Great list! I started with Ys 7, and I loved it. I tried Memories of Celceta, got about 5 hours in but dropped it as it didn't hook me like 7 did, I plan on giving it another go soon though. This year I've been knocking a bunch of them out of the backlog, I gave the Master System of Ys 1 a shot, it was fun despite some glaring issues, that last dungeon was crazy! Oath of Felghana was next, and it was really good, one of my favorite PSP games. The boss fights were epic, and the story was quite enjoyable, Chester was a solidly written character. Just finished up with Ys 8 last week, and it didn't quite hit my expectations. Actually it really missed the mark as it's not only the best Ys game I've played, but one of my favorite JRPGs period. It changed my entire perception of the Ys series and made me a huge fan. I could've raised my expections 10 times and it still would've blown my mind haha. It's cliche to say it's the best, but there's a good reason for that, it really is a masterpiece. I'll probably get to Ark of Napishtim next!
I'mma have to try these other versions of Ys 1 eventually. I think I sold the PC engine version short in this video. Nice, Celceta has a great twist, I forget when game time wise exactly, but it stuck with me. I also liked discovering the rest of the world in that one. Yeah 8 is ridiculously good. Glad others have seen the light. Lol. Ark of Napishtim is very good. The art, setting, and music is so good. I think it's the first game after a long hiatus, first on psp. So, they definitely improved on the formula from it. Its one I've replayed before! Always nice to replay!
S tier - Ys Books I & II (TGCD), Dawn of Ys A tier - Ys Eternal Complete B tier - Most Ys III versions C tier - Ys VI, Oath in Felghana D tier - Ys V F tier - Mask of the Sun
@@Evilriku13 I should probably move Felghana into B tier. I guess I didn't want to put it on the same level as the original Ys III. I'm keeping VI on C because aside from the combat and graphics being rehauled, it was largely unmemorable for me.
@@Keranu You think so? Have you listened to the music from Ys 6 alone seperatly from the game for example? One of the things that made Ys 6 memorable is not only it's tropical atmosphere, the Rehda folk (still wished Olha & Isha would have been more fleshed out overall, I do like their colour scheme otherwise and their VA's are charming, the ones from the PS2 version aka my prefered Ys 6 experience, also because it's the only game that references Xandria as a place in the intro because of Terra which afaik no other Ys game does), but also the plotline because that one ends the technically 6 game long builtup of the Eldeen race with Ernst showing that one can become an Eldeen, so Eldeel "I'm the last of my kind, I have to make up for it" plan was just his mind creeping on him. Also cool how Galba-Roa, the technically pre final boss, is basically what Galbalan from Ys 3 was going to be. I also like that you can technically do some places out of order in Ys 6 with the risk of getting crushed hard by whatever enemies lurk around, like doing the Limewater Cave where you could get the galba shield & galba armor if you're daring, which does help for quite some time ingame like the Grana-Valis Mountain cuz you could get to that area around level 20 iirc. Galba-Shield also buffs your attack so a double neat bonus and the Galba armor, while having high defenses, does inflict poison on Adol but it's kinda slow so you can use that armor to beat some bosses before you'd die from the poison, plus visually they both look cool, which sadly is only a Ys 6 PS2 thing as that version visually changes every equip you put on Adol!
@@Evilriku13 It's fine, the music had that JDK flavor to it, something even the newer Ys games seem to retain. It just never hit me the way Ys I - IV did. I'll have to give it a listen on TH-cam. The best part of Ys VI for me were the boss fights. The series never lets down on intense bosses. The thing about Ys I, II, and Dawn I think I valued most was the adventure. Every dungeon, map screen, and to some extent, towns, looked different from the previous. It never felt like being stuck in the same location, adventure always in the grasp of the player's hands. This aspect was especially impressive for it's time when games largely reused tile graphics. Maybe I'll get around to replaying VI -- if I do it will hopefully be a translation of the original PC version with pre-rendered Adol. Currently I'm booked playing Sierra On-Line games for the rest of the year -- I'm close to finishing Larry 7!
