Definitely a better and more fun experience than the previous entry.
While here still applies the "it shows its age", I found this game to be overall more enticing and polished. Even the dungeons I found to be more efficient and well structured, in a way that I needed very little help from guides. There's certainly a cool feeling about playing this type of older rpgs, not my cup of tea, but it's nice to see where many things come from.

That being said, Solomon Shrine really was a step down for me. I enjoyed the beginning of this final dungeon, but then it just gets going on and on, and at a certain point I was really tired of it. But hey, I liked and enjoyed the game overall!

It's been a year since I played Ys I, so my frame of reference is a bit fuzzy, but I'm quite confident in saying this was a significant step up. That, or the Falcom indoctrination has progressed even further (likely).

For a small game originally designed in the 80s -- and from what I can tell has mostly received aesthetic and presentational updates since -- there's a surprising amount of depth to the adventure elements of the game. Mindlessly wandering around will get you nowhere and there are no obvious guides, but talking to NPCs and paying attention to the details of the environments will give you plenty of clues for the most part, so you can enjoy a pretty natural progression to the game....

... If you can navigate the maps, because the combat zones in Ys II are very complex and there's no in-game map system. You will get turned around frequently. I definitely don't remember the last game being even half as labyrinthian as this one. And it's not just the last dungeon, it's the whole game. But that's actually a big plus for me as it's been a looong time since a game has actually challenged my sense of direction and there are enough unique markers and shapes that it is possible to memorize the important parts after a few passes.

Thankfully, combat is quick and fluid making it really painless to get around. Charge everything at a diagonal and you're good. Takes a bit to get the muscle memory for the sweet spots when you're in narrow corridors, but once you got it, it's pretty darn easy yet oddly satisfying. Definitely not a flawless system, but frankly holds up better than most of its peers even into the next decade. (Also, I think there's a small QoL improvement from 1 in that you can attack diagonally instead of just off-center)

There's also quite a few hidden details in the world that are very entertaining to dig up or chance upon.

The art is wonderfully nostalgic: a nice refresh of that older style of fantasy. The character sprite work isn't very dramatic but is surprsingly expressive at times, though not quite to the same level as Trails in the Sky. The bosses, however, punch well above their weight. And the design of one in particular might go down as one of the most memorable of all the Falcom games I've played, if only for how unexpected it was and yet oddly fitting.

The story was simple but well executed, especially for its era. Falcom's distinct emphasis on characters is present even this far back. It's not award winning, but the NPCs actually have a presence and personality to them and serve as significant driving motivations to the plot. An approach that only a select few studios would really use until the sixth generation of consoles (and it's arguable how many today do it well).

Anyway, this game is definitely worth a playthrough for any action-adventure fans. It's short but sweet and comes at a good value in the Chronicles+ double pack. Aged quite well and has been lovingly tended to.

Being a direct sequel to Ys I, and being the late 80s, I came into this not expecting much. While content-wise it's completely new, with new locales, new characters, new weapons, and armor, otherwise it looks the exact same and plays the same way. You still play as Adol Christin trying to save the world of Ys from another evil source and rescue the Goddesses Reah and Freena.

The game even starts out the exact same way. You wake up in a house in a quiet village and must start your adventure in a green forest area like before. Sadly, the game is just as cryptic and obscure when it comes to figuring out what to do. I followed a guide through my entire playthrough, but if I hadn't there would be so much backtracking and aimless wondering. Some of the dungeons are more improved layout-wise, but the final two dungeons are a labyrinthine mess, more so than anything in the first game. I had to resort to a map online to figure out where to go, especially when I had to backtrack and start learning shortcuts.

The bump system still exists but seems a little easier and more forgiving this time around. You don't need to hit enemies off center, but it's still not a fun combat system. It makes the game fast-paced and I like the lack of random battles, but it's still not engaging in any way. Thankfully, this time around, you don't need to rely on hidden obscure equipment and can just buy stuff as you can afford it. Only the short sword, in the beginning, can be had for free in the first dungeon, but everything is to be purchased. I liked the addition of magic wands in this game. It helps add a layer to combat, but sadly it's abused with boss fights. All but the final boss need to be beaten with the magic only, and the only offensive magic is fire. Which I found a bit weird. Everything else is passive magic such as being able to turn into a Roo to talk to enemies to pass certain areas, Light Magic which is used to see secret doorways and light dark areas, and Time Magic which slows enemies down. Unfortunately, a lot of items, required or not, are hidden in obscure areas and can be easily missed without thorough exploration or a guide.

