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Ys (イース, Īsu^?, IPA: [iːsɯ]) (English: /ˈiːs/) is a Japanese computer and console role-playing game series, and Nihon Falcom corporation's flagship franchise.^[1] It started on the NEC PC-8801 in 1987. Ys titles have appeared on the X1, X1turbo, MSX2, FM-7/77, FM-77AV, NEC PC-9801, X68000, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Saturn, Famicom, Super Famicom, Nintendo DS, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, TurbGrafx/PC-Engine CD-ROM, cellular phone, SNES, and on the Wii's Virtual Console service from Nintendo. The common misspelling "Y's" arises from a typographical error in the packaging of the English-language versions on the Sega Master System.^[1]

The Ys series chronicles the adventures of Adol Christin, a red-haired young man with a zest for adventure and an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time. Gameplay usually revolves around Adol, though his comrade, Dogi, is a frequent companion in his travels around Esteria.

The most used gameplay mechanisms involve using the directional pad to fight, where the player must literally run Adol into the enemy. Tactics developed from this involving running into the side, back or slightly off center of the front of most enemies. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys played a bit more like a standard side-scrolling action-adventure type of game, using an attack button and D-Pad usage giving Adol a regular slash, a crouching jab, a standing upward thrust or a downward thrust while sailing through the air. The classic control scheme made a comeback in Ys IV: Mask of the Sun. With Ys V: Kefin, the Lost City of Sand, the game became much more of a top-down affair similar to The Legend of Zelda series. Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim graphically departed from its predecessors, using three-dimensional graphics and hack-and-slash gameplay.

[edit] Games

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The Ys series has its roots in the Japanese computer system, the NEC PC-8801. Each of the first three games was released on that platform first. Ports of the game series to console platforms have usually been handled by various other licensee companies, such as Hudson Soft, Tonkin House and Konami.

Only two versions of the fourth game were released, and Falcom licensed both versions out, the Super Famicom version to Tonkin House (who had handled the Super NES port for Ys III), and the PC Engine version to Hudson (who had ported all three previous games to that platform). They allowed Hudson to take considerable liberties with the game, though, and as a result, the two games are very different. They share the same setting, cast and much of the basic plot, but the actual structure of the story plays out in a completely different manner, as do the game's levels themselves.

The Super Famicom version, titled Mask of the Sun, is the official continuation of the series. The PC Engine version is called The Dawn of Ys and takes several different turns, plot-wise, including some significant inconsistencies with the canonical storyline. For this reason, The Dawn of Ys is essentially an "alternate universe" take on the events in Celceta. A PS2 remake of Mask of the Sun was released in May 2005.

When Falcom released Ys V, it came out on only a single platform: the Super Famicom. As a stand alone title, it was one of many late generation games that took advantage of the true abilities of the SNES, partially due to the liberties it took with the gameplay (in particular, giving Adol a jump and making him swing his sword). It was also extremely easy. In response to this, Falcom soon put out Ys V Expert, which was exactly what it claimed: a much harder version of the game. A PS2 remake of Ys V by Taito was released March 30, 2006 in Japan.

After this, the series sat dormant for eight years, during which time, Falcom abandoned console development altogether, choosing instead to focus on the Microsoft Windows platform. Out of nowhere, they announced a new game in the series, entitled Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, which was released on September 27, 2003. It took what Ys V had done and refined it, turning it into a very fast-paced action-RPG, which was generally well-received.

In early 2005, a new title in the series was announced, this one titled Ys: The Oath in Felghana, which is a top-to-bottom "re-imagining" of Ys III, covering the same plot as the original, but expanding on it greatly. It could be considered a retcon, but a rather minor one, as it basically clarifies and expands on events in Ys III, rather than overwriting them entirely. In spite of how much has changed, it is not "Ys VII." It was released on June 30, 2005.

A spinoff game called Ys Strategy was released on March 16, 2006 in Japan for the Nintendo DS. Unlike the rest of the series, this game is a real-time strategy game instead of an action-RPG. It received lackluster reviews and general disdain from fans.

A new Ys game entitled Ys Origin was released in December 2006. It takes place 700 years before the events of the first game, just following the separation of Ys from Esteria. The two initial playable characters are Yunica Toba and Hugo Fact. The two characters' stories play out somewhat differently during character interactions. Adol does not appear aside from being a hidden bonus character. Falcom has since released a new version of the game that required a copy's registration serial number sent to Falcom along with shipping charges to get an extra enhancement disc for the game. With this disc the player would be able to play as Adol along with other new features added on.

