Everybody Loves TitS - Ys/Falcom Megathread, Now With Trails in the Sky

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Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Nihon Falcom is one of the oldest RPG developers in the business, and basically created the action RPG genre. They are most well-known in the west as the developers behind the Ys series of games, though they have made a number of other games in their lifetime.

GAMES

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

The legend of heroes: Trails in the Sky is a trilogy of turn-based RPGs and one of the newest entries into Falcom's long-running Legend of Heroes series. The first game was released on PC in 2004 and later ported to the PSP, which is the version the rest of the world got. Xseed is bringing the first chapter to Steam, and is working with Carpe Fulgur to translate the second chapter and release it on steam.

Also wanna give mad props to Xseed's Sarah Leen, who ripped the game's code out and rewrote major sections of it just to get it to work properly on modern systems, not to mention adding widescreen support and other goodies. You can read about it over here.

Store Page Links:
PSN|Steam|GOG

Ys is a series of games about a dude named Adol and a dude named Dogi going on amazing wall-crushing/monster-slaying adventures. There's not much more to it than that. Released for the NEC PC-8801 in 1987, Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished was one of the very first action rpgs of its kind. Originally intended as one game, it was split in two due to budget and time restrictions. The second game is a direct continuation of the first with improvements made to gameplay and cutscenes. These have both been rendered obsolete with the release (and continual re-release) of Ys I&II, a bundle of the first two games with improved graphics and re-orchestrated music.

The Ys series is known for its fast-paced combat, really amazing music, somewhat generic stories, and developers who actually care about their fans. It's been going on for over 25 years now, and is still going strong. Sadly, the vast majority of the games were not available in english, or were given really lovely porting jobs/were put on the PSP for the longest time. This has changed recently, however, thanks to the efforts of Xseed Games.

Important characters:

Adol Christin
The-whoops, hang on.

Adol Christin
The protagonist of the Ys series, Adol is a red-haired adventurer looking for adventures to venture. Thankfully, he tends to find himself in scenarios where an adventurer is desperately needed. There isn't much else to his character, which makes him the best RPG protagonist ever.

Dogi
Dogi is a character from the first Ys game known for his wall-crushing ability. He became Adol's traveling companion following the first game, and has become a series mainstay. His backstory is touched upon in Ys III/Oath, but for the most part his character can be summed up with this:

The Games:

Ys I&II
The real deal. The first two Ys games are some of the earliest examples of action rpgs, and they show it. They are set apart by their unique combat system, which involves running into enemies repeatedly until they die. It sounds simple and easy, but its actually quite fun once you get into it. Available on Steam, PSP, PS2, DS, NES, Sega Saturn, the PC-Engine, and your toaster by this point.

Store Page Links: PSN|Steam

Ys III: Wanderers From Ys
The black sheep of the Ys family, Ys III tried a number of different things with the gameplay. None of these worked. Instead of being overhead like the first two games, it was a sidescroller. Instead of running into enemies, you pressed a button to swing your sword. It had a good soundtrack, and not much else. Falcom later remade it in the form of Ys: The Oath in Felghana, so there's not much reason to play it these days.

Ys IV: Mask of the Sun is the first of the two Ys IV games, neither of which were made by Falcom. Mask of the Sun was developed by some company called Advance Communication for the SNES, and it returned the series to its monster-bumping roots. It had a number of problems relating to the interface and the pace of the combat, and is generally regarded as the lesser of the two Ys IV games. Before the release of Ys: Celceta, however, it was considered the "canon" game.

Ys IV: Dawn of Ys is the second Ys IV game not made by Falcom. This one was developed by Hudson Soft for the TurboGrafx-16, and popular opinion suggests that it is far superior to Mask of the Sun. This was considered by many to be the official version of Ys IV, until Falcom decided they wanted a piece of the pie and made Ys: Celceta for the PS Vita.

Ys V - Kefin, Lost City of Sand
Ys V was a departure from the series in many ways. It abandoned the traditional bump combat system in favor of a system where you could manually jump, hold your shield up, and swing your sword. Unlike Ys III, however, Ys V was played from an overhead perspective. The game is relatively unknown compared to other Ys games, and only received a fan translation in 2013. You can find said translation here.