S tier for me is definitely Dawn, Felghana, and Dana. Those are absolutely my favorite games in the series. It's a bummer that when making Memories of Celceta, that roughly half the soundtrack that was used in both Dawn and mask of the sun was changed. However, I get at least some of it since one of the boss themes was directly based on Yngwie Malmsteen's Far Beyond the Sun, so they had to get rid of that for legal reasons. But I'm not sure why so many other songs were removed. And why the Theme of Adol was only used in that music box style. In any case, Celceta is still a good game and in my opinion the second best version of Ys 4, with the PS2 version being the worst. If you're not familiar with that, it was called Mask of the Sun a New Theory. Taito did versions of 3 through 5 on PS2. None of which were released outside Japan. The original mask of the sun is not a great game but it's definitely better than the PS2 version. And then there's the canceled Sega CD version that never got finished that we will never be able to play obviously. Speaking of Taito's Ys games, it was their version of Ys 5 that Falcom allowed to be made by another company. The SNES version was made directly by Falcom themselves. It's one of the very few console games that they did back in those days when they were pretty much a PC only company. Other games Falcom did directly were Popful Mail for SNES, & Legend of Xanadu 1 & 2 for TurboGrafx/PC Engine CD. However, while the second Legend of Xanadu was published by Falcom, the first one was published by NEC. Those are both great games and very similar to the older Ys games, but don't have English translations yet. There was a group working on translations for both games at the same time, but there's been no updates in several years unfortunately.
Good picks! I totally missed that PS2 Ys4 by Taito. I knew about the PS2 version of 5, hadn't played that one either. Perhaps one day! Yeah that Great Ordeal tune is very similar to the beginning of Far Beyond the Sun. Different enough in parts I'd say, but I can see why they opted to create different tunes, Ys has plenty of room to be Ys and not something else. "Walking the path of legend" shoulda been in Celceta. I'd say they've generally improved on music and arrangements, but maybe those early middle titles kinda changed too much. They've seemed to hit a stride recently in doing no wrong. I hope that maintains for years to come. I am a huge Yngwie fan and its probably why I have stuck with Ys for all the mainline games and learned a lot of the music from the games.
@@rossdixonellis Yeah, I played one through four on PS2. Of course one and two are essentially the Eternal versions of one and two with some slight differences either in the sound driver or perhaps recomposed from scratch? But I didn't beat five, though it seems like most people consider the PS2 version of 5 is a little bit better than the SNES version. And then in old Japanese magazines there was listings for a PC-FX(successor to the PC Engine) version of Ys 5, but it obviously never came out. I think Hudson Soft was rumored to be the one behind that, but there's basically no information on that version and if it ever truly got worked on at all. As far as music, back in the early nineties, it's actually the Ys games and various other CD games like Gate of Thunder, Sapphire, & Lords of Thunder that opened my interest to similar music. Ended up loving Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment,Joe Satriani, Vinnie Moore, etc. I do like Yngwie, but I still need to get around to checking out more of his stuff.
Old games just had esoteric solutions back then. Vague clues, back tracking, etc. Also the mirror portal room could get confusing, lol. Old game BS, I recall trying to solve it and then just looking up after I got stuck. I still love it, Try out the second game, I think its a little more straight forward and about the same length. It just gets better. They all get better with regards to their own respective engines and systems!
