Ys IV

[escarioth]

wah ! that game translation , Short movies, classic gameplay and
add a cherry on top for those dubs.
.....
its freaking heaven   

i'm quite amazed . . .  seriously Nightwolve you really worked hard on that one. 

i just wanted to take a peek before starting back the 3 others games. 
now i feel bad, i want to play right away   
curse my own curiosity i should have waited until i was ready to start it.   

[poponon]

just finished this one two weeks ago. The translation efforts were really something - I don't think I've ever played another fan translation that seemed to be as much as a labor of love as this. Really amazing stuff. PCE community is the best

the game itself is a lot of fun too - just don't be like me and forget to get the heal ring the first time it's available or else you have to wait until near the end of the game to pick it up again. I think it's fairly soon afterwords but still

[escarioth]

ooh thanks for the tip
ill be cautious 

[Johnpv]

I'm playing through this now and about like 25 - 30% done and I have to say I am crazy impressed with the the dub and translation!  Everyone did an amazing job!

[geise]

Yeah, Nightwolve did an outstanding job with Ys IV.  Lets also not forget Burnt lasagna and the people he had doing the dub for this game.

[escarioth]

Yeah, Nightwolve did an outstanding job with Ys IV.  Lets also not forget Burnt lasagna and the people he had doing the dub for this game.

Oh, they sure did an amazing job so far from what ive played. Big thanks to everyone if they're still around.
But Ill finish ys 1-2-3 first   

[geise]

Hmmm...an Ys marathon.  Why have I never done this before!? 

[escarioth]

Hmmm...an Ys marathon.  Why have I never done this before!? 

Thats the idea, i waited quite long to finally start this.
wanted to make the 3 first that i already finished years ago... and top the whole thing
with a brand new title i never played

i also never played the one on snes

[NightWolve]

Thanks escarioth, glad you enjoyed it! It was my dream to see it fully in English one day after buying it from TZD in 1996 and getting stuck on that white knight (who won't let you back in the castle until you learn you must equip your 1st level equipment), never thought I'd actually lead the effort one day to make that happen!

It's literally the biggest project I ever managed, multiple programmers (myself included), translators, and then even more recruitment/management for voice acting, etc. Hard to believe it's now 99% English, minus the credits roll of the Japanese Hudson development staff, but that's minor and hardly anyone cares.

[nopepper]

Thanks escarioth, glad you enjoyed it! It was my dream to see it fully in English one day after buying it from TZD in 1996 and getting stuck on that white knight (who won't let you back in the castle until you learn you must equip your 1st level equipment), never thought I'd lead the effort one day to make that happen! It's literally the biggest project I ever managed, multiple programmers (myself included), translators, and then even more recruitment/management for voice acting, etc. Hard to believe it was it's now 99% English, minus the credits roll of the Japanese Hudson development staff, but that's minor and hardly anyone cares.

Great topic and thank you so much for your efforts, NightWolve.

This reminded me to send a donation your way, which everyone can do by going to NightWolve's site. The amount of effort and quality of work, while I know a labor of love, deserves some compensation from the community.

Thanks again.

[escarioth]

i have yet to play Xak III too.
but Ys first.

and yep , donations are always on my to-do list.
especially if its fan work. Its important to show the love for those hard working fans.
sadly, many prefer taking everything and not give anything in return,
but not all of them ; )

[martinine]

I said before, but I probably will again: Thanks Nightwolve! I had an Ys Marsthon this year as well. IV is so fantastic!

[NightWolve]

Recent donations went towards buying Shovel Knight, so it went towards a good cause...SHOVEL JUSTICE!!!

[Gentlegamer]

Recent donations went towards buying Shovel Knight, so it went towards a good cause...SHOVEL JUSTICE!!!

I'm currently playing Shovel Knight on Wii U.

[Johnpv]

Shovel Knight is pretty freaking awesome.  It strikes a pretty good balance of being challenging without being unfair, or cheap.

[ToyMachine78]

I love Shovel Knight. The best part is the soundtrack. Its pretty unbelievable.

[escarioth]

definetly a real good game
i would love to see more of these coming out with such quality.

anyway moving on with my YS marathon....slowly but surely.
i'm around half the second game done....cant wait to finally play the third on turbografx.

i always played on snes back then. first time ill try

[esteban]

definetly a real good game
i would love to see more of these coming out with such quality.

anyway moving on with my YS marathon....slowly but surely.
i'm around half the second game done....cant wait to finally play the third on turbografx.

i always played on snes back then. first time ill try

Holy cow.

Ys III on TG-CD will be a treat.



That music. Gotta play it loud.

[Johnpv]

I wonder what happened with the scrolling in the TG16/PCEngine version of III.  There's like 1 or 2 spots where the scrolling is nice and buttery smooth and then everywhere else is stutter city.  Its as if 2 different people programmed how those sections would handle scrolling.

