Ys: The Oath in Felghana [PSP][out now][buy it]

[kitten]

Dork

Maybe ooooooooooonnnnnnneeeeeeee of these days I'll get around to play a Ys game. Maybe. Sometime.

[wyrdwad]

I forget, is there a particular reason you HAVEN'T played any, or have you just not gotten around to them?

I seem to recall it may be because they're RPGs, maybe...? And if so, yeah... they're arcade action games with a few RPG elements thrown in for good measure. They're not RPGs, as far as I'm concerned. (:

-Tom

[Deleted]

I like Ys, but so far, I'm not IN like with it. I'm hoping to change that when I get more money, plus I want to get Ys 1 & 2 Eternal first because I'm a nerd for compulsion like that. :B

[wyrdwad]

You realize Ys V's never been translated to English, right? So if you insist on playing the games in order, you'll either have to play that one in Japanese, or just... stop at IV. (:

-Tom

[Deleted]

Actually, since I hear V is one of the weaker installments, I MIGHT be able to overcome my compulsion just this once.

But wait, IV was translated to English? I'd check the Ys article on the site, but I'm too tired now to get around to it.

[cj iwakura]

V's supposed to be the worst.


So far, my favorite has been Book 1 & 2 from the Turbo Duo(?), which is on the Virtual Console in the US.

[wyrdwad]

V is the weakest in terms of gameplay IMHO (and this seems to be popular opinion as well), but I'd actually say it's one of the STRONGEST in terms of story. I mean, it's still an Ys game, so the story isn't MINDBLOWING or anything... but it's definitely really well-written, with an absolutely fantastic setting.

And yeah, both versions of IV have been fan-translated. The Super Famicom version is canon, but is generally considered the weaker game (and is probably my least-favorite game in the series); whereas the PC-Engine game took some major liberties with the story, but is far and away one of the most epic titles of the 16-bit era. (:

-Tom

[Ike]

Beat the game on Hard mode, now I'm playing Inferno. Definitely worth it to play Hard first.

[kitten]

Nov 18, 2010 1:18:19 GMT -5 wyrdwad said:

I forget, is there a particular reason you HAVEN'T played any, or have you just not gotten around to them?

They cost money and don't look very appealing to me. The older ones strongly resemble Zelda, and I hate Zelda. You can call them "overhead ARPGS" or whatever, but I just don't like games like that. I didn't even enjoy Crystalis. I would consider getting Ys 7, but it's still rather expensive, and I have a stigma about "having to have" the collector's edition if a game has one. It also seems like a game that would be around 20 hours long, which is a commitment.

Another thing that is off-putting about the series is that most people who are enthusiastic about it seem to arbitrarily dislike/are disinterested in anything popular, leading me to strongly question their taste in games. If someone gave me a Ys game, I'd at least try it, but I don't want to pirate them and I don't want to buy them.

[cj iwakura]

I don't like Zelda much either, if that helps any. Ys is much faster paced.

[wyrdwad]

Another thing that is off-putting about the series is that most people who are enthusiastic about it seem to arbitrarily dislike/are disinterested in anything popular, leading me to strongly question their taste in games.

See, that's... not really a reason to doubt a game, I don't think. The fact is, there are a lot of "rebels" out there who LOVE to play obscure games, and will like a game more solely BECAUSE it's obscure, as they think that makes them look cooler. But that doesn't actually mean anything at all -- people like that will enjoy good obscure games just as much as bad obscure games, since obscurity = awesomeness in their minds.

So in other words... if there are people who hate popular games and love obscure games, their love of Ys doesn't really mean ANYTHING, good OR bad. The mere fact that it's semi-obscure is enough for them to love it, regardless of its actual quality.

In my mind, the best comparison for Oath in Felghana is old-school Castlevania meets Super Metroid. It's got the atmosphere, action and music of old-school Castlevania, mixed with a scaled back take on the open-world structure of Super Metroid.

If you enjoy yourself some Castlevanias and Metroids... then you should probably check out OiF, as I think you'd probably like it. Check out some videos on YouTube, at least, and see what you think.

-Tom

[kitten]

Nov 18, 2010 18:50:56 GMT -5 wyrdwad said:

See, that's... not really a reason to doubt a game, I don't think.

It's not so much a reason to doubt the game as it is a reason to not have any faith in it to begin with. Nearly everyone I bump into who enjoys Ys tends to shy away from what's popular and they commonly tend to have a strong taste for RPGs. If people who I think have bad taste enjoy it and recommend it to me, that recommendation doesn't really carry much weight. People compare the Ys games to all sorts of things, too, and it seems for each person who compares it to one game, there's someone else saying "it's not like that."

Check out some videos on YouTube, at least, and see what you think.

It looks kinda neat, but I'd have to play it to really form an opinion (7 also looked interesting, but the first two looked incredibly boring when I was considering getting them on VC). I have no means of playing it, though, so it seems like I'm just going to continue not playing any Ys game for a long time.

[wyrdwad]

I don't know, if you go onto the Ancient Land of Ys message board, people on there are constantly discussing Castlevania, Phoenix Wright, Assassin's Creed, Super Mario Galaxy, Metroid: Other M, Bayonetta, etc. There's no real shortage of Falcom fans who play tons of popular games in MY experience... and I pretty much surround myself with Falcom fans! (:

I think a lot of the people who you feel dislike popular games just... don't TALK about popular games. I know that's pretty much how I am, for example. I don't play that many games anymore, but when I do, there's just as much of a chance that it's a popular one as an obscure one. The thing is, if it's a popular game that I like, I might mention it in passing or something... but if it's obscure, I'll talk about it at great length, simply because I know other people aren't aware of its existence, and I think it deserves better.

If it's popular, though, I might post a brief impression of it... but then I won't really have anything else to say beyond that, because really, everything's pretty much already been said!

-Tom

[sideshow]

Since you work at XSEED wyrdwad, how about giving word to the higher powers to get the Ys games ported to XboxLive and the PSN. Especially Ys Book I and II. I suppose its all about Falcom making the decision to do another port.

[cj iwakura]

I wouldn't mind seeing Ys III on the Virtual Console, like the Turbo Duo version.