Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Ys Book 1 & 2

For about a decade I've been really wanting to play Ys Book 1 & 2. I was first introduced to Ys with the Super Nintendo port of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. It's really not a bad game, but it's nothing great either. I liked it because of the world. I think Falcom (the developer) does a tremendous job building their world and making it accessible to fans. The soundtrack was top notch also. So while I don't consider Ys III a wonderful game, it certainly is a personal favorite.

The same couldn't be said about Ys Book 1 & 2. These games are worshipped by hardcore gamers as some of the greatest RPGs ever made. Just about ever magazine you read in top 25-50 lists you'll find Ys Book 1 & 2 somewhere in there. I mean they are so obscure but loved, I had to play them. I neglected Ys VI on the PS2 simply because I wanted to play the games in order.

Anyways, about five years into this decade I found the games for a steal price on ebay ($45 as opposed to about $80 or higher) and decided to buy them. Of course then I had to get a Turbo Grafx-16 CD, which is also hard to find. I settled on the emulator Magic Engine which cost me $20 but was better than the $150 and up prices on ebay.

Then it had to take me another four years to actually play it. When I first got it, I made it through Book 1, which isn't saying much since Book 1 was only four hours. With some time, I finally sat down and played it, and well, it was pretty good. Overrated, but pretty good.

Yeah, I said it. Ys is overrated. I'm not dogging the series at all. The first two games are excellent titles, and I enjoyed them for what they were, but there are A LOT of problems with these games.

For one thing, it's the fact it's an 8-bit game. Now there's nothing wrong with that. As an 8-bit game, you're used to some cryptic bullshit on these, but none annoyed me more than Ys. Even at the end when you've done everything you need to, you need to navigate through a maze a fourth time just to get the best sword in the game. It's extremely tedious and I think going through this sewer maze, twice was enough. I also thought the level design was a bit annoying and lacked much depth. Again, this is an 8-bit game, so I can't be expecting much, but how many dead ends do you need in a dungeon? I'd rather the game be non-linear than have all these dead ends and rooms. I know the purpose of the large dungeons is to overwhelm the player, but come on! Look at Zelda's, even Dragon Quest doesn't get this confusing. I may be whining too much because I'm accustomed to maps, but I guess we can equate this to me being a lazy bastard.

But back to the cryptic stuff. The game seems to thrive on just doing stupid things. For instance, when you go to Burnland (creative title guys) you find a bridge guy who is acting strange since the goons (Ys name for the monster population) came by. So you transform into a goon yourself and speak to the bridge guy, who says he's going to make sure Adol (the character you control) won't cross the bridge. Ok, great! From there I go do something else not knowing what to do, but I'm supposed to turn back into Adol and talk to him AGAIN! In a game where the last 7 hours everyone has said the same thing since I first ram into them to talk, this guy changes his story? How confusing is that? If I knew these guys changed what they said I'd be more inclined to hit him. But it's from there you get an item that helps you finish the area.

Most of the game though, the puzzles are a bit hard, but never hard to where you just go to an FAQ. I only used an FAQ when I just wanted to make sure I had all the items in an area. The game seems to love putting you on backtracks and if you don't fully explore each area, you're going to miss an orb or a statue someone is going to want four hours later and then be forced ALL the way back. Even if you have what you need you get forced back. In Darm Tower (whoever came up with that place should be shot) I'll spend an hour fighting monsters and finding my way to the 18th floor, only to find a dead end. I didn't know what to do, I checked a few rooms, nothing. It wasn't until I checked gamefaqs that I realised I had to go ALL the way back to floor 11 and talk to an NPC for the way to be opened up. I'm sure as a kid, I'd just go there after not knowing what the hell to do, but really-that's game design? Things like this in the game really annoyed me.