[geise]

Hmmm...an Ys marathon.  Why have I never done this before!? 

Thats the idea, i waited quite long to finally start this.
wanted to make the 3 first that i already finished years ago... and top the whole thing
with a brand new title i never played

i also never played the one on snes

Don't ever play the ones on snes...ever.  Forget Ys V exists.  It's only ok for some music.

[Johnpv]

I liked Ys V, its different (although closer to modern Ys games than the old ones).  I think it gets a bad rap and is a better game than people give it credit for.  Personally I liked it more than Ys III.

[Gredler]

I'll join in escarioth - I also have only played the snes version - and for many years that was the only Ys I'd have played up until my recent play through of book 1 and 2 that was amazing albeit marred by CD Drive issues causing cut scene audio to skip. I will gladly join you in a play through of Ys 3 when you get to it, and hopefully can keep pace. The brevity of the Ys games seems to make that possible, maybe we should start a separate thread and call it "End of Summer Ys 3 play through thread"

[geise]

I really tried to like Ys V,  but it was so snesified it was kind of a turnoff.  It felt just like another snes/sfc game and not anything special like the other Ys games.  I can understand some liking Ys V over III, but I love the first 4 titles.  Ys V was hard for me to keep playing through.  Again though, it has some beautiful music.

[PukeSter]

I really tried to like Ys V,  but it was so snesified it was kind of a turnoff.  It felt just like another snes/sfc game and not anything special like the other Ys games.  I can understand some liking Ys V over III, but I love the first 4 titles.  Ys V was hard for me to keep playing through.  Again though, it has some beautiful music.

Snesified? Is that because the graphics were much better? Because they were. Many of the backgrounds had much nicer color depth and detail. Some areas remind me of the top down sections in Legend of Xanadu 2.

I also liked the attack button. It was a nice change of pace, and it works well in the modern games.

My problem with Ys V is that it was too easy to grind, get money and kill bosses. You could really abuse the option system. Magic was also disappointing. It was also shorter than Ys IV. I'm not sure if these issues were fixed in Ys V expert.

Regardless, Ys IV pce is my favorite out of all the retro games in the series.

[NecroPhile]

I don't know about 'snesified' but Ys V doesn't feel as much like an Ys game; the sprite proportions are all wrong for 'cute lil falcom sprites' and there's no border and hud.

[Johnpv]

It's definitely a big change, though you can see the flow of where they were going.   I don't know if I would say it doesn't feel like an Ys game though.  V has much more in common with VI, VII, and the modern remakes than it does with the first 4 games.  If you can accept the modern ones, I think V fits in there.  It's kind of like the missing link between the original style and modern Ys.  I really enjoyed it though, it is definitely short, though not as short as III.  If you know what you're doing and are good you can easily beat III in like 4 - 5 hours.

[nopepper]

It's definitely a big change, though you can see the flow of where they were going.   I don't know if I would say it doesn't feel like an Ys game though.  V has much more in common with VI, VII, and the modern remakes than it does with the first 4 games.  If you can accept the modern ones, I think V fits in there.  It's kind of like the missing link between the original style and modern Ys.  I really enjoyed it though, it is definitely short, though not as short as III.  If you know what you're doing and are good you can easily beat III in like 4 - 5 hours.

I have never considered playing V, but you putting it in line with VII, which I consider to be an absolute jewel, is making me want to check it out.

I know nostalgia plays a big role in this, but I & II are still my favorites, with Book I being my absolute favorite. I love the simple elegance the game brings, and, maybe because of its brevity, it's still enjoyable to play through to this day.

[Johnpv]

Well its more about the feel of it.  You can see where they were planning on going if that makes sense.  V is very much the start of modern Ys, as opposed to classic Ys, but I digress.

So I wanted to see if anyone else noticed this about Ys IV, or more specifically the dubbed version.  I have a Turboeverdrive 2.4 and normally I just leave it in and use the modded system 3.01 bios with it.  With the patched version of Ys IV though I noticed the game really doesn't like that.  If I run it with the the modded for everdrive bios I get a lot of lock ups, graphical glitches and other issues.  If I play the game without the everdrive in the system, and using just the Duo's bios, I get none of these issues.   Has anyone else run into this?  I guess I should also mention I'm playing on a PCE Duo. 

[CrackTiger]

The biggest problem Ys V has is that it's titled "Ys". If it wasn't officially an Ys game, it could just be another forgettable hack 'n slash adventure game worth playing through once, instead of being terribly disappointing.

[TurboXray]

Well its more about the feel of it.  You can see where they were planning on going if that makes sense.  V is very much the start of modern Ys, as opposed to classic Ys, but I digress.