[edit] English releases

Until 2005, only the first three Ys games were available in North America: Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished, Ys Book I & II, and Ys III: Wanderers From Ys. The original PC-8801, PC-9801, X1 and MSX2 versions, as well as the Famicom ports remain exclusive to Japan. English ports of the Japanese PC game Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim for the PS2 and PSP were released by Konami in 2005 and 2006, respectively, marking the first English release of the series in thirteen years.

At one point, NEC Interchannel proposed bringing Digicube's Ys Eternal Story to North America, but the idea was rejected by Sony, commonly thought to be because of their prevailing attitude toward the viability of 2D games in the North American market;^{[citation needed]} but as more small profile 2D games have been released in the PS2's lifespan the decision was more likely due to numerous technical issues with the port itself including: long load-times (even for a PS2 game), frequent lock-ups, resolution flickering during menu or screen transitions and an abnormally large save file, clocking in at 1MB (1/8th of a memory card) whereas most, and much more recent RPGs average 100–200KB is size compared to a PC game. Many of these problems are associated with the game being quickly ported and released as Digicube was partially going out of business.

The original Windows PC remakes were Ys Eternal and Ys II Eternal. Later, there was a compiled rerelease, which bumped up Ys Eternal's visuals to Ys II Eternal's level (more color depth, primarily) and made the soundtrack sound more cohesive between the two. This was released as Ys I & II Complete. Later, once this was out of print, Falcom began selling the two separately again, as Ys I Complete and Ys II Complete. Falcom complicated the issue by changing the "Eternal" to "Complete" on all external packaging and advertisements, but not in the actual games themselves. In one of the English patches, the internal bitmaps are edited to reflect the external change for the packages.

Nintendo added Ys Book I & II to the US Virtual Console Service on 25 August 2008. The Virtual Console allows owners of the Nintendo Wii to download classic games. This marks the first release of the Ys series on a 7th Generation home console. Atlus released the games in one package entitled Legacy of Ys: Books I & II on 24 February 2009 on the Nintendo DS.

So far, no version of Ys IV or V has been released outside Japan.

[edit] Series chronology

According to the official chronology of the fictional universe that the Ys series is set in, the correct order is:

• Ys Origin
• Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished
• Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter
• Ys IV: Mask of the Sun
• Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (remake Ys: The Oath in Felghana)
• Ys V: Kefin, The Lost City of Sand
• Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim
• Ys Seven

At the beginning of Ys IV: Mask of the Sun, Adol and Dogi are returning to Minea for the first time since leaving after Ys II: The Final Chapter, and Dogi states "it's been two years since we left." The epilogue of the game depicts the events just before Adol and Dogi arrive in Felghana at the beginning of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. Also, at the beginning of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys, the opening states that three years have passed since Adol saved the land of Ys from the clutches of evil.

Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys is not part of the official series timeline. Due to various changes in the Hudson-produced versions of the games for the PC Engine CD-ROM, they are often considered to take place in their own alternate (unofficial) timeline.

Ys Seven is an upcoming PSP game.^[2]

[edit] Geography

Falcom originally devised a world map for Ys I & II based on Europe, which later expanded in future series to closely represent that of other locations of our Earth. The world of Ys became even more realized by Ys Strategy and Ys Online with seven or so different races.

An Image of the World Map of Ys, that was released in the Ys Perfect Data Encyclopedia along with Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim. Map has been edited to indicate the locations where several of the Ys titles have taken place.

Eresia: Europe or Eurasia.

• Europe: Europe. In Ys it applied to the lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Japanese: エウロペ (Europe).
• Ispani: Spain or Hispania as it appeared on maps from Ancient Rome.
• Greek: Greece.
• Garman: Germany or Germania as it appears on maps from Ancient Rome.
• Romun: The Romun Empire is a parallel of the Roman Empire.
• Gria: Gaul.
• Afroca: Africa. Was also called "Aphrike" referring to somewhere hot and faraway.
• Shala Desert: The Sahara Desert.
• Atlas Ocean: The Atlantic Ocean.
• Britai: Great Britain or Britannia as it appears on maps from Ancient Rome.
• Orietta: Saudi Arabia.

