Ys I: 3/5, decent overall, has a pretty good if somewhat generic story that felt really good coming from Ys Origin, the soundtrack is goku-tier, and the game controls great. The problems I had are really a case of "yep this sure is the first ys game", the boss fights ranged from hilariously underwhelming to absolutely terrible and with all that old RPG cryptic design a guide was required which slowed things down a lot because I had to stop every 10 seconds to know which way to go. Wouldn't not recommend but I'm probably not going back to it anytime soon.
Ys II: 4/5, holy crap that was so much better. The bosses were actually tolerable and designed alright, the expanded world had a lot more variety, the soundtrack was goku-tier yet again, and magic added a fair bit to the gameplay including talking to every enemy in the game which is the coolest thing ever. It still has a lot of the flaws that come with an older RPG like this, such as much more grinding and the aforementioned cryptic design, and the pacing kinda drags near the end since the entire final third of the game takes place in the same dungeon, but the story wrapped up pretty well and I absolutely recommend the game.
Ys II: 4/5, holy crap that was so much better. The bosses were actually tolerable and designed alright, the expanded world had a lot more variety, the soundtrack was goku-tier yet again, and magic added a fair bit to the gameplay including talking to every enemy in the game which is the coolest thing ever. It still has a lot of the flaws that come with an older RPG like this, such as much more grinding and the aforementioned cryptic design, and the pacing kinda drags near the end since the entire final third of the game takes place in the same dungeon, but the story wrapped up pretty well and I absolutely recommend the game.