Ys III : A Misguided Imitation
Yeah, I’m feeling like doing some sort of Ys retrospective on this account, it might not work as much as my Trails reviews (much to my dismay, Trails is the more popular series of the two) but since I’ve already marathoned these games a while ago and never properly gave my opinion on them, I’d figure why not do it and spread some positivity back into my life !
That’s what I would’ve said if the game we’re going to talk about today wasn’t amongst the worst titles in the series…
Back when I played the Ys franchise, I did them in a peculiarly fucked up order, jumping from eras to eras and chronology from chronology. After playing Oath in Felgahna and loving the ever living fuck out of that game, I was curious to see the original title the game was based on, after all if the remake is this phenomenal it might be because the original game has some strength to it even if it will inevitably be more dated and after playing it, I was kinda shocked that this wasn’t straight up the game that killed the franchise for good because man that game sure is a stinker.
The first version of Ys III was released in 1989, a solid year after the release of the original 2 Ys titles, Ys was never planned to be a full franchise and in fact in all of the 16 games which compose the franchise (including remakes, and additional versions) only Ys II actually takes place in the eponymous floating island of Ys and only 3 games has Ys and its lore as part of its central plot point. I suppose the series kept the title for consistency reason but the initial plan was to end the series at Ys II (ironically subtitled “The Final Chapter”) since Falcom had other plans (like expanding their Dragon Slayer series into one billion subseries which will spawn other subseries like Trails a subseries of Legend of Heroes and a Subseries of the wider Dragon Slayer series).
In fact Ys III didn’t start its development as an Ys title, the team responsible for the game didn’t plan to turn the game into an Ys game but a totally new project but like I said in my previous review, something happened that dramatically changed the trajectory of Ys and Falcom as a studio for the coming decades, the release of a certain title called “The Legend of Zelda”, not only that but in 1989, we’d see the burgeoning of many other games that will define the industry and as much as Ys is considered a cult classic by many, it never truly became a classic, its impact on the industry being snuffed by the Big N corporation. As it’s usually commonplace in the industry whenever a game becomes popular enough to set a standard, lots of people rush to the occasion to imitate its formula and twist it in their own way to make a quick buck and you bet your ass Falcom was going to take a piece of the sweet Zelda pie !
The last Zelda game at the time was Zelda II a start departure from the original game, trading its top down action RPG style for a 2D action platformers with an heavier emphasis on RPG elements (it’s the only Zelda game with anything resembling experience points and a leveling system after all and towns behave pretty much like your typical RPG town) and for many people Ys was already a Zelda imitator, having released a couple of months after the original Zelda game, Ys 1 was already living in Zelda’s shadow but unlike the aforementioned title, Ys shined in other areas such as storytelling, pacing, music and was at least in my opinion a generally more ambitious game.
So Falcom told the development team to change their project midway through development to turn it into an Ys game, the game was still planned to be a 2D action game but now it was decided, Adol will be the Luigi to Zelda’s Mario and Ys was set up to become a long-running franchise (one that will sadly always stay in the shadow of its main rival). The development of Ys III as you could probably guess was rough, changing a bunch of shit last minute to fit the aesthetic of a previous project onto a new almost already finished product wasn’t an easy task and it definitely shows in the final result of the game. Now mind you, back in the day, the gaming industry was a lot more fringe and the standard for what constitutes a “good” or a “bad” game was wildly different than it is today. I must assume that there’s a reason why to this day Ys III still has its fans amongst an older audience of people, if you enjoyed Zelda II and wanted more Zelda II your option was either this or well a whole bunch of action-platformers, it really wasn’t a niche genre at all so it doesn’t really excuse Ys III being this bad and it still makes me confused on how anybody could find this game good enough to make it successful, sometimes the market works in mysterious ways.
