is the focus of these series of articles.
PART 2: THE LEGEND OF YS
Throughout the years, Adol has worn many different outfits. My favorite is the one in Memories of Celceta (the on in the middle).
So, as I’ve stated before, Ys is an Action RPG franchise. All of these games, save for one who is set in the past, star Adol, a red-haired boy with a penchant for adventure. All these games (except the aforementioned prequel) happen either because Adol can’t stay put or for things outside of his control (which encourage his need for adventure). The formula is as follows:
- Adol arrives at an island, either because of a request from a friend or because of a shipwreck.
- Adol meets the villagers of said island. Usually, among these villagers is a girl who serves as a love interest for Adol throughout the adventure.
- Monsters appear throughout the island, causing chaos and strife for the villagers.
- Adol sets out on an adventure to find out the cause.
- Adol kills a god.
- Adol departs for his next adventure.
What has remained consistent, however, are two factors: the music and the bosses. Both have high intensity and keep you on your toes constantly. Some bosses in particular are brutal and vicious and require you to know their patterns if you wish to beat them, if only because you can’t heal mid battle. To further accentuate this are the multiple difficulties. Since the beginning, you’ve been able to choose the difficulty in which you wish to play the game. On Easy you can, more or less, play with your brain turned off and be somewhat successful. On Nightmare, though? You HAVE to be aware of your surroundings, or you die. Seriously, the Ys series on Nightmare puts Dark Souls to shame. And I love it for that.
And thus, the greatest character of all time is introduced.
To finish this introduction, I’ll talk about the two most important characters in the franchise: Adol and Dogi. You already know Adol: the adventurous, brave, kind and caring boy who set out on adventure because he was bored of his life back at his village. His trademark feature is his red hair, and it’s the thing most NPCs recognize him for, because it’s extremely uncommon in the world of Ys. His design has changed a lot throughout the years: initially he sported light armor but eventually ditched it in favor of light clothes that allow for more mobility. This may be a symbol of how the series evolved.
The other important character is Dogi. Dogi is introduced halfway through Ys I and is Adol’s best friend. Initially, he was a bandit, but reformed and started going on adventures with Adol. Unlike Adol, who is slenderer and more beautiful, Dogi is big, muscular and rugged, but nonetheless kind. His trademark features are his blue hair, which contrasts Adol’s and creates a dynamic of "Red Oni, Blue Oni", and his ability to smash walls. With his bare fists. They don’t call him the "Dogi the Wall Crusher" for nothing. Both are different, and yet very alike, and complement each other perfectly. The greatest of friends, if you will. Perhaps something more ;).
But I digress. Without further ado(l), let’s begin the greatest of adventures, starting from the very beginning.
PART 3: THE BEGINNING OF THE LEGEND – YS I
All of the information you need is present in the screen.
I have already been redundant enough, so I’ll cut to the chase: Ancient Ys Vanished - Omen is an extremely simple, replayable and flawed masterpiece. It does a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong. It’s all ingrained in its digital DNA. It’s perfectly designed, in spite of its evilness. It takes a lot of heart to love Ys I, but if you manage to do it, you’ll find something very special and unique here.
Ys I was very revolutionary for its time due to being one of the first console RPGs with proper storytelling. Granted, the story of Ys I is very basic, but credit where credit is due. Adol arrives at Esteria, a particularly small island with a few villages, caves and towers. His objective is to seek the Six Books of Ys in order to obtain the knowledge to defeat the evil that attacks the land of Esteria. Simple, but effective.
Ys I uses a unique, never seen before (or after!) battle system called “bump system”. Well, I lie, Hydlide did it before, but there it was so ass that I’d rather believe that Ys did it first. Anyways, previous RPGs were either turn based or had an attack button like in The Legend of Zelda. Not Ys, though! Here what you have to do is bump into your attacks. But it’s not as simple as that, because if you strike them directly, Adol will take damage. And, let me tell you, Adol will take more damage than he deals, effectively killing him. Instead, what you have to do is either hit him from behind (more effective, but harder) or on the shoulder (easier, but carries more risk). It’s all about positioning, and I think it works wonderfully. Fortunately for Adol, if he takes damage is no big deal, because he can recover health by simply standing still outdoors (this doesn’t work inside dungeons without the use of a specific item).
