After how disappointing V was, it wouldn’t be hard to top it, but VI makes a true effort to try something new. Ys VI is a great start to possibly the best era of the Ys series, taking elements of older games and bringing them in a new fun direction.
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VI has a larger story focus than the past several entries, with several returning characters, the dialogue of all the NPCs in both towns is updating very regularly (fitting that Trails in the Sky would release so soon after this game), and an attempt to tie parts of previous games together into a larger backstory. I feel that this works quite well, the story and NPCs are charming and fun, and the localization is strong too, with a lot of personality.
The gameplay is still the first attempt at a style they would refine more in the next two games, but it’s already a very solid foundation. It retains the feeling of being fairly fast paced, and sort of feels like another approach to what V was trying, with an emphasis on platforming and actually needing to consider your sword techniques alongside movement. Down thrusts, upward swings, and the interesting but too-difficult dash jump (though thankfully nearly completely optional). The level design is mostly pretty basic, but the moments of tricky platforming while dealing with rooms of enemies is always fun.
Overworld areas are fairly short, and dungeons are quite long, some of them getting fairly labyrinthine layouts, which works well in some and less in others, but overall I enjoyed them.
The game also retains the early-series concepts of levels dramatically affecting your damage + survivability, and the area balancing being hard at the start of the area and easy by the end as you level up.
The music is a significant improvement from V, and while I wouldn’t say it’s the best in the series, I enjoyed basically everything in it to some extent, and there are some really great songs in there too. I think it's a soundtrack that grows on you with repeated listens, or at least it made a lot more of an impression on me this second time around.
(Also, the credits song going for the early-Ys-style super upbeat sound was very cute.)
Overall I was really happy to revisit this game, and had a great time!
Selected song: The Ruined City 'Kishgal'
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VI has a larger story focus than the past several entries, with several returning characters, the dialogue of all the NPCs in both towns is updating very regularly (fitting that Trails in the Sky would release so soon after this game), and an attempt to tie parts of previous games together into a larger backstory. I feel that this works quite well, the story and NPCs are charming and fun, and the localization is strong too, with a lot of personality.
The gameplay is still the first attempt at a style they would refine more in the next two games, but it’s already a very solid foundation. It retains the feeling of being fairly fast paced, and sort of feels like another approach to what V was trying, with an emphasis on platforming and actually needing to consider your sword techniques alongside movement. Down thrusts, upward swings, and the interesting but too-difficult dash jump (though thankfully nearly completely optional). The level design is mostly pretty basic, but the moments of tricky platforming while dealing with rooms of enemies is always fun.
Overworld areas are fairly short, and dungeons are quite long, some of them getting fairly labyrinthine layouts, which works well in some and less in others, but overall I enjoyed them.
The game also retains the early-series concepts of levels dramatically affecting your damage + survivability, and the area balancing being hard at the start of the area and easy by the end as you level up.
The music is a significant improvement from V, and while I wouldn’t say it’s the best in the series, I enjoyed basically everything in it to some extent, and there are some really great songs in there too. I think it's a soundtrack that grows on you with repeated listens, or at least it made a lot more of an impression on me this second time around.
(Also, the credits song going for the early-Ys-style super upbeat sound was very cute.)
Overall I was really happy to revisit this game, and had a great time!
Selected song: The Ruined City 'Kishgal'
The platforming in the game was, at least in my opinion, really frustrating, I really didn't like this aspect of the game, but other than that, the story was pretty nice, and the music was also very good. All in all, I still think this is a decent game, but it's definitely not my favorite Ys game.
peak ys
It's a good time, and after coming off of Ys V it was a godsend, but there's still a bit to be desired that I think the later games in this style refined. One thing I do adore though is the weapon rotating system and each one having a different element of magic as well, they're all decently balanced between each other with I guess fire probably hitting the weakest for me but still plenty of good use cases. It's also got a really unique movement system being able to use jump slashes to bridge gaps long before you're meant to in certain areas if you know how to do the tech that's very fun to me and makes a replay pretty enjoyable!
On the downside, also compared to the other games with similar systems this story doesn't do it all for me. It is fine, just kind of ends with me feeling ever so slightly dissatisfied, but I don't knock it too hard because it could just be because I remember things feeling more grand in my memory than they actually were on replay. Overall it's still a fun time and definitely worth checking out if you've played enough of the games to be a certified Yshead, can't go wrong with it!
On the downside, also compared to the other games with similar systems this story doesn't do it all for me. It is fine, just kind of ends with me feeling ever so slightly dissatisfied, but I don't knock it too hard because it could just be because I remember things feeling more grand in my memory than they actually were on replay. Overall it's still a fun time and definitely worth checking out if you've played enough of the games to be a certified Yshead, can't go wrong with it!
GREAT SOUNDTRACK GREAT ISLAND GREAT ADVENTURE but its a little too you know, combat wise and boss wise it doesn't really stand out that much besides maybe the elemental sword abilities but even then theyre pretty bare bone but still a fun ass game its fast pacing doesn't really let you stew and brew in its weaknesses and flaws.
A really solid RPG and title in the Ys series the only complain that I can say is the duration, even with a lot of farming I managed to beat the game in 11 hours that to be honest are not a lot for an RPG but nonetheless I really enjoyed almost all of the game as to offer, from the really good story and world building, the simple and yet addictive gameplay and combat system and last but not least the music, falcom knows how to make an awesome soundtrack.
Almost perfect but lacks some of the newer QoL features that the PC version benefits from like fast-travel. The first of the mainline Ys series that jumped to full-3D and although there are a little quirks here and there, it manages to maintain most of the greatness of the previous 5 games in the series.
It took Adol 5 different adventures to finally figure out how to use items while not pausing the game, so proud of him!
not nearly as good as the other games, which makes sense seeing as its the first one on this engine but still. lackluster ost, boring and obnoxious dungeon design, even the bosses were mediocre. only two takeaways are that its story is cool and the locations (aesthetic wise) we're really pretty to look at
A little too short and not enough substance to satisfy. Hehe, that's what she said.
Adore the island setting and was never bored exploring. The short length and small number of required story events gives the game a wonderfully fast pace. Boss variety is my biggest complaint. Ark doesn't have many main story bosses and half the optional ones are simply stronger versions of other optional bosses. Added to the fact many lack in challenging attack patterns, even at higher difficulties, and you have a less enjoyable boss lineup compared to other entries.
hooooly moly this one's really good
Extremely baller, the only thing that got me to stop was the computer i was playing on getting bricked. I'll go back and finish it some day.
