Ys I & II Chronicles - Ancient Game of Ys

Ys Month continues, as I've now moved on to the original games in the series: Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished, and Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter, presented in 2011-o-vision Ys I & II Chronicles for PSP, released by XSeed.

First, a brief history of these games. Both Ys I and II were released originally for the NEC PC-8801 in Japan only in 1987 (1988 for Ys II). The games were then ported to like a hojillion systems. Time for a (probably incomplete) list! Some of the platforms Ys I & II were ported to:

-Japanese computer X1
-NEC PC-9801
-FM-7/77
-FM-77AB
-MSX2
-Sega Master System
-Turbografx CD
-MS-DOS
-Sega Mega Drive
-Sega Saturn
-Famicom
-Super Famicom
-Nintendo DS
-PC
-Playstation 2
-Cellular phones in Japan
-Wii Virtual Console

And of course the version I'm playing now, the Playstation Portable port. Having just finished Ys III (Oath in Felghana) and Ys Seven, I wasn't sure what to expect going into the original Ys games. I was worried I wouldn't like them at all, due to how archaic they supposedly were.

And they are archaic. Well, Ys I is, anyway - haven't played much of II yet. But I did beat the first game and I must say, I only sort of liked it.

You see, there is no "attack" button in the original two Ys games. You literally ram Adol into his enemies to kill them - the trick is, you cannot do this head on. You must hit them from the back, the side, or slightly off center to the front to be able to damage them without taking damage yourself. It's a very odd mechanic, especially considering Nintendo's Zelda had been out for almost a year by the time Ys I was released. Perhaps Falcom was trying to differentiate their series by speeding up the combat? Who knows!

But the mechanic isn't all bad. In fact, it can be pretty fun - when Adol is running around a bright, wide open area, it's tons of fun to ram into enemies and rack up gold and experience. The overworld of Ys I was a blast! But when Adol is running around small corridors in almost total darkness, it sucks! Like, a lot! Such as the entire second half of the game, in Darm Tower!

I will admit to liking the presentation of Darm Tower, at least in the PSP version (I have no idea if the original releases did the things I'm about to list - kind of doubt it). Adol is told when entering the tower that he has a day to complete his quest - after that, the guy who guards the door won't bother opening it every morning. As you climb higher and higher, night begins to fall. You see this because the tower is built in such a way that to climb it, you actually go outside on just about every floor. I thought it was a pretty nice touch.

Here's the problem. The level cap in Ys I is 10. I was level 10 before entering the tower. There is also nothing to buy in the second half of Ys I, because you literally end the game in the tower, so all the gold I had collected (and continued to collect, for whatever reason, inside the tower) was useless. There's nowhere to spend it! Okay, so that isn't a big deal. But it is just an odd design choice. The corridors of Darm Tower are also incredibly narrow, making it hard to hit the enemies. Oh, did I mention its fairly dark?!

So I didn't like that part. I struggled through it, and did something I usually don't (and haven't in a long time): I used a FAQ.

I have no regrets.

No, really. The game would be pretty tedious if I wondered around this tower, trying to figure out what to do for hours. There were a few people inside the place, and I kept having to go back and forth between them, ferrying items or information between them, to advance in the tower. Now, if there were no level cap, or perhaps something to spend my gold on, I wouldn't have minded. The grind would have eventually allowed me to do something. But all I would have been wasting was time, and frankly, the dungeon wasn't very fun to move around, so I just wanted to get through it.

In Oath in Felghana and Ys Seven, the bosses were (for me, anyway) the best parts of the games. Not so in Ys I. Almost every boss were annoying or exceedingly difficult - and not in a fun way - to fight. I enjoyed the worm boss and the two masks you have to fight, probably because they weren't stupid hard. That's it! The last boss in particular wasn't any fun, either. He floats around and when you hit him, wherever you landed the attack, a piece of the ground falls away, becoming a pit. If you stay on the tile as it falls away, you instantly die, ending the battle. And since the dude floats around the whole time, you can actually trap yourself and not be able to hit the boss at all, and slowly die via the fireballs he shoots.

I suppose I'm not surprised. The game came out in 1987, and for god sakes I was able to actually beat it. I can't say I have the stomach to do that these days for any turn based RPGs from way back then. Hopefully Ys II isn't such a slog - I do plan on finishing it though. Even if it does suck, I'll be cleansing my palette with Ys: Ark of the Napishtim for PS2 afterwards, most likely.

Oh! The music. I thought it was really good! Not as good as Ys Seven or Oath, but still better than most videogame soundtracks. You also have the option of switching between the Chronicles version of the tracks (the most recent remixes, which are great), the Complete version of them (the remixes done back in 2001 for the PC re-release of Ys I&II), or the original PC-8801 mixes, which I adore. I should note that the music for these two games was done by Yuzo Koshiro, of Etrian Odyssey fame. If you liked the music in those games, you will like the PC-8801 tunes in Ys for sure.