Once again, to keep it consistent with my Ys Book 1&2 review, I’m going to mainly talk about the PC-Engine version, it’s easily the best version of the game with the best overall presentation and most importantly for me the best version of the soundtrack only comparable to its modern remake (which is a completely different game we’ll talk about at a later date). However, while all of this is true, one thing you will quickly realize about this version of the game if you’re playing it in English is how noticeably awful the localization for this game is. Ys 1&2’s localization was honestly rather excellent with some exquisitely competent voice acting and a translation that managed to transmit how rich and detailed the world of Ys was and even stand tall against the more fleshed out script of the Chronicles edition of the game. But Ys III sadly did not get such a premium treatment, the voice acting is corny as shit with all the characters speaking like they’re in some sort of Shakespearian play and everything is like 10 times more epic and dramatic than they actually are which I wouldn’t mind if the story of the game wasn’t also kind of a dud…
But the way it’s translated is also so sloppy, some name got changed like there was a big demon dude called Galbalan in the original script but renamed to (I shit you not) FUCKING DEMONICUS ! During the intro of the game, the narrator attributes the sealing of this ancient creature to Adol when it is in fact an entirely different character called Genos… I mean they confused it so hard in fact that Genos is the character depicted on the American release of the game, a choice they’ll correct for the Genesis and SNES port who just has Adol in some sort of old pulp fantasy Conan the Barbarian artstyle supposedly to sell more copies to American children who can’t handle all that anime nonsense they got as the original cover art for the game (it’s not the first time this was done in the series, some ports of Ys 1&2 have some … questionable artstyle change to say the least). The game has some really corny dub but also ADOL TALKS and not just a little, he talks A LOT, it’s the most talkative Adol has ever been and will ever be and thank fuck they later decided to not let him speak cause his character arc is pretty damn dry but also while everyone is fully dubbed, Adol only speaks in speech bubbles which is so awkward in terms of presentation and is as expected very jarring !
But if it was only the localization of the game that was terrible then I wouldn’t be ranking it so low in comparison to other titles… no Ys III is also bad but like really freaking bad as a 2D Action-Game and I will explain why.
As previously stated, Ys III was trying to compete with Zelda II and I want to take your bias against that very divisive title on the side because after playing Ys III you’ll think that Zelda II was a masterpiece (it’s severely underrated and I will stand my ground on those position). Ys III replaces its tried and true bump system in favor of something a little more standard, a 2D side-scrolling action game. And at first, one would believe that it looks like an improvement, Adol has a lot of moves, can stab his swords in multiple directions, crouch, jump and all that jazz but it does not play well at all I’m afraid.
Adol controls like a broom on a stick navigating on a strange planet where gravity and physics seems to be weirdly fucked up, the hitboxes on all of his moves are ridiculously tiny and put you at risk of getting hurt very easily if you just do anything as to approach the enemy, the only move that seems to be consistent is rushing head strong while keeping the attack button on but even like that you will end up receiving unwarranted damages because of how the enemies are coded. Everything moves so chaotically on the screen at all times that it’s hard to avoid anything, tanking your way through the game is going to be your main option that at this point it might’ve as well be a game with bump combat !
It’s really hard to conceptualize but take some of the most basic 2D Action-Platformer you can think of and imagine if everything was moving at 10 times the speed, everything moved super erratically and there’s no invincibility frame so if an enemy follows you, it’s gonna keep siping your blood pool like a goddamn Capri Sun and your character controls like he’s on Mars and there’s no precision in any of your movement and believe me, you will not progress further than maybe the first screen of the first dungeon without a copious amount of grinding because it’s the only way you could physically conceived getting through this shit !
The first dungeon is a cave full of spiders, bees and all sorts of colorful insects and sometimes trolls which are either at feet height forcing you to crouch or up in the air forcing you to jump constantly and they also keep respawning everytime the scrolling goes away from their spawn point like in Megaman only slightly worse and you got a cocktail of issues plaguing this game combat to make it as unpleasant as possible. The level design is also pretty poor on average consisting of straight corridors which sometimes deviate a little for a secret room. We are far from the complex maze-like dungeons of Zelda II with a lot of variety in its challenges even for an NES game and it was released 2 years earlier ! Heck this isn’t even the first time Falcom worked on a title like this ! Faxanadu was released on the Famicom along the same year as Ys III and yet plays way better and has more interesting and intricate level design and a far more interesting world to explore !
