Ys Book I & II - Ys III: Wanderers From Ys reviews from VG&CE

[SGX Engine]

Video Games & Computer Entertainment magazine reviews. Hope you enjoy these 

[NightWolve]

Hm, think I'll add my recent post about the Ys Book I & II programmer if you don't mind to complement the thread. Thanks for scanning!

Hiromasa Iwasaki was a very prolific and prominent Hudson programmer. He contributed lots of articles and reviews to PC Engine magazines, and even showed up on TV a few times. One of the more impressive things he did was port Ys I&II.

...Hiromasa Iwasaki shared that it was his idea to put both Ys I & II together to make it a more fuller/complete game. That was a condition he put forth, only wanting to port it if he could put them both together, something like that. Falcom later copied the idea with the limited edition of Ys I & II Complete back over for the Windows PC platform, putting them together and allowing for the launching of Ys II right after beating Ys I.

I thought it was here, http://shmuplations.com/ys/, but maybe it was in crazy John's Kickstarter book ?

That's right. That's exactly what it says on that page.

Speaking to main programmer Hiromasa Iwasaki, who was a freelancer for Hudson at the time, reveals amazing things. "In winter 1988, I loved to play Ys II for PC, and when I played, Shinichi Nakamoto [executive producer at Hudson] came to my place and he said: 'Do you want to transplant it to PC Engine?' I replied to him: 'Mr. Nakamoto, I wanna do it if you can accept my condition. Ys is one story made from two parts of a game. I want to transplant two games into one CD. If we do so, we can promote how the capacity of CDs is bigger than ROM cartridges.' Nakamtoto soon replied: 'Okay, we will do this.' So we visited Tokyo, went to Falcom and made a deal."

And that ladies and gentlemen is how history was made: Ys Book I & II.

[SGX Engine]

Cool, thanks NightWolve.

[xcrement5x]

Thanks for sharing!  The Ys III one is also entertaining because it's apparently written by Victor Ireland (of Working Designs fame)?!

I wonder if any of his games were reviewed by folks in that publication later on.

[NightWolve]

The Ys III one is also entertaining because it's apparently written by Victor Ireland (of Working Designs fame)?!

Oh heck, you're right, I never knew he did a review for this or for any game! Neat! It appears he wasn't as impressed with the blindingly awesome/legendary soundtrack as I was, but I think I agree with most of his other points.

[NecroPhile]

Thanks for sharing the fun reads.

It seems a bit unfair to compare Ys III's voice work to Ys I & II; I won't say Ys III's isn't wooden and cold, but few games ever made can stack up to the pro job done on Ys I & II.  On the plus side, at least Vic knew not to use an apostrophe.

[SGX Engine]

Here's EGM's review of Ys for the Sega Master System.



I recall wanting a role playing game for SMS during 1989. 

I was looking at Miracle Warriors, Ys and Phantasy Star. Honestly, Phantasy Star seemed like obviously the best choice.  I'm sure most would agree it was by far the best RPG on Sega's 8-bit console. At that specific time, The TurboGrafx-16 had not yet released in the U.S. although I was aware of the PC-Engine but the TurboGrafx-16 had not even been named or slated for release here. It soon would be though.  To me, this new PC-Engine system seemed like a distant Japanese system, wonderful, but unobtainable for someone like me, who only recently got a Master System that year.

When I had fully learned about the Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 with CD-ROM, I could only dream of playing Phantasy Star II and Ys Book I & II on those new systems.  It would eventually happen, but not until 1990.

[Psycho Punch]

The repeated use of apostrophes is triggering me

[NightWolve]

[CrackTiger]

The repeated use of apostrophes is triggering me

That's the official spelling.

[Psycho Punch]

The repeated use of apostrophes is triggering me

That's the official spelling.

Only in the FEKA version.

[NecroPhile]

Not just FEKA; Hudson fucked it up too.

[esteban]

Not just FEKA; Hudson fucked it up too.

Thankfully, only on the disc....but, still...

[Psycho Punch]

Not just FEKA; Hudson fucked it up too.

Now I know why Falcom chose the SNES version to be the canon one.

[munchiaz]

Thanks for posting. Interesting read. Cool that Ireland wrote the review for Ys III

[Siskan]

Ys III has one of the most remarkable soundtracks to this day in my opinion, it also beats Book I&II which already set the bar high. It cannot match the introduction though, Ys I manages to deliver a certain mood, feeling and also initial hype through the three parts (background, title screen and kick-off intro) which few games have managed to do (its sequels failed at it too, but Book II does it better than Ys III).
The Ys III soundtrack also sounds way better than any other version of the same game, even the newer ones. The added violins of the PC/PSP version were a nice try, but it doesn't get close to beating the PCE arrangement.

I've shared the ridiculously poor American dub with a couple of friends and they both asked for the title of The Boy's Got Wings. I've also discovered this game in recent years, so no nostalgia involved.

Other aspects of both of these games are good but not astounding. Gameplay is solid, story is basic, graphics are good but unimpressive, except for the intros. These were also made in an era when artwork was amazing in general, but again in Ys' case it was decent but not up there with the best. And yes, I believe that external artwork (box art, manual illustrations etc.) were important parts of the games themselves back then.

[NightWolve]

Ys III has one of the most remarkable soundtracks to this day in my opinion, it also beats Book I&II which already set the bar high. It cannot match the introduction though, Ys I manages to deliver a certain mood, feeling and also initial hype through the three parts (background, title screen and kick-off intro) which few games have managed to do (its sequels failed at it too, but Book II does it better than Ys III).
The Ys III soundtrack also sounds way better than any other version of the same game, even the newer ones. The added violins of the PC/PSP version were a nice try, but it doesn't get close to beating the PCE arrangement.

_{► /audio/YsIII-07-The-Boy-Who-Had-Wings.mp3}

_{► /audio/YsIII-17-Seal-of-Time.mp3}

Yeah, I agree 100%. "The Boy Who Had Wings" is probably still my favorite track of them all, with "Seal of Time" next. The Windows PC soundtrack for Ys I & II Eternal/Complete was horrible, but when Felghana came around they put a lot more effort into it, and while it comes close in quality to Ryo Yonemitsu's magic and is respectable, I would also characterize it as a "nice try" effort. It's a "respectable" soundtrack, but yeah, I still much prefer to patch-in the Ys III PC Engine CD soundtrack for the definitive or "complete" experience. I was trying to think of a good marketing title for the patcher for when I release it some time, current candidates are: "The Ryo Yonemitsu Epic BGM/Soundtrack Mod" or "Epic Soundtrack Mod: The Ryo Yonemitsu Cut."

[seieienbu]

_{► /audio/YsIII-11-A-Searing-Struggle.mp3}

"A Searing Struggle" is far and away my favorite track from any Ys game as well as one of my favorite songs from any game ever.  How Ys 3 got a 7 for it's soundtrack in this review I'll never understand.

It's always neat to read reviews from games I loved back when they were relevant.  My favorite line was "No one can ever claim that CD-ROM games are just a gimmick ever again!"  Moreso than the rest of the piece I feel that encapsulates both the time period as well as the affect that Ys had on games and gaming technology.

[esteban]

OFFICIAL:

Ys III has a fantastic soundtrack.

However, if you think it is *superior* to that of Ys I & II, then you can suck my left one.

Because it isn't.

They are both on equal footing.

/TRUTH






P.S. Don't worry, folks have been trying to claim that Ys III is the best soundtrack for a long time. They are delusional.

[seieienbu]

I'm not saying that it's superior.  I'm only saying that it's better than any sad 7.