I did find the boss fights more manageable this time around and less frustrating. The leveling system is also improved, but only slightly. While the cap this time around went from 10 to 55 you can easily reach the first 30 levels in the first two hours of the game. Before the first boss, I was already almost level 20. Bosses are a lot more reasonable and I only struggled with a couple of them, but once you learn their attack patterns it becomes much more manageable.

Overall, Ys II is a good sequel to the first game. With enough new content to explore and an interesting story and fun characters. While I wouldn't say the story itself is memorable, the adventure itself is fun I just wish the magic system was more expanded and there was less backtracking. Most of the game's fault comes from the cryptic items and confusing dungeon layouts, but it's manageable with a guide. It's a fine Ys game to send out with the 80s and still remains a solid RPG today.

Finally got around to finishing the followup to Ys I, and while it took longer than expected, it was honestly a pretty pleasant experience. I won't go into too much detail about the core mechanics, but I will list some of the big differences:

+ Bump combat feels a lot more consistent. You just have to run diagonally at enemies regardless of their orientation, and they will take damage. Moreover, knockback depends on your damage output, and the less damage you do, the more knockback you will take (while dealing more damage allows you to knock enemies back without getting bumped yourself). As a result, you can just keep running into most enemies diagonally and wipe them out with no frills attached, so combat and grinding is much easier and feels more fair.

+ I didn't mention this before, but there were pros and cons to having a level 10 level cap in Ys I that you could reach before the final dungeon. On one hand, there's no real reason to fight most of the standard mobs in Ys I in the final dungeon because by that time, you've already hit the level cap and can't spend the gold anywhere. That is fortunately not the case in Ys II; the level cap is much higher, and as a result there are still incentives to wipe out overworld mobs throughout the game. However...

- Ys I's early level cap meant that you can't just grind your way to absurd stats to suffocate bosses in a few hits. That is, however, something you can do in Ys II. It wouldn't be as problematic if there wasn't a high level, high EXP giving mob (that's still very easy to defeat since you can just run at them in a corner) that can be farmed to have an absurd level gap in the mid-late period of the final dungeon. As a result, a few of the last bosses felt like absolute jokes.

+ Magic is introduced in this game, and most of the bosses must be defeated with magic instead. It's a welcome change from the original Ys, and now a lot of the boss fights feel like fast paced bullet hells as well.

- There's one very shitty boss fight in the middle of the game where you have to wait for the boss to open its mouth while dodging a worm that will block all your shots (and often blocks shots while the mouth is open). It's a similar problem to what I had with most of the boss fights in Oath in Felghana, but thankfully it's just one very annoying boss fight in the middle instead of a pattern, as the rest of the boss fights felt much more engaging.

- The final dungeon is this labyrinthean nightmare, and it's super easy to forget where you need to go next, especially with no map. It's a bit of a shame too, because Ys II is otherwise a fairly straightforward game in comparison to its predecessor, and lays out its narrative and framework very organically.

Thus, I've decided to give it more or less the same rating as the first game, as it has quite a few downfalls not present in the original though having significant improvements elsewhere. I will say that there's at least no absurdly rough final boss fight this time, and I had a good time in general wrapping up the tale of the original Ys games.

I didn't enjoy this game as much as I did Ys I for a few reasons. The small changes to the bump system made it hard to get to grips with again, and I personally find this version a lot less enjoyable because it tries to create the illusion of a complex battle system where there is none, rather than embracing its simplicity like the previous title. Additionally, the layout of the world and the puzzles made it almost impossible to get through without a guide, so I found myself pressing Shift+Tab after every other event.

I also had to look up how to get the Bestiary Potion in this game, which was very easy to find in Ys I. It's hidden in a place I wouldn't have even thought to check, so I'm glad I'd done my research or I would've gone through the entire game never finding it. Not to mention the fact that now each monster has to be defeated thirty times rather than the original game's 25, making the 'Demon Duster' achievement even more of a pain to get than it was before. Thankfully, the notebook does log your kills before you find it, so even if you do end up backtracking to pick up the potion in the endgame you won't have to farm every enemy from 0. However, due to the way they changed the level system, grinding pretty much becomes mandatory and VERY tedious. Once I reached the lava area it just became a chore to play the game at all because all of the enemies have a ridiculous amount of health, and not getting hit is extremely difficult. This led to me defeating 1-2 enemies, standing still for a full minute to regenerate my health (PAINFULLY slowly compared to Ys I), saving just in case, and then killing two more enemies. Rinse and repeat. Not my idea of a good time, personally.

