I'd never played it before but I'd heard it was a good game so I decided to try it. That's when I found out all you do is run into enemies to fight them. You don't really control your character in fights. How come people say it's good when all you do is run into enemies? I'd want a game where I could at least control when I attacked.

Not all Ys are like that. There are Ys where you can control your character like the game i have here, "The Ark on Napishtim" You can use 4 elemental swords at your own will, and perform stunts and combos to defeat the monsters and the boss.

Sorry for my ignorance but what are Y's?

Ys is like a series of games, like Final Fantasy. Ark of napishtim is the Ys VI.

That's on the PS2. Looks like I'll have to wait to try that one out. At least not all of them have you mindlessly running into enemies.

It has a PSP version too

Hmmm, what's its motive? How serious of a game is it? and lastly, anyone mind posting a good link to it? I know I can search, but i'd rather just pop in here with a link when I have time.

I'll post the infos once i have a free time

Ys is an action RPG series.
From Wikipedia: The Ys series chronicles the adventures of Adol Christin, a red-haired young man with a zest for adventure and an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time. Gameplay usually revolves around Adol, though his comrade, Dogi, is a frequent companion in his travels around Esteria

Here are some screens:

Ys 2 (NES) Ys 3 (SNES)

Ys 4 (SNES) Ys 5 (SNES)

And links from Get-Your-Rom:

Ys (NES)
Ys II (NES)
Ys III (NES)

Ys III (SNES)
Ys IV (SNES)
Ys V (SNES)

Hey, an Ys topic! Glad to see one of these around. Oh and please, for future reference, type it as, "Ys" and not, "Y's". I know it's an error no thanks to the American localization from years ago, but just thought I'd clear that up.

Being a fan of the series, it kind of strikes a nerve when I see people are still going around typing it like, "Y's", lol. Anyway! Ys is my favorite RPG series, honestly.

I've played through the first installment I don't know HOW many times at this point. There are so many remakes, revisions, ports, etc. you name it. The one thing which frustrated quite a few people about the original Ys titles I and II was that there was no swing button. You had to run into your enemies, but not head on exactly, from an angle.

For example, if Adol (the main) and the enemy are running towards each other head on, then direct Adol so he will connect on the enemy's right or left side as opposed to the enemy's front. If you try attacking the enemy from the front, one of two things will happen.

1. You and the enemy will exchange blows until one of you die

2. The enemy will only hit you

So, it's best to attack from a slight angle. It wasn't until Ys III for the SNES, subtitled, "Wanderers from Ys" that an action button was incorporated into the game. The game changed from the overhead view of attacking enemies into a side scrolling game which further made fans believe this was just a Zelda clone.

The Ys titles tend to be fairly short though. You can generally beat the first installment in 3-5 hours and anywhere between 3-7 for the second installment. The level cap for Ys I is only 10 though, so you can get that within the first hour of playing. Some of the games, such as Ys I and II Eternal allow you to play through the first and second installments in sequence, one after another, and your levels carry over.

You can go past level 50 in Ys II if you play them in order instead of playing them separately. It's generally better to just play them in order anyway since Ys I leaves you with a, "To be continued" screen. Anyway, there were two different versions of Ys IV released later on the SNES or I guess I should say, "Super Famicom" instead, lol.

Ys IV: Mask of the Sun

and

Ys IV: Dawn of Ys

They both follow different storylines and return to the overhead gameplay style. Then there is Ys V: Kefin, Lost City of Sand. Another overhead game.

There was later a version just called, "Ys V: Expert" which was released and was just a re-release of Lost City of Sand with a harder difficulty. Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim was released much later for the PS2, then was ported to PC and the game was handled by Konami for the first time for the music and graphics. This was the first Ys game I was a little hesitant to play due to Falcom not being completely involved like their previous Ys titles.

Ys VI was the first title to introduce a 3D system which introduced different kinds of attacks and other elements to the game, making it a landmark for what was to come in the later years for the Ys franchise. After the release of Ys VI, Falcom decided to remake Ys III with the Napishtim system and titled the game, "Ys: Oath in Felghana". The game featured new mechanics, new animations, and voices.

The game was well received and gave Falcom an idea of where to take the series from there on out. There was a rather odd tactics game which was released for DS which I didn't even play because it seemed like too odd of an idea for the series, honestly. I heard it sold pretty horribly too, for good reasons.

Later, they went back to making the series for PC with the release of Ys Origin which is a prequel to Ys I and for the first time, gives players different mains to choose from and doesn't include Adol in the roster (however, you can play with him by using a hack). Ys Origin also uses the 3D system used in Napishtim and Felghana, but makes it more open-ended with use of more than one main. During this time, Ys Online was being made for the PC as well and later released giving players the access to seven (?) different races to choose from while exploring the world of Eresia (the world which Ys takes place in basically).

Ys Seven was later released as a direct sequel, years after VI, for the PSP and introduced an MMO look to the game (this is just a personal perspective) and incorporated an element seen in one of Falcom's other series, Legend of Heroes, a party system. Ys has always been a solo action RPG game, so this was a little odd, but I suppose they wanted to just experiment with it and see how the idea was received among the fanbase. Personally, I didn't like it.

If I wanted Legend of Heroes, I would go play Legend of Heroes. I like Ys because it is a solo action RPG. I hope they go back to that in their next installment to the series.

Falcom has expressed their interest in making future installments for PSP and making their older installments compatible with Windows 7, so we'll see how that goes. At the moment, an Ys fighting game is in production. Ys VS Legend of Heroes. From the looks of screenshots, the layout resembles Tales of VS, but not much info is known yet.

For those interested, there was also an Ys anime made in the 80's titled, "Ancient Books of Ys". The anime follows the game to a T, honestly. The first few OVAs follow Adol's adventures through Ys I, but the next few OVAs don't cover his whole journey through Ys II though. The music is the same though, so if you're looking to import the remake for PS2 or play it in Japanese on an emulator, then you could easily get through Ys I after watching the anime.

Hope this helps!

EDIT: Don't want to really go for self-promotion here, but I've actually got a video walkthrough for Ys I on my Youtube channel for those interested in seeing some gameplay from the remake back in 2000 (or was it a little later..?). Either way, the original does NOT look as crisp as this, lol.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7ADFEF9304BF1EA8

Just thought I'd share it for those who want to get a feel for how the game plays. Enjoy!

Originally posted by TetsuyaHikari

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Being a fan of the series, it kind of strikes a nerve when I see people are still going around typing it like, "Y's", lol.

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I know where you're coming from here. It kind of gets to me when people organize games in alphabetical order & put The Legend of Zelda under T or Z instead of L. The only one I can tolerate under Z is Zelda II because that was what it started with.



I may actually check out the SNES games since you can at least swing but I like the sound of the open-ended ones. hopefully I can try them out someday.

the game is a alright but the new ones are way better than the old ones for sure