Time for the most hastily typed and boring write up of Ys games ever. Had to get it out before the year ended.
For reasons now unknown to me, I played
the entire Ys series this year. Ys 8 was on a summer sale and I'd
heard great things about it. Turns out, those great things were true.
It's easily the best Ys game in terms of feel and gameplay. About the
only thing I didn't care for was the end, or rather, the end itself
was fine, but I feel that it would have more impact if...
I had decided to stream Ys 8 and during
that, ChillGuy said something that I now can't remember at all, but
it did inspire me to try Ys 7 again, which I had attempted before,
but didn't enjoy. Very glad I did though. While the beginning is kind of a
slog and the clunkiness can be a turn off, once I understood how to
play within that clunkiness and the bosses started getting better, I
was having a really good time with it. I'd say Ys 7 has the best
bosses of the party system games. Other than the first few, they're
all fairly engaging with a fair amount of things to learn. (I've
heard the Ys 9 bosses are really good too, but I have to wait for the
translation of that one.)
I was going to stop on Ys 7, but
decided to keep going and once I did, I figured I might as well play
the entire series. Since I started with 8 and went to 7, I decided to
continue like this and play backwards. My start with Ys games
actually goes way back to the SNES days when I played the awful game,
“Ys 3: Wanderer of Ys”. I didn't think it bad back then and it
was at least somewhat different from other side scrolling games at
the time, so it did leave a memory at least.
Next up was Ys 6: Ark of Napishtim.
This game is kind of bad, but its atmosphere and feel of adventure
and discovery it had was pretty neat. It also plays a fairly
significant contribution to the overall Ys lore and a big reason I
was playing at this point, was for that lore. The gameplay balance
may have soured this game, but it still ranks up there because of
said lore.
ChillGuy played and streamed Ys 5,
which certainly exists. It was neat to see that the sword Adol has
and of course losses at the beginning of 8 was obtained near the end
of this one. It has a vampire that I believe is written out of the
PS2 remake. That's really all I can say about it.
Ys 4: Memories of Celceta was one of my
favorites. It was more basic in enemy design than Ys 8 and 7 (all of
these used the party system) but the characters and lore were great.
It also had spoken Adol lines, which are a rare thing. I was
convinced to play the two original releases of Ys 4. 'Mask of the
Sun', released on the SNES and 'Dawn of Ys' released on the PC
Engine. Mask of the Sun is trash garbage and janky as hell, so let's
move onto Dawn of Ys, which was actually really good. I used a fan
translation which also translated the voice lines which I hear they
attempted to match the tone of the original voices. Those ranged from
awful to hilarious. I'm glad the translators did it. Even when it was
bad, it was still enjoyable. The story was fairly cheesy so the
voices played right along.
The Memories of Celceta remake is by
far the best version of 4, like Duren's character being my favorite
of the game. Leo is also exceptionally better. Though having seen the
stronger tie in and visit to Esteria in the original games, I wish
Memories had a short moment like that as well. Time was probably an
issue since remaking Esteria in 3D would be quite a task so I say
remove Ozma and his village then replace that with a small section of
Esteria instead. Just as long as we're not going up Darm Tower again.
Maybe we'll bring dynamite to the tower in Ys 10.
On to one of my favorites, Ys 3: The
Oath in Felghana. I had played most of the games on Nightmare mode.
This one was, by far, the harshest of them all for that setting.
Every boss aside from maybe one was an event. There were two bosses I
was getting... irate at on stream and I believe I even said I just
wasn't enjoying it, but the reality is I was enjoying trying to
figure out what I needed to do. The anger was really at myself for
making a mistake I knew I shouldn't have made, but in the moment, the
game needed to be blamed.
Ys 1 and 2 Chronicles is next. I'm not
a fan of bump combat (despite playing 5 games with it during this
whole Ys adventure) but the Chronicles remakes manage to bring it to
its best form. Ys 2 is more like a light weight bullet hell since
most bosses require the fireball spell anyway. It's hard to dislike
Ys 1 and 2 because of the overall mysterious vibe to it. The entire
thing (I think of them both as one game) feels like trying to uncover
lost secrets. With the Chronicles remake, all the npcs are named and
unique and it feels like a lost community isolated from the world.
Then there's Ys Origin.
After that, I played the PC-88 version
of Ys 1 and a bit after that, played 'Mask of the Sun' and 'Dawn of
Ys.' Seeing where Ys started was pretty cool. It didn't age well at
all, but I can see for the time how it gave a good impression. The
music, even then, was really good.
If I had to rank the Ys games:
Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana
Ys 3: Oath in Felghana
Ys 4: Memories of Celceta
Ys 7
Ys 1&2: Chronicles
Ys 6: Ark of Napishtim
Ys: Origin
Origin IS better than Ys 6, but at that
point I was playing for lore. Ark just carries more weight for the
series.
Ys can't be separated from its music so
I'm obligated to list a top 5 or ChillGuy will come after me.
- Valestein Castle (Ys 3) – Yeah, it's a classic pick, but people pick it for a reason. It's fucking awesome.
- To Make the End of Battle (Ys 2) – It's another classic pick, but again, there's a reason. Knowing the history behind this track and how it inspired a lot of early video game composers is also pretty rad.
- Primeval Breaker (Ys 7) – This opening isn't as icon as the Ys 2 opening, but it feels so right for Ys 7.
- Ruins of Amnesia (Ys 6) – With an honorable mention for “Ernst” in this same OST.
- Walking the Path of Legend (Ys 4: Dawn of Ys) – The OST for the original Ys 4 games were really good and this track just felt so quintessentially Ys. Another honorable mention is “A Great Ordeal” in both this game and 'Mask of the Sun.'
- The Ancient City Surfaces (Ys 4: Dawn of Ys) – It doesn't get any more metal than this. (I lied, it's Ys, it's impossible to list only 5) Listen to this.
- Be Careful (Ys 3) – Really fond of this being a first dungeon theme. Sets up the game well.
- Yesterday in Etania (Ys 8) – Not sure what to say about this one. It was always used well.