So there really is no excuses for Ys III playing this badly and having such uninspired level design but on top of all that jank, there’s also the tedium of all the mechanics and the grinding making the game more of a slog that it actually is, I mean the game is only 6h long but you can at least expect 2 of these hours dedicated to either grinding for money and experience or managing your health by getting out of the dungeon after every boss fight because the people at Falcom had the brilliant idea to make the healing ring cost magic power which you will inevitably need to equip the Attack ring in order to defeat the onslaught of god awful bosses punctuating your adventure.
The bosses in Ys III are certainly the bosses of all time, they certainly have patterns but it’s about as wanky and badly programmed as the rest of the game so equip on your attack ring and pray to all the gods you kill the boss faster than it can kill you making a damageless run simply not happening. There’s also the magic system of the game which has been made worse, instead of cool super power you can unlock and add to Adol’s moveset, you get a set of ring giving you passive boost to your stats like more attack power or more defense at the cost of mana dropping every time they’re active, the only 3 rings which works are the attack, defense and healing ring, there are 2 more rings in the game but they have barely noticeable effects or outright don’t work in most situations ! You can now heal midway through battle with herbs but only one though, meaning that if it runs out, you can get your sorry ass back to the only town in the game to refill on your mana and herbs !
Speaking of which, all the incessant back and forth between the only village of the game, Redmont and the dungeons are also pretty godawful, Redmont is a truly forgettable places, its inhabitant complete no names and the badly translated slew of dialogues will make you bored out of your mind, they are about as helpful as using a spoon to cut a steak and they provide no flavor to the game’s world setting or god forbid the story ! The story is… pretty dry but with the corny ass voice acting and some odd localization choices, it kinda goes into so bad it’s good territory.
3 years after the events of Ys II, Adol leaves Lilia to go on a blowjob brother adventure with Dogi ! As they wander around the world (get it ? cause they’re the wanderers from Ys !) they eventually reach the shores of Felghana, Dogi’s home country. They go to meet Elena and Dogi immediately is a jerk to his childhood friends for no reasons at all but tbf I understand since Elena isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and has the intellect of your stereotypical blonde gal from the late 80’s. In the land of Felghana, there’s a bunch of monsters roaming around the place, rumor talk about the resurrection of Demonicus, an ancient demon which troubled the peace and tranquility of the land a couple of centuries ago and that the tyrannical Lord McGuire is trying to get his hands on the power of Demonicus thanks to the help of a mysterious mage by the name of Garland (no relationship to Jack Garland, the Chaos assweeper from FF1 and strangers of paradise), while exploring, Adol will also get confronted by Chester, Lord McGuire’s right hand man and brother of Elena but he’s working for his own personal agenda on getting revenge on McGuire for killing his parents as a child.
While the story is a bit dry and uneventful making the game progression very arbitrary with Adol getting swooped left and right from places to places on the world map (which is now a level select screen instead of an overworld which is incredibly lame) seemingly for no reasons to pad out the gametime (something Falcom will become champions at doing in the future), the way it's delivered through the dub is simply sublime and sometimes the plot just goes super off the wall like when at the end of the game for no reasons at all Elena who got captured by Demonicus, this eldritch abomination from ancient past, look at her brother trying to save her and telling him straight to his eyes “Chester please, stop this ceaseless cycle of violence, both you and DEMONICUS are living being with feelings !!!” which made me drop my controller and made me freaking hysterical for a solid 10 minutes before facing another shit ass boss to finish this shit ass game !