Touhou.
Previously I mentioned that Ys I thrived on its simplicity, and this is true. Every single aspect of the game is very simple but executed excellently. I’ve already spoken about the combat system and the story, but in truth this also extends to the mechanics, the dungeons, the cities and the characters. All is made to be very easy to grasp. Hell, the game is extremely linear, and it’s always easy to tell where you have to go. The only time I’d say it tries to deviate is when trying to find the Roda tree’s seed, but even then, it shouldn’t take very long. And the level cap is only level 10! A lot of times it feels like it was made to be replayed a lot of times and make your best time possible each time, especially because the game is very short and can be beaten in an evening if you know what you’re doing.
Speaking of levels… in Ys they matter. A lot. A boss can kick your ass, but as soon as you level up once, the tables can turn. It’s great and fixes a problem a lot of RPGs have, which is grinding. And speaking of bosses, just like the rest of the game, they are simple and easy to grasp but still have their own strategies that you have to discover in order to beat them. There’s an exception who, to this day, I don’t think you can beat any way other than brute forcing and hoping for the best. Nonetheless, the bosses are very satisfying to beat, even if some are absurdly designed.
Ys I is a timeless classic that you have to learn to appreciate. It’s not for everyone, but it’s unique and charming, and it’s the start of a really great franchise. The best way of playing is the Complete+ version that’s available on Steam, which comes with the second game as well. They are the same story, after all.
PART 4: MORE STUFF, MORE PROBLEMS – YS II
GOOD LUCK LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Ancient Ys Vanished - Final (also known as Ys II) is the only game in the series that requires playing a previous game to get into it, because it’s a direct sequel of the first game. After Adol defeats the boss, he is sent immediately, without his consent, to the land of Ys. Woah, title drop! There he finds… more of the same: more villages, more humans, more monsters, more evil. Time for Adol to do his thing.
Perhaps it’s because it was made with Ys I in mind, but Ys II feels like a more polished, more fleshed out version of Ys I. In theory. You’ll soon see why. Every single aspect of the game was made to outshine the first one. Combat is the same bump-based combat, but better, with the inclusion of the magic system. The story is more ambitious, with the introduction of more antagonists. There are more locations, and dungeons are more intricate, incentivizing exploration. There are more items and more enemies, and the level cap is increased to a whooping 55! With all of this in mind, it should outclass the first game, right?
This is a punishment for my sins. I hope God will forgive me one day.
No, no way! That may have been their intention, but they failed miserably. Yes, the magic system makes combat more interesting, but out of six (SIX!) magic spells, only one has offensive capabilities, and others are used in very specific situations. Yes, the dungeons are more intricate and incentivize exploring, but they are extremely cumbersome and it’s very easy to get lost in them. Yes, the story is more ambitious, but it’s still very simple because of the time, and there are more antagonists, but they are all very one dimensional. And, yes, there are more enemies, but rarely do they feel like anything other than “same dude but stronger and maybe throws projectiles”. What I find most egregious, however, is the dungeons and the bosses. Out of the many bosses that plague the game, only two can be beaten with melee attacks, one of them being the final boss. The rest have to be defeated with the Fire spell, which is annoying and cumbersome to use.
Overall, Ys II destroys the simplicity of the first game by adding a lot of features that are all useless fluff that embitter the experience. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a fun game, as it still has some of the qualities that made Ys I great, but it’s definitely one of the worst Ys games in the series, not counting spin-offs. Oh, well, at least it’s memorable.
And that's it for today. On the next article I'll talk about the franchise during the dark years of Nihon Falcom, before they started releasing games on the PSP (which I consider the golden era), featuring Ys III, Ys IV and Ys V. See you next time!
