Ever since I first heard of Ys,
I’d been obsessed with finding a copy of the games and playing them. I don’t know why, exactly. I just remember, back in 1998 or 1999,
looking up ROMs for TurboGrafx-16 games, and reading good things about Ys, and being more and more interested
the more I read. It marked my first foray into something truly esoteric in my hobbies
of anime and video games. The whole Ys series is reasonably popular in
Japan, but few of the games ever saw U.S. release, and those that did were
either not the best efforts in the series (such as the Super Nintendo and Sega
Genesis versions of Ys III, which
was a fairly divisive game within the fanbase), or came out for systems which
were unpopular in the U.S. (like the TurboGrafx-CD).
The obscurity of it was part of the appeal. It was like finding buried treasure, or
stumbling across some hidden wisdom or lore.
Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim was
the first game in the series I actually got my hands on. This would have been on the PlayStation2. I was talking to an acquaintance of mine at
the time about my curiosity regarding the games, and my frustration with how
the fan translation effort for Ys I
& II Complete seemed to be indefinitely (infinitely, it seemed then) on hiatus. It was at this point she informed me that one
of the newer Ys games was available
for the PS2.
“You’re shitting me,” I said.
I’d heard absolutely nothing about this.
“I’m not,” she said. And she was
right.
I had my own copy of Ys VI: The
Ark of Napishtim within 24 hours.
* * *
A little history may be in order here, to put Ys VI into its proper context.
Nihon Falcom, the company who makes Ys, is probably one of the oldest Japanese game developers still in
existence. They got their start in the
1980s on Japanese PCs, mainly developing action-RPGs. Ys
was only one of the series they made, and it wasn’t even the only one they made
which came to America. Legacy of the Wizard on the NES was a
port of one of their Dragon Slayer
series installments, and Faxanadu on
the NES was a Nintendo-specific entry of their Xanadu series (the name is a portmanteau of Famicom Xanadu). Brandish
on the Super Nintendo was also a port of theirs.
The key word here is “port”.
Falcom did not, at this time, do console games themselves (Faxanadu and Ys V, about which more later, being the only exceptions I’m aware of).
Console ports were generally handled by other developers. In the case of Ys I & II, the
developer who brought them to the States was Hudson Soft, who created by the
TurboGrafx-CD ports of the games which would go on to be practically the
definitive editions of those games for many years, at least as far as American
audiences were concerned. There was also
a port of Ys I to the Sega Master
System, but the TurboGrafx-CD version had something the Master System version
didn’t, or rather, couldn’t have:
Redbook audio, voice acting, and (admittedly quite limited) animated cut
scenes. This level of presentation made Ys I & II a stand-out title,
especially in the U.S., where games of real quality for the peripheral (an
expensive add-on to a system that seems to have been dead in the water from
pretty much the beginning) were oases in a desert. This was less true in Japan, however, where
the system’s Japanese equivalent (the PC Engine) did good business, ultimately
trailing behind only the revered Famicom itself.
Ys III received this same
treatment: Released on the PC-8801 first, it was later ported by Hudson to the
TurboGrafx-CD. Ys III also got ported to the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis;
the three console versions were the ones we got in America. But the Super NES and Genesis versions
weren’t promoted very well and faded into obscurity. The TurboGrafx-CD version likewise suffered
obscurity, but in this case, that was simply the consequence of being a
TurboGrafx-CD game.
Ys III was a bit of a black
sheep. Where Ys I & II (I refer to them together because they are, for all
practical purposes, a single game) were action-RPGs with an overhead view and
an odd ramming mechanic for combat, Ys
III was a side-scrolling action-RPG with platform jumping and a dedicated
attack button. The difference was not
entirely unlike that between The Legend
of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure
of Link, albeit somewhat less pronounced, ultimately. And the reaction among fans of the original
was similar. Ys III had (and has) its fans, but many who loved the originals
were angered by the new direction the series had taken.
This was in 1991. At this point,
the lack of success Falcom had witnessed with the first three installments of
one of their star series apparently convinced them to give up on the American
market, because that was the last Ys game we saw in the U.S. for close to 15
years.
It’s also at this point that the Ys series gets a bit weird.
There were originally two versions of Ys IV, and neither of them were developed by Falcom
themselves. Instead, in 1993, Falcom
drew up an outline and licensed the development of Ys IV to two different developers.
