(NOTE: I played the 1989 DOS version which to my understanding is a pretty faithful port aside from some worse graphics and unlistenable PC speaker music^, so I feel like I got as close to the real deal as was necessary here)
Definitely an improvement on HYDLIDE's foundations for a successful action RPG. Feels like the mission statement was "make a version of THE TOWER OF DRUAGA that doesn't actively hate the player", and in that, they were quite successful. I was impressed by the smooth, intuitive quest design and especially some of the dungeon and overworld graphics. Each area was totally distinct in aesthetic as opposed to the homogenous blocky cave/tower/castle/dungeons of, say, DRAGON QUEST, and this kept me going just to see what was next.
The story is a little repetitive and muddled despite its simplicity, and there are some of the usual annoyances of RPGs of this vintage (mazes, unclear stats, dungeon backtracking), but it's very playable and I actually found the infamous 'bump' combat kind of intuitive and nice! Looking forward to the rest of these (and the remakes of this one).
^Even an Ys noob like me knows that the music is, like, half of this series' deal, so obviously I had to listen to it separately, as it wasn't really in this version. Honestly it's so good, the DOS port should probably get one star MAXIMUM for failing to replicate it. Like, if you can't do the music, just don't make the game. Give up. Port something else.
Definitely an improvement on HYDLIDE's foundations for a successful action RPG. Feels like the mission statement was "make a version of THE TOWER OF DRUAGA that doesn't actively hate the player", and in that, they were quite successful. I was impressed by the smooth, intuitive quest design and especially some of the dungeon and overworld graphics. Each area was totally distinct in aesthetic as opposed to the homogenous blocky cave/tower/castle/dungeons of, say, DRAGON QUEST, and this kept me going just to see what was next.
The story is a little repetitive and muddled despite its simplicity, and there are some of the usual annoyances of RPGs of this vintage (mazes, unclear stats, dungeon backtracking), but it's very playable and I actually found the infamous 'bump' combat kind of intuitive and nice! Looking forward to the rest of these (and the remakes of this one).
^Even an Ys noob like me knows that the music is, like, half of this series' deal, so obviously I had to listen to it separately, as it wasn't really in this version. Honestly it's so good, the DOS port should probably get one star MAXIMUM for failing to replicate it. Like, if you can't do the music, just don't make the game. Give up. Port something else.