@rossdixonellis Don't get me wrong, I figured it out, but it was tons of walking around aimlessly with that mask on, and clicking on walls with the hammer, not to mention the ludicrous amount of backtracking. All in all, still a fun game (haven't beaten Dark Fact yet though, but ill get to it soon enough)
I don't get it. You say that one of the weaknesses Dawn of Ys has is being grindy when you basically do that in EVERY Ys game, since Ys 1, but in small doses, JUST LIKE IN DAWN OF YS. I also would say it's the best of the Bump Combat games not only because of the dynamic bosses but also because, let's face it, for the balancing. Ys 1 balancing? Sure, get to either max level 10 before entering the final dungeon and have so many bosses to come with no EXP to gain from, surely that is healthy gamedesign. Heck, even Ys Book 1 & 2 for TGCD/PCE does this better with Ys 1 and the Dark Fact fight, but sadly, like all Ys 2 versions, falls flat during the Solomon Shrine because Solomon Shrine was never really reestablished from it's ""puzzles"", or rather it's layout nor it's final boss which is an even faulty-er "grind to keep up" flaw of the sequel. Also the Ys 1 remake, the most prominent one aka Chronicles I think it's called has the still kept Windows 98 engine bug in it where Dark Fact shoots twice as fast projectiles, as games back then their framerate was bound to the graphic card. Don't see why Geis (pronounced guys) is supposedly edgy too in compare to being a lone wolf type. The PS2 version of Ys 6 and PSP version are identicial, the windows version was the one being all 2D sprites with, depending on whom you ask, "better gameplay" as some gameplay differences exist between the versions. Ernst was built up, since this was the first three swords engine game, as the Dark Fact for this game and basically him ending what was basically built up since Ys 1 with the Eldeen plotline, which is also shown in the music track that plays when you fight Ernst which has some parallels with the Dark Fact final boss tune from Ys 1.
Thanks for the comment! You bring up good points! On Geis's pronunciation, apparently in Japanese he's called ガッシュ GASH! Which is a pretty awesome name! I like the character. He's critical, headstrong, "my way or highway" sorta guy. I like that he's edgy, too edgy is even better! Sort of the anti-adol too. I guess on the topic of grinding. Yeah, you grind a little every game. The process is nearly the same. Maybe I just took me hitting fast forward as getting "bored with the grind" for a reason to knock it down to B. Maybe the temptation to hit speed up is more saying something about me than Dawn of Ys. It's got some excellent music, art, the voiceover stuff is fun although mixed a little crappily. I play a few tunes from Dawn of ys specifically, Walking the Path of Legend, A Great Ordeal (which sounds very similar to Yngwie Malmsteen's Far Beyond the sun) I should give this version of Ys more respect on the music alone. Then again I've talked to people who got frustrated with grinding special abilities in Ys Seven while I thought that had pretty good pacing! But I didn't really "grind grind" in that one let alone try to 100% it.
The only part of Dawn of Ys that really required grinding was the boss kidnapping Timmy in the ice cave. That was the worst part of the entire game. I never minded grinding in the early Ys games, the bump attack made leveling up a less arduous process from other RPGs. For some reason though now that I think about it, grinding seemed more fun in I & II (TGCD) than Dawn, albeit more time consuming.
A real funny thing that happens in Dawn is when the companion kill steals and snags that XP from you. Took a look back at my streams of Dawn of Ys and the idle HP recovery seemed A LOT slower than other games. Maybe I'm wrong but the pc engine ys 1 didn't take as long in hp recovery. It's still a very fun game though. I love the style, it's beautifully made. There's a saturation in the color of those games that just fill me with joy. I think when it comes down to the three styles of Ys games I still gotta put Ys1 chronicles at the top for bump style, Oath for that sword style. And 8 for the companion style. The real answer is play everything and enjoy everything but my elevator pitch is those three. I can't wait for Ys X Nordics...
@@rossdixonellis Oh was it "Gash"? I assumed it was pronounced like rise/rice just with a G, similiar to Ys sounding like Geese without an G or ease. Wouldn't call him an Anti-Adol cuz they do have some stuff in common, just their execution in what they have in common is different I'd say. I mean I get the point on using speed ups in games, I'm frequently faulty on that too due to my experience in the early 2000s when getting to know emulators. Yeah the soundmixing is.. a thing in Dawn of Ys, and best voice work is provided by G(a)ruda who is voiced by the one and only Lawrence Simpson aka MasakoX who is part of TeamFourStar's Dragon Ball Z Abridged. Yeah the music in Dawn of Ys is very solid, and basically my 2nd favorite in the series overall with Ys 6 taking the cake, and I really really dislike what Memories of Celceta did by not only removing ALOT of tracks from Dawn of Ys but also arranging alot of them really.. not to my liking xD
How do YOU rank Ys series?
Have you tried ANY of them out?
Great list! I started with Ys 7, and I loved it. I tried Memories of Celceta, got about 5 hours in but dropped it as it didn't hook me like 7 did, I plan on giving it another go soon though.