It's peak but the random difficulty jumps are annoying sometimes. mountain zone SLAPS though
Feels like closer to being a nothingburger than the other 2 naphishtim engine games with only a few dungeons and not a lot happening but I found it fun. lived in setting, elemental sword system, some fun exploration, and the dungeons like to mix combat and environment together better than a lot of games I played, ie. the ledges in the cave you can plunge attack from, or the Burroughs the bomb throwing enemies tuck themselves into.
Me cago mil veces en el dash jump.
for me this is the weaker ys of the main entries but still doesn't take out the fact that it was pretty nice
You know, I really tried to like this game more. But when comparing it to the other games in the series I've played this year, I struggle to find pretty much anything it eclipses them in. But still, let's start with the positives: The story is well told, albeit nothing special, with the exception of the things we learn about the winged gods "tribe", which i found very interesting. I also like most of the characters, especially Geis and the three fairys really endeared themselves to me when it comes to newcomers. Callbacks to older adventures, like meeting Raba and reminiscing about adventures from Ys I & II, is always something I'm a big fan of. The weapon rotation system is fine, although it just shows how much they improved this system in Ys Origin. The visual design of some areas, especially the Ruins of Lost Time, are great as well.
You may have noticed that the positives I've listed are in regard to non-gameplay related topics, like visuals and story. That is because, in my opinion, the gameplay experience is the worst I've experienced so far in the series. Alright, maybe Ys I & II were worse, but these had the context of being games from the freaking late 80's, thus being shackled by the technical and design limitations of their time. Ys VI does not have this excuse. Enemy movesets feel terrible to play around, hitboxes are murky and lead to cheap hits constantly, especially from flying enemies like the bees and undead flying foes in Limewater Cave. Yes, Ys games can, and in my opinion, should be difficult, but in this game I struggle to find errors in my own playstyle to improve, except maybe cheesing the enemies right back. However, if it was only for the combat, the game would still be frustrating - but still tolerable.
But the plattforming, oh the plattforming. Making the acquisition of many chests and some optional bosses tied to the god-awful jumping slash to make it over bigger gaps is bad enough. But combine that with the lack of coyote time, wavey air momentum and the fact that some areas like the above mentioned Ruins of Lost Time make you do a lenghty detour every time you miss a jump make big parts of the game into a frustrating test of patience. And the thing is: When not in town, plattforming and combat naturally are the only things you do. And when both of these elements are frustrating in their own way, it makes for quite the miserable overall game experience. Call me noob idiot who didn't "get" the game all you want, but thus far, this is the worst Ys game I've played.
You may have noticed that the positives I've listed are in regard to non-gameplay related topics, like visuals and story. That is because, in my opinion, the gameplay experience is the worst I've experienced so far in the series. Alright, maybe Ys I & II were worse, but these had the context of being games from the freaking late 80's, thus being shackled by the technical and design limitations of their time. Ys VI does not have this excuse. Enemy movesets feel terrible to play around, hitboxes are murky and lead to cheap hits constantly, especially from flying enemies like the bees and undead flying foes in Limewater Cave. Yes, Ys games can, and in my opinion, should be difficult, but in this game I struggle to find errors in my own playstyle to improve, except maybe cheesing the enemies right back. However, if it was only for the combat, the game would still be frustrating - but still tolerable.
But the plattforming, oh the plattforming. Making the acquisition of many chests and some optional bosses tied to the god-awful jumping slash to make it over bigger gaps is bad enough. But combine that with the lack of coyote time, wavey air momentum and the fact that some areas like the above mentioned Ruins of Lost Time make you do a lenghty detour every time you miss a jump make big parts of the game into a frustrating test of patience. And the thing is: When not in town, plattforming and combat naturally are the only things you do. And when both of these elements are frustrating in their own way, it makes for quite the miserable overall game experience. Call me noob idiot who didn't "get" the game all you want, but thus far, this is the worst Ys game I've played.
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.
Coming to this after playing Ys I and II felt like a breeze of fresh air in many ways. At its core, Ys VI retains many qualities that I grew so fond of in the older titles. Exploration is fun, the music is absolutely stellar, the story is more grounded and character progression feels super meaningful. However, there are quite a few aspects that this game improved in comparison to its predecessors.
For one, the level layout was way less confusing for me this time around. Unfortunately, we still didn’t get a mini-map in this one (only a large world map that is kinda useless but looks nice) to help get our bearings. That being said, the level structure itself is crafted in a way that made it easy for me to find my way and not get lost. That is achieved by chunking the game world into distinct areas that stand on their own and which offer layouts, that are not nearly as confusing as they were in the older titles. That was a huge relief to me. I cannot count how many times I completely lost my way in Ys I and II as they were a million doors on every screen leading to a countless amount of side areas. Here, that was not really the case. Yes, there were still sections of the game that were rather confusing (talking about a specific cave - if you know, you know^^) but it never reached the heights of frustration that I had felt before.
Same goes for the combat system. In my opinion, Ys VI offers a huge step-up from the bump system introduced in Ys I. We can finally hack, slay and drop-attack our way through enemies and it never felt better. I liked how specific items were required to defeat certain enemies or how I could upgrade my swords to increase my damage output massively. That’s another change I really liked. Pretty early on, you get 3 swords, all with their own moveset and special attack that you keep until the end of the game. No more farming gold for new weapons or losing your mind because you didn’t find a specific chest in a dungeon that contained a better sword than what you had. Here, it’s all a bit more simplified. You still have to farm a resource to upgrade your stuff but at least you won’t miss out on anything just because you didn’t check every single room in a dungeon to find new gear.
Unfortunately, not all that glitters is gold and some new features bring new problems with them. For me, that was definitely the case for the jump mechanic. Jumping around for simple platforming stuff and striking enemies from above is cool and all. However, the game introduces some pretty precise platforming challenges that just left me frustrated. There are many areas in the game where you have to perform a pixel-perfect jump and if you fail, you fall down into the area below and have to backtrack the entire way to try again. And it’s the worst. On top of that, the game features a dash move that I would describe as the single most convoluted jump mechanic that I have ever seen in a game. I wasn’t even aware that there was a dash until I found a chest that I couldn’t jump to. So, I looked it up online and couldn’t believe what I read. You have to tap the move button for the direction you wish to jump to, then shortly press attack for some reason and then press jump. Yes, it’s as horrible as it sounds. Fortunately, I only needed this move once ore twice but my god, did it suck.
