16/09/2014

Ys I&II Chronicles/Legacy of Ys: Bumping right into greatness



Two decades ago, I made my first foray into the Holy Realm of RPG, a land of true beauty that I never left since; and that first foray was made through an Action-RPG, namely the cult classic Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. This was an exhilarating experience, soon to be followed by the completion of other famous Action-RPGs—Landstalker, Seiken Densetsu 3, Terranigma, you name them. Action-RPG became my first love and beacon in the RPG landscape, and even though I’m expanded my vistas since then, I will always have a certain fondness for that subgenre, as well as a feeling of immediate familiarity when confronted with one of its members. (Indeed, it usually only takes me a couple of minutes to get a good grip on the physics and start slaughtering my way through with zeal and ease.) What better thing to do, then, than to go back to the very roots of the genre and discover the first installments of one of the most illustrious and venerable Action-RPG series ever created, the cult Ys series? Well, probably to do it twice, by playing both the DS and PSP versions of the said first installments. 

First, let’s weave a few words about the series. Loosely based on the French legend of the City of Ys on the coast of Brittany, the Ys series is the creation of Japanese developer Nihon Falcom, which remained in control of it ever since. It spanned multiple gaming eras and console generations, from the late 80’s to nowadays, with the recent release of Ys: Memories of Celceta on the Vita. Just like the Legend of Zelda series, Ys is a highly unified series of games taking place in the same world and featuring a cast of recurring characters from game to game—starting with its hero, red-headed Adol Christin. The settings and atmosphere are also quite consistent: the world of Ys is full to the brim with serene, quiet temples, dignified goddess statues and vistas so wide them make you feel tiny, all things giving the series a solemn, nearly mythological quality. 

Now, let’s elaborate on the games, and let’s try not to get lost in the process. Legacy of Ys: Book I&II (released on the DS in 2008­[jp] and 2009[na]) and Ys I&II Chronicles (released on the PSP in 2009[jp] and 2011[na/eu]) are both remakes of Ys I&II, released in 1989(jp) for the PC Engine and 1990(na) for the TurboGrafx-CD, which is itself an enhanced remake of the first two Ys installments, released in 1987 and 1988 in Japan for the PC-8801. These first two entries have been lumped together ever since, and have been remade and ported countless times to a zillion different platforms. I won’t detail all these releases for the sake of everybody’s sanity, but suffice it to say that the DS and PSP remakes are the latest entries in a very, very long line of ports and remakes indeed, and certainly won’t be the last of it. 

Who’s bad?

Having the same game released on two rival platforms sweetly harks back to the 16-bit days, when the SNES and Megadrive/Genesis versions of famous games were carefully compared in order to determine which was the baddest of the two—in the Michael Jackson acception of the word. I can’t resist indulging in such a comparison here, even though my stance on the matter is that both versions should be tried, tested and ultimately owned, for they each have their strengths, weaknesses and particular charm. 

Let’s start with the DS version, which is the first one I played and also the source of all the pictures in this post. The greatest strength of Legacy of Ys: Books I&II lies in its attempt to tweak the fighting system ever so slightly, making it more complex and varied: you are given the choice between swinging your sword around by using buttons or bumping directly into enemies by using the stylus—the latter being the original Ys fighting mechanics and the former appearing as a concession to a more classic approach of real-time fighting. And yet, interestingly, the button-based sword-swinging mechanic is the most complex and challenging of the two, involving a perfect timing and rhythm that, when they are mastered, can become incredibly intoxicating. (I swear that at some point, while I was engaged in a bout of level-grinding, I had to force myself to stop butchering everything in sight and to go back to the main quest.) It’s also a more user-friendly game: the interface is very intuitive and the touchscreen is cleverly used to display a welcome map that is totally absent from the PSP version and can be a life-saver at times. Last but not least, the DS iteration of Ys I packs an extra dungeon absent from the PSP version. On the negative side, Legacy of Ys is tainted by horrendous graphics that don’t do justice to the DS capabilities. They are a clumsy mix of 2D and 3D elements, further maimed by some constant fuzziness and the use of ugly washed-out colours: the final tableau is jarring and seriously unpleasant to look at, except for a few selected spots that show some unexpected beauty. 

