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Looks like the steam version is based on the psp version. I'll give the PCE version a shot sometime, thanks.

Thank you! Super helpful. I think I'll stick with the PC version. New Game + is tempting but I'd prefer a larger screen and better framerate, especially for what I assume is, such a twitchy game.

I enjoyed the PCE version immensely.

The PSP and Steam versions of Ys I and II are yet more versions of a late '90s/early '00s pair of remakes.

Ys Eternal (1998) and Ys II Eternal (2000): these were developed and released separately.
Ys I・II Complete (2001): Combined rerelease with some fixes, with Ys I now with the II Eternal changes (and a new soundtrack more like II Eternal's)
Ys I・II Chronicles (2009): Heavily based on Complete. The changes are all aesthetic: new selectable soundtracks (and the ability to select both the PC-88 soundtracks and the Complete soundtracks), new selectable portrait art in a style closer to newer (at the time) Falcom games, etc.
Ys I・II Chronicles+ (2013): Chiefly an update to the Chronicles PC port* that restores elements of the original Complete that were axed in Chronicles, such as the fancy border around the play area. It's the most accessible and feature-complete of any of the versions available, though I think there might be some things about Complete that "work" better (assuming you have a Win98 or XP PC like they were intended to be played on). I need to compare them more.

Eternal Story and Ys DS are extremely weird. They're based on Eternal/Complete, but they make all sorts of additional changes that are interesting by themselves, though the port jobs are themselves weird.

The Saturn remakes in Falcom Classics are completely different from other remakes, far as I know, though they're likely closer to the PC Engine versions than anything else. Unfortunately, basically noone talks about them.

*chronicles is generally assumed to have been a psp-only game before chronicles+, but there was a japan-only pc port of chronicles released not too long after the psp version

I finished the PCE version of Ys I.

It still allows free saving like Ys Chronicles does. I houseruled that I could only save in areas where Adol regenerates health, which worked pretty well. If you die in a boss fight, the game is even kind enough to drop you off at the boss's door rather than at your last save. I don't remember if Chronicles does the same thing, but if it doesn't, saving either in regeneration areas or in front of boss doors should be fine limitations.

The collision detection feels strange. Sometimes it looks like I ran into an enemy head on, but they take damage and I don't. It even happens in tight hallways where there's no real room to do off-center hits in the first place. Hits that are clearly off-center seem to work in my favor pretty consistently. Maybe there's a chance for bad hits to work out anyway? Maybe the difference between a good and a bad hit is nigh-imperceptibly small? I don't know. I don't think it's a huge problem, though.

The world map is ridiculously tiny. You'll see the entire thing in the first 10 minutes. I definitely prefer the Chronicles's overworld. It's bigger and feels way more open and full of things to discover.

One thing I like is that you keep your experience points from Ys I when you start Ys II. It doesn't really make a functional difference, early game enemies in Ys II are worth a lot of experience compared to late game enemies in Ys I, but it feels much more like I'm picking up right where I left off.

It's alright, I give it a B-. On to Ys II.

I just finished Ys: Origin with Yunica on Normal.

Thanks to the Large Address Aware utility I was finally able to finish the game without a memory crash right before the final boss.



On to Hugo on Hard!

I was curious and tried out Toal early.

HO-LEE-SHIT! I never managed to finish the game before because of the "out of memory" crash before the final boss so I never tried Toal before. I was always somewhat unhappy with Yunica compared to Oath's Adol because her attacks, while still Ys fast, were noticeably slower. As I hoped, Toal attacks at the same speed as Adol.

BUT NOBODY TOLD ME TOAL USES ZWEE-FIGHTING!! He's not the faster-than-Yunica Adol clone I expected him to be, he's straight out of Zone of the Enders 2. Holy crap this is fun!

And if the game wasn't already dripping with Devil May Cry 3 aethetic with its whole twisty demonic tower setting, the character of Toal is basically Dante.

Best action game ever.

Toal is fun to play IMO, but a little OP. I think I just tore through the entire game with him. The other characters required a little more reacting to opponents.

I finised Ys 2. It was alright, I prefer chronicles. Darm gave me a lot of trouble until I remembered that I could turn the speed down. WHY does everyone insist on calling monsters goons?