The series took a bit of a hiatus after Ys V, until Falcom revived it in 2005 with:

Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim
Ys VI properly modernized the series with fully-3d backgrounds, an animated intro sequence, and a new gameplay engine that ditched the bumping and grinding of old with sword-swinging, magic-using, platforming action. Sadly, the PS2 port done by Konami absolutely butchered the game. Horrible voice-acting, horrible 3d character models, and horrible 3d cutscenes that could only have been created by the animator having several successive strokes.

So they ended up replacing this with this.

Why did Konami do this?

Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Following the revival of the series with Ys VI, Falcom decided to go back and remake Ys III, fixing all the mistakes they made with the original release. This remake was known as Ys: The Oath in Felghana, and it fixed basically everything from the old game. The gameplay was better, the story was more fleshed out, the music was better, the English voice acting was significantly better, and it was just an all-around amazing remake.

Store Page Links: PSN|Steam

Ys Origin
Falcom followed up on Ys: Oath with Ys: Origin, a prequel set 700 years before the events of Ys 1&2. The game differs from conventional Ys games in a number of ways. The entire game takes place in one giant tower, has different campaigns where you play as different characters, and each character plays a different way. It has a lot of references to Ys 1&2, but don't feel like you need to have played that to play this.

Store Page Links: Steam

Ys Seven
Ys Seven introduced a number of gameplay features that I'd probably know about if I'd played the game. It does allow you to play as multiple characters, which is cool, but I can't imagine it's that fun to play a fast-paced action game on the PSP. Here's hoping for a proper PC release.

I am wrong about Ys 7 and now everybody knows:

kirbysuperstar posted:

It is. Not so much on a 1000 because its screen is a ghosty piece of rear end, but on a 2000 or a Go it's fantastic.

Store Page Links: PSN

Ys: Memories of Celceta
A PSP vita remake of Ys IV, Celceta does for Ys IV what Oath did for Ys III, except for the part where Ys IV wasn't poo poo. Apparently it's good, go play it if you have a Vita.

Store Page Links: PSN

You can thank Tonfa for this write-up:

Ys vs Sora no Kiseki: Alternative Saga is basically the Dissidia of Falcom games, released in 2011 for the PSP (in Japan only). It uses a modified Ys Seven engine for battles of up to 4 characters and has all the familiar characters and special moves and ~crossover plot~ and amazing music you would expect. Being an Ys game the gameplay is a lot of fun and the Trails in the Sky characters are adapted well to the engine. It was somewhat of a love letter to hardcore fans as it has almost 200 tracks of Falcom music ranging from the very first version of Ys I to the latest JDK Band remixes to completely original tracks.

Ys Typing Tutor

http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ystt/#8

quote:

The Ys Typing Tutor game (referred to by Falcom as "Typing of Ys") is a normally hidden mini-game included with the full Zwei!! PC game that can be unlocked provided certain conditions are met. It is based mostly around Ys II Complete (not Ys II Eternal), both in sprites and text related material.

Around May 8, 2005, some Ys fans were inquiring about the existence of this mini-game. That gave me the idea of perhaps trying to separate it out of Zwei!! and make it available for everyone since I had known about it after trying to hack Zwei!! itself long before. After about 7 hours of hacking and investigating such a task, I made a working separate copy by creating a launcher, extracting/obtaining all needed support files as well as making a few minor changes to the actual game executable component (DLL). I had given the text files over to Deuce for translation, and the hope was for quick release right after he finished. Well, he didn't, we both moved on to other things and the project sat idle.

Come August 14, 2006, I had a day or two to burn on the PC so I started doing my usual rounds of messageboard visiting among other things. While doing so, I happened to notice that old "Typing of Ys" thread that started this whole thing. A board member named Wrydwad had asked about the project status. Well, before I even responded, that got me thinking... I always lamented that Deuce and I never completed this project. So, I decided right then and there to just at least package the whole game in a nice installer, release it, and then maybe, just maybe, some other Ys fan might be willing to translate it. I knew Wrydwad mentioned he has Japanese knowledge and wanted to use it for fan translation purposes, so I mentioned in passing for him to take a crack at it if he wanted, no commitment required. Sure enough, he was that excited about it that he translated most of the strings fairly well, not Deuce-quality, but good enough, so I then edited all his work and released the fully English version now available for your downloading pleasure. Having everything translated also motivated me to finish the necessary font hacking that was needed to make it a fully English application despite expressing a desire to just quit given time constraints since I have more important things to do with my time right now.

