There was no guarantee that it would turn out like this. After the one-two punch of the first two Ys games in 1987 and 1988, the series would take a number of perplexing turns through the late 80s and early 90s. Ys III, originally intended as a gaiden, was a side-scrolling platformer with only the barest hints of RPG elements. Then the two primary creative forces behind the first three Ys games, Tomoyoshi Miyazaki and Masaya Hashimoto, left to found Quintet before a proper sequel could be developed. Unable to deliver a full game on its own, Nihon Falcom provided a scenario and music for two versions of Ys IV, both released in 1993: Tonkin House’s abysmal Mask of the Sun for Super Famicom, and Hudon’s Dawn of Ys for PC Engine CD-ROM², a highly-polished follow-up to the superlative PC Engine CD-ROM² ports of the first two games. Both versions of Ys IV strive to recreate the gameplay and style of the first two Ys games, but neither has a clue about how to evolve Ys beyond the basic bump combat that was growing stale by 1993.
The real death blow to the series, though, was 1995’s Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand, a late Super Famicom release developed by Falcom that makes the first real stab at defining the future of the series. Ditching bump combat in favor of dedicated attack and jump buttons, Ys V plays a lot like a Quintet game, except it lacks the elegant construction and polish of games such as Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma. While it's a memorable adventure with many of Falcom’s classic touches (the soundtrack whips), it’s clearly rushed. The difficulty is wildly uneven, the attempts at platforming fall flat, and technical issues such as loading times reveal Falcom’s lack of expertise working with the Super Famicom hardware. It’s not a bad action-RPG, but it’s not Ys.
The only signs of Ys’s continued survival as a series for the rest of the 90s were well-received remakes of Ys I and II. This is where the story could have ended. Ys could have gone the way of Hydlide or any number of the other influential Japanese role-playing series that couldn’t keep up with the times. Even Falcom itself, by this point reduced to subsisting primarily on low-budget Windows games, seemed headed for a similar fate as its 80s Japanese microcomputer contemporaries. But instead we got Ys VI, the beginning of a remarkable second life not just for Ys but for Falcom as a whole.
After being sucked into the Great Vortex, a thinly veiled version of the Bermuda Triangle, Adol finds himself on the Canaan Islands, a thinly veiled pastiche of a Caribbean island chain dominated by the tension between its native peoples (the Rehda) and largely European colonizers (the Eresians). While the overarching story itself is no great shakes, Falcom’s gift for applying the sweeping grandeur of mythological fantasy bullshit to small-scale settings shines through.
There are only two small towns and a handful of other NPCs, but every character has a name, a character portrait, a personality, and even their own ongoing arcs. The little dramas that play out, from the town drunk turning a new leaf to the two siblings running rival shops, lend the game its heart. Perhaps the strongest of these threads is how the Eresians, largely trapped on the islands by the Great Vortex against their will, have learned to live on the islands. Some have embraced their fate, while others are haunted by it.
Doubling down on Ys V’s more traditional action-RPG mechanics, Ys VI’s combat is built around attack and jump buttons along with a very basic magic system. While it adds some new twists such as leveling up your three elemental swords, it’s surprisingly close to a highly refined version of Ys V’s combat. Unlike Ys V though, Ys VI’s combat is blazingly fast and fluid. It’s closer to a beat ’em up than the stiff action-RPGs of the 16-bit era, with Adol bouncing around against hordes of enemies who occasionally bombard him with danmaku-esque projectile patterns. On normal difficulty, the curve is just right, encouraging a mix of grinding and dexterity, but never rising to frustration.
While there are only a handful of dungeons, they’re all intricate mazes that are deeply satisfying to explore, although nothing here matches the scope and ambition of Darm Tower or Solomon Shrine. The game is on the short side, but highly replayable, with multiple difficulty levels and an optional Catastrophe mode that removes healing items. As with the best of the earlier Ys games, it’s closer to a Metroidvania than a traditional RPG. There’s no overworld, and the two islands that comprise the vast majority of the game can be traversed end-to-end in just a few minutes.