The PSP version fares much better as far as graphics are concerned. Instead of trying to give them a complete overhaul and failing at it like Legacy, Ys I&II Chronicles chose rather to stick to 2D graphics and to give them the most gorgeous makeover: colours are incredibly vibrant, details are breathtakingly rendered and everything is deliciously glossy and slick, making Chronicles ultimately look like a 16-bit era RPG with a gorgeous modern glaze. The game is just a tad too dark in some areas, and unfortunately reprises that infuriating trick of reducing the visibility in some dungeons by making everything pitch-black except for a tiny circle around the hero. (This was present in the original game, and could very well have been left there, thank you very much.) But apart from that, Ys I&II Chronicles is the graphically superior game. It also features better and finer animations that are a feast for the eye: seeing enemies explode in a dozen pieces when they are killed, their limbs flying around, is a guilty pleasure if I ever saw one, as well as seeing Adol comically drop his equipment and fall flat on his face when he’s defeated. Flames feel hot and burning, beams of light are bright and dazzling, and everything feels exquisitely alive. On top of all that goodness, Chronicles allows you to choose between three different soundtrack arrangements and to change them on the fly, as well as between two different graphic styles for the cutscenes and cardboard cut-outs of the characters. On the minus side, the interface is definitely less intuitive than the DS one, and the total absence of a map can be stinging at times.  

Legacy of Ys: Books I&II-Nintendo DS

Ys I&II Chronicles-PSP

The gorgeous land of Ys

As primitive as Legacy/Chronicles may appear by today’s standards, they are nonetheless enhanced remakes that vastly improve on the original Ys formula. The most obvious improvements are obviously in the aural and graphical departments, but there are more enhancements to be found. To cater to modern gaming sensibilities, the difficulty level can now be selected at the beginning of a run, allowing the player to get exactly the kind of ride they wish for, from the airiest to the most masochistic. 

The most significant enhancement, however, is undoubtedly the meticulous crafting of the atmosphere. Given that all the numerous remakes of Ys I and Ys II were always handled by Nihon Falcom, we can be confident that the vision of Ys they brought forth over the years is the one they had in mind from the very start of the series, but couldn’t fully bring to life because of the technical limitations of the late 80’s. And that vision is one of amazing beauty, indeed. Details abound in Legacy/Chronicles, making the world of Ys vibrant and alive to an extent I’ve hardly seen before, even in modern games. Nihon Falcom’s approach is almost naturalistic, with its unwavering focus on seemingly trivial details: people’s kitchens are full of groceries being cooked, their beds are covered with beautiful coloured bedspreads, theirs shelves crammed with books, their walls cluttered with memorabilia and so on. Old mines are full of discarded carts, shovels and piles of rocks, forsaken temples look conveniently decayed with cracks in their walls and missing floor tiles, and bosses’ lairs are occasionally stuffed with decade-old skeletons and dried pools of blood displaying the ferocity of their host. 

Just as this is the case with the numerous remakes of Final Fantasy I, playing Legacy/Chronicles is like staring at a past long gone through a magnifying glass. Despite all the very visible embellishments, the game remains the same at its core, a relic following the rules of its era. In typical 8-bit fashion and just like in FFI, dungeons are conveniently labyrinthine to compensate for the absence of any meaty dungeon puzzle; however, they are made much more palatable than the FFI dungeons by the Action-RPG nature of Legacy/Chronicles. Instead of being interrupted every couple of seconds by a random fight, one can ram into enemies at full speed and progress without a hitch, which transforms the exploration of dungeons into a fast-paced, hectic roam—enhanced all the more by the shrill, roaring soundtrack (more on that later). This is the polar opposite of the trudging through dungeons favoured in Turn-Based RPGs, and one can only imagine the breath of fresh air that the Ys series provided when it was released and how much novelty and variety it insufflated into the rather monotonous RPG landscape of that time.  

