hi how is everyone!!!
so i am a big fan of the early Ys games, and I have a soft spot for the first one in particular. i got the pc88 version forever ago on the switch and i liked it so much that i got Ys 2 on there as well. recently i had a birthday and i was given two games as gifts: falcom classics for the sega saturn, and Ys for the famicom. i was super excited obviously because whoa!!! two more versions of Ys, i wonder how they're different? i played the saturn port, and it was very faithful to the original with updated graphics and some quality of life improvements, nothing crazy. famicom Ys is quite possibly the most jarring port of a familiar game i have ever played. the world map is changed entirely, and it took me forever to make my way around the first town area because it was made so much bigger and rearranged???
and now i'm curious. what are games that have the weirdest or most jarring ports to other consoles that you all know of??
Ys is notorious for having dramatically differing ports/remakes of the same game. For instance, there are four distinct versions of Ys 4, all of which follow the same major beats of the story, but all doing a completely different interpretation of the game.
Ys 4: Mask of the Sun (SNES)
Ys 4: The Dawn of Ys (TurboGrafx/PC-Engine)
Ys 4: Mask of the Sun: A New Theory (PS2--one of the three Taito published PS2 remakes of the Ys games)
Ys 4: Memories of Celceta (PSVita)
My understanding is that Mask of the Sun and Dawn of Ys were both developed at the same time, by two different devs, who were handed the basic concept art and a general plot idea and cut loose to make it however they saw fit. Those two games differ from each other because of the difference in design styles of the two dev studios.
Mask of the Sun: A New Theory is a remake of the SNES game, but with a 3D engine, while Memories of Celceta is a sort of remake of the SNES and TurboGrafx games, with the intent being to combine elements from both and make a sort of definitive lore to the fourth game. Plus, it adds the party system of Ys 7 to bring it inline with what the Ys series was at that time.
Ys is such a cool series, but I think the most interesting part is just how unique each of its ports and remakes are. You can play several versions of most of the games and they'll each have something completely different from each other, effectively allowing you to play the same game in multiple flavors.