This year I've been knocking a bunch of them out of the backlog, I gave the Master System of Ys 1 a shot, it was fun despite some glaring issues, that last dungeon was crazy! Oath of Felghana was next, and it was really good, one of my favorite PSP games. The boss fights were epic, and the story was quite enjoyable, Chester was a solidly written character.
Just finished up with Ys 8 last week, and it didn't quite hit my expectations. Actually it really missed the mark as it's not only the best Ys game I've played, but one of my favorite JRPGs period. It changed my entire perception of the Ys series and made me a huge fan. I could've raised my expections 10 times and it still would've blown my mind haha. It's cliche to say it's the best, but there's a good reason for that, it really is a masterpiece. I'll probably get to Ark of Napishtim next!
I'mma have to try these other versions of Ys 1 eventually. I think I sold the PC engine version short in this video.
Nice, Celceta has a great twist, I forget when game time wise exactly, but it stuck with me. I also liked discovering the rest of the world in that one.
Yeah 8 is ridiculously good. Glad others have seen the light. Lol.
Ark of Napishtim is very good. The art, setting, and music is so good.
I think it's the first game after a long hiatus, first on psp. So, they definitely improved on the formula from it. Its one I've replayed before! Always nice to replay!
S tier - Ys Books I & II (TGCD), Dawn of Ys
A tier - Ys Eternal Complete
B tier - Most Ys III versions
C tier - Ys VI, Oath in Felghana
D tier - Ys V
F tier - Mask of the Sun
kinda based, only that I would mix up the A and C tier of yours for my taste.
@@Evilriku13 I should probably move Felghana into B tier. I guess I didn't want to put it on the same level as the original Ys III. I'm keeping VI on C because aside from the combat and graphics being rehauled, it was largely unmemorable for me.
@@Keranu You think so? Have you listened to the music from Ys 6 alone seperatly from the game for example?
One of the things that made Ys 6 memorable is not only it's tropical atmosphere, the Rehda folk (still wished Olha & Isha would have been more fleshed out overall, I do like their colour scheme otherwise and their VA's are charming, the ones from the PS2 version aka my prefered Ys 6 experience, also because it's the only game that references Xandria as a place in the intro because of Terra which afaik no other Ys game does), but also the plotline because that one ends the technically 6 game long builtup of the Eldeen race with Ernst showing that one can become an Eldeen, so Eldeel "I'm the last of my kind, I have to make up for it" plan was just his mind creeping on him. Also cool how Galba-Roa, the technically pre final boss, is basically what Galbalan from Ys 3 was going to be. I also like that you can technically do some places out of order in Ys 6 with the risk of getting crushed hard by whatever enemies lurk around, like doing the Limewater Cave where you could get the galba shield & galba armor if you're daring, which does help for quite some time ingame like the Grana-Valis Mountain cuz you could get to that area around level 20 iirc. Galba-Shield also buffs your attack so a double neat bonus and the Galba armor, while having high defenses, does inflict poison on Adol but it's kinda slow so you can use that armor to beat some bosses before you'd die from the poison, plus visually they both look cool, which sadly is only a Ys 6 PS2 thing as that version visually changes every equip you put on Adol!
@@Evilriku13 It's fine, the music had that JDK flavor to it, something even the newer Ys games seem to retain. It just never hit me the way Ys I - IV did. I'll have to give it a listen on TH-cam.
The best part of Ys VI for me were the boss fights. The series never lets down on intense bosses.
The thing about Ys I, II, and Dawn I think I valued most was the adventure. Every dungeon, map screen, and to some extent, towns, looked different from the previous. It never felt like being stuck in the same location, adventure always in the grasp of the player's hands. This aspect was especially impressive for it's time when games largely reused tile graphics.
Maybe I'll get around to replaying VI -- if I do it will hopefully be a translation of the original PC version with pre-rendered Adol. Currently I'm booked playing Sierra On-Line games for the rest of the year -- I'm close to finishing Larry 7!