Both of them, perhaps wisely, decided to return the game mechanics of Ys IV to the series roots.
Tonkin House (I love their name for reasons I have difficulty describing)
developed their version, titled Ys IV:
Mask of the Sun for the Super NES.
Hudson Soft, meanwhile, developed theirs under the title Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys for the
TurboGrafx-CD. The two versions of Ys IV vary a great deal in their story,
and while there are some characters and other elements in common, the two
versions are different and mutually exclusive.
Among the fan community, the general consensus seems to be that while
both games are certainly worth playing, The
Dawn of Ys is the superior version.
So, naturally, the one ultimately considered canonical was Mask of the Sun. That was until just a couple of years ago,
when Falcom released their own version of the game, Ys IV: Memories of Celceta.
1995 saw the release of Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand
exclusively for the Super NES. PC-8801
fans were pissed off. TurboGrafx-CD fans
were likewise pissed off. Even the fans
who owned a Super NES were pissed off, really.
For one thing, there was the music.
What you have to understand about Ys games, broadly speaking, is that
the music is always fantastic. This is
no mere opinion, mind you, but an objectively provable scientific fact. Oh, sure, there’s always an assortment of
sort of ho-hum town music, but even that is at least well done. But the music for roaming the overworld,
delving into dungeons, and fighting bosses, is always great. Much is made of Ryo Yonemitsu’s arrangements for the
TurboGrafx-CD Redbook audio, and rightly so.
But even the original PC-8801 arrangements by
Yuzo Koshiro and Mieko Ishikawa are equally worth listening to. Not just “good for their day”, but good
listening, period; Koshiro and Ishikawa play to the strengths of the PC-8801’s
sound chip to create music that is alternately fast-paced and intense, happy
and upbeat, or moody and ethereal.
By contrast, Ys V made use
of the Super NES sound chip, which tended to have a very synthesizer-y sound
quality to it. In itself, this wouldn’t
be a bad thing. God knows there are any
number of soundtracks for Super NES games that are worth a listen as-is (Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, just to name two). But the Ys games’ music has a certain character to it which the Super NES is
poorly equipped to emulate, let alone replicate. It’s not bad,
it’s just… not Ys.
In fact, the real problem with Ys
V in general is just that. It’s not Ys. It’s like countless other generic Super NES
action-RPGs. The color palette is
murkier, eschewing the bright, attractive graphics of the earlier series
entries in favor of something more “realistic”.
They also overhauled the game’s mechanics, and made it considerably
easier than previous entries. In fact, this
last point was such a bone of contention, that Falcom released an updated version
called Ys V Expert with the
challenge ratcheted up significantly.
But the damage was already done.
A number of people will tell you that Ys V nearly killed the franchise.
I’d like to wave my hand dismissively at that suggestion and say “that’s
the worst kind of hyperbole”. I’d like to.
But then, it’s an undeniable fact that for the next eight years, Falcom
did not make a single new Ys game.
In 2001, they remade Ys I &
II for Windows PCs (this has since become basically the definitive version
of those games; with every port thereafter using its assets), and that was pretty
much it. The various games in the series
were, in that eight-year interval, ported to pretty much any and every system;
the list of consoles which haven’t
received an Ys port of some kind
(usually of the first two games) is short indeed. But like pretty much all ports, they were
handled by non-Falcom developers, and they weren’t all of exactly the highest
quality.
To leave off one’s flagship series for a span of eight years is not
exactly a good sign for said series. It
would be like if Nintendo just stopped making Mario or Zelda games for a whole
console generation. (I was going to add
Metroid to that short list, but then I remembered that they’ve done that very
thing, and look poised to do it once again).
So if you’re wondering why I’ve spent so much time leading up to Ys VI, that’s why. There’s significance to The Ark of Napishtim well beyond its existence itself. No creative endeavor exists in a vacuum,
after all. Every game you play is a
product not only of its creators’ hopes and wishes and ideas and compromises,
but also of the times in which it was made, the capabilities or limitations of
the technology of those times, and (unfortunately) the business climate of
those times.
While I suspect there’s some hyperbole to the notion that Ys V nearly killed the franchise, I
suspect there’s also some truth to it, and to the logical conclusion that it
was then up to Ys VI to save the
franchise.
I’m really glad it did.
