Gotta be honest, I got right up to the last boss, gave it a couple tries, then gave up and watched the ending on YouTube so I could hurry up and relinquish control of my sister's TV back to her (as she glared daggers at me). I had some fun with this title, but the sidescroller experience seems to have been a miss.
At the micro level, the game feels like a very solid NES title. So about par the course with Falcom's approach to console technology even into the modern day. Movement acceleration of any kind is practically non-existent, so paired with the low framerate inherit to the system and high movement speed, you end up overshooting or undershooting quite often. It's not bad per say, it's just all problems that were already solved by its peers in the sidescroller space.
And that really, for me, gets to the macro level issue with this game. I can understand if they made a sidescroller because the devs at Falcom really wanted to try, but it ultimately feels like they made a sidescroller because "that's what sells on consoles" and then tried to put a few of the trappings on Ys over that.... Except that this was actually originally a PC88 release and didn't see a port for over a year, so it effectively was an NES game rather than an SNES. Looking at footage of the original version (which is actually rather gorgeous for '89) it seems that the original played at a lower framerate and the combat was tuned for that. So comparing it to SMW or Secret of Mana would be a bit inappropriate, but I still hold that console ports were in the works from early in development, based on the decisions made even in the original release.
Aside from the action, the adventure elements are where I'm a bit more disappointed as they're a big downgrade from what was in Ys I & II. The progression of events is very linear with only a few backtracking curveballs to break things up and a couple of chests in missable nooks and crannies. There's still a little bit of their signature emphasis on the NPC characters, but with the english translation the dialogue is pretty stilted. Can't comment on how that compares to the rest of Falcom's writing at the time, though, since I only played the Complete+ versions of Ys I & II.
Despite all my complaining, it gets a bit of a "whole is better than the sum of its parts" effect where none of the flaws are severe enough that you can't enjoy it if you know what you're signing up for. For prospective players, this is a game for action RPG enthusiasts curious about the history of the genre and Falcom diehards (which I am both). So if you're a modern Ys fan and don't want to dive this deep into retroland, just play the remake "The Oath in Felghana." And if you're just looking for SNES games to play, you can probably do better.
But it has its charm.
Fun little bonus fact: The first time I played this game was actually when I was about 5 or 6 years old because my friend randomly owned it. We all called it "Why-Es" of course and had no idea how to play it, but I always remembered it because I had never seen a SNES game with RPG elements like the ones I liked in Neverwinter Nights.
It's a bit wild to me that 20 years later I'm learning Japanese just to play their games before they're officially localized...
At the micro level, the game feels like a very solid NES title. So about par the course with Falcom's approach to console technology even into the modern day. Movement acceleration of any kind is practically non-existent, so paired with the low framerate inherit to the system and high movement speed, you end up overshooting or undershooting quite often. It's not bad per say, it's just all problems that were already solved by its peers in the sidescroller space.
And that really, for me, gets to the macro level issue with this game. I can understand if they made a sidescroller because the devs at Falcom really wanted to try, but it ultimately feels like they made a sidescroller because "that's what sells on consoles" and then tried to put a few of the trappings on Ys over that.... Except that this was actually originally a PC88 release and didn't see a port for over a year, so it effectively was an NES game rather than an SNES. Looking at footage of the original version (which is actually rather gorgeous for '89) it seems that the original played at a lower framerate and the combat was tuned for that. So comparing it to SMW or Secret of Mana would be a bit inappropriate, but I still hold that console ports were in the works from early in development, based on the decisions made even in the original release.
Aside from the action, the adventure elements are where I'm a bit more disappointed as they're a big downgrade from what was in Ys I & II. The progression of events is very linear with only a few backtracking curveballs to break things up and a couple of chests in missable nooks and crannies. There's still a little bit of their signature emphasis on the NPC characters, but with the english translation the dialogue is pretty stilted. Can't comment on how that compares to the rest of Falcom's writing at the time, though, since I only played the Complete+ versions of Ys I & II.
Despite all my complaining, it gets a bit of a "whole is better than the sum of its parts" effect where none of the flaws are severe enough that you can't enjoy it if you know what you're signing up for. For prospective players, this is a game for action RPG enthusiasts curious about the history of the genre and Falcom diehards (which I am both). So if you're a modern Ys fan and don't want to dive this deep into retroland, just play the remake "The Oath in Felghana." And if you're just looking for SNES games to play, you can probably do better.
But it has its charm.
Fun little bonus fact: The first time I played this game was actually when I was about 5 or 6 years old because my friend randomly owned it. We all called it "Why-Es" of course and had no idea how to play it, but I always remembered it because I had never seen a SNES game with RPG elements like the ones I liked in Neverwinter Nights.
It's a bit wild to me that 20 years later I'm learning Japanese just to play their games before they're officially localized...