Ys Origins First Impressions
Ever since I saw the Ancient Book of Ys OVA (Original Video Animation) series a couple years ago, I have desired to play the games. However, the translated versions of these were only available on the Playstation consoles and devices, but back in March 2012, XSEED Games released Ys Oath in Felghana, and later in May released Ys Origin, on Steam. The choice to release these games rather than the first two Ys games, Ys I and Ys II, are interesting. Ys Oath in Felghana is a remake of Ys III, whereas Ys Origin is a new story, which canonically occurs before Ys I.
When I first saw these games appear on Steam at the price they were at, I was very hesitant to purchase them (Ys Origin $19.99 USD and Ys Oath in Felghana $14.99 USD). They looked rather simple and did not seem like they had much to offer. I finally bought them during the Steam Summer Sale when I could get them for much less than their normal price. I put off playing them for a long time until in December; I installed Ys Origin and started playing it from midnight to 1:30.
So what is Ys? Ys is a series of JRPG (Japanese Role Playing Games) created by Nihon Falcom Corporation, that began with Ys I in 1987. In game, Ys is a floating isle where in days of old was home to what is described as a utopia created by the two goddesses Feena and Reah. Like the Legend of Zelda, not every game focuses on the land of Ys. In fact, only Ys I & II and Ys Origin focus on Ys; all of the other games takes place all over a map that looks very much like Europe. This is expected since there exists in mythology a city called Ys located in Brittany that was lost to the sea. While the floating isle of Ys has not been lost to the sea, it has certainly been lost; this is based on the fact that only a couple people in Ys I know of Ys. For every Ys game, besides Ys Origin, the hero has been a red-headed warrior named Adol Cristin who, unlike Link from the Legend of Zelda, is the same person in each game he is in. The reason for his lack of appearance in Ys Origin is that it occurs several hundred years before Ys I.
Ys Origin is, as previously stated, the first game in the Ys lore’s timeline, but was released in Japan for the Windows XP in 2006, and was later translated and released on Steam by XSEED Games JKS in May 2012. Ys Origin stars three characters each with their own playstyles; in addition, for those that are familiar to the Ys series but have not played Ys Origin, you will find yourself chuckling at the familiarity of the surnames. Yunica Tovah appears as the first option to choose from in the list of characters. She is a knight in training and for some unknown reason she does not have magical abilities, which is apparently unique in the land of Ys. As a result, she is a strong melee fighter who can deliver strong blows with her axe then quickly get away. The second character option is Hugo Fact, who is the opposite of Yunica. Hugo is wizard who deals ranged damage with his Eyes of Fact which spew out magic missiles. Hugo is not training to be a knight; rather he is training to become one of the six great priests of Ys. The third character option is unknown until you have beaten the game with one of the other two characters; however he is a character that is worth finishing the campaign once to play with. Playing with the third character is a very exciting experience, however the game will tell you “Experts only!” but do not be put off by that. By the time I beat the first boss, or I guess minor boss, I knew how to use the character. His campaign is a bit longer since his campaign is canonical.
As an impatient gamer, I like to get into battle sooner rather than later. For this reason, I chose Yunica Tovah. Her playstyle is well suited to mine, as a melee fighter she has to get into battle quickly before taking too much ranged damage. This makes sense for boss battles, as most if not all have range attacks though few enemies outside of boss battles have range attacks.
Starting the campaign you are greeted with a monologue spoken in French. I was taken aback by this. Odd, French in a Japanese game translated into English, why? Later research revealed that since Ys is based off the lost land of Ys which was located in modern France, the makers thought it relevant to do the monologue in French. Following this is an anime style introductory video that gives you a prologue of what happens right before the game. The video can be quite confusing as no words are spoken throughout its entirety, though it is accompanied with a fantastic opening tune. Only after having completed the game have I gained an appreciation for the opening. Every scene in the opening animation was necessary to provide the gamer with the knowledge of what is going on. Yet, the barebones nature of the prologue causes the before mentioned confusion of what is going on.
After the animation ends, the game begins. It starts off with Yunica talking to a tree. Players of Ys I will be pleased to know that this tree is none other than one of the Roda trees. Even with the introduction that the animation, the tree gives you another introduction to the game, this time less confusing. When the Roda tree and Yunica finish conversing, she runs off in the direction of Dharm’s Tower, which is where the entirety of the game takes place.