So, even though the platforming felt like ass in many areas of the game and the backtracking it led to did become quite frustrating at times, I still had a good time with Ys VI. The boss battles were fun with each boss introducing a new challenge that required a specific tactic to beat them. The world and its inhabitants were absolutely beautiful. It was the first time in an Ys game, that I kind of actually cared for the characters and their fate. The writing definitely helped with that. All characters were interesting, charming or funny in a way that I hadn’t seen in an Ys game before. The story is still very much in the background but it kept me motivated and it wasn’t as cliché as in other JRPGs. So far, this has been my favorite Ys game and I can’t wait to play more games of the series in the future.
For one, the level layout was way less confusing for me this time around. Unfortunately, we still didn’t get a mini-map in this one (only a large world map that is kinda useless but looks nice) to help get our bearings. That being said, the level structure itself is crafted in a way that made it easy for me to find my way and not get lost. That is achieved by chunking the game world into distinct areas that stand on their own and which offer layouts, that are not nearly as confusing as they were in the older titles. That was a huge relief to me. I cannot count how many times I completely lost my way in Ys I and II as they were a million doors on every screen leading to a countless amount of side areas. Here, that was not really the case. Yes, there were still sections of the game that were rather confusing (talking about a specific cave - if you know, you know^^) but it never reached the heights of frustration that I had felt before.
Same goes for the combat system. In my opinion, Ys VI offers a huge step-up from the bump system introduced in Ys I. We can finally hack, slay and drop-attack our way through enemies and it never felt better. I liked how specific items were required to defeat certain enemies or how I could upgrade my swords to increase my damage output massively. That’s another change I really liked. Pretty early on, you get 3 swords, all with their own moveset and special attack that you keep until the end of the game. No more farming gold for new weapons or losing your mind because you didn’t find a specific chest in a dungeon that contained a better sword than what you had. Here, it’s all a bit more simplified. You still have to farm a resource to upgrade your stuff but at least you won’t miss out on anything just because you didn’t check every single room in a dungeon to find new gear.
Unfortunately, not all that glitters is gold and some new features bring new problems with them. For me, that was definitely the case for the jump mechanic. Jumping around for simple platforming stuff and striking enemies from above is cool and all. However, the game introduces some pretty precise platforming challenges that just left me frustrated. There are many areas in the game where you have to perform a pixel-perfect jump and if you fail, you fall down into the area below and have to backtrack the entire way to try again. And it’s the worst. On top of that, the game features a dash move that I would describe as the single most convoluted jump mechanic that I have ever seen in a game. I wasn’t even aware that there was a dash until I found a chest that I couldn’t jump to. So, I looked it up online and couldn’t believe what I read. You have to tap the move button for the direction you wish to jump to, then shortly press attack for some reason and then press jump. Yes, it’s as horrible as it sounds. Fortunately, I only needed this move once ore twice but my god, did it suck.
So, even though the platforming felt like ass in many areas of the game and the backtracking it led to did become quite frustrating at times, I still had a good time with Ys VI. The boss battles were fun with each boss introducing a new challenge that required a specific tactic to beat them. The world and its inhabitants were absolutely beautiful. It was the first time in an Ys game, that I kind of actually cared for the characters and their fate. The writing definitely helped with that. All characters were interesting, charming or funny in a way that I hadn’t seen in an Ys game before. The story is still very much in the background but it kept me motivated and it wasn’t as cliché as in other JRPGs. So far, this has been my favorite Ys game and I can’t wait to play more games of the series in the future.
Slime genocide simulator.
It's not bad at all but Oath and Origin are def superior to the point it's painful to play this older installment.
Terrible, awful, easily my least favorite Ys game, so much so I didn't finish it. Didn't get particularly far, but having played the other two games in the same engine, I can tell that it wouldn't get any better for me.
At least Oath and Origins had an easier mode to play through that meant I could finish it - and Origins was actually fun - but I just don't want to mindlessly kill enemies over and over again just to get a high enough number next to my name as to not die.
At least Oath and Origins had an easier mode to play through that meant I could finish it - and Origins was actually fun - but I just don't want to mindlessly kill enemies over and over again just to get a high enough number next to my name as to not die.
so good when you ignore the dogshit bosses and dash jumps
Ok écoutez-moi, le jeu est 99% peak, comme toujours l'artstyle / OST sont géniaux, le scénario est bien et tout... MAIS IL Y A UNE RAISON POUR LAQUELLE J'AI PAS MIS 5 ÉTOILES : LES SATANÉS DASH JUMPS BON SANG JE DÉTESTE CES TRUCS
En gros, j'ai fait le jeu avec souris + clavier et putain faire les dash jumps c'était littéralement presque impossible ET IL Y A UN DONJON OBLIGATOIRE DANS LE JEU QUI UTILISE GENRE 10000000000 DASH JUMPS, C'ÉTAIT L'ENFER. Finalement j'ai dû utiliser un script pour AutoHotKey que j'ai trouvé sur Steam. Sérieusement c'était tellement agaçant
Bien sûr à part ça le jeu est bien, mais ne faites pas la même erreur, jouez- le avec une manette
En gros, j'ai fait le jeu avec souris + clavier et putain faire les dash jumps c'était littéralement presque impossible ET IL Y A UN DONJON OBLIGATOIRE DANS LE JEU QUI UTILISE GENRE 10000000000 DASH JUMPS, C'ÉTAIT L'ENFER. Finalement j'ai dû utiliser un script pour AutoHotKey que j'ai trouvé sur Steam. Sérieusement c'était tellement agaçant
Bien sûr à part ça le jeu est bien, mais ne faites pas la même erreur, jouez- le avec une manette
Loved most of the game other than the jump dash being broken on the Steam version so I couldn't get a bunch of the items.
This review contains spoilers
As the first game of a new battle system nicknamed the Napishtim system, Ys VI landed the fun factor pretty well. The combat feels smooth and the movement felt fast. The game is relatively short, so the combat doesn't overstay its welcome. The story is typical Ys standard, but the lore it adds to the mythology is neat. The Canaan Islands are fun to explore, though it's a lot smaller than what you'll assume. Music is a banger, but that is a given for Ys. The visuals are old but have an odd charm that makes the game hold up. The only flaws I had issues with were the stiff jumping (especially when trying to perform the dash jump), a few times where you don't exactly know when you need to go (though considering how quick skip travel was, it didn't become a detriment), and the few times where you just need to grind (though the combat made the grinding fun to do. Easy 4/5 and an easy recommendation for any fan of Ys and any JRPG fan wanting to try out an Ys game.
