Ys: Wanderers from Ys (1989)

Preliminary: Welp as per usual with the Ys series, I've had to make a bit of a compromise for my project. There is a fan translation of the 89 MSX2 release, so I will go with that. It was released only months after the PC88 version so it'll just have to do.

That was written way back, and I had to resolve to just wishlist it and settle that I couldn't play it because the MSX version was giving me a hard time. Now that I am nearing the end of 1993 and got to the 2 Ys IVs, I figured it's valid to return to this (since the Ys I and II remake is one of my ultimate favorites) and play the first North American release: the Turbografx-CD version. My only worry is, there's not a lot of info about this version online, but here goes nothing. I'm nervous because it sounds like the gameplay was significantly different in this one. So, hopefully returning to this wont be a waste of time.

Day 1

I'm trying to remind myself this was released in November 1991. The cheesiness in this is profound so far lol.

The Play is a bit... slippery so far. But I do like the RPG elements in an action platformer etc. and I like the tunes so far.

Yeaaa it's probly unfair to have even attempted this and judged it from the perspective of late 93, but the Play is just not it . Too slippery and tedious and having to crouch so often to hit enemies and just sloppy onslaughts of enemies instead of clever fun mechancis or design. My usual complaints. Moving on to Ys IV... well, one of the Ys IV's haha

Ys 3, for SNES

Rating: 6.5/10; Above Average

Ys 3 is a 2D sideview action rpg, which plays more like The Legend of Zelda 2 or a Castlevania game than the other Ys games. Due to being released on both the NES and SNES, it looks and feels more like a NES game. The plot is bare bones and the dialogue is wooden and not particularly engaging. During the beginning cutscene Adol clearly has a sword but upon gaining control there is no sword to be found. He yet again starts off as a complete newb with nothing but some money. What keeps happening to his stuff?

The overworld is just a fancy level select menu though at the beginning you can only go to the first dungeon, whereupon you will most likely get your ass handed to you by the first enemies. When I said he starts out as a complete newb, I mean COMPLETE. NEWB. Enemies do simple contact damage, which is very difficult to avoid due to their fast and sometimes erratic movements, the short range of your weapon and their finicky hitboxes. There are no defensive moves you can take other than jumping and ducking/crawling, so combat is more about being high enough level to survive the hits or not sticking around to fight. This is taken to the extreme with long grueling dungeons with infinitely respawning enemies that are fast, including some places where the constant barrage of enemies outright forces you to run and pray that you survive. Recovery options are very limited due to only being able to carry 1 of each item. There are rings that can be equipped for boosts in exchange for mana, including a healing ring. Each enemy defeated restores a single point of mana with no scaling whatsoever for more powerful enemies, which feels entirely unfair. And then there are the bosses. If you are not high enough level you will not even be able to damage them. They tend to be predictable but hit hard, so it might take a few tries to learn the pattern. But many of the bosses fly or are difficult to reach. I spent the entire game wishing I had a Castlevania whip, a spear or something to help mitigate the extremely precise positioning you have to use to be able to hit bosses without taking contact damage. The worst boss by far is the fire snake, who flies, is faster than you, goes through the walls and floor and can only be hurt in the head. It is far more random compared to other bosses, wastes a lot of the player's time by hiding and flying around the large arena, and is so long that you can't jump over it without taking damage. A tedious and poorly designed fight.

It is a good thing the game allows saving anywhere outside boss fights because you will die a lot. Even to regular enemies unless you spend significant time grinding levels. It seems like the game should have started after about 2 hours of grinding to give a decent power level and starting gear so that you can properly enjoy the adventure.

I’ve been playing this on my MiSTer the last couple of weeks. I’m in the final area now. It’s the furthest I’ve ever gotten by far. I think I might actually beat this game for real this time. My brother claims he beat this as a kid, but I don’t remember it, so it probably didn’t happen.

The music is amazing. The gameplay isn’t as great as I remember. You more or less just keep leveling up and getting better gear so you can hack away at whatever enemies are in a given level without getting hurt too badly. It’s still a lot of fun, and I still recommend to old school RPG fans.

Beat. I bought a herb and short sword at the beginning and decided not to buy any armour or shield. Went into the first dungeon and promptly got killed. Grinded a few levels on the beginning enemies and then went exploring. I was not able to damage the boss so I used turbo mode to grind levels for a while at the beginning with a sweet infinite xp spot. Wrecked the rest of that dungeon. The fire dungeon was very annoying and I hated the concept of having to run past all those fast flying enemies. And then there was a fire dragon boss where I used a max defense cheat code. Not that the fight was too difficult it was just ridiculously tedious and a huge waste my time. I mean seriously how can they think that a fast flying enemy that can go through walls and floors with extremely random behaviour and only one weak spot to hit is in anyway good boss design?

After that I grinded like mad on the owls until nearly max level. By then I had enough gold to buy the best equipment from the smith and went on to finish the game without too much trouble.

The game annoyed me more often than not with the entire concept of using the short range sword against enemy contact damage and often finicky hitboxes. And all the damn flying bosses. Just give me a bow, spear or whip already. Still a decent game.

I actually made it through the first dungeon of this game last night! We had this game when I was a kid, and I don't think I've ever been able to make it past the first section of this game. I've fired it up as an adult a couple of times, and have found it really difficult. I was playing with my new SNES setup last night, and everything kind of clicked for me. I figured out how you're supposed to actually make progress in this game!

The soundtrack is super good, and there might actually be a good game hidden behind the difficulty and obscure nature of this old SNES game. I'm thinking about doing some videos on it because I'm just so excited!