So that's the quick history in a nutshell. Well, enjoy!

It's what it sounds like, a typing tutor following the events of the Ys games and filled with little in-jokes.

Other Falcom Stuff:

Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure

Gurumin is a cute little action RPG that was released on PC, and later ported to PSP. The PSP version was released in the US by Mastiff, and they're currently trying to get the PC version on Steam through Greenlight.

Store Page Links: PSN|Greenlight

Xanadu Next

Xanadu Next is a dungeon crawler Falcom made back in 2005, which has little connection to the video game series it is named after. It's kinda like a Diablo clone, except not terrible and with some of Falcom's better gameplay tropes included. A translation patch was just finished by these guys here, and if you can't access that it's also available here.

Zwei II

Zwei II (or 2 II in German) is the sequel to a PS2 RPG known as Zwei. It's cute, colorful, and according to Toddy it's the best game Falcom has ever made. Sadly, it was never released outside of Japan. A translation patch has been in the works over here for awhile, although it's been quite for awhile. Rumor has it that they sold the translation to Xseed.

Brandish: The Dark Revenant

Brandish: The Dark Revenant is a PSP remake of the SNES dungeon-crawler Brandish. TDR fixes most of the problems the original game had, and added a mode where you can play as the game's main female antagonist. Xseed has said they plan to release the game in the US at some point.

The Music:
As I mentioned earlier, Falcom has an amazing music team known as Falcom Sound Team JDK. Here are a few tracks to rock out to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhO37PCNAu0
Tower of the Shadow of Death (PC-Engine version)-Ys 1
Valestein Castle-Oath In Felghana
Evildoer-Xanadu Next
The Strongest Foe-Oath in Felghana
Erst-Ark of Napishtim
To Make The End of Battle-Ys II Complete
Tension-Ys I & II Complete
Field-Ys IV Dawn of Ys
Innocent Primeval Breaker-Ys Seven
Break Through Obstacles-Zwei II
Release of the Far West Ocean-Ark of Napishtim
[1st Movement] Feena ~ First Step Towards War ~ Palace-Symphony Ys
To Make The End of Digging-Gurumin

So discuss, recommend, and feel free to tell me if you want anything added or changed to the OP.

Lance Streetman fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Aug 2, 2014

# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 05:05

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:29

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Bonus Stuff

An interview with Falcom's president:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134952/a_30_year_fantasy_the_story_of_.php

Spacedrake explains why Ys failed to secure a western market:

quote:

It wasn't so obscure back in the day, because during the late 80s and early 90s, Falcom made a pretty big push into the Western market. We got a bunch of the YS I&II and III ports (we even got a version of Ys I made pretty much exclusively for us in the IBM-PC MS-DOS port, but it was very bad). They made a few mistakes, however.

1) They didn't open their own subsidiary. Falcom is actually one of Japan's most venerable game development companies; they opened for business in 1981 to sell Apple II hardware and software in Japan, and published their first proper game in 1982. They also arguably invented the JRPG with Dragon Slayer... in 1984, for the NEC PC-8801. Unlike Square or Enix or Konami, though (and fun fact: one of Square's early, pre-Final Fantasy big breaks was producing the MSX port of Dragon Slayer!) they never bothered to establish their own subsidiary overseas... because their first primary platform, the PC-88 and 98, wasn't at all a success in America. So they instead marched through a legion of publication partners for all their games, from Br�derbund to American Sammy to Working Designs to Sierra Entertainment (no, seriously) to NEC themselves. Of course, this was all after an epic falling out with Richard Garriott and Origin Studios... but that's practically a post in and of itself.

