Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished REVIEW - Every Gamer Review

How would I go about explaining this? I was intrigued with this particular game because it's an RPG that you can beat in a day...and I did. It had a combat system that was very simple, jack of all trades but can be mastered perfectly, especially on the highest of difficulties.

And I went in knowing nothing about the plot and came out near enough the same. Is this another Final Fantasy game? I don't know, but it's time for another RPG, a JRPG to be precise, and today, it's a very basic one but has a charm to it that I haven't seen in a normal JRPG so far...OH WAIT! This is an action JRPG, maybe that's why I enjoyed it.

The game is known as Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished (イース Ancient Ys Vanished Īsu) (also Ys: The Vanished Omens or The Ancient Land of Ys). Oh, the game's title is pronounced "ees". The game was first released in 1987 for the PC-8801 and was developed and published by Nihon Falcom. The game, along with its sequel, has been ported to many systems since. But I will take a look at the PSP port as part of Ys I & II Chronicles so everything I'll talk about will be based on that port alone.

As for the plot...UUUHH! OK, so you may be asking, what is Ys? Well it's a a floating island in the sky and the reasons for it...well, you got to collect the books of Ys in the game to figure it out. With that said, you play as the red-headed warrior Adol Christin cap-sizes in Port Barados where you get taken care by a couple of people. Once you're fully healed, you're ready to go around talking to people.

Great evil is all around and you must defeat them. In one of the other towns, you get called by Sara, the fortune teller, in which she asks you to collect the Books of Ys, which contains segments of the land of Ys. Only these books will give Adol what he needs to defeat the forces of evil. Problem is, it's hard to read so he has to find the only person left who can read it. So I guess the plot is quite simple...in summary, maybe if I play more games in the series, I'd understand the world.

So for the game itself. Well the game is in a top-down perspective. You travel in a relatively small world and go to towns and dungeons like any other JRPG. But in terms of gameplay, this is somewhat different to the usual JRPGs of the 80's. To attack, you simply have to walk to your enemy but on an edge of the sprite for more damage or on centre but you might get hit. But oh no! You've taken damage! Well not to worry, as long as you're outside or at a safe spot in a dungeon, if you stand still as long as there no enemies around, your health refills. That's right; a 1987 RPG was one of the earliest games to feature health regeneration, a feature that most modern games use like first-person shooters tend to use.

But the simple combat won't be enough as you'll need to upgrade your gear to tackle enemies. There will be swords, armour, shields and rings to get overtime. And since this is a JRPG, when you kill enemies, you collect coins and XP, what I love about this game is that whilst usual RPGs will let you see how much XP you have left to collect before you can level up, in Ys, you can see that feature on-screen, and this is the sole reason as to why I can recommend Ys to nearly everyone, it's accessible for people unfamiliar to RPGs but a fun trip for the experienced, and I guess it's because of the PSP port as it has difficulty settings, but depending on what you choose, you'll have a good time, not to mention that the game is very short too, about 4-6 hours tops so you can even beat it in a day.

Since I'm playing the PSP port, I played this game in Chronical Mode, where the graphics are brand new and like the PSP port of Final Fantasy, the 2D graphics are crisp, clean and just fantastic, though I do prefer Final Fantasy's graphics as it's much more memorable somehow. Ys surprisingly has a relatively small world, but compact enough to be invested into it despite not having anything new in the world, I mean there are two important trees but there are many trees in RPGs.

The music...again, I'm playing the PSP port so I'm reviewing the music based on that port alone. And let me just say, I'm not a fan of most of the soundtrack. Mostly because of its strange usage of rock music which to me, feels out of place in an RPG, it just doesn't feel right. Though there are some decent pieces like in the abandoned mine and the epilogue.

Overall, Ys I may be some basic RPG, but instead of having the feeling of going on an adventure, you get the feeling of having fun but it never feels like this long adventure that you have to trudge through to get progress through. It's an overall simple game but would this be your first RPG that you should play? It depends since this is an action JRPG so plays differently to the turn-based combat you usually see in other JRPGs, but I guess it doesn't matter, I recommend it, try getting the PSP port. But if you don't have a PSP, try the PC port.

You can get it on...no, just no, you find out for yourself, it's been released on SO MUCH consoles, and considering that it's also compiled with Ys 2 and...next time is Ys 2...whenever I get to that one.