* * *
The first thing you have to understand about the Ys series, as a whole, is that these are not complicated games. Whether you look at them narratively,
thematically, structurally, or mechanically, there is a lack of complexity that,
far from being dull, is honestly refreshing.
Hell, the first two games (and the fourth, returning to form as it did)
don’t even have an attack button. You
just ram into your enemies, making sure you hit them at the right angle to deal
damage without receiving any yourself (this is both more difficult and more
entertaining than it probably sounds).
You could practically have ported Ys
I to the Atari 2600, with its one-button-and-one-stick controller. I mean, it would have looked ugly as the
south-facing end of a north-going horse, and the soundtrack would have been a
crime against the very idea of music, and I’m sure it would have been
godawfully slow into the bargain, but you could just about do it, I think.
Anyway, you don’t play the Ys games to be immersed in a deep, complex
plot. The plot’s there, and it basically
makes sense, and that’s about all there is to it. There are some mysteries, but they’re not
terribly subtle or surprising. Until Ys Seven came along, Ys games were always pretty much
content to give you exactly what you were expecting.
A large part of most every Ys game
is spent on creating a new and strange place, and new people to visit. This is part of what makes Ys games
intriguing.
Most RPGs put you in the shoes of a hero (or heroes) appointed by fate
to do whatever it is the game has you doing.
A lot of the time, this involves saving the world while avenging the
destruction of your main character’s hometown, though there was a period where
killing God was all the rage. These
games tend to give you a huge world to explore, and see you crisscrossing vast
continents, making your way through forests, deserts, mountains, and plains,
traveling under earth and above it. Ys,
by contrast, usually confines each game to a single locale. With the exception of one game in the main
series, you play as Adol Christin, a red-haired adventurer who has a tendency
to roll into a town right as some ancient and sinister shit is about to hit whatever
the closest fan-equivalent would be in the medieval pseudo-Europe in which
these games take place. Adol isn’t your
average RPG hero. He does not wait for
Joseph Campbell’s call to adventure, oh no.
He has a tendency to just sort of show up right about the time adventure
would be picking up the phone.
Instead of giving you a huge world to explore, Ys always gives you a
single locale to roam. The games in
general try hard to give you a sense of place, a feeling of some new and
foreign locale teeming with a unique sense of self. So each game has its own feel and sense of
itself, its own story. So while there are
narrative and thematic elements connecting each game, they all stand alone
(barring Ys I & II).
In this, Ys VI follows in
the footsteps of its forebears. It gives
you a straightforward fantasy adventure in an exciting new place. For this particular installment, Adol is traveling
far into the western ocean. Most of the
series thus far (and afterward) takes place in what is basically Europe and the
Mediterranean with the serial numbers filed off. This is at least more imaginative than, say, Drakengard, which takes place in upside-down Europe.
The Ark of Napishtim is a
bit unique, though, in that it occurs in its world’s equivalent of the
Caribbean – the Bermuda Triangle, actually.
In Adol’s world, this area is referred to as the Canaan Islands, and said
islands are surrounded by a massive storm vortex similar to the one that
surrounded Esteria, the island where he traveled on his first adventure to find
the legendary lost civilization that has lent its title to the whole series. It’s similar to the one that formerly
surrounded Esteria, in that pretty much any ship hoping to get through it is
destroyed. It differs, however, in that
it is far more powerful.
As it happens, Adol has a problem with boats. Specifically, he has a problem with staying
in them. Anyway, he’s knocked off the
boat he’s traveling in (due to cannon fire, this time), and washes ashore on
Quatera Island, which is inhabited by a tribe of people called the Rehda. They’re basically elves, except they also
have tails. They don’t like humans much,
though this is somewhat understandable.
The humans on the neighboring island (all castaways or descendants of
castaways) have built their city by scavenging stones from the Rehda’s ancient holy
places. So while Adol isn’t exactly
welcome there, the people at least understand it isn’t his fault, and are at
least willing to nurse him back to health before insisting that he leave.
Their mercy does, perhaps, have something to do with the fact that Adol
is discovered by the chief priestess of the island, Olha, while she and her
sister are spending time on the beach.
It’s funny that the game opens this way, with Adol washing ashore
unconscious at his destination, and being revived by the inhabitants of that
land. I get the feeling that Falcom is
sending us a message with the opening of Ys
VI, as it basically borrows the opening premises of Ys I and Ys II both.