Point is, there was never any set guideline for consistency or quality between all these partners since Falcom didn't have anyone on this side of the pond, so the ports and translations, as noted, were literally all over the loving place. A lot of times the Falcom name even got sawed off the games so people didn't realize whose game it actually was.

2) Falcom backed the wrong horse. Falcom's biggest pushes in the 80s and 90s were for NEC's platforms: the PC-88 and PC-98 for PCs, and the PC-Engine, AKA TurboGrafx16, for consoles. In Japan this move made a ton of sense - both platforms were white-hot, the PC-X8 platform was THE IBM-PC equivalent of Japan, and the PC-Engine was in some ways making both the Genny and even the SNES look like chumps due to the CD attachment.

The problem is that neither of these platforms succeeded in the West at all. The PCX8 gained no traction whatsoever against the IBM-PC since it had nothing unique to offer to the American or European markets, and the TG16 came out later than the PC Engine did and so didn't have nearly as much to offer against the Gen and SNES. This required either messy porting of Falcom's titles, or simply releasing games to a semi-dead system, which is what they tried to do with the original Legend of Heroes game.

3) Falcom chose the wrong game to headline their initial push. Falcom, by the early 90s, had a fairly impressive catalogue of games. A lot of Dragon Slayer games, a couple Ys games, several other projects (including the nascent Legend of Heroes franchise). Out of these, Falcom had to choose a game to "headline" their push, to really show off what they could do.

The game they chose to promote above all others was Ys III: Wanderers From Ys.

If jttoddy does an LP of that game after this, you will understand - in painful detail - why this was the worst decision Falcom could have ever made.

So. After Ys III and the original LoH crashed and burned, Falcom basically took their ball and went home, ignoring the Western market entirely for a decade (meaning we missed out on a whole mess of games). Only in 2003 did we finally get a slightly janky version of Ys VI, and then Namco managed to make a complete disaster out of the Gagharv Trilogy of LoH games (III - V). In the interregnum, practically everyone overseas forgot Falcom even existed - they had zero presence outside of Japan between 1992 and 2003. It's only been recently that Falcom's made a new major push into the West in partnership with XSEED, who are treating the games with a good deal more respect.

Unfortunately, the releases so far are for a system that is doing gangbusters in Japan and is all but dead overseas. So we'll have to see what becomes of all this.

kirbysuperstar has tips for those new to Ys 1:

kirbysuperstar posted:

Right-oh.

When you first start off, talk to everyone in town, then go and talk to Slaff. He'll give you a Short Sword. Make sure to Equip it.

On the field, and in towns, you recover health by standing still. This doesn't work in dungeons, but we'll work around that later.

Save early, save often. New enemies will routinely kick your rear end when you encounter them.

When you arrive in Minea you'll have to buy a shield and armour to progress. You start off with almost enough money, so buy the armor, equip it, then go out and grind to level 2. Then go buy the shield and continue.

After reaching Zepik and being told to go to the shrine, grind up on the undead knights outside until your hit level 4. This will take less time than you think. In doing so, you'll get to about 4000 gold. Go back to Minea and buy the second sword and armor.

There's a Silver Shield in the shrine, be sure to get it.

In the abandoned mine is a Heal Ring. This allows you to stand still and heal while in dungeons. If you equip it on the field, you heal twice as fast! Note that this won't work during boss battles, so switch to the Power Ring or Shield Ring for those.

There's also a Silver Armour in the mines.

Once you enter Darm Tower, you can't go back out, so be sure to wrap everything up before you go in.

That should help out those new to Ys I. It is an old game, so it's a little archaic, but still a whole lot of fun.
Also switch to the PC-8801 music for maximum awesome.

Toddy does Ys LPs:
http://lparchive.org/Ys-I-II-Chronicles/
http://lparchive.org/Ys-III-Wanderers-from-Ys/
http://lparchive.org/Ys-The-Oath-in-Felghana/

Oyster does an Ys LP:
http://lparchive.org/Ys-Ancient-Ys-Vanished/

Supergreatfriend shows off Ys Oath and Origin:
Oath in Felghana
Origin

Xseed makes cool trailers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rj_Z1NTHmH4

Lance Streetman fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Jul 26, 2014

# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 05:05

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

kirbysuperstar posted:

It is. Not so much on a 1000 because its screen is a ghosty piece of rear end, but on a 2000 or a Go it's fantastic.