So I wanted to see if anyone else noticed this about Ys IV, or more specifically the dubbed version.  I have a Turboeverdrive 2.4 and normally I just leave it in and use the modded system 3.01 bios with it.  With the patched version of Ys IV though I noticed the game really doesn't like that.  If I run it with the the modded for everdrive bios I get a lot of lock ups, graphical glitches and other issues.  If I play the game without the everdrive in the system, and using just the Duo's bios, I get none of these issues.   Has anyone else run into this?  I guess I should also mention I'm playing on a PCE Duo.   

I haven't experienced this, but it could be that the game is doing something it shouldn't (writing to areas that are rom, which are normally fine on original system card games). Gate of Thunder tries to write to rom addresses on the system card. So maybe Ys IV has some left over development things that normally don't affect the regular system cards, but is writing to ED specific registers. I dunno. Would you mind posting this in the DEV section? There's a sticky for T.ED development or something related.

[NightWolve]

If I run it with the the modded for everdrive bios I get a lot of lock ups, graphical glitches and other issues.  If I play the game without the everdrive in the system, and using just the Duo's bios, I get none of these issues.   Has anyone else run into this?  I guess I should also mention I'm playing on a PCE Duo.   

That's interesting, could you run a test with an original Japanese CD or unpatched CD-R and see if you still get the glitches mentioned ?

[Johnpv]

I do have the original Japanese CD so I will see if I can get it to do the same on that.  It probably won't be till this weekend though.

[Serega81]

Il jump on the bandwagon.. Thanks for the excellent translation NightWolve Ys IV was one of the first games I played for my duo, my 14 year old ass was absolutely floored by it in 1995.. half screen character portraits, great cutscenes, I think I got sick from school instantly , and played it for 4 days straight till morning light. Thanks to you I can finally play it in English while simultaneously reliving my teenage years.

[NightWolve]

Falcom [is Great Again] occasionally goes on PC Engine nostalgia trips for their Twitter followers, this one for "Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys" [1993]. It was developed mostly by Hudson Soft (now absorbed by Konami) with Falcom providing a working story and soundtrack.

This scenario illustration is an example of cell painting, and they call it Nostalgia Illustration #19.

《懐かしのイメージイラストその十九》イースIV The Dawn of Ys (ザ ドーン オブ イース)
1993年 PCエンジン CDROM

ファルコムがシナリオを作りハドソン(現コナミ）が開発！このイラストもＣＧではなく、独特のタッチは「セル画」制作によるものです。 pic.twitter.com/azSDP9LJZd

— 日本ファルコム (@nihonfalcom) March 8, 2017

https://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ys4/

[elmer]

I love their art style! It's so cool that they post these things. 

I've got to finish playing your translation someday ... I'm stuck on one of the bosses, and am a poor-enough player that I'll probably have to hack myself an invincibility cheat to get passed him and back to the rest of the game. 

I was really enjoying it up until that darned boss!

[Gypsy]

I love their art style! It's so cool that they post these things. 

I've got to finish playing your translation someday ... I'm stuck on one of the bosses, and am a poor-enough player that I'll probably have to hack myself an invincibility cheat to get passed him and back to the rest of the game. 

I was really enjoying it up until that darned boss!

You gotta believe in yourself man! Plus Ys games are easy peasy.

[Johnpv]

That is some damn nice art work from them, thanks for sharing it!

[Serega81]

Seeing this thread pop back up again I have a question.  I started my Ys journey on the Snes with Ys III before I owned a Duo, since then I have played through Ys1 - Ys4 on the Duo/TG CD.  However I never touched any of the next gen Ys games, the PS2 ones etc..  To those who have, would you reccomend any of them?  How do they measure up against their classic counterparts?

[CrackTiger]

I love Ys I - III, Dawn of Ys and to a lesser extent, Eternal/Complete I & II.

Everything that came after doesn't have the same magic and feel very un-Ys.

[NecroPhile]

NW: thanks for sharing the cool art.  I hope they post up more of 'em.

Serega81: I've played the four PSP games (Ys I & II Chronicles, Oath in Felghana, Ark of Napishtim, and Ys 7) and enjoyed 'em quite a bit.  They're worth checking out, especially for the sweet music;  they let you switch on the fly between the newer arranged versions and the old tunes from PC-88, X68K, or whatever.

[Gypsy]

The new games are great, but they are definitely very different experiences. For me, Oath is my favourite version of III though I'm sure many would have a different view of it. I would say just try the new games and see what you think about them.

[Johnpv]

Seeing this thread pop back up again I have a question.  I started my Ys journey on the Snes with Ys III before I owned a Duo, since then I have played through Ys1 - Ys4 on the Duo/TG CD.  However I never touched any of the next gen Ys games, the PS2 ones etc..  To those who have, would you reccomend any of them?  How do they measure up against their classic counterparts?