When she arrives at the tower, two people who are part of her group that got split up in the prologue are seen surrounded by some enemies. So Yunica joins in to defend her companions, who as to be expected do absolutely nothing but allow Yunica to defeat their foes. It is this part that provides a small tutorial for the player. The instructions on how to fight shows up on a slate that appears right before the player fights the enemy. In a way, this feature is kind of irrelevant considering that the user can change the controls through the configuration application. Changing the controls is highly recommended since the default controls are rather inefficient. Both mouse and console video game controllers are viable for use in the game, I have not used a video game controller but a mouse is a great option for those who play games that rely on using a mouse.
A cool feature of the gameplay of Ys Origin is that it shows the damage Yunica inflicts on her enemies. Obviously, such a feature is not new to the world of videogames, but for a series I have only just jumped into, it is an encouraging aspect. This aspect is useful to see the progression of Yunica’s stats over the course of the entire game. While fighting these enemies the player is introduced to a power that temporarily increases Yunica’s stats and halves the damage she receives from enemies. Recharging the power requires Yunica to fight. There is, what seems to be, a bug for the recharging; Yunica does not actually have to attack and hit enemies to recharge, instead I found out that you can recharge the bar by simply hitting the attack button.
Character Stats
After the short fight, Yunica meets up with the two characters that were under attack. She is basically told by them to wait for the others to arrive since she is apparently still a novice warrior, however she is persistent about going ahead to “scout”, which we all know means that it is time for the real fighting. It should be noted that, predictably, you do not actually fight with any of your allies; they’re really just there to advance the plot. Something that is not all that rare, it appears in many games where at the beginning you start out with a group of companions and you start thinking that these guys are your bros and will help you through thick and thin. However, once the game begins you never fight with your supposed companions. It is something that has always annoyed me which is why I appreciated the squad in Battlefield Bad Company (despite the fact that it is you who does all the work in that game) or Rainbow Six Vegas 2, the squad actually listens to you!
Before the player waltzes into the tower, he is given something called Lila’s Shell, used to contact the female character Eolia who apparently provides wisdom to help you out…she really does not. Here replies when the player uses the shell are not that helpful, in fact her replies only points out the obvious. She is the complete opposite of Navi: not annoying and not helpful. The other item is the Crystal, which looks like a dagger with a crystal blade. This item is actually useful. What it does is transport you to different levels of the tower that you have passed through. So if you missed something passing through one of the tower levels, you can teleport back to the level you missed something to grab it. Or, you can do what I did; go back to the first level to clear each level again just to get experience points to level up. The character who gives it to you then shows you how it all works, name blank on the character because let’s face it he is forgettable. In fact, all of the “good” characters, besides those who are playable and the two goddesses that you have to find, are bland and forgettable; though I must say I loved the character designs.
With both items in hand the player heads into the tower to start the fun part of the game. In the first room of the tower the player is introduced to the way door accessibility is unlocked, which is to defeat specially highlighted enemies. The highlighted enemies are in a reddish purplish color and have heightened stats to make unlocking the door a more difficult task. It seems to be a way to prevent players barreling through levels, shortening the game by a lot, and games such as this are meant to be enjoyed. After eliminating the highlighted enemies, the player proceeds to go through room after room fighting enemies as well as picking up a few items, the Celcetan Panacea which increases max health and the Cerulean Flabellum which is a very useful weapon that not only enables the player to jump farther but also can make the player go faster. Furthermore, it is an addicting weapon as it can propel the player immediately to the next enemy which in the case of the playable characters is quite literal meaning that as soon as the key is pressed the player will be instantly move to the next closest enemy without having the player the enemy when the Cerulean Flabellum was used. The Cerulean Flabellum’s ability paired with Yunica’s fast “axeplay”, fighting monster after monster does become tedious but rather something enjoyable to look forward to, though this does depend on the enemy the player is currently engaged with. The Cerulean Flabellum is just one of three weapons the player picks up throughout the game. Each of the three weapons are useful and do have their own specific purposes. Furthermore, one can be more useful in defeating an enemy than the other, the same goes for the boss battles. The variety of weapons is a great benefit to the game. Just having one weapon can make for a boring game, and better yet since all of the weapons have their own intended uses, the previous weapons you picked up do not become obsolete.