Suffice to say that I did not enjoyed Ys III, which will probably also prove that I’m not simply a mental boomer gassing up ancient games while shitting on modern ones but that I’m living being capable of critical thinking no matter the era and I will say it, Ys III is not a game worth experiencing in any capacity unless you’re really curious about the history of the franchise and have 6 hours of precious spare time to waste (which you could’ve wasted on better short experiences or filing your taxes which ultimately would be a more fulfilling experience than playing through it !).
It seems that with Ys III, Falcom learned zero lesson on what made the original two titles so beloved by many people. Instead it was a shallow imitation of a much better game and it even pales in comparison to other shallow imitations of Zelda II which were at least mildly competent ! A soulless cash grab which took a toll on the development team, a toll so bad they’ll eventually decide to leave the company to pursue greener pastures at Enix where they’ll operate for a short couple of years as Studio Quintet (one of my favorite gaming studio if you ask me which definitely deserved better than to be forgotten by time) where they’ll make a much better 2D side-scrolling action game combining all of the good elements of their previous titles narratively speaking but spice it up with some new and innovative ideas.
People will remember Actraiser, Illusion of Gaia or even Terranigma but most people will forget Ys III was even a thing and so should you and Falcom agrees since they made a remake of the game in the mid 2000’s which is miles better, changed everything about the original and is considered by many as one of the best Ys title.
So go play Oath in Felghana, I haven’t made a review of it yet but trust me, it’s freaking excellent and well worth experiencing over this piece of doodoo !
The one thing worth celebrating about this blight on the action genre is the music, this time mostly composed by the really talented Mieko Ishikawa successfully managing to hold her ground against Yuzo Koshiro more than excellent soundtrack from the first two game, Valestein Castle especially kicks so much freaking ass and is easily like my favorite track in the whole franchise if you ask me ! The soundtrack definitely captures the spirit of Ys better than everything else in this game !
But without the original development team to work on these titles what does the future hold for Ys as a franchise ? Well it’s a bit complicated, so complicated in fact it might be a two-parter with some additional parts down the line !
Stay tuned as next time, we’ll be talking about Mask of The sun which is… huh… certainly a video game…
Yeah, I’m feeling like doing some sort of Ys retrospective on this account, it might not work as much as my Trails reviews (much to my dismay, Trails is the more popular series of the two) but since I’ve already marathoned these games a while ago and never properly gave my opinion on them, I’d figure why not do it and spread some positivity back into my life !
That’s what I would’ve said if the game we’re going to talk about today wasn’t amongst the worst titles in the series…
Back when I played the Ys franchise, I did them in a peculiarly fucked up order, jumping from eras to eras and chronology from chronology. After playing Oath in Felgahna and loving the ever living fuck out of that game, I was curious to see the original title the game was based on, after all if the remake is this phenomenal it might be because the original game has some strength to it even if it will inevitably be more dated and after playing it, I was kinda shocked that this wasn’t straight up the game that killed the franchise for good because man that game sure is a stinker.
The first version of Ys III was released in 1989, a solid year after the release of the original 2 Ys titles, Ys was never planned to be a full franchise and in fact in all of the 16 games which compose the franchise (including remakes, and additional versions) only Ys II actually takes place in the eponymous floating island of Ys and only 3 games has Ys and its lore as part of its central plot point. I suppose the series kept the title for consistency reason but the initial plan was to end the series at Ys II (ironically subtitled “The Final Chapter”) since Falcom had other plans (like expanding their Dragon Slayer series into one billion subseries which will spawn other subseries like Trails a subseries of Legend of Heroes and a Subseries of the wider Dragon Slayer series).
In fact Ys III didn’t start its development as an Ys title, the team responsible for the game didn’t plan to turn the game into an Ys game but a totally new project but like I said in my previous review, something happened that dramatically changed the trajectory of Ys and Falcom as a studio for the coming decades, the release of a certain title called “The Legend of Zelda”, not only that but in 1989, we’d see the burgeoning of many other games that will define the industry and as much as Ys is considered a cult classic by many, it never truly became a classic, its impact on the industry being snuffed by the Big N corporation. As it’s usually commonplace in the industry whenever a game becomes popular enough to set a standard, lots of people rush to the occasion to imitate its formula and twist it in their own way to make a quick buck and you bet your ass Falcom was going to take a piece of the sweet Zelda pie !
