[#22] [PCECD] Ys Book I

 

Platform: PC Engine CD
Release date: December 21, 1989
Developer: Alfa System
Publisher: Hudson
Genre: Action RPG
Battle System: Real time bumping
Difficulty: Easy
Setting: Fantasy

 

 

 Ah the first Ys. It's short playtime, super satisfying bump combat and banger ost. I previously played only "modern" PSP remake (guess psp is retro now huh) and now I wanted to try one of "classic" versions. After some research, it seems that PC Engine CD version is the best classic YS I and II. Also this version merges both games in one but I will still count them as two separate games.

 

Ys begins with young adventurer Adol Christin, the main character, traveling to island Esteria, where Ys - ancient kingdom which supposed to be here but was mysteriously vanished. There he meets a fortune-teller Sara. She asks Adol to recover lost books of Ys because those books might hold answers to what happened to the lost kingdom. 

 This game is an action rpg with real time combat and Adol is the only playable character. It sometimes feels like Legend of Zelda but Ys does have rpg systems like stats, leveling and equipment. It's combat system is both simple and fun: there's no attack button - you just run into enemies to damage them but if you run straight into them you'll most likely lose a good chunk of hp, you need to bump into enemies off center or from the side giving it a more arcadey feel. 

 But not combat alone - Ys also has some interesting puzzles and while there's only 3 dungeons they are all pretty long with last one - Darm Tower, might take as long to beat as the entire game before it. There's only one shop of each type in this game (equipment, item and medical) and not much to buy, especially if you played game before and know how to get equipment better than anything in shops fast. You can recover hp in clinic but that's also not required, you can recover hp just by standing still but you can't recover like that in dungeons unless you find Heal Ring.

Visually Ys looks great. PCECD version is based on original PC-88 version but graphics got a huge upgrade: sprites are much better with all characters now look taller, animations are great and full screen cgs are beautiful. But where Ys shines the most this is it's music. The soundtrack here is one of the best of all jrpgs and PCECD arrangements are all great (but I like PSP ost more tho). "Tower of The Shadow of Death" (Darm Tower theme) might be my favorite final dungeon theme of all time.

 I think Ys is a game that still fun to play regardless of version and PCECD port might be the definitive classic version. I remember last boss being too annoying in psp remake but here he's way slower and fight feels more of a fair boss fight rather than a test of luck. Overall great story, graphics, gameplay and music. Highly recommend to play through both PCECD and PSP versions - they're quite different. I also seen that Famicom and DS versions have their own portions of exclusive content so I might check them out someday as this is a very short game.

Final stats:

Game playtime: 2h 51m
Total playtime: 14d 21h 10m