Olha, tem seus problemas e em alguns momentos dá uma raiva. O sistema nesse jogo é meio paia, que veio a ser aprimorado nos próximos jogos, sinto que não fazia muita diferença trocar de arma.
A história é boba, pra um "fechamento de arco" é bem decepcionante, porém gosto de todas as interações de personagens do jogo, além de ver vários que já apareceram em jogos anteriores.
Apesar de tudo, tem o clima que todo Ys passa e isso pra mim é suficiente pra olhar com bons olhos.
A história é boba, pra um "fechamento de arco" é bem decepcionante, porém gosto de todas as interações de personagens do jogo, além de ver vários que já apareceram em jogos anteriores.
Apesar de tudo, tem o clima que todo Ys passa e isso pra mim é suficiente pra olhar com bons olhos.
Ys VI : A New Hope
After the release of Ys V and the mixed reception that it received, Falcom entered a bit of a creative slump not just when it came to the series but their general output as a company. None of the founding members were left at the company and the Falcom of the mid-90’s and onward was a vastly different studio than it was back then. Aside from releasing the next two games of the Gagharv trilogy which saw great success both in Japan and especially in South Korea, the company just wasn’t able to make new IP’s or even new games for that matter.
This was the start of a long era of Falcom just porting their old classics on newer hardware instead of making new games. During that time however, Falcom launched a lot of recruitment campaigns, boasting how great it was to work at Falcom (it was not, just for the record, there’s a reason literally all of the creative staff left the company and I’m pretty sure that even to this day it’s not a very pleasant work environment). These campaigns managed to bring on board a couple of really talented people notably two persons, one was Makoto Shinkai which we already mentioned in a previous review who did some stunning job animating and directing animated cutscenes for Falcom’s recent releases at the time.
Shinkai will leave the company shortly after the release of the PS2 version of Ys 1&2 to become the famous movie director that we know today but the other big guy Falcom recruited and perhaps the most important one was Toshihiro Kondo. Kondo was, like most of Falcom’s new recruit at the time, a massive fan of Falcom’s early output but he wasn’t just a mere fan, he was THE Falcom fan ! Ever since he was a child, Kondo loved playing RPGs such as Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy and while he has heard about Ys 1&2 through some of his friends talking about it at school, it’s when he picked up Ys III at a friends house that the trajectory of his life changed forever.
After the release of “Legend of Heroes 3 : Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch” which became his favorite game of all time, Kondo who was at university at the time decided to launch a website for Falcom fans to gather, discuss on-going news about the company and sharing tips and tricks for the different games. Kondo got enough of a reputation with his fan website that working at Falcom wasn’t a pipe-dream anymore but a tangible reality and so he applied at Falcom as an accountant. Falcom however knew about his activities online and how he managed his fansite and since he was the only guy at the time who knew anything about the Internet, he was tasked to code websites to promote the different new releases of the company.
But at the same time, the younger staff at Falcom including Kondo were starting to get fed up with just releasing ports of old games and localizing South Korean RPG’s, they wanted more, they were getting ambitious and thus they stopped working on yet another port of Ys III to ask the CEO if they could start working on new games. Masayuki Kato was skeptical about the process, it’s been a while since Falcom hasn’t released a genuinely ambitious banger and Falcom didn’t have any sort of brand recognition anymore so he wasn’t sure any new release would take off. But against all odds, he accepted, splitting the company in two to make a subsidiary entirely dedicated to the development of new games.
First order of business was releasing the first new Falcom IP since 1994 ending up in the release of “Zwei : The Arges Adventure '' in 2001 releasing alongside the latest release of Ys 1&2 which inspired the team to do one crazy thing. It was time to bring Ys back, it was time for Adol to set out for a new adventure, an adventure that could very well be its last if the game couldn’t meet sales potential and proof that people were still interested in the franchise. For Falcom, it was about going big or going home… and they went big !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zcI5-bhVyk
Released for PC in 2003 and in 2005 on the PS2 for the rest of the world (the first time a new entry in the series was released in the west since Ys III all the way back in the 80’s btw), this new entry served both as a continuation of Adol’s Adventure in Ys V (tho chronologically it is now placed after Ys VIII) but also a sort of soft-reboot for the series. The game dev division at Falcom was composed of a small number of employees so you can definitely guess that Ys VI wasn’t going to compete with the rest of the industry. In 2003 and especially in 2005, there were a lot of good or even great JRPG’s on the market, especially of the action variety.
The philosophy of Falcom at the time (and something that has just barely changed ever since) was that they were fully aware they were making cheap games of smaller technical ambition but what they didn’t had in graphical or game design prowess, they were compensating with original and experimental ideas and a fuck lot of generosity even in their smaller less ambitious titles ! And while Ys VI definitely is starting to show its age in some areas, it nonetheless follows that line of logic.
For Ys VI, Falcom decided to built an entirely new engine that will retrospectively be known as the “Ark Engine” in reference to Ys VI subtitle : “The Ark of Napishtim”, an engine they will use for a grand majority of both their Ys and Trails line-up of games until 2012. And with a new engine comes a brand new artstyle, the series abandon its traditional top-down view in favor of a blend of pre-rendered 2D sprites (not unlike those of Donkey Kong Country to make a comparison) and 3D environment with fixed camera angle, a style reminiscent of many games of the mid 90’s such as Grandia or Xenogears.
But a new engine also meant a drastic change in the gameplay department. Bump combat was already a thing of the past the series desperately clinged onto and couldn’t fully transition from in 1995 and even with the release of Ys 1&2 Eternal a year earlier which reboosted interest in Ys and its peculiar mechanics, it was time for change ! Big Changes ! Ys VI is for all intents and purposes an extension of what was done with Ys V.
Adol now swings his sword with an actual attack button and can jump for some good old platforming but contrary to Ys V which had very slow deliberate control putting Adol at a full stop each time he wants to attack, here in Ys VI, Adol rushes to the enemies with a fast 3 hit combo that can sometimes be completed by a different finisher based on which sword you currently have equipped. On top of that, you can do an aerial attack as well as a very effective down trust but also a weird kind of situational plunge attack with a very weird and strict activation process (you need to move, wait, then move and attack at the same time it’s really weird).