The last Zelda game at the time was Zelda II a start departure from the original game, trading its top down action RPG style for a 2D action platformers with an heavier emphasis on RPG elements (it’s the only Zelda game with anything resembling experience points and a leveling system after all and towns behave pretty much like your typical RPG town) and for many people Ys was already a Zelda imitator, having released a couple of months after the original Zelda game, Ys 1 was already living in Zelda’s shadow but unlike the aforementioned title, Ys shined in other areas such as storytelling, pacing, music and was at least in my opinion a generally more ambitious game.
So Falcom told the development team to change their project midway through development to turn it into an Ys game, the game was still planned to be a 2D action game but now it was decided, Adol will be the Luigi to Zelda’s Mario and Ys was set up to become a long-running franchise (one that will sadly always stay in the shadow of its main rival). The development of Ys III as you could probably guess was rough, changing a bunch of shit last minute to fit the aesthetic of a previous project onto a new almost already finished product wasn’t an easy task and it definitely shows in the final result of the game. Now mind you, back in the day, the gaming industry was a lot more fringe and the standard for what constitutes a “good” or a “bad” game was wildly different than it is today. I must assume that there’s a reason why to this day Ys III still has its fans amongst an older audience of people, if you enjoyed Zelda II and wanted more Zelda II your option was either this or well a whole bunch of action-platformers, it really wasn’t a niche genre at all so it doesn’t really excuse Ys III being this bad and it still makes me confused on how anybody could find this game good enough to make it successful, sometimes the market works in mysterious ways.
Once again, to keep it consistent with my Ys Book 1&2 review, I’m going to mainly talk about the PC-Engine version, it’s easily the best version of the game with the best overall presentation and most importantly for me the best version of the soundtrack only comparable to its modern remake (which is a completely different game we’ll talk about at a later date). However, while all of this is true, one thing you will quickly realize about this version of the game if you’re playing it in English is how noticeably awful the localization for this game is. Ys 1&2’s localization was honestly rather excellent with some exquisitely competent voice acting and a translation that managed to transmit how rich and detailed the world of Ys was and even stand tall against the more fleshed out script of the Chronicles edition of the game. But Ys III sadly did not get such a premium treatment, the voice acting is corny as shit with all the characters speaking like they’re in some sort of Shakespearian play and everything is like 10 times more epic and dramatic than they actually are which I wouldn’t mind if the story of the game wasn’t also kind of a dud…
But the way it’s translated is also so sloppy, some name got changed like there was a big demon dude called Galbalan in the original script but renamed to (I shit you not) FUCKING DEMONICUS ! During the intro of the game, the narrator attributes the sealing of this ancient creature to Adol when it is in fact an entirely different character called Genos… I mean they confused it so hard in fact that Genos is the character depicted on the American release of the game, a choice they’ll correct for the Genesis and SNES port who just has Adol in some sort of old pulp fantasy Conan the Barbarian artstyle supposedly to sell more copies to American children who can’t handle all that anime nonsense they got as the original cover art for the game (it’s not the first time this was done in the series, some ports of Ys 1&2 have some … questionable artstyle change to say the least). The game has some really corny dub but also ADOL TALKS and not just a little, he talks A LOT, it’s the most talkative Adol has ever been and will ever be and thank fuck they later decided to not let him speak cause his character arc is pretty damn dry but also while everyone is fully dubbed, Adol only speaks in speech bubbles which is so awkward in terms of presentation and is as expected very jarring !
But if it was only the localization of the game that was terrible then I wouldn’t be ranking it so low in comparison to other titles… no Ys III is also bad but like really freaking bad as a 2D Action-Game and I will explain why.