In Ys I (at least, in the Ys I Eternal version, which seems to
have lifted this and other plot elements from the Ys I anime), we begin the game with Adol washing ashore in Esteria
after having braved the storm vortex in a one-man sailboat. Unconscious, he is taken to a doctor, who
heals him until he is well enough to go exploring the island. In Ys
II, we start off with Adol being launched through the sky, to land near the
Ruins of Moondoria in the floating land of Ys.
That he isn’t killed stone dead by this is a testament to his strength,
or at least to the power of the Law of Dramatic Necessity. Again unconscious, he is discovered by that
game’s love interest (well, “love interest”; Ys’s love interests are a lot like
Bond girls, with the exception that Adol seems largely oblivious to the effect
his heroics have on the hearts of attractive young ladies in need), who takes
him in and cares for him until he’s well enough to continue on adventuring.
It’s basically Falcom saying, “Look, okay, all that goofy shit with Ys V?
We’re sorry for that. Okay? Look, we’re going back to our roots (and not,
thankfully, just to the well). You
know? Back to the good stuff.”
At the same time, it preserves many of the mechanical changes made with
Ys V. Some of this is just a concession to
modernity. The ramming combat from the
older Ys games would be pretty impractical in 3D. Two-dimensional graphics make it possible
because of the simplified movement and perspective, but with the more nuanced
range of motion and 3D environments, it would be impossible.
Which is not to say that Ys VI
is complex. It’s more complex than its
predecessors, but not complex in itself.
The aim of every Ys game has always been to turn you loose to explore
the world and navigate the dungeons and other places of dark and danger with as
few barriers to entry as possible. You’re
given free rein pretty quickly, with a minimum of up-front exposition and few hand-holding
tutorials, if any.
Simple, no-nonsense, straight to the point. That’s Ys in a nutshell, and that’s the
example Ys VI follows. It isn’t long at all before you’re roaming
the forest outside the starting village looking for a way to the human town on
the next island over and also trying to find out where Isha (the younger sister
of the young lady who cared for you after you washed up) wandered off to. Not long after that, you’ve leveled up a bit,
found one or two little hidden nooks with treasure in them, and fought your
first boss.
If I’ve neglected to mention it before, let me mention it now. Bosses are one of the staples of Ys in
general. These are frequently
challenging and frantic affairs, accompanied by up-tempo, intense, guitar-and-synth-heavy rock. It’s hard to care about how anachronistic
this might seem. Do Not Go Gently,
indeed. And Ys VI is no slouch in this department, either. All of this serves to express and heighten
the sensation of fighting creatures far more massive and powerful than you
could ever hope to be, the sheer adrenaline-burst of excitement and anxiety at
facing such enemies, and the rush of a well-earned victory, a narrowly avoided
defeat.
But that’s another thing that sets The
Ark of Napishtim, and the series as a whole, apart. Most RPGs, and
adventure games in general, are deliberately paced affairs that require
patience, careful planning and forward thinking. Ys, by contrast, has an almost arcade-like focus
on action. It favors quick reflexes and
the ability to stay on top of frantic situations. Its best, most intense encounters keep you on
your toes and demand that you think on the fly.
Indeed, long forward planning is almost impossible. One of the quirks of older Ys games which Ys VI preserves is that once you’re in a boss battle, you’re locked
into it as-is. You can normally equip
one healing item of your choice for quick use at a single button press. You can have more than one item of this type,
but can only have one type equipped. Elsewhere,
you can swap out equipped items to your heart’s content. Once you’re in the boss battle, however, you’re
locked out of your menu and can’t change it.
It’s just you and the boss, period.
In that, Ys VI shares its
greatest strength with the best entries of the series: A sense of constant,
forward momentum, a continuous feeling of doing. Everything about the game, from the pace of Adol’s
movement, to the way experience levels tend to increase rapidly, to the way even
just a couple of levels make the difference between getting stomped and doing
the stomping, is designed to keep you moving toward your goal. There’s a lot of backtracking in Ys VI, and a fair amount of hunting for
hidden treasures or other bonuses, but it rarely feels too laborious. The game’s snappy pace means traversing the
game world typically takes just minutes.
* * *
I’ve been bouncing all over the place in this write-up, and I know it,
and the thing is I don’t know how to go about it any other way. There’s a lot I like, about Ys in general and
Ys VI in particular. It’s hard to stay on one topic, to stay
focused, and to give a dry run-down of what Ys VI has to recommend it.
