25 Gaming Experiences You Must Have Before You Die - Part II: Ys Book I & II

Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished (Various, 1987)

Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished – The Final Chapter (Various, 1988)

Why You Should Play It

I'm willing to bet that unless you're a particularly snooty gamer, you've never heard of Ys before.
Ys has never been popular in the United States. In the late 80s and early 90s, a few of them made it across the Pacific and landed on a few home consoles, and recently, the series has enjoyed a stint of success on handhelds. In Japan, however, Ys has a fanbase with religious devotion and fervor, constantly clamoring for new iterations on new hardware formats. The first two games in particular have been remastered, repackaged and remade so many times that you can line an entire bookshelf with their rereleases and associated paraphernalia. MSX, NES, TurboGrafx, Master System, Sega Saturn, PS2, DS, Windows PCs, and PSP have all had a taste of Ys over the years, and the series shows no signs of slowing down, with the third installment set for a rerelease on Steam, of all places, later this year.

So why has Ys been so relatively unknown in the US apart from a small cult of devotees? Ys is a peculiar creature. It has a funny name that people have struggled to pronounce properly for years, it's never really been marketed widely outside of its homeland, and while it has made an appearance or two on consoles in the US, it's largely chosen less-traveled avenues to showcase itself, calling obscure Japanese computer systems and the TurboGrafx/PC Engine home for the majority of its lifespan. But more than this, Ys, as a game, is a little “different”. At the outset of Adol's adventure, it looks and feels like you're playing an oldschool JRPG. You walk around town, talk to some folks, shop for some gear, the usual. Then you step out into the wild and see enemies mulling about and say, “Oh wait, this is like Zelda!” So you walk up to an enemy and hit the attack button. “Wait. Where's the attack button?” And then you die. And then you do it a few more times, until you notice that when you run into an enemy, sometimes, they take damage. After a few more minutes of experimentation, you finally come to the realization that there is no attack button, that there's not going to be an attack button, and the only way to hurt things is by running into them slightly off-center until they die. It's an incredibly simple mechanic that requires a surprising amount of discipline and finesse, and after awhile, you won't be able to imagine it any other way. Stand still to kill things? Are you mad? Nothing beats running around at 20 mph with your sword recklessly outstretched in front of you and watching all those other sprites that were in the room with you a few seconds ago disappear in correspondence with the numbers representing your experience level and money going up.

However, while all that stuff is good and fun, the real reason you need to play Ys I & II is for a lesson in how to present a game. When you were staring dumbstruck into your TV because Mario just turned into a raccoon or you just fought a boss half the size of the screen in Contra, Ys was blowing the doors off the hinges of the gaming industry with Redbook audio music and fully voice-acted cutscenes. When Ys I & II was released on Turbo CD in 1989, it saw the future more clearly than any game before it. When other games began with white text crawls over black backgrounds and still images, Ys begins with lightning tearing through clouds, a rising, synthesized orchestra, and a narrator, the voice of a real person speaking to you through what seemed to be the border of another dimension, explaining to you the mysteries of a lost kingdom. It was a pretty big fucking deal, so big that Electronic Gaming Monthly awarded Ys Book I & II with their very first perfect review score.

In short, Ys is a game about the conundrum of fast-paced RPG action and awesome music. It's a celebration of everything that made oldschool gaming great, in its fullest arrangement of color and vibrancy, like a Bird of Paradise displaying its plumage during mating season. Most importantly, it's a game that showcased the power of its medium to an unprecedented degree.

Potential Barriers

As mentioned earlier, the combat in Ys is unique, to put it nicely. But, a few minutes of practice will ease you into it, and eventually, it'll be second nature. If you can get past the quirks of its combat, there really isn't a whole lot to hold you back. The games are fairly short, fast-paced, and fun, and the incredible music will keep you hooked.

Current Availability

Ys I & II were originally released on Japanese computers like MSX, FM Towns, and X68000 in the late 80s, though various ports (usually of both games packaged together) have been made and it is now available for a wide array of platforms. Most recently, it's been released on PSP as Ys I & II Chronicles, which is a repackaged release of the 2001 Windows remake, Ys I & II Eternal. The PSP edition lets you select several different soundtracks, and the graphics are crisp and detailed while still evocative of oldschool RPGs. There's also a release on the DS, though this version has decidedly inferior graphics and music. If you want to experience Ys in its full splendor, however, you need to play the Turbo CD version. This is the game EGM gave their first perfect score to, and it is the crowning achievement of the entire seven-installment Ys franchise. Unfortunately, TurboGrafx/Turbo Duo consoles aren't exactly sold on street corners, so alternative avenues such as emulation may have to be employed. If you have a Wii, you're in luck, because the Turbo CD version of Ys I & II is available via Virtual Console.