As previously stated, Ys III was trying to compete with Zelda II and I want to take your bias against that very divisive title on the side because after playing Ys III you’ll think that Zelda II was a masterpiece (it’s severely underrated and I will stand my ground on those position). Ys III replaces its tried and true bump system in favor of something a little more standard, a 2D side-scrolling action game. And at first, one would believe that it looks like an improvement, Adol has a lot of moves, can stab his swords in multiple directions, crouch, jump and all that jazz but it does not play well at all I’m afraid.
Adol controls like a broom on a stick navigating on a strange planet where gravity and physics seems to be weirdly fucked up, the hitboxes on all of his moves are ridiculously tiny and put you at risk of getting hurt very easily if you just do anything as to approach the enemy, the only move that seems to be consistent is rushing head strong while keeping the attack button on but even like that you will end up receiving unwarranted damages because of how the enemies are coded. Everything moves so chaotically on the screen at all times that it’s hard to avoid anything, tanking your way through the game is going to be your main option that at this point it might’ve as well be a game with bump combat !
It’s really hard to conceptualize but take some of the most basic 2D Action-Platformer you can think of and imagine if everything was moving at 10 times the speed, everything moved super erratically and there’s no invincibility frame so if an enemy follows you, it’s gonna keep siping your blood pool like a goddamn Capri Sun and your character controls like he’s on Mars and there’s no precision in any of your movement and believe me, you will not progress further than maybe the first screen of the first dungeon without a copious amount of grinding because it’s the only way you could physically conceived getting through this shit !
The first dungeon is a cave full of spiders, bees and all sorts of colorful insects and sometimes trolls which are either at feet height forcing you to crouch or up in the air forcing you to jump constantly and they also keep respawning everytime the scrolling goes away from their spawn point like in Megaman only slightly worse and you got a cocktail of issues plaguing this game combat to make it as unpleasant as possible. The level design is also pretty poor on average consisting of straight corridors which sometimes deviate a little for a secret room. We are far from the complex maze-like dungeons of Zelda II with a lot of variety in its challenges even for an NES game and it was released 2 years earlier ! Heck this isn’t even the first time Falcom worked on a title like this ! Faxanadu was released on the Famicom along the same year as Ys III and yet plays way better and has more interesting and intricate level design and a far more interesting world to explore !
So there really is no excuses for Ys III playing this badly and having such uninspired level design but on top of all that jank, there’s also the tedium of all the mechanics and the grinding making the game more of a slog that it actually is, I mean the game is only 6h long but you can at least expect 2 of these hours dedicated to either grinding for money and experience or managing your health by getting out of the dungeon after every boss fight because the people at Falcom had the brilliant idea to make the healing ring cost magic power which you will inevitably need to equip the Attack ring in order to defeat the onslaught of god awful bosses punctuating your adventure.
The bosses in Ys III are certainly the bosses of all time, they certainly have patterns but it’s about as wanky and badly programmed as the rest of the game so equip on your attack ring and pray to all the gods you kill the boss faster than it can kill you making a damageless run simply not happening. There’s also the magic system of the game which has been made worse, instead of cool super power you can unlock and add to Adol’s moveset, you get a set of ring giving you passive boost to your stats like more attack power or more defense at the cost of mana dropping every time they’re active, the only 3 rings which works are the attack, defense and healing ring, there are 2 more rings in the game but they have barely noticeable effects or outright don’t work in most situations ! You can now heal midway through battle with herbs but only one though, meaning that if it runs out, you can get your sorry ass back to the only town in the game to refill on your mana and herbs !
Speaking of which, all the incessant back and forth between the only village of the game, Redmont and the dungeons are also pretty godawful, Redmont is a truly forgettable places, its inhabitant complete no names and the badly translated slew of dialogues will make you bored out of your mind, they are about as helpful as using a spoon to cut a steak and they provide no flavor to the game’s world setting or god forbid the story ! The story is… pretty dry but with the corny ass voice acting and some odd localization choices, it kinda goes into so bad it’s good territory.