Hugo is by far the easiest character. He's much less committed to his attacks and he can hide in his force field all day.

Hugo feels like he could have been more fun. I was actually enjoying playing him on the first floor, and particularly in the first Epona battle where she rushes him and his awful mobility down hardcore, forcing some thoughtful use of shields. I feel he falls apart once he starts getting the same mobility upgrades that everyone else does, at which point his range and defense advantage turns him into easy mode instead of a thoughtful squishy wizard.

Toal can definitely shred mobs harder than anyone else, but he is fun to play, especially in boss fights. I've found ways to use his "zwee combat" tools to circumvent the "dodge dodge dodge, punish" flow of battle and rush the human bosses down for risky speedkills. It's pretty fun.

Back on modern news: cautiously optimistic after seeing more footage of Nox Monstrum Whatever. Like I said, if they add more fun mobility and platforming to compensate the rhythm game combat, I think that'd a compromise that'd satisfy me.

A pretentious genre label given to Devil May Cry-style action games used by uncharismatic nerds. Everybody knows the true name of Devil May Cry's genre is "STYLISH ACTION".

EDIT: Going back on topic, I always forget that I actually own a copy of Ys IV for the Super Famicom. Do you need to play the series in any particular order to understand the story? I have some familiarity with the first Ys, but never made any effort to play it seriously.

I also want to get around to completing Legacy of the Wizard too one of these days, but that game always intimidate me. I don't think ever beaten more than one boss in that game.

I haven't played the entire series, but going by the ones I've tried there are callbacks and references to earlier entries for fans to recognize but nothing remotely essential. Continuity doesn't seem to be a big emphasis of Ys to begin with, really: Adol goes someplace, beats the heck out of a whole bunch of stuff, heads for the next place while slacking off so he starts back at level 1 when he reaches the next place full of stuff to beat up.

Ys 4 is a pretty separate story. It ties super mildly into some of the other games but not in any "need to play them" manner.

Cold Steel 3 out September 24th/27th

3 days later in Europe.

Looking forward to it.

Ehh.. playing Origin for the first time, hard mode with Yunica.
It still feels like the felghana chainsaw massacre to me. The little gap in her attacks is perfect for letting go of that whirlwind slash then continuing the onslaught.
The fucking carnage man it's great!

Actually that's one of Origin's major gameplay improvements over Felghana. You can combo WHILE the whirlwind slash is happening.

Finished Origin yesterday
What a fantastic game jeeez. Genuinely like the story as well, especially how it ends.

gotta agree with Squire when he said the boss battles are better than felghana. They feel a bit fairer.

Yeah Yunica's story is genuinely endearing and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The archetypal heroes journey plays off well with the innate sense of earnestness present in almost all of Falcom's titles (even their lesser games always impress me with this, there's genuinely a feeling of "heart" even when they're doing super nes tier excuse plots). Genuinely sweet.



Revisiting Felghana on Inferno, it genuinely strikes me how unpolished and rough most of the bosses are.

Finished Origin with Hugo on Normal. Started boring but he turns out quite fun in the end. The trip mines are everything for him imo, his bread and butter.. Just run into a group, lay a charged one and detonate immediately for fat damage then mop up with mine spam or shots.
Also trapping an enemy by the wall or corner and putting a charged mine on them so they take the entire blast is quite fun too.
Great magic for bosses.
Didn't mind Hugo's story in the end. Can relate to the fuccboi in some ways.

Shame he didn't get his end away but I'm sure miusha will give up that ass at the first opportunity.

Gonna start Toal but I've a question.

Edit: just re-read advice on Ys IV
hm.. I know I said I wanted to play Dawn of Ys but I'm leaning towards playing both that and the SNES version just not sure which to tackle first.
Edidit: Probably mask of the sun because I can understand that one.. JP voices on the PC version ahhh.

So I stumbled upon a super cheap copy of Ys III for SNES locally, and grabbed it since I crave A-RPGs right now. (I would have prefered a Genesis copy since I'm an FM Synth nut, but alas I haven't stumbled upon one over here yet. Music is still pretty good but I would've prefered an FM Synth rendition for damn sure)

I'm having fun right now! pretty decent. I'm not far into the game, I just got to the ruins, and battled 2 bosses so far. (The first I kinda just wailed on with the Force ring equipped, but the second one was fun to dodge his lightning attack and hurry up before your Shield ring drains out).