If You Really Dig It
If you want more action-y, adventure-y, RPG-y, Zelda-y style games similar to Ys, you're in luck, because games of its ilk were quite popular, particularly in the 8 and 16-bit eras. Do keep in mind that while there are similar games, the Ys experience is an usual mixture of gameplay, music, and a particular visual aesthetic, so you'll never quite get the same experience in other games, just flashes here and there.

The Magic of Scheherazade (NES, 1987)

I've already written about the brilliance of MoS in the first episode of Retrograde, but it's worth reiterating. MoS is an odd and wonderful game with a top-down perspective similar to Ys along with several other similarities, but it also has turn-based battles, time travel, and a large cast of quirky characters. The game was way ahead of its time and is cram-packed with a host of features that wouldn't become industry standards for many years.

The rest of the Ys series

This should be a no-brainer, but it's not a simple as you think. Ys I & II got quite a few sequels, but with the exception of Ys IV (which takes place immediately after Ys II), none of them play anything like the original games. Ys is one of the franchises that experiments with nearly every entry, from Ys III subverting the over-head perspective for side-scrolling, to Ys Seven being a full-on action game for the most part. Sometimes these experiments work incredibly well, sometimes they don't. More often than not, each game has had multiple attempts at getting it right (Ys III being completely remade in the style of Ys VI, for instance). If you specifically want an adventure that will compliment your Ys I & II experience, Ys IV: Dawn of Ys on PC Engine is the way to go, though it's a bit hard to find, and it's only in Japanese (though a group of devoted fans have translated it). If you want to experience Ys in its entirety, the first six games were remade/tweaked and released for PS2. From there, pick up a PSP and grab Ys Seven and Oath in Felghana. On top of all that, there are rerealeases and remakes all over the place. Regardless of what path you chose, just about every piece of gaming hardware released post-Atari has an Ys game on it. You're usually guaranteed a good time and an awesome soundtrack with each one. Do some research and get to work.

Willow (NES, 1989)

Willow is based off of the 1988 fantasy film of the same name starring Warwick Davis and Val Kilmer. Apart from carrying the title of the property and a few characters from the film showing up at various points, the game doesn't have a whole lot to do with a movie, and is instead quite content to spend its days as an action RPG that comfortably consolidates the experiences of Ys and Zelda. It's a way better game than it should be considering the industry's standard for movie tie-ins back then, but it was also developed by Capcom, so no  surprise there. If you want a more detailed look at Willow, check out my article over at Kurt Kalata's most excellent gaming website, Hardcore Gaming 101.

Crystalis (NES, 1990)

Crystalis is another odd one, as it's developed by SNK, a company that, like Capcom, would become synonymous with fighting games soon into the 90s. Before Fatal Fury and King of Fighters, however, SNK quietly sneaked out this little gem to a devoted cult fanbase. Crystalis is a fun, charming game that similarly draws inspiration from both Zelda and Ys. The game was popular enough to receive a port nearly ten years later on GameBoy Color. Grab it any which way you can, because it's great.

Quintet's "Heaven and Earth" Trilogy
Soul Blazer (SNES, 1992)
Illusion of Gaia (SNES, 1993)
Terranigma (SNES, 1995)

In the early to mid-90s, one of Enix's smaller development houses, Quintet (then most known for the early SNES masterpiece, ActRaiser), released a trio of games loosely tied together by themes of life, death, resurrection, and recreating a destroyed world. That said, the three games are very different, but provide equally fantastic experiences and some of the finest gaming to be had on the SNES. Sadly, none of these games ever achieved the sort of cult popularity needed to carry them into contemporary gaming culture. The third game is especially troubled by the fact that it only came out in English in PAL territories. Your best bet here is going to be emulation. Once again, I have a more in-depth piece on these three games and their unofficial follow-up, The Granstream Saga, over at Hardcore Gaming 101.