S tier for me is definitely Dawn, Felghana, and Dana. Those are absolutely my favorite games in the series. It's a bummer that when making Memories of Celceta, that roughly half the soundtrack that was used in both Dawn and mask of the sun was changed. However, I get at least some of it since one of the boss themes was directly based on Yngwie Malmsteen's Far Beyond the Sun, so they had to get rid of that for legal reasons. But I'm not sure why so many other songs were removed. And why the Theme of Adol was only used in that music box style.
In any case, Celceta is still a good game and in my opinion the second best version of Ys 4, with the PS2 version being the worst. If you're not familiar with that, it was called Mask of the Sun a New Theory. Taito did versions of 3 through 5 on PS2. None of which were released outside Japan. The original mask of the sun is not a great game but it's definitely better than the PS2 version. And then there's the canceled Sega CD version that never got finished that we will never be able to play obviously.
Speaking of Taito's Ys games, it was their version of Ys 5 that Falcom allowed to be made by another company. The SNES version was made directly by Falcom themselves. It's one of the very few console games that they did back in those days when they were pretty much a PC only company.
Other games Falcom did directly were Popful Mail for SNES, & Legend of Xanadu 1 & 2 for TurboGrafx/PC Engine CD. However, while the second Legend of Xanadu was published by Falcom, the first one was published by NEC. Those are both great games and very similar to the older Ys games, but don't have English translations yet. There was a group working on translations for both games at the same time, but there's been no updates in several years unfortunately.
Good picks!
I totally missed that PS2 Ys4 by Taito. I knew about the PS2 version of 5, hadn't played that one either. Perhaps one day!
Yeah that Great Ordeal tune is very similar to the beginning of Far Beyond the Sun. Different enough in parts I'd say, but I can see why they opted to create different tunes, Ys has plenty of room to be Ys and not something else.
"Walking the path of legend" shoulda been in Celceta. I'd say they've generally improved on music and arrangements, but maybe those early middle titles kinda changed too much. They've seemed to hit a stride recently in doing no wrong. I hope that maintains for years to come.
I am a huge Yngwie fan and its probably why I have stuck with Ys for all the mainline games and learned a lot of the music from the games.
@@rossdixonellis Yeah, I played one through four on PS2. Of course one and two are essentially the Eternal versions of one and two with some slight differences either in the sound driver or perhaps recomposed from scratch? But I didn't beat five, though it seems like most people consider the PS2 version of 5 is a little bit better than the SNES version.
And then in old Japanese magazines there was listings for a PC-FX(successor to the PC Engine) version of Ys 5, but it obviously never came out. I think Hudson Soft was rumored to be the one behind that, but there's basically no information on that version and if it ever truly got worked on at all.
As far as music, back in the early nineties, it's actually the Ys games and various other CD games like Gate of Thunder, Sapphire, & Lords of Thunder that opened my interest to similar music. Ended up loving Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment,Joe Satriani, Vinnie Moore, etc. I do like Yngwie, but I still need to get around to checking out more of his stuff.
Ys V needs a remake
facts
Ys 1 is the only one I’ve played so far and I would’ve liked it so much more had that final dungeon not been so atrocious
Old games just had esoteric solutions back then.
Vague clues, back tracking, etc. Also the mirror portal room could get confusing, lol. Old game BS, I recall trying to solve it and then just looking up after I got stuck.
I still love it, Try out the second game, I think its a little more straight forward and about the same length. It just gets better. They all get better with regards to their own respective engines and systems!
@rossdixonellis Don't get me wrong, I figured it out, but it was tons of walking around aimlessly with that mask on, and clicking on walls with the hammer, not to mention the ludicrous amount of backtracking. All in all, still a fun game (haven't beaten Dark Fact yet though, but ill get to it soon enough)
I don't get it. You say that one of the weaknesses Dawn of Ys has is being grindy when you basically do that in EVERY Ys game, since Ys 1, but in small doses, JUST LIKE IN DAWN OF YS. I also would say it's the best of the Bump Combat games not only because of the dynamic bosses but also because, let's face it, for the balancing. Ys 1 balancing? Sure, get to either max level 10 before entering the final dungeon and have so many bosses to come with no EXP to gain from, surely that is healthy gamedesign. Heck, even Ys Book 1 & 2 for TGCD/PCE does this better with Ys 1 and the Dark Fact fight, but sadly, like all Ys 2 versions, falls flat during the Solomon Shrine because Solomon Shrine was never really reestablished from it's ""puzzles"", or rather it's layout nor it's final boss which is an even faulty-er "grind to keep up" flaw of the sequel. Also the Ys 1 remake, the most prominent one aka Chronicles I think it's called has the still kept Windows 98 engine bug in it where Dark Fact shoots twice as fast projectiles, as games back then their framerate was bound to the graphic card.