Not that Ys I and Ys II were the first Action-RPGs ever released, mind you: before them came Hydlide and Dragon Slayer in 1984, the latter being also a Nihon Falcom creation and the former actually inspiring Ys’ own fighting system. However, Ys did things bigger, and better: it took Hydlide’s incomplete and broken “bumping” mechanic and turned it into a full-blown arcade-lite process, a guilty pleasure that remains intact through the whole game—and the years. Even when Adol’s maximum level is attained, it remains a pleasure to blow enemies into bloody pieces by the sole power of your mighty body colliding with theirs. Adol's breathtaking speed puts the final touch to these excellent physics and transforms the fighting business into a dangerously intoxicating affair: Legacy/Chronicles is hands down in my top three of the Action-RPGs with the most ridiculously addictive and enjoyable physics and fighting system ever, along with Terranigma and Children of Mana

The narrative is also significantly more fleshed-out than your typical 8-bit storyline. I’ve already said that I don’t care that much about storyline elements in RPGs: for me, a great story is always a plus, but never the main reason why I will pick up a game. (I’m usually quite content with just being ordered to beat the resident Big Baddie to a pulp without any kind of justification, and I’d rather have a crappy story that doesn’t get in the way of the gameplay than being interrupted every five minutes by some bits of storytelling, no matter how excellent and convincing they may be.) I didn’t expect much from Legacy/Chronicles in the narrative department, especially after my experience with FFI; it thus came as a pleasant surprise that Ys’ first two entries packed such an excellent story. For one thing, the story carries on from the first game to the second, which was far from being the norm at that time. It also introduces a full-blown mythology, yet to be fully developed in future Ys installments but already very much consistent and articulated. The story is told with a lot of flair and sobriety, blending the profane and the sacred in a graceful and wonderfully natural way; and even though some twists and outcomes can be anticipated without too much effort, it remains a beguiling adventure that ends on a beautiful and peaceful note. The characters are also incredibly well fleshed-out and endearing, many of them lending a hand to Adol over the course of his adventure without being too unrealistically devoted to him. And talking about Adol, he undoubtedly has the aura and charisma of a mythological hero. He may be a silent protagonist à la Link, but his presence is unmistakable, and making him the recurrent Hero of the Ys series was really an astute move on Nihon Falcom’s part. The notion of a recurrent main character is always an enticing one, all the more so when the said character is as magnetic as Adol Christin. (Isn’t his very name already suitably intriguing?)    

Of course, it’s nearly impossible to talk about Legacy/Chronicles and the Ys series in general without mentioning its music and giving a well-deserved accolade to composers Yuzo Koshiro and Mieko Ishikawa. The former, better known for his eardrum-blowing work on Streets of Rage, was still relatively unknown at the time, as well as Mieko Ishikawa, who’s incidentally been working at Nihon Falcom ever since, and they played a huge part in shaping up the singular ambiance of the series’ first two installments. Miles away from the pastoral soundtracks favoured in most RPGs since the dawn of the genre, Ys I&II’s soundtrack is a beautiful, intricate and highly distinctive affair borrowing from prog-rock as well as new-wave and weaving its various influences in a masterful way. It was much more complex than most game soundtracks of the 8-bit era and has been since rearranged several times for remakes. Legacy recycles the lacklustre synth-only mix already used in Ys I&II Complete, a Japan-only PC remake released in 2001, while Chronicles, in a shrewd move, adds to it the original PC-8801 mix and a PSP exclusive mix. The exclusive PSP mix is far sweeter to my ears than the Complete synths soup, and the PC-8801 is an historical curiosity that’s worth (re)discovering, which makes Chronicles the aurally superior game by far. 