There are some places without direct geographical counterparts, but their equivalent locations are as follows:

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• Altago: A city on the northernmost tip of what would be Tunisia (most likely Carthage).
• Canaan: May refer to the ancient Biblical Canaan, a nation of slaves. Also an archipelago of three islands out to the west, which serves as an analogue to the Bermuda Triangle. It may also reference Atlantis, and is where Ys VI takes place.
• Celceta: A land at the northern border between Ispani and Gria. Its map location places it most likely close to San Sebastian in Spain. Translated to the real world, Celceta probably refers to the land of the Celts. This is where both iterations of Ys IV take place.
• Xandria: A city in what would be Egypt (most likely Alexandria). It and its surroundings are the location of the events in Ys V. Sometimes written as "Sandria" or "Sandoria," (a literal but non-canonical Romanization).
• Promalock: A port town on the northern coast of Gria. The maps are not identical, but it is probably meant to be geographically close to where La Rochelle is.
• Esteria: A small island out to the northwest of Promalock. The Japanese spelling is Esterior. It is the location of Ys itself (once it returns to earth), and is where the first game take place. The location is roughly equivalent to that of Mont Saint-Michel, and some of its architecture appears to have been inspired from the real-life location as well.
• Ys: An island floating above the clouds, it once was part of Esteria and, at the conclusion of Ys II, it returns there. It is possible that Ys is named after a mythical city built in the Douarnenez Bay in Brittany by Gradlon King of Cornouaille, for his daughter Dahut. This city was called Ys and was flooded, rather than raised to the sky.
• Ediz: A city on the southernmost tip of Ispani (most likely Cadiz). The only involvement that this location has had in the games, is that it is where Adol and Dogi were when the Romun soldiers came looking for them, just before they were taken into hiding by Ladoc and Terra (Ys VI).
• Barecia: Most likely the equivalent of Barcelona, but it is in Gria rather than Ispani, since the border between the two is not the same as the real-world borders. Like Ediz, it has not been mentioned in a game, but is on the world map.
• Steldum: A city on the north coast of Garman. Geographically, it is probably the equivalent of Hamburg. It has also not yet been mentioned in-game.
• Kiev: A country that appears to take its name from the as modern day Kiev, capital of the Ukraine, although this is uncertain.

Many of the names according to the Romun on the map for the games are, in fact, much closer to those spelled on the maps charted by those from Ancient Rome.

[edit] Animation

There are two separate OVA anime series of Ys, with the first spanning seven episodes and covering the events of the first game, and the second spanning four episodes and loosely covering the events of the second game. The first anime expands on the relatively thin storyline of Ys I including a retelling of the prologue, previously only told in text in the original Japanese manuals.

Both series were released on DVD in English by Media Blasters' anime label "AnimeWorks". They can be purchased separately, or in a three-disc box set, entitled Ys Legacy. The dubbed/audio tracks have changes to some character names ("Dark Fact" becoming "Dark Factor", "Adol" becoming "Adle", and "Lilia" becoming "Lillian," for instance). Pronunciations of various names are inconsistent, sometimes within the same scene.

Included on one of the discs is what appears to be a preview for an anime based around Ys IV. This was created by Falcom as a "pitch" trailer to shop around to various animation studios, to see if anyone was interested in producing the series. They had no takers, however, so this trailer is all that exists of the rumored Ys IV anime.

[edit] Music

The Ys series is particularly known for its original music soundtrack by Yūzō Koshiro, Mieko Ishikawa and Hideya Nagata. The composers' works have been remixed for each subsequent release of Ys I and II, most memorably by Japanese computer musician Ryo Yonemitsu for Hudson Soft's Ys I and II, and Ys III: Wanderers from Ys releases for the PC Engine CD-ROM. Combining Yuzo's composition and Ryo's arrangement abilities, this arrangement found itself introducing video gamers, for the first time, to video game soundtracks that can stand on their own as full orchestral pieces of music. Consequently, the Ys series is seen in the video game music industry as groundbreaking, demonstrated by a never-ending series of music CDs based on the series' music, with almost infinite variations on its themes. The only other series with similar impact on video game music industry at the time was Dragon Quest.

[edit] References

• Falcom LICENSE Information

[edit] External links

• Falcom Official Homepage (Japanese)
• Atlus' Official Legacy of Ys: Books I & II site (English)
• Ys I Hudson Cellular (Japanese) and * Ys II Hudson Cellular (Japanese)
• Ys I&II Chronicles Official website (Japanese)