Also I'm going to write up some hints for Ys 1 on BeforeIPlay, but I gotta wait to get contributor access. I can pop them here in the meantime, though, if anybody wants that.

Post it and I'll add it to the OP, along with that bit about Ys 7 on the 2000/Go.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 05:52

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

toddy. posted:

- Ys Typing Tutor (which is available in English if you hate yourself)

I thought you were bullshitting me, but nope.

http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ystt/#8

quote:

The Ys Typing Tutor game (referred to by Falcom as "Typing of Ys") is a normally hidden mini-game included with the full Zwei!! PC game that can be unlocked provided certain conditions are met. It is based mostly around Ys II Complete (not Ys II Eternal), both in sprites and text related material.

Around May 8, 2005, some Ys fans were inquiring about the existence of this mini-game. That gave me the idea of perhaps trying to separate it out of Zwei!! and make it available for everyone since I had known about it after trying to hack Zwei!! itself long before. After about 7 hours of hacking and investigating such a task, I made a working separate copy by creating a launcher, extracting/obtaining all needed support files as well as making a few minor changes to the actual game executable component (DLL). I had given the text files over to Deuce for translation, and the hope was for quick release right after he finished. Well, he didn't, we both moved on to other things and the project sat idle.

Come August 14, 2006, I had a day or two to burn on the PC so I started doing my usual rounds of messageboard visiting among other things. While doing so, I happened to notice that old "Typing of Ys" thread that started this whole thing. A board member named Wrydwad had asked about the project status. Well, before I even responded, that got me thinking... I always lamented that Deuce and I never completed this project. So, I decided right then and there to just at least package the whole game in a nice installer, release it, and then maybe, just maybe, some other Ys fan might be willing to translate it. I knew Wrydwad mentioned he has Japanese knowledge and wanted to use it for fan translation purposes, so I mentioned in passing for him to take a crack at it if he wanted, no commitment required. Sure enough, he was that excited about it that he translated most of the strings fairly well, not Deuce-quality, but good enough, so I then edited all his work and released the fully English version now available for your downloading pleasure. Having everything translated also motivated me to finish the necessary font hacking that was needed to make it a fully English application despite expressing a desire to just quit given time constraints since I have more important things to do with my time right now.

So that's the quick history in a nutshell. Well, enjoy!

It's what it sounds like, a typing tutor following the events of the Ys games and filled with little in-jokes. Do the Japanese have a hard-on for these things?

Ed: Also, Spacedrake wrote up why Ys failed in the west during the 90s in the Ys I&II LP:

quote:

It wasn't so obscure back in the day, because during the late 80s and early 90s, Falcom made a pretty big push into the Western market. We got a bunch of the YS I&II and III ports (we even got a version of Ys I made pretty much exclusively for us in the IBM-PC MS-DOS port, but it was very bad). They made a few mistakes, however.

1) They didn't open their own subsidiary. Falcom is actually one of Japan's most venerable game development companies; they opened for business in 1981 to sell Apple II hardware and software in Japan, and published their first proper game in 1982. They also arguably invented the JRPG with Dragon Slayer... in 1984, for the NEC PC-8801. Unlike Square or Enix or Konami, though (and fun fact: one of Square's early, pre-Final Fantasy big breaks was producing the MSX port of Dragon Slayer!) they never bothered to establish their own subsidiary overseas... because their first primary platform, the PC-88 and 98, wasn't at all a success in America. So they instead marched through a legion of publication partners for all their games, from Br�derbund to American Sammy to Working Designs to Sierra Entertainment (no, seriously) to NEC themselves. Of course, this was all after an epic falling out with Richard Garriott and Origin Studios... but that's practically a post in and of itself.

Point is, there was never any set guideline for consistency or quality between all these partners since Falcom didn't have anyone on this side of the pond, so the ports and translations, as noted, were literally all over the loving place. A lot of times the Falcom name even got sawed off the games so people didn't realize whose game it actually was.