None of the bosses I've fought so far have been remotely fun and I even had to use cheat engine to get past the 2nd boss Tyalmath because it barely took any damage and had a tendency to one-shot me randomly halfway through the painfully long fight (I'm playing on nightmare mode). For reference, I beat every boss in Ys I legit, including Vagullion and Dark Fact. I have no idea why people consider those two bosses the worst in the series when Tyalmath exists. At least Vagullion was fun enough mechanically to fight repeatedly.

I know it's unfair to compare the two games so heavily, but it's just such a massive quality-of-life downgrade between the two titles, especially after expecting them to be so similar—which they really are in a lot of ways.

For now, I've decided to shelve this game. I'm not having any fun anymore, and I want to continue the series. I'm aiming to get 100% in every main-series Ys game eventually though, so I will come back and continue this playthrough eventually... probably after I've beaten the rest of the series.

For a game this old, the bump combat system is so fun, and the plot is interesting enough to set the base for the series!

Im playing this saga in numerical order so its exciting watching how it develops throught the years!

Can’t wait to play Oath in Felghana next!

I almost certainly failed to pick the version of this game that would line up with my review of the first but whatever I don't care.

It might be a bit much to call Ys II the greatest sequel improvement of all time but it's a big one in a way I've never actually appreciated before, probably because it's so easy to think of the two games as just one big game. The pacing is better, the bosses are decent now for the most part (last couple are a little clunky but nothing serious) and most importantly, you can turn into a little guy and talk to the enemies, the greatest feature in video games. If you want me to like your game, let me turn into a little guy.

Y2 is split into basically four acts, with the last one being really long again, and it honestly rules. There's something about Solomon Shrine that I can now say reminds me of Metal Gear. It's a big, semi-open enemy base, you are nominally sneaking in/around it (obviously this is extremely limited in Ys and you are mostly acting as a whirlwind of bladed death rather than sneaking) and things are happening inside it. The bad guys have plans, your allies are also independently doing their own thing. Heck you even have a conch shell that lets you talk to a helper back at base. I could see one getting stuck a few times where progression isn't 100% obvious, such as when the bad guy finds the artifact of power that was dropped and just kinda puts it on a coffee table in a room you saw earlier. That is, to be fair, funny so I forgive it.

Anyway, I dislike that Ys is not a series about massive billion hour games with big parties of characters instead of one madman who can run fast, but the handful of games in this style will continue to be here for me to replay once every 8 years or whatever, so this is okay. I still love Adol and Dogi... my pals

Ys II is essentially the 2nd half of Ys I, and it comes with all that entails. That means that while the art direction and music are still excellent, you still have to contend with the horrid bump combat.

In this entry it almost feels as though the designers realized that bump combat was terrible, and wanted to get rid of it entirely. Instead they compromised by giving the player a projectile, and making that projectile be the only way to damage most of the bosses. Yes, you're still going to be dispatching the majority of enemies by bumping uglies with them, but it's nice that the fireball attack is present and feels like an attack that should be present in an action RPG. Even with this shift of focus in the combat I still find the game to be pretty mechanically dissatisfying, especially considering how much longer it is than its predecessor and how much of that is wondering around massive levels where everything looks the same.

Slightly better than Ys I. Here the bump combat system seems more polished (or is it just me?). Much more content, same level of attention to details. Fun characters and story (it's very connected to the first game plotwise). I really enjoyed this one, but if in the first game I had trouble orienting in some areas, in this game it's even worse. I feel like this remakes would have benefitted from some sort of minimap or even just dungeons maps. Overall a very good game that is still fun to play nowadays although being originally released in 1988.

A continuation of the story from Ys I, and well... the story is a fair bit better. There's a lot more content as well, and it's a longer game. Still a short game though.

But man, that final dungeon. Even with a walkthrough it's so cryptic and annoying. It's like, half the game too.

The bump system is basically just as fun as the first game, which is nice. The music is just as good too. But ultimately, I ended up having less fun with this game than I did the first. I think this is probably the better game though.