Don't see why Geis (pronounced guys) is supposedly edgy too in compare to being a lone wolf type.
The PS2 version of Ys 6 and PSP version are identicial, the windows version was the one being all 2D sprites with, depending on whom you ask, "better gameplay" as some gameplay differences exist between the versions.
Ernst was built up, since this was the first three swords engine game, as the Dark Fact for this game and basically him ending what was basically built up since Ys 1 with the Eldeen plotline, which is also shown in the music track that plays when you fight Ernst which has some parallels with the Dark Fact final boss tune from Ys 1.
Thanks for the comment! You bring up good points!
On Geis's pronunciation, apparently in Japanese he's called ガッシュ GASH! Which is a pretty awesome name! I like the character. He's critical, headstrong, "my way or highway" sorta guy. I like that he's edgy, too edgy is even better! Sort of the anti-adol too.
I guess on the topic of grinding. Yeah, you grind a little every game. The process is nearly the same.
Maybe I just took me hitting fast forward as getting "bored with the grind" for a reason to knock it down to B. Maybe the temptation to hit speed up is more saying something about me than Dawn of Ys. It's got some excellent music, art, the voiceover stuff is fun although mixed a little crappily. I play a few tunes from Dawn of ys specifically, Walking the Path of Legend, A Great Ordeal (which sounds very similar to Yngwie Malmsteen's Far Beyond the sun) I should give this version of Ys more respect on the music alone.
Then again I've talked to people who got frustrated with grinding special abilities in Ys Seven while I thought that had pretty good pacing! But I didn't really "grind grind" in that one let alone try to 100% it.
The only part of Dawn of Ys that really required grinding was the boss kidnapping Timmy in the ice cave. That was the worst part of the entire game.
I never minded grinding in the early Ys games, the bump attack made leveling up a less arduous process from other RPGs. For some reason though now that I think about it, grinding seemed more fun in I & II (TGCD) than Dawn, albeit more time consuming.
A real funny thing that happens in Dawn is when the companion kill steals and snags that XP from you.
Took a look back at my streams of Dawn of Ys and the idle HP recovery seemed A LOT slower than other games.
Maybe I'm wrong but the pc engine ys 1 didn't take as long in hp recovery. It's still a very fun game though. I love the style, it's beautifully made. There's a saturation in the color of those games that just fill me with joy.
I think when it comes down to the three styles of Ys games I still gotta put Ys1 chronicles at the top for bump style, Oath for that sword style. And 8 for the companion style. The real answer is play everything and enjoy everything but my elevator pitch is those three.
I can't wait for Ys X Nordics...
@@rossdixonellis I too have always thought HP refills were slower in Dawn of Ys.
@@rossdixonellis Oh was it "Gash"? I assumed it was pronounced like rise/rice just with a G, similiar to Ys sounding like Geese without an G or ease. Wouldn't call him an Anti-Adol cuz they do have some stuff in common, just their execution in what they have in common is different I'd say.
I mean I get the point on using speed ups in games, I'm frequently faulty on that too due to my experience in the early 2000s when getting to know emulators. Yeah the soundmixing is.. a thing in Dawn of Ys, and best voice work is provided by G(a)ruda who is voiced by the one and only Lawrence Simpson aka MasakoX who is part of TeamFourStar's Dragon Ball Z Abridged.
Yeah the music in Dawn of Ys is very solid, and basically my 2nd favorite in the series overall with Ys 6 taking the cake, and I really really dislike what Memories of Celceta did by not only removing ALOT of tracks from Dawn of Ys but also arranging alot of them really.. not to my liking xD
ADOLU CHRISTINU