Both Ys I and Ys II are incredibly short affairs, clocking respectively at roughly 5-6 and 10-12 hours of gameplay—figures that can probably be divided by two once one knows their games well. That doesn’t prevent them from flirting dangerously with fake longevity by introducing a good dose of forced backtracking and aloof crypticness. Of course, it’s hard to blame them too harshly for that: crypticness and backtracking were RPG staples in the 8-bit era, after all, and we knew from the start that Legacy and Chronicles, for all their modern frosting, were rather ancient. Being magnanimous towards these quirks is one thing, putting up with them when one is playing the games is another: I admit without a hint of shame that I resorted more than once to FAQs to get out of a bind, not wanting to meander for hours to finally uncover a sequence of events that was not strictly and coldly logical to start with. Fortunately, these minor flaws get milder on subsequent runs: the crypticness virtually evaporates, and the forced backtracking becomes much more tolerable once one knows where they are headed. 

The evolution

Ys I and Ys II were released a mere year apart and re-released together just a year after the release of Ys II. Since then, they’ve been steadily presented together as a bundle of sorts, which can lead one to ponder what kind of rapport exists between the two. Were they conceived as a single game but released as two installments due of an uncanny mix of time constraints, technical limitations and desire to cash in, à la Sonic 3&Knuckles? Are they considered too short to be presented alone? Is it an issue of storyline consistency, the two games sharing a common, overarching storyline? Well, the answer is unclear, and may very well be a tangled mix of all the aforementioned reasons. Instead of dwelling on the why and ponder the reasons for this (re)union, let’s investigate the how and examine the relation between Ys I and Ys II

The first thing to do when examining two installments of a series following each other, especially two first installments, is to look for an evolution between the two. Let’s first take a peek at Ys I. Fully titled Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished, it gloriously establishes the basis of the series and introduces all its most famous staples: the intoxicating bumping mechanic, the thrilling soundtrack, the mythical-lite atmosphere, the charming characters, the labyrinthine dungeons, the forced backtracking and the aloof crypticness. It’s a brief but cohesive affair that offers a lot of fun and doesn’t pretend to be more than what it is, i.e. a short and straightforward Action-RPG. 

Ys II, fully titled Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished-The Final Chapter, is a tad less straightforward—and a good bit longer too, for that matter. It’s a game that doesn’t follow any of the usual evolution processes between two first installments of a series: it doesn’t turn the series on its head à la Zelda, nor does it introduce tons of new features à la Seiken Densetsu. If the title itself is an indication, Ys II should be more akin to an extended reprise of Ys I.  And surprise, surprise, this is exactly what it is: Ys II totally feels like an enhanced remake of Ys I, expanding on everything present in the first game. The only authentic new feature is the use of magic, which is remarkably well handled and a very welcome addition to the series’ excellent fighting mechanics—so kudos to Nihon Falcom for that. No more kudos should be handed, though: apart from that lone innovation, the only novelty factor is that there is more of everything: dungeons are bigger and more labyrinthine, there are more items to collect and more levels to gain, and—o dismay— there is more forced backtracking and more aloof crypticness. Unfortunately, this is not enough to make the game more interesting: a bigger labyrinthine dungeon is not mechanically more enjoyable that a smaller one—if anything, it’s rather the opposite. Worse, Ys I’s innocent flirt with fake longevity comes dangerously close to becoming a full-blown romance in Ys II: not only is the forced backtracking more present, but it covers longer distances by virtue of the dungeons’ swollen layouts, which can be downright annoying. The last dungeon encompasses all the game’s flaws: it is ridiculously gigantic compared to the rest of the adventure and combines labyrinthine pathways, nearly constant backtracking and invariable decors preventing the player to rely on their visual memory and forcing them to methodically map out and remember their progression. (This beast of a dungeon was fortunately more palatable the second time around when I played Chronicles on the PSP, but my first encounter with it in Legacy was a trifle nightmarish.)  