Later in your adventure you will be able to find 3 different elemental swords which are going to be your main arsenal for the adventure. Each of them changes your playstyle, the water sword keeps your regular moveset but adds a circular attack at the end of your combo, the flame sword makes your attack stronger at the cost of the combo being slower and the thunder sword allows you to attack faster at the cost of power. On top of that and replacing the cumbersome magic system of Ys V, your sword can unleash a powerful magic attack once their magic gauge is filled up, adding a bit more tool to your already new arsenal.
All of this results in a much more dynamic and fun battle system which captures the fast momentum of the older bump-style game while also adding more complexities to the different enemy encounters in the game who now have a vast array of different behaviors that isn't just “walking randomly on the map, aggroing you and sometimes launching a very easily dodgeable attack”. With the added platforming and the 3rd dimension, the level design is also much more complex and interesting than in the other titles and Ys VI boasts some of the best dungeon and overworld area design the series has seen up to that point which is definitely helped by the setting of this game.
In this new adventure, Adol is wanted by the Romun Empire who chases after him and Dogi as they are chilling at a bar. They’re saved in the nick of time by Terra, one of the pirate bandit girls from Ys V who was following Adol after reconciling herself with her father, a famous pirate by the name of Adoc. Adoc is searching for a treasure that seems to be found on an Island inside of something known as the vortex of Canaan in what could be this universe equivalent of the Bermudan Triangle. Dogi thought that it was crazy to attempt such an expedition as no ship has ever survived the Vortex but Adol is still interested by the process and accepts to cross the Vortex. As they approached the Vortex however, they’re attacked by the Romun empire once again and Adol ends up shipwrecked on the island of Canaan when 2 Elf-Like girls by the name of Isha an Olha find him and bring him to the village of the Redha, the indigenous species native to the island.
At first, Adol isn’t welcomed as the Redha are in some sort of a conflict with humans as some of the castaways built a human settlement near the village which has sparked up conflict between the two villages and created many tensions over ressources and such but as you progress through the came and find a common ground between the two factions, he starts warming up to you ! So you’re off on your adventure, trying to find a way out of the island, find your friends and uncover the mysteries which inhabit it.
Ys VI definitely makes a drastic shift towards a more narratively driven story than its predecessor, whereas the old games will sometimes just have a short intro to contextualize your adventure before immediately sending you off, here the game takes his time to establish the setting, the characters and the overall mystery of the Island. The Island of Canaan by itself is the most complex and thoroughly interesting setting in the entire setting up to that point not only from a gameplay level as the layout of the area is pretty open and let you go pretty much anywhere with the only limit being how much hit can you take from stronger enemies but also a ton of small secrets, puzzles and platforming challenges to participate in which makes the Canaan Island the most fun place to visit in the series this far.
But also in terms of its lore, Ys VI serves as some sort of semi-reboot of the series and pretty much serve the same purpose as “Dawn of Ys” when it comes to fleshing out the universe of the series by finding connections to older titles and re-contextualize certain parts of Adol’s previous adventure with some clever and pretty interesting retcons. In fact, some elements from Ys IV were kept to explain the origins of the two goddesses of Ys and their relationship to the Eldeen but instead of being a race of gods, you discover that the Eldeen was instead a technologically advanced civilization who managed to put their souls inside of artificial bodies made of Emelas, the new super metal the franchise has introduced to explain pretty much everything in the franchise.
During your exploration of the Island, you will meet with Geis, a mercenary in search of his brother Ernst and investigating the titular “Ark of Napishtim” the game story is centered around, I mention him because the guy becomes kind of a rival character to Adol, showing up in a couple of entries after this game. I like Geis, the dude’s cool and he has 3 homonculus fairies showing that Falcom isn’t fully erasing the possibility of revisiting Ys V in the future (and boy are they teasing that Ys V remake…). Overall, I really enjoyed the story in this one, it’s fun, it calls for your sense of wonder and adventures. It doesn’t fail to have a few really cool symbolic moments the likes of Ys 1&2 and I’d say that as far as reimagining the series lore for the modern age goes, this one does plenty of cool stuff with the established continuity while still being an excellent jumping point for newcomers.
But as much as I can praise Ys VI for reviving the franchise and mostly succeeding in the process, Ys VI definitely suffers from “1st game syndrome” at times which makes a lot of the execution of these ideas leaving a lot to be desired. For starters while the game is around the same length as your average Ys title at the time (around 10h I’d say) making it a somewhat short and sweet experience, the game suffers from a lot of padding mostly coming from gameplay decisions which can grind on your nerves over time. I mentioned that Ys VI was perhaps one of the more “free” Ys games to date because of all the exploration you can do and how the game allows you to visit certain areas before you can reasonably go there but the way the game gates your progression is a bit wack at times.
Ys has always put an emphasis on its leveling system, with levels pretty much serving both as a difficulty slider and a way to gate keep progress, except that Ys VI will ask of you to do a lot of grinding much more so than any titles. In fact not being at the appropriate level for an area means you’re going to do 0 damages to enemies and while you could be avoiding them just to reach a chest with a neat piece of equipment or a cool accessory or items earlier on, oftentimes the trouble isn’t really worth the effort which I can say for another annoying mechanic…
Dash Jumping…
Dash Jumping isn’t required to beat the game but if you’re like me and want to explore every nook and cranny of the world, you WILL have to master the ancient technique of Dash Jumping. Dash Jumping is a secret mechanic the game doesn’t actually tell you about and at first when I looked it up online, I thought it was just some weird speedrun tech but nope, it’s an actual mechanic that the developers intended you to interact with. To do a Dash Jump you have to move the stick to the direction you want, wait approximately a second, move the stick again while simultaneously pressing the attack and jump button.
I didn’t lie when I said this looks like some ancient speedrun tech because how is anyone supposed to figure that shit out ! Just mastering the damn technique took me a solid hour of training but then the game expects you to do some insanely precise platforming with it, and when I say precise, I mean, jumping from tiny platform to tiny platform, expecting the game slippery as fuck physics to bend to your will and doing so multiple times in a row.
There is another issue with the general platforming of this game though. I’m a big platforming guy and can handle the shittiest of platforming (I’ve become a master at navigating Deep Jungle in KH1 as a kid after all) but the main issue with platforming in Ys VI is that everytime you fall, you don’t simply fall to your doom and respawn with less health like in most games. Instead you get transported to a lower floor area and have to make the trip back to retry again which almost made me wish I played the PS2 version of the game with savestate (even if it looks uglier). This can make you waste tons of time if you’re not good with 3D platforming in a somewhat isometric view and the game is full of those. It’s a problem that’s common to most entries in the Ark Engine trilogy but at least they provide options for staying in the air longer and make platforming less tedious but here, screw double jumping and say hello to DASH JUMPING.