Despite its many highs, Ys VI stumbles in a few places. Pacing is uneven, with an extended exposition drop at the end of the second act in particular killing the momentum for no real payoff. Platforming is unnecessarily fussy, with a counterintuitive long jump mechanic that’s sure to annoy. These flaws pull the game down from all-timer status, but this is still a must-play for fans of Ys and Falcom. A number of key players in the company’s ongoing renaissance, including future president Toshihiro Kondo, worked on the game, and it’s a joy to see them begin to figure out the future Falcom style here. That isn’t even getting into the superb artwork or the spectacular soundtrack, which blends the style of classic Ys music, Ryo Yonemitsu’s beloved Redbook audio arrangements from the PC Engine CD-ROM² games, and modern touches such as drum’n’bass breaks. I already can’t wait to pick this one up again for a Nightmare mode run.
The real death blow to the series, though, was 1995’s Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand, a late Super Famicom release developed by Falcom that makes the first real stab at defining the future of the series. Ditching bump combat in favor of dedicated attack and jump buttons, Ys V plays a lot like a Quintet game, except it lacks the elegant construction and polish of games such as Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma. While it's a memorable adventure with many of Falcom’s classic touches (the soundtrack whips), it’s clearly rushed. The difficulty is wildly uneven, the attempts at platforming fall flat, and technical issues such as loading times reveal Falcom’s lack of expertise working with the Super Famicom hardware. It’s not a bad action-RPG, but it’s not Ys.
The only signs of Ys’s continued survival as a series for the rest of the 90s were well-received remakes of Ys I and II. This is where the story could have ended. Ys could have gone the way of Hydlide or any number of the other influential Japanese role-playing series that couldn’t keep up with the times. Even Falcom itself, by this point reduced to subsisting primarily on low-budget Windows games, seemed headed for a similar fate as its 80s Japanese microcomputer contemporaries. But instead we got Ys VI, the beginning of a remarkable second life not just for Ys but for Falcom as a whole.
After being sucked into the Great Vortex, a thinly veiled version of the Bermuda Triangle, Adol finds himself on the Canaan Islands, a thinly veiled pastiche of a Caribbean island chain dominated by the tension between its native peoples (the Rehda) and largely European colonizers (the Eresians). While the overarching story itself is no great shakes, Falcom’s gift for applying the sweeping grandeur of mythological fantasy bullshit to small-scale settings shines through.
There are only two small towns and a handful of other NPCs, but every character has a name, a character portrait, a personality, and even their own ongoing arcs. The little dramas that play out, from the town drunk turning a new leaf to the two siblings running rival shops, lend the game its heart. Perhaps the strongest of these threads is how the Eresians, largely trapped on the islands by the Great Vortex against their will, have learned to live on the islands. Some have embraced their fate, while others are haunted by it.
Doubling down on Ys V’s more traditional action-RPG mechanics, Ys VI’s combat is built around attack and jump buttons along with a very basic magic system. While it adds some new twists such as leveling up your three elemental swords, it’s surprisingly close to a highly refined version of Ys V’s combat. Unlike Ys V though, Ys VI’s combat is blazingly fast and fluid. It’s closer to a beat ’em up than the stiff action-RPGs of the 16-bit era, with Adol bouncing around against hordes of enemies who occasionally bombard him with danmaku-esque projectile patterns. On normal difficulty, the curve is just right, encouraging a mix of grinding and dexterity, but never rising to frustration.
While there are only a handful of dungeons, they’re all intricate mazes that are deeply satisfying to explore, although nothing here matches the scope and ambition of Darm Tower or Solomon Shrine. The game is on the short side, but highly replayable, with multiple difficulty levels and an optional Catastrophe mode that removes healing items. As with the best of the earlier Ys games, it’s closer to a Metroidvania than a traditional RPG. There’s no overworld, and the two islands that comprise the vast majority of the game can be traversed end-to-end in just a few minutes.
Despite its many highs, Ys VI stumbles in a few places. Pacing is uneven, with an extended exposition drop at the end of the second act in particular killing the momentum for no real payoff. Platforming is unnecessarily fussy, with a counterintuitive long jump mechanic that’s sure to annoy. These flaws pull the game down from all-timer status, but this is still a must-play for fans of Ys and Falcom. A number of key players in the company’s ongoing renaissance, including future president Toshihiro Kondo, worked on the game, and it’s a joy to see them begin to figure out the future Falcom style here. That isn’t even getting into the superb artwork or the spectacular soundtrack, which blends the style of classic Ys music, Ryo Yonemitsu’s beloved Redbook audio arrangements from the PC Engine CD-ROM² games, and modern touches such as drum’n’bass breaks. I already can’t wait to pick this one up again for a Nightmare mode run.