The sword swing feels satisfying. and I like that it auto swings at a very fast clip if you hold down the attack button, turning Adol into a human blender. Chop chop!

So far I'm having fun with the "time management" aspect (finding the sweet spot between time spent grinding and being just powerful enough to advance. There's even some instances where I was able to play defence-oriented and just rush in a segment while evading too-strong-for-me-at-the-moment enemies, in the hopes of perhaps finding a special item at the end of that short stretch (which I sometime did) all the while being able to escape back from the dungeon safely after said stretch, which is a whole 'nother challenge entirely).

I like the premise of having just this one full-health refill between visits to the town (I know you can go outside the dungeons to heal, but I mean "in-dungeon" refill)

Experimenting with when to use the Force ring or the Shield ring is fun too.

So far so good, I'm enjoying my time



EDIT : defeated Fire Dragon in the ruins now (fun enough fight) and could have continued to another boss, but instead I think I'll retreat to town to get the Broadsword since I have 8000 gold(I didn't buy the Large Shield @ 6000 gold earlier, which helped me amass enough cash to afford the Broadsword early in the game without grinding like crazy. plus, I ended up finding a decent shield in the meantime anyway)

Great summary that describes my own experiences with Ys 3 as well!

Thanks Sumezu!



Ys III cleared! Took me a whole 2 days, which is an ideal lenght for an ARPG for my tastes nowadays. I call them "weekend rentals RPGs" roughly same lenght as Faxanadu

My experience was the same as above through the end. Had a really fun time, the game was keeping me wanting more, which is a good sign.

Ballacetine Castle was really fun. And the Garland fight was great! reminds me of Drac in OG Castlevania on NES. Galbalan not quite as hot but still pretty good. you could do a lot worse for an end boss fight. He has 2 random attacks that break the flow of his pattern, so you stay on your toes. a little much waiting around, but still very decent. I did a good stretch of fighting 3 bosses in a row in Ballacetine Castle, and it was a great fucking feeling when I succeded. After both the first and second ones I thought about treking back to town to refill, since my resources were pretty low. But I managed to break through anyway. took a couple tries but was very satisfying

Really enjoyed my time playing this cart. gotta say, the game looked real nice on my RGB crt. oh and it helps that the soundtrack is completely sick. elite powermetal throughout, really gets a guy pumped

YS III rules. Play Oath too if you haven't.

Ys 3 is super clunky, but I always have a good time when I revisit it. And yeah, the Oath in Felghana remake is superb and a must-play.

Thanks!

Yeah I've bought Oath on Steam. but I don't have a monitor that's low lag. and I think my POS pc with integrated chipset was kinda having a rough time running it if I remember correctly. I really need a better pc setup for games...

It's livable on psp.

Ys Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin are the pinnacle of the series IMO and among the greatest action-rpg or action-adventure games ever made.

I personally prefer Origin (less cheesy bosses overall, slightly better level/enemy design on average), but both are fantastic and very much worth playing.

-

Oh yeah, on that note, I guess I should mention I'm playing YS 8 if I haven't already.

TBH I'm mostly playing it "for the story". I love the innocence and earnestness of Falcom's games, and this is no exception. Boss fights still boil down to "learn the attack timings, stand in front of them, and parry everything" as in YS 7 onward, but at least you have your jump button back so exploration is a lot more fun and energetic than seven.

I don't know if I'll be able to finish it since tbh I really don't enjoy the boss fights or the combat too much in general, but I'm having a good time unraveling it for now.

Yeah Oath and Origins are really fun.

In regards to 8 some of the pointless gameplay additions were pretty meh to me. Did we really need the base defense crap? I beat it and moc and yeah combat I would say is a step back. I had no issue just going through to the end though I kinda did it just to do it and was skipping text by the end. I can't remember 7 that well.

@squire oh I've read the praise for these two on here, I'll be playing them sooner than later, don't worry. they are on the list for sure

what I didn't expect tho, was to get this much enjoyment out of III. that was a pleasent surprise. It was well worth it (to me) to play the cart through