I will also say that as far as the combat system goes, Ys VI can still feel a little rough. While it’s still definitely more fast-paced and fun than Ys V, you quickly realize that the slow methodical approach to combat of that game isn’t fully gone yet. Enemies are brutal in this game and collisions and hitboxes combined with the traditional absence of invincibility frame in this series means you can get ganged to death by a bunch of smaller ennemies working together to fuck you in the ass ! I wouldn’t mind if the game provided enough tools for crowd control but sadly the closest it gets is the down thrust which deals multiple hits and as a hitbox that reaches wider than intended and well… you can guess how awkward that is to just jump and down trust everywhere to progress.
And don’t expect to rely on magic to save yourself either ! While I think the new magic system is definitely more on-point with the energy of the game than Ys V, I still think the way it’s used leaves a lot to be desired. Each sword can unleash a single big magic attack once their bars are filled up but just one time ! Then it’s back to charging it by killing enemies, heck there’s even a boss midway through the game which has an entire gimmick based on that mechanic and it’s easily the worst boss in the entire Ark Engine trilogy, not so much because it’s a hard boss but because it’s BORING.
Other than that, bosses usually are pretty good, the boss design clearly had a step-up in reactivity and there’s even a few humanoid bosses this time around. The patterns are pretty fun to learn but the main issue comes with the difficulty of them being on average quite easy. Ys VI allows you to equip healing items before entering the boss arena and for the record there’s a grand total of 9 tiers of healing items which is way too overkill, it also makes dungeon exploration a bit smoother with access to the inventory being unlimited. Ys VI, keeps a lot of its older RPG roots but I don’t really think it benefits the experience.
However for those still looking for a challenge, this game was the first game in the series (and the first game in Falcom’s catalog) to introduce various 4 difficulty options ranging from Easy to Nightmare and exclusive to this game is the catastrophe mode which prevents you from healing midway through battle and make every enemy drop less money in general.
Another personal opinion of mine also comes with the music, while I can’t pretend the soundtrack is bad, it’s definitely a bit different that what we’re used with the series, the OST is calmer and more atmospheric, sometimes keeping the high energy octane stuff for bosses and action segments. I don’t dislike it and there’s a few bangers here and there but it’s not the soundtrack I go back to the most imo.
You can feel Ys VI being a transitional episode between two eras of Ys (if we forgot about Ys III and V which were the odd ones of the bunch) and while a lot of things about Ys VI still holds up, I do wish that by the time they had re-released that one, they actually retroactively added a lot of the elements introduced in the later two games (which spoilers are amongst my favorite in the series and I’m really excited to talk about them !).
However the game still retains a lot of charm and soul and that trademark sense of Falcom storytelling they experimented with the Gagharv trilogy slowly creeping its way into their other properties. For a modern gamer today, Ys VI feels like a rough transition but to the people who got to witness the grand return of Adol and his friend on PC and home console, it was pretty much a revolution which somehow manages to stand out amongst the crowd.
Ys VI marked the grand return of both Ys and Falcom in the realms of game development and while Falcom isn’t the prestigious and genre defining company that they used to be in the 80’s, the new team made sure to live up to the studio’s legacy by delivering varied, original and surprisingly charming titles for years to the coming decade and the advent of a certain platform is gonna help Falcom stuck out of the niche and approach the realms of the hidden gems mine.
But for now, Ys is going to take a break from advancing its continuity as the next title in the series will be none other than a remake of one of the least revered game in the franchise up to that point, it’s time to go back to the past, to go back to Felghana !
After the release of Ys V and the mixed reception that it received, Falcom entered a bit of a creative slump not just when it came to the series but their general output as a company. None of the founding members were left at the company and the Falcom of the mid-90’s and onward was a vastly different studio than it was back then. Aside from releasing the next two games of the Gagharv trilogy which saw great success both in Japan and especially in South Korea, the company just wasn’t able to make new IP’s or even new games for that matter.
This was the start of a long era of Falcom just porting their old classics on newer hardware instead of making new games. During that time however, Falcom launched a lot of recruitment campaigns, boasting how great it was to work at Falcom (it was not, just for the record, there’s a reason literally all of the creative staff left the company and I’m pretty sure that even to this day it’s not a very pleasant work environment). These campaigns managed to bring on board a couple of really talented people notably two persons, one was Makoto Shinkai which we already mentioned in a previous review who did some stunning job animating and directing animated cutscenes for Falcom’s recent releases at the time.
Shinkai will leave the company shortly after the release of the PS2 version of Ys 1&2 to become the famous movie director that we know today but the other big guy Falcom recruited and perhaps the most important one was Toshihiro Kondo. Kondo was, like most of Falcom’s new recruit at the time, a massive fan of Falcom’s early output but he wasn’t just a mere fan, he was THE Falcom fan ! Ever since he was a child, Kondo loved playing RPGs such as Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy and while he has heard about Ys 1&2 through some of his friends talking about it at school, it’s when he picked up Ys III at a friends house that the trajectory of his life changed forever.
After the release of “Legend of Heroes 3 : Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch” which became his favorite game of all time, Kondo who was at university at the time decided to launch a website for Falcom fans to gather, discuss on-going news about the company and sharing tips and tricks for the different games. Kondo got enough of a reputation with his fan website that working at Falcom wasn’t a pipe-dream anymore but a tangible reality and so he applied at Falcom as an accountant. Falcom however knew about his activities online and how he managed his fansite and since he was the only guy at the time who knew anything about the Internet, he was tasked to code websites to promote the different new releases of the company.
But at the same time, the younger staff at Falcom including Kondo were starting to get fed up with just releasing ports of old games and localizing South Korean RPG’s, they wanted more, they were getting ambitious and thus they stopped working on yet another port of Ys III to ask the CEO if they could start working on new games. Masayuki Kato was skeptical about the process, it’s been a while since Falcom hasn’t released a genuinely ambitious banger and Falcom didn’t have any sort of brand recognition anymore so he wasn’t sure any new release would take off. But against all odds, he accepted, splitting the company in two to make a subsidiary entirely dedicated to the development of new games.