Soon enough, after teleporting to another area to neutralize a “tractor beam” the player comes into contact with the two of the main antagonists. Really, only Epona is memorable, as she has two purposes; for Yunica she acts a rival, while for other characters she appears to be almost like a love interest. The other is a typical ultimate warrior archetype, a warrior that wants to be the greatest of them all and in order to do that he has to beat the best (much like the Shinomori Aoshi and Himura Kenshin relationship from Rurouni Kenshin ), but unlike Shinomori, this antagonist does not exactly have a memorable backstory. Yet, like Shinomori in the Shishio Makoto arc, the antagonist is willing to do anything to be the best.
The antagonists do not think the player is worth their time so they summon a demon to deal with the player. At first it is kind of annoying that the game has resorted to forcing the character fight a distraction foe, but to be fair the game has only so many main antagonists that the player will have to fight, so getting rid of one (or beating one only to beat them later for good) is a bit too early, especially since there are like ten boss fights. However, do not worry, each boss battle plays out much differently than the last and it takes different tactics to tackle all the bosses.
The Invincible Bat Demons!
The demon the two antagonists left behind acts like a mini-boss. It is a bat-like demon that can transform into invincible bats and can use melee and ranged attacks. Yet do not let that title fool you, it took several tries to defeat him. My first tactic was to go in charging guns blazing; this obviously does not work for boss battles. For me, who has not had to fight boss battles in the recent games I have been playing it was rather difficult to defeat him; I believe it even took me a few tries to figure out the best way to attack the boss. Eventually I did defeat him, and though it took me a while I enjoyed myself during the fight. I was really forced to strategize, figure out why I died and where the flaw in my tactics was. This is true for every single boss battle; I died many times and was forced to come up with many plans to neutralize the bosses. For players who come back playing as a different character, they should know that the tactic that was successful for one character will not successful for others, which goes to show how different the playable characters are in their fighting styles.
Afterwards the player is treated to an intro of four more bland protagonist characters who are supposed to be knights (whereas Yunica is just a knight in training). They are angry with Yunica, and for going alone into the tower, being a knight in training, all four knights chide Yunica for her supposed recklessness, despite the fact that she just took out a powerful demon. These characters are just terrible; they come in right after a boss battle and chide the player for his recklessness being in a danger zone, despite the fact that the player just destroyed a boss. After the four leave (hoping Yunica will go back to the base of the tower), Yunica says, “Maybe I’ll explore a teensy bit farther before heading back…” Funnily enough, at around 1:30 am, this applied to me almost exactly. I really wanted to see what new enemies I would face. I did see the new enemies in the next room, and as Julius Caesar might have said, had things been different, I came I saw and I was conquered. Soon after I went into the next room I was killed, and that’s why you always make sure you save, otherwise you might lose an hour and a half of progress.
Ys Origin Gameplay
That was the extent of my hour and a half play through of Ys Origin. It was mostly to try it out, as it looked like an intriguing game. Despite the unfortunate consequences of forgetting to save, the next day I tried playing the game again and I became addicted to it. My addiction to the game though did not shorten it. It took me roughly 20 hours to finish the campaign of Ys Origin, and on the second run through it took me roughly 15 hours, which goes to show just how long it is (almost as long as Mr. Bones Wild Ride). I do love this game, but I do have my own gripes about it. First is that changing the controls appears to be impossible, because most players expect to be able to change controls in game rather than using a different application and the other gripe is the blandness and predictability of your compatriots in the game, but I did not continue to play this game because of the characters, I continued to play because of the addicting gameplay. For the Yunica character, the gameplay is incredibly fast paced with her hack and slash fighting, making the player eager for the next fight. While the campaign is long for a fighting game, its longevity does not hurt the game since the campaign levels are very different from one another, more so than the dungeons in Ocarina of Time. As such, the game basically guarantees that if you liked the first few levels, you will love the next ones. Along with the difference in levels also comes the music which is as amazing as the soundtracks for the Halo series. However, the Ys Origin soundtrack, like all Ys soundtracks, is not as atmospheric as the Halo series’ soundtracks; instead the Ys Origin soundtrack is almost telling the player “Gotta go fast! Gotta go fast!” Like the fast paced fighting throughout the game, the soundtrack is fast paced. The only times when the music is slow is when the characters are speaking to each other, however when the player goes back to fighting enemies, the fast paced music returns.
Despite the handheld video game console look to the graphics, Ys Origin really is a fantastic game. With its addicting fast paced gameplay and the epic soundtrack, it is a game that has made me play through it twice (I could even be convinced to try and beat it on its hardest difficulty: Nightmare).