It’s especially hard because this is one of many cases where the whole
is greater than the mere sum of its parts.
I say that a lot, I think, but that’s because it’s true of a lot of
games I like. I mean, I could write out
a bullet-point list of what Ys VI has,
if that would be helpful:
- Fast-paced action
- Massive, intense bosses
- Dungeon mazes
- Fantastic music
But when you put it like that, it doesn’t look like so much. I mean, really, that’s barely more than
back-of-the-box copy, and it’s not like I’m trying to sell you the game. Well, I guess I am, sort of. I like Ys
VI and want to share it with other people.
Not in a “Please buy this game so I can pay my bills!” sort of way, but
more of a “This is a cool thing I’ve found, and that I enjoy, and I’d like it
if more people were enjoying it too!” sort of way.
About the only problem I have with The
Ark of Napishtim is that the improvements made by its own sequels show the
one or two things Ys VI could stand
to do slightly better. Ys: The Oath in Felghana (a from-the-ground-up
remake of the once-divisive Ys III)
and Ys Origin are both built on the
same game engine, but are improved in a number of ways. One of those is the pacing. As much as I love it, it's hard to deny that Ys VI has an odd sense of pace. It feels like this is dictated mainly by the plot, but even so, there is a sort of awkward sense of flow to the game. Few of the other improvements made by Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin are really major, but they still make
those games more refined experiences than Ys
VI. Ys VI has to settle for being merely
pretty good if somewhat uneven, as opposed to Ys: The Oath
in Felghana, which rates
somewhere near really fucking excellent, for me.
So if you like a lean, fast-paced action-RPG with rocking music and fun
mechanics that will never get you bogged down, then there’s not really much
else for me to say. Go buy it
already. It’s on Steam. You’re only about five clicks away from a
great time.
Version history and miscellany
In accordance with tradition (which is to say, as Ys games typically were before 2008), Ys VI was released on PCs first in
Japan, in 2003. Two years later, Konami
picked up the rights to port the game to consoles, and released a version for
the PlayStation2 in 2005. This version
added fully voiced dialogue to the game, and swapped out the original
anime-style cut scenes with generic (and honestly kind of hideous) CG cut scenes
instead. They also replaced the 2D
character sprites with 3D models, which is less of a crime when you stop to
consider all the detail that would’ve been lost converting the game to the
lower resolutions available for TV screens anyway.
In addition to these changes, they added a few bonus mini-dungeons,
with rewards of experience, money, or emel upon completion. In Ys VI,
emel is a mineral you collect and use to improve your weapons. These dungeons are entirely unnecessary, and
honestly somewhat tedious, but they can be helpful if you want to avoid
grinding for money or experience or emel elsewhere.
In gleeful defiance of good business sense, Konami translated the PS2
version and made it available in the U.S. also.
All the dialogue was re-recorded in English (badly, alas), but can
thankfully be switched to Japanese by entering the right code (the anime cut
scenes can be unlocked in this way also).
About a year or so later, Konami also brought over a PSP version of the
game.
Ys VI on PSP isn’t really
worth it, in my opinion. The loading
times are a headache, the 2D character sprites (thankfully used in this version
of the game) are kind of blurry, and the 3D graphics are blockier and have
muddier textures than either previous version of the game. It also suffers the fate of so many other console
games ported to handheld systems: There’s less screen area on display, giving
you less time to react to incoming threats.
If this cramped, slow, murky mess is the only way you can get Ys VI, then by all means, go for it. The game is still eminently worth
playing. But otherwise, go for the PS2
version.
Or better yet, go for the PC version.
XSeed, as part of their deal with Falcom, have recently made the PC
version of Ys VI available on Steam
and GOG.com. While it lacks the
additions and changes made by Konami (those are exclusive to the console ports,
to which Konami probably still owns all rights), it’s available in HD, and the
system requirements are quite modest.
About the only thing really worth complaining about is that, with the PC
version being developed for machines in 2003, it doesn’t have the best
widescreen support. You can play it in
HD and in widescreen, but there’s at least one part I’ve noticed early on where
the screen is large enough that you can see the edges of the rendered game
world. This has yet to be anything more
than a mild irritation – really, it’s more funny (in a kind of “oh my God, look
how far we’ve come since then” sort of way) than any kind of real problem.
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