First order of business was releasing the first new Falcom IP since 1994 ending up in the release of “Zwei : The Arges Adventure '' in 2001 releasing alongside the latest release of Ys 1&2 which inspired the team to do one crazy thing. It was time to bring Ys back, it was time for Adol to set out for a new adventure, an adventure that could very well be its last if the game couldn’t meet sales potential and proof that people were still interested in the franchise. For Falcom, it was about going big or going home… and they went big !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zcI5-bhVyk
Released for PC in 2003 and in 2005 on the PS2 for the rest of the world (the first time a new entry in the series was released in the west since Ys III all the way back in the 80’s btw), this new entry served both as a continuation of Adol’s Adventure in Ys V (tho chronologically it is now placed after Ys VIII) but also a sort of soft-reboot for the series. The game dev division at Falcom was composed of a small number of employees so you can definitely guess that Ys VI wasn’t going to compete with the rest of the industry. In 2003 and especially in 2005, there were a lot of good or even great JRPG’s on the market, especially of the action variety.
The philosophy of Falcom at the time (and something that has just barely changed ever since) was that they were fully aware they were making cheap games of smaller technical ambition but what they didn’t had in graphical or game design prowess, they were compensating with original and experimental ideas and a fuck lot of generosity even in their smaller less ambitious titles ! And while Ys VI definitely is starting to show its age in some areas, it nonetheless follows that line of logic.
For Ys VI, Falcom decided to built an entirely new engine that will retrospectively be known as the “Ark Engine” in reference to Ys VI subtitle : “The Ark of Napishtim”, an engine they will use for a grand majority of both their Ys and Trails line-up of games until 2012. And with a new engine comes a brand new artstyle, the series abandon its traditional top-down view in favor of a blend of pre-rendered 2D sprites (not unlike those of Donkey Kong Country to make a comparison) and 3D environment with fixed camera angle, a style reminiscent of many games of the mid 90’s such as Grandia or Xenogears.
But a new engine also meant a drastic change in the gameplay department. Bump combat was already a thing of the past the series desperately clinged onto and couldn’t fully transition from in 1995 and even with the release of Ys 1&2 Eternal a year earlier which reboosted interest in Ys and its peculiar mechanics, it was time for change ! Big Changes ! Ys VI is for all intents and purposes an extension of what was done with Ys V.
Adol now swings his sword with an actual attack button and can jump for some good old platforming but contrary to Ys V which had very slow deliberate control putting Adol at a full stop each time he wants to attack, here in Ys VI, Adol rushes to the enemies with a fast 3 hit combo that can sometimes be completed by a different finisher based on which sword you currently have equipped. On top of that, you can do an aerial attack as well as a very effective down trust but also a weird kind of situational plunge attack with a very weird and strict activation process (you need to move, wait, then move and attack at the same time it’s really weird).
Later in your adventure you will be able to find 3 different elemental swords which are going to be your main arsenal for the adventure. Each of them changes your playstyle, the water sword keeps your regular moveset but adds a circular attack at the end of your combo, the flame sword makes your attack stronger at the cost of the combo being slower and the thunder sword allows you to attack faster at the cost of power. On top of that and replacing the cumbersome magic system of Ys V, your sword can unleash a powerful magic attack once their magic gauge is filled up, adding a bit more tool to your already new arsenal.
All of this results in a much more dynamic and fun battle system which captures the fast momentum of the older bump-style game while also adding more complexities to the different enemy encounters in the game who now have a vast array of different behaviors that isn't just “walking randomly on the map, aggroing you and sometimes launching a very easily dodgeable attack”. With the added platforming and the 3rd dimension, the level design is also much more complex and interesting than in the other titles and Ys VI boasts some of the best dungeon and overworld area design the series has seen up to that point which is definitely helped by the setting of this game.
In this new adventure, Adol is wanted by the Romun Empire who chases after him and Dogi as they are chilling at a bar. They’re saved in the nick of time by Terra, one of the pirate bandit girls from Ys V who was following Adol after reconciling herself with her father, a famous pirate by the name of Adoc. Adoc is searching for a treasure that seems to be found on an Island inside of something known as the vortex of Canaan in what could be this universe equivalent of the Bermudan Triangle. Dogi thought that it was crazy to attempt such an expedition as no ship has ever survived the Vortex but Adol is still interested by the process and accepts to cross the Vortex. As they approached the Vortex however, they’re attacked by the Romun empire once again and Adol ends up shipwrecked on the island of Canaan when 2 Elf-Like girls by the name of Isha an Olha find him and bring him to the village of the Redha, the indigenous species native to the island.
At first, Adol isn’t welcomed as the Redha are in some sort of a conflict with humans as some of the castaways built a human settlement near the village which has sparked up conflict between the two villages and created many tensions over ressources and such but as you progress through the came and find a common ground between the two factions, he starts warming up to you ! So you’re off on your adventure, trying to find a way out of the island, find your friends and uncover the mysteries which inhabit it.
Ys VI definitely makes a drastic shift towards a more narratively driven story than its predecessor, whereas the old games will sometimes just have a short intro to contextualize your adventure before immediately sending you off, here the game takes his time to establish the setting, the characters and the overall mystery of the Island. The Island of Canaan by itself is the most complex and thoroughly interesting setting in the entire setting up to that point not only from a gameplay level as the layout of the area is pretty open and let you go pretty much anywhere with the only limit being how much hit can you take from stronger enemies but also a ton of small secrets, puzzles and platforming challenges to participate in which makes the Canaan Island the most fun place to visit in the series this far.
But also in terms of its lore, Ys VI serves as some sort of semi-reboot of the series and pretty much serve the same purpose as “Dawn of Ys” when it comes to fleshing out the universe of the series by finding connections to older titles and re-contextualize certain parts of Adol’s previous adventure with some clever and pretty interesting retcons. In fact, some elements from Ys IV were kept to explain the origins of the two goddesses of Ys and their relationship to the Eldeen but instead of being a race of gods, you discover that the Eldeen was instead a technologically advanced civilization who managed to put their souls inside of artificial bodies made of Emelas, the new super metal the franchise has introduced to explain pretty much everything in the franchise.
During your exploration of the Island, you will meet with Geis, a mercenary in search of his brother Ernst and investigating the titular “Ark of Napishtim” the game story is centered around, I mention him because the guy becomes kind of a rival character to Adol, showing up in a couple of entries after this game. I like Geis, the dude’s cool and he has 3 homonculus fairies showing that Falcom isn’t fully erasing the possibility of revisiting Ys V in the future (and boy are they teasing that Ys V remake…). Overall, I really enjoyed the story in this one, it’s fun, it calls for your sense of wonder and adventures. It doesn’t fail to have a few really cool symbolic moments the likes of Ys 1&2 and I’d say that as far as reimagining the series lore for the modern age goes, this one does plenty of cool stuff with the established continuity while still being an excellent jumping point for newcomers.