The Ys IV remake on Vita (Memories of Celceta) is really good.  I personally am not a fan of Ark of Napishtim, found it easily the worst in the entire franchise. The other new games are definitely worth playing though.

[Gypsy]

MoC definitely blows Ys VI away. VI could honestly stand a remake.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I love Ys 6.  It's not Oath, which is my favorite, but it's a great game.  Deffinitely better then the current versions of Ys 5.

[seieienbu]

Out of all the games in the series, I feel like Ys 5 plays the least like Ys out of any of them.  More than anything else, I think of Ys as games with fast paced action.  Ys 5 wasn't just slow for an Ys game, it was slow for a snes game.  There were few enemies on screen, it took forever to move around, and in the event that multiple enemies were on screen at once the game would somehow become slower still.

Even the 3rd one still has fast paced combat and quick exploration.  You can change it from top down to a side scroller but it still feels like Ys to me.  Perhaps the PS2 port plays better but I've never played it so I can't say.

[Johnpv]

I would play through the SNES Ys V 10 more times before ever firing up 6 ever again.  Ys V to me was very much the cornerstone on what modern Ys games built upon.  You can see that continuation in 6, Oath, Memories and VII.  6 just has aged so poorly IMHO.  It needs a major remake, from the poor hit boxes, the painful platforming, the controls, all of it needs major upgrades.  I really don't get why people are so down on V, yeah it's short and you can miss a fair amount of side stuff, but I don't think it terribly hurts it.  If V had come to the US during the SNES years it's a game I would have been all over and probably played through multiple times.  Kind of like Soul Blazer.

[NightWolve]

I love their art style! It's so cool that they post these things. 

I've got to finish playing your translation someday ... I'm stuck on one of the bosses, and am a poor-enough player that I'll probably have to hack myself an invincibility cheat to get passed him and back to the rest of the game. 

I was really enjoying it up until that darned boss!

Oh wow, surprised you got stuck on a boss. It seemed easy enough to just go back and grind for EXP if you really ran into problems on any of the Ys games. The great challenge for me has been Galbalan in Felghana, I can't defeat him on Inferno max difficulty setting. I sure love his design, his patterns, etc. though, it's all very well crafted.

The major issue that got people stuck with Ys IV was when playing it in Japanese as I was in 1997. It was the first import Japanese ARPG I bought for $55 and I justified it because I'd at least get an awesome soundtrack even if I couldn't understand the story and possibly get stuck (which I did).

There's a white knight who blocks the entrance back to the castle that you escaped from at the start of the game. With the English patch, you'll know what to do, you'll have understood the hints, but without it, most will get stuck and it was game over for me for years until the Internet and guides.

[NightWolve]

I love their art style! It's so cool that they post these things. 

I've got to finish playing your translation someday ... I'm stuck on one of the bosses, and am a poor-enough player that I'll probably have to hack myself an invincibility cheat to get passed him and back to the rest of the game. 

I was really enjoying it up until that darned boss!

I have had something for that.

https://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ys4/#downloads

Get the Ys4hack ZIP file. It's a Perl script for either the YAME or MagiceEngine state files. You can just get the offsets for gold or EXP from it and hex edit your state file, then reload it. You also need to cause an event change, exit or reenter a town, etc. for the changes to appear. Or, load state file, save your game within it, reset, and load it with the Continue option.

[seieienbu]

The major issue that got people stuck with Ys IV was when playing it in Japanese as I was in 1997. It was the first import Japanese ARPG I bought for $55 and I justified it because I'd at least get an awesome soundtrack even if I couldn't understand the story and possibly get stuck (which I did).

Wow, $55?  That seems like a steal for an import title back then.  I think I paid around $100 for it after finding an ad in the back of a magazine.  Where did you get it from?

[elmer]

Oh wow, surprised you got stuck on a boss. It seemed easy enough to just go back and grind for EXP if you really ran into problems on any of the Ys games.

OK, you shamed me into trying again ... and "nope", that's one mean boss, and grinding got boring-as-heck after I levelled-up and still got my behind kicked! 

It's the "Ice Immurer", which the FAQ says is one of the toughest bosses in the game. 

Get the Ys4hack ZIP file. It's a Perl script for either the YAME or MagiceEngine state files. You can just get the offsets for gold or EXP from it and hex edit your state file, then reload it. You also need to cause an event change, exit or reenter a town, etc. for the changes to appear. Or, load state file, save your game within it, reset, and load it with the Continue option.

Thanks!

I'm really trying-my-best to play the game without cheating and giving myself extra stuff like that ... unless I get blocked.

So I took the "programmer's way out" since I'm playing in Mednafen, and just figured-out where the current HP is stored in RAM, and then gave myself a bunch of extra HP whenever I was getting dangerously-low. 

It's stored at $68:FC4E, BTW.

Now that I'm passed that one bit, hopefully I can go back to playing as normal.