That being said, I’m not claiming that Ys II is a bad game, for it is not: it’s actually a highly enjoyable offering, despite the flaws I mentioned. But for some unfathomable reason, it’s not your typical sophomore entry: it doesn’t renew the Ys I formula and it doesn’t better it either. It just pads it somehow, and by some strange twist of fate, this padding ends up feeling more like a dilution. Ys I was pleasantly compact and earthy, like a porridge, while Ys II is somewhat thinner and more elaborate, like a velouté. Both are excellent and enjoyable in their own way, depending on what kind of experience you’re in the mood for; but ironically, because of these different flavours, clearing both games at once may not be the best idea ever despite their narrative continuity. 

By playing Legacy/Chronicles, I mostly wanted to discover the early stages of one of my favourite subgenres in the Holy Realm of RPG; but to my utter delight, I extracted more than I expected from that digging into a somewhat magnified past. Not only did I discover a full-blown series of Action-RPG, which is a pleasure that has become so rare in this era that it must be enjoyed to the fullest, but I also discovered a developer that piqued my interest, the venerable Nihon Falcom. Unbeknownst to be until now, I actually own a couple of other Nihon Falcom games—namely Gurumin: a Monstrous Adventure, Trails in the Sky and The Legend of Heroes: a Tear of Vermillion, all games that I will now consider with renewed interest.  And of course, there are the four other Ys entries, which I will play with gusto and hopefully enjoy as much as Legacy and Chronicles. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!

6 comments:

  1. Ys I&II were a treat to play! Loved every second of it: the overall feel of the game, the vibrant colors and the simple but enjoyable gameplay.

    I have mixed feelings for Nihon Falcom... On one hand, Ys I&II and III more Nayuta no Kiseki (Trails of Nayuta) and Gurumin were excellent games. On the other hand... Ys Seven completely killed my interest in the series and Trails in the Sky was extremely boring for me (it has terrible pacing).
    Still, they were games with very good reception so they should be good!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, they are really excellent games, short but delightful. (I actually prefer my Action-RPG on the short side, so they fit the bill perfectly.) And that mesmerizing atmosphere... And this gripping fighting system... Gee, now I want to play them again! :D

      This is not the first time I read that "Trails in the Sky" suffers from terrible pacing. What is the problem exactly? Is it too slow, too long? If I know what to expect before playing it, I can prepare myself for it and spare myself some disappointment. :)

      Delete
  2. It's... Complicated. The game has a very well-constructed world and the graphics are very colourful and vibrant... But the story can be told in about 5~6 lines (but the game stretches it for about 40~50 hours) and the characters are just plain boring (your milleage may vary on this one). The battle system is a mix of tactical and turn based which, on paper, is really good but the execution is flawed: everything is retty slow and you always start somewhat far from your enemies,so most of the battle time is spent closing in on them. Sure, that works for Tactical games (like Fire Emblem or Tactics Ogre) but not for this type of typical RPG where you battle hundreds of times.
    I'm in the minority tough, since the game got a pretty good reception with fans and critics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, that's good to know! I will shelve it for a day when I'm in a patient mood and ready to pour dozens of hours into a single game. For now, after having spent 70 hours on "Hometown Story", I'm rather in the mood for some mercifully short games. :p

      Delete
    2. Yeah, I noticed you poured a lot of time with that game, nice work! By the way, kind of off-topic but since you mentioned "Hometown Story", how do you compare it with the "Harvest Moon" games, if you played any of them?

      PS: Just a suggestion, looking for a small game? Got anything on your mind? If not, try "Half-Minute Hero" for the PSP, lasts about 10 hours and it's a blast!

      Delete
    3. I never played any "Harvest Moon" nor "Rune Factory" game, despite the fact that I own a lot of them, patiently waiting in line to be played... :p I think it's part of the reason why I loved "Hometown Story" so much: since I had nothing to compare it to, I approached it as a standalone game and was able to find a lot of goodness in it.

      Thank you for the suggestion! "Half-Minute Hero" is part of my mammoth collection, and since I'm in the mood to play some PSP games right now, I will definitely consider it as a contender for The Next Game I Play.

      Delete