The ending is just as ridiculous. After you de-stone everyone the Goddesses just say the final battle is approaching and to get ready. What you NEED to do is go see the unstoned NPCs (which I never caught onto and blame myself) and then get the best sword. Throw me a bone here! I don't mind puzzle solving and vagueness, but you don't do it to the player at the end of the game-that's bullshit. If you are at the last guy, you DON'T make them do stuff beforehand. I hate it when games do that, it's like they wanted to cram more material in, even though the last boss/dungeon is right there. They did this in Chrono Cross where you couldn't access the final boss without making an artifact called the crono cross. Of course no one can tell you anything but really vague hints-and you just want to kill the boss at this point and finish the game. These are momentum killers-don't do them.

I know it sounds like I'm dogging the series, but I'm mostly nitpicking. Again this is an 8-bit game. Yes, the definitive versions are on TG-16, but these games were made for the Famicom and Sega Master system, and even more archaic computers before that. They fit the time period.

Of course there's the music-which I can't ignore. I can only say, it's pretty good. That's it. It's definitely not up to par with the amazing soundtrack of Ys III, and it definitely doesn't stack up with genius like Final Fantasy or Castlevania out at the time, but it's still pretty catchy and soothing. I got it onto my ipod, and for a soundtrack ot make it there-it can't suck. I still don't think it belongs in a top 10 best soundtracks of all time, but definitely a top 50.

Then there's the battle system everyone praises. Ok, it's innovative for it's time, and different...but it hasn't aged well. I don't think I really have grasped the concept of how you're supposed to collide with enemies, but I got the general gist of it. Ramming enemies was fun, until i got to the end and it was all I did. It's just the same strategy every encounter-ram them. They don't have projectiles (though that would be a nightmare if they did) they don't do anything but just have more HPs and do more damage. Add in the game is VERY unbalanced. I don't mind having a bunch of swords for sale at the start, but when I can grind for an hour and come back to buy all the best equipment-then that means something. There's even a place in Book 2, where you can sit and plow through 8 enemies every few seconds and just watch your gold multiply. I've read that it took longer to gain levels in the original games, and I really do appreciate how simple it is to get beefed up, but the gold should have been cut down with experience. After you gain a certain level, enemies go to dropping only 1XP and the XP requirement to gain a level multiplies. They drop the same amount of gold though, and I think that should have been decreased as well.

The other problem is like I said, the game DOES get boring with the battles, unless it's the bosses, which are just fucking amazing. Each boss brings something different and is a joy to fight. The music gets you pumped up, and the bosses themselves get you pissed. The final boss is an absolute dick until you put on the goddess ring (and no, I didn't need a FAQ for that, true story-put it on and walked towards the room then checked to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong since I died 8 times). A lot of the 8-bit RPGs lose steam about now, but I think Ys really deteriorates worse than say, Final Fantasy. You're just doing the same thing-but the battles are fun, and I never really thought this until I got to the last boss.

Storywise, this is pretty interesting. I'm not going to say it's phenomenal, but for an 8-bit game this felt almost like a 32-bit caliber story. The land of Ys is very interesting and you are actually interested in why it vanished. The world is amazing and one I'd love to live in (which says something because I hate most fantasy worlds). I would have liked a bit more interaction with Feena and Adol, becuase I thought their farewell at the end was a bit forced (They only meet once in the game, and at the end Feena is almost in tears). The ending was well done, and the voice acting, while a bit raw, was actually pretty good for the time period.

So like I said-I liked Ys, and I definitely could play this again in a year, but I do find it overrated. It's got clumsy balance and a strange way of doing things, it's a good game though. It does have a lot of the problems Ys III has but no one really complained until Ys III hit. People bitch about how linear Ys III is and I prefer that to these mazes, what's the point? It's available for download on the Wii Virtual Console, and I highly recommend picking it up. It was worth the wait and think it was worth paying th emoney for a used game. Just know what you're getting into. Does it belong in the conversation of greatest RPGs of all time? No, no way, but it does belong in the top 25 and top 50s. It's pretty short, only took me five hours for book 1 and half a day for book 2...so it won't be too taxing. Go play it on VC...NOW!

Next, I'm gonna go ahead and play through Ys III...again.