But as much as I can praise Ys VI for reviving the franchise and mostly succeeding in the process, Ys VI definitely suffers from “1st game syndrome” at times which makes a lot of the execution of these ideas leaving a lot to be desired. For starters while the game is around the same length as your average Ys title at the time (around 10h I’d say) making it a somewhat short and sweet experience, the game suffers from a lot of padding mostly coming from gameplay decisions which can grind on your nerves over time. I mentioned that Ys VI was perhaps one of the more “free” Ys games to date because of all the exploration you can do and how the game allows you to visit certain areas before you can reasonably go there but the way the game gates your progression is a bit wack at times.
Ys has always put an emphasis on its leveling system, with levels pretty much serving both as a difficulty slider and a way to gate keep progress, except that Ys VI will ask of you to do a lot of grinding much more so than any titles. In fact not being at the appropriate level for an area means you’re going to do 0 damages to enemies and while you could be avoiding them just to reach a chest with a neat piece of equipment or a cool accessory or items earlier on, oftentimes the trouble isn’t really worth the effort which I can say for another annoying mechanic…
Dash Jumping…
Dash Jumping isn’t required to beat the game but if you’re like me and want to explore every nook and cranny of the world, you WILL have to master the ancient technique of Dash Jumping. Dash Jumping is a secret mechanic the game doesn’t actually tell you about and at first when I looked it up online, I thought it was just some weird speedrun tech but nope, it’s an actual mechanic that the developers intended you to interact with. To do a Dash Jump you have to move the stick to the direction you want, wait approximately a second, move the stick again while simultaneously pressing the attack and jump button.
I didn’t lie when I said this looks like some ancient speedrun tech because how is anyone supposed to figure that shit out ! Just mastering the damn technique took me a solid hour of training but then the game expects you to do some insanely precise platforming with it, and when I say precise, I mean, jumping from tiny platform to tiny platform, expecting the game slippery as fuck physics to bend to your will and doing so multiple times in a row.
There is another issue with the general platforming of this game though. I’m a big platforming guy and can handle the shittiest of platforming (I’ve become a master at navigating Deep Jungle in KH1 as a kid after all) but the main issue with platforming in Ys VI is that everytime you fall, you don’t simply fall to your doom and respawn with less health like in most games. Instead you get transported to a lower floor area and have to make the trip back to retry again which almost made me wish I played the PS2 version of the game with savestate (even if it looks uglier). This can make you waste tons of time if you’re not good with 3D platforming in a somewhat isometric view and the game is full of those. It’s a problem that’s common to most entries in the Ark Engine trilogy but at least they provide options for staying in the air longer and make platforming less tedious but here, screw double jumping and say hello to DASH JUMPING.
I will also say that as far as the combat system goes, Ys VI can still feel a little rough. While it’s still definitely more fast-paced and fun than Ys V, you quickly realize that the slow methodical approach to combat of that game isn’t fully gone yet. Enemies are brutal in this game and collisions and hitboxes combined with the traditional absence of invincibility frame in this series means you can get ganged to death by a bunch of smaller ennemies working together to fuck you in the ass ! I wouldn’t mind if the game provided enough tools for crowd control but sadly the closest it gets is the down thrust which deals multiple hits and as a hitbox that reaches wider than intended and well… you can guess how awkward that is to just jump and down trust everywhere to progress.
And don’t expect to rely on magic to save yourself either ! While I think the new magic system is definitely more on-point with the energy of the game than Ys V, I still think the way it’s used leaves a lot to be desired. Each sword can unleash a single big magic attack once their bars are filled up but just one time ! Then it’s back to charging it by killing enemies, heck there’s even a boss midway through the game which has an entire gimmick based on that mechanic and it’s easily the worst boss in the entire Ark Engine trilogy, not so much because it’s a hard boss but because it’s BORING.
Other than that, bosses usually are pretty good, the boss design clearly had a step-up in reactivity and there’s even a few humanoid bosses this time around. The patterns are pretty fun to learn but the main issue comes with the difficulty of them being on average quite easy. Ys VI allows you to equip healing items before entering the boss arena and for the record there’s a grand total of 9 tiers of healing items which is way too overkill, it also makes dungeon exploration a bit smoother with access to the inventory being unlimited. Ys VI, keeps a lot of its older RPG roots but I don’t really think it benefits the experience.
However for those still looking for a challenge, this game was the first game in the series (and the first game in Falcom’s catalog) to introduce various 4 difficulty options ranging from Easy to Nightmare and exclusive to this game is the catastrophe mode which prevents you from healing midway through battle and make every enemy drop less money in general.
Another personal opinion of mine also comes with the music, while I can’t pretend the soundtrack is bad, it’s definitely a bit different that what we’re used with the series, the OST is calmer and more atmospheric, sometimes keeping the high energy octane stuff for bosses and action segments. I don’t dislike it and there’s a few bangers here and there but it’s not the soundtrack I go back to the most imo.
You can feel Ys VI being a transitional episode between two eras of Ys (if we forgot about Ys III and V which were the odd ones of the bunch) and while a lot of things about Ys VI still holds up, I do wish that by the time they had re-released that one, they actually retroactively added a lot of the elements introduced in the later two games (which spoilers are amongst my favorite in the series and I’m really excited to talk about them !).
However the game still retains a lot of charm and soul and that trademark sense of Falcom storytelling they experimented with the Gagharv trilogy slowly creeping its way into their other properties. For a modern gamer today, Ys VI feels like a rough transition but to the people who got to witness the grand return of Adol and his friend on PC and home console, it was pretty much a revolution which somehow manages to stand out amongst the crowd.
Ys VI marked the grand return of both Ys and Falcom in the realms of game development and while Falcom isn’t the prestigious and genre defining company that they used to be in the 80’s, the new team made sure to live up to the studio’s legacy by delivering varied, original and surprisingly charming titles for years to the coming decade and the advent of a certain platform is gonna help Falcom stuck out of the niche and approach the realms of the hidden gems mine.
But for now, Ys is going to take a break from advancing its continuity as the next title in the series will be none other than a remake of one of the least revered game in the franchise up to that point, it’s time to go back to the past, to go back to Felghana !
Sencillo y correcto. Tiene una trama mucho más sencillita que los 3 anteriores que jugué, recupera viejos conocidos y el sistema de combate es como el de Origin pero más simplista. Es el que menos me ha gustado, pero no por ello malo, vaya. Aprobado