3 years after the events of Ys II, Adol leaves Lilia to go on a blowjob brother adventure with Dogi ! As they wander around the world (get it ? cause they’re the wanderers from Ys !) they eventually reach the shores of Felghana, Dogi’s home country. They go to meet Elena and Dogi immediately is a jerk to his childhood friends for no reasons at all but tbf I understand since Elena isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and has the intellect of your stereotypical blonde gal from the late 80’s. In the land of Felghana, there’s a bunch of monsters roaming around the place, rumor talk about the resurrection of Demonicus, an ancient demon which troubled the peace and tranquility of the land a couple of centuries ago and that the tyrannical Lord McGuire is trying to get his hands on the power of Demonicus thanks to the help of a mysterious mage by the name of Garland (no relationship to Jack Garland, the Chaos assweeper from FF1 and strangers of paradise), while exploring, Adol will also get confronted by Chester, Lord McGuire’s right hand man and brother of Elena but he’s working for his own personal agenda on getting revenge on McGuire for killing his parents as a child.
While the story is a bit dry and uneventful making the game progression very arbitrary with Adol getting swooped left and right from places to places on the world map (which is now a level select screen instead of an overworld which is incredibly lame) seemingly for no reasons to pad out the gametime (something Falcom will become champions at doing in the future), the way it's delivered through the dub is simply sublime and sometimes the plot just goes super off the wall like when at the end of the game for no reasons at all Elena who got captured by Demonicus, this eldritch abomination from ancient past, look at her brother trying to save her and telling him straight to his eyes “Chester please, stop this ceaseless cycle of violence, both you and DEMONICUS are living being with feelings !!!” which made me drop my controller and made me freaking hysterical for a solid 10 minutes before facing another shit ass boss to finish this shit ass game !
Suffice to say that I did not enjoyed Ys III, which will probably also prove that I’m not simply a mental boomer gassing up ancient games while shitting on modern ones but that I’m living being capable of critical thinking no matter the era and I will say it, Ys III is not a game worth experiencing in any capacity unless you’re really curious about the history of the franchise and have 6 hours of precious spare time to waste (which you could’ve wasted on better short experiences or filing your taxes which ultimately would be a more fulfilling experience than playing through it !).
It seems that with Ys III, Falcom learned zero lesson on what made the original two titles so beloved by many people. Instead it was a shallow imitation of a much better game and it even pales in comparison to other shallow imitations of Zelda II which were at least mildly competent ! A soulless cash grab which took a toll on the development team, a toll so bad they’ll eventually decide to leave the company to pursue greener pastures at Enix where they’ll operate for a short couple of years as Studio Quintet (one of my favorite gaming studio if you ask me which definitely deserved better than to be forgotten by time) where they’ll make a much better 2D side-scrolling action game combining all of the good elements of their previous titles narratively speaking but spice it up with some new and innovative ideas.
People will remember Actraiser, Illusion of Gaia or even Terranigma but most people will forget Ys III was even a thing and so should you and Falcom agrees since they made a remake of the game in the mid 2000’s which is miles better, changed everything about the original and is considered by many as one of the best Ys title.
So go play Oath in Felghana, I haven’t made a review of it yet but trust me, it’s freaking excellent and well worth experiencing over this piece of doodoo !
The one thing worth celebrating about this blight on the action genre is the music, this time mostly composed by the really talented Mieko Ishikawa successfully managing to hold her ground against Yuzo Koshiro more than excellent soundtrack from the first two game, Valestein Castle especially kicks so much freaking ass and is easily like my favorite track in the whole franchise if you ask me ! The soundtrack definitely captures the spirit of Ys better than everything else in this game !
But without the original development team to work on these titles what does the future hold for Ys as a franchise ? Well it’s a bit complicated, so complicated in fact it might be a two-parter with some additional parts down the line !
Stay tuned as next time, we’ll be talking about Mask of The sun which is… huh… certainly a video game…