2) Falcom backed the wrong horse. Falcom's biggest pushes in the 80s and 90s were for NEC's platforms: the PC-88 and PC-98 for PCs, and the PC-Engine, AKA TurboGrafx16, for consoles. In Japan this move made a ton of sense - both platforms were white-hot, the PC-X8 platform was THE IBM-PC equivalent of Japan, and the PC-Engine was in some ways making both the Genny and even the SNES look like chumps due to the CD attachment.

The problem is that neither of these platforms succeeded in the West at all. The PCX8 gained no traction whatsoever against the IBM-PC since it had nothing unique to offer to the American or European markets, and the TG16 came out later than the PC Engine did and so didn't have nearly as much to offer against the Gen and SNES. This required either messy porting of Falcom's titles, or simply releasing games to a semi-dead system, which is what they tried to do with the original Legend of Heroes game.

3) Falcom chose the wrong game to headline their initial push. Falcom, by the early 90s, had a fairly impressive catalogue of games. A lot of Dragon Slayer games, a couple Ys games, several other projects (including the nascent Legend of Heroes franchise). Out of these, Falcom had to choose a game to "headline" their push, to really show off what they could do.

The game they chose to promote above all others was Ys III: Wanderers From Ys.

If jttoddy does an LP of that game after this, you will understand - in painful detail - why this was the worst decision Falcom could have ever made.

So. After Ys III and the original LoH crashed and burned, Falcom basically took their ball and went home, ignoring the Western market entirely for a decade (meaning we missed out on a whole mess of games). Only in 2003 did we finally get a slightly janky version of Ys VI, and then Namco managed to make a complete disaster out of the Gagharv Trilogy of LoH games (III - V). In the interregnum, practically everyone overseas forgot Falcom even existed - they had zero presence outside of Japan between 1992 and 2003. It's only been recently that Falcom's made a new major push into the West in partnership with XSEED, who are treating the games with a good deal more respect.

Unfortunately, the releases so far are for a system that is doing gangbusters in Japan and is all but dead overseas. So we'll have to see what becomes of all this.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 21:02

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

kirbysuperstar posted:

Actually while you're here, I did have this happen: http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BDK-on6CIAAiEC3.jpg

It was only for that graphic, but man, Feena must have been really exhausted.

Same thing happened to me.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 21:49

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

VisAbsoluta posted:

Which title is better for a first time player of the series, The Oath in Felghana or Origins?

Origin, all the way.

DarkstarIV posted:

I'd like to mention that Ys: Celceta, The Sea of Trees, is slated to come out this Fall in North America. Dunno if its been mentioned yet, but if not, here you go.

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/01/31/ys-memories-of-celceta-slated-for-fall-release-on-vita/

Neat, I'll add that to the OP.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2013 01:38

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

raditts posted:

Man, Falcom just can't catch a break, can they. Why do they insist on releasing games to only one platform, anyway? I'd love to play some of the later Ys games but I have absolutely no intention of buying a PSP.

I'm gonna take a guess and assume that the popularity of the PSP in Japan + the dwindling interest in PC gaming over there had something to do with it. Though somebody more versed with the Japanese gaming scene could probably correct me on a few points.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2013 08:16

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Almost forgot to post this: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134952/a_30_year_fantasy_the_story_of_.php

It's an interview with Falcom's president about their design philosophy and how they view their fans. In particular, people might find these two bits interesting:

quote:

In Japan it's very common for people to stop playing games as they grow up and take on jobs and families. In America, people continue to play games longer, it seems. How does that affect the way you think about your audience?

TK: Actually, we have a very strong fan base, and Ys is a very long series. It seems that the fans have kept playing the series. Before we started putting our games out on PSP, the average age of the fans, there were a lot of people in their 30s, and then there were even people in their early 40s.

But after we started releasing our games on PSP, we gained more younger fans. And so the fan base for the PSP games are more like in their mid-20s -- we have our old school fans, and then there was an addition of newer, younger fans with the PSP version.

A lot of PSP games in Japan are very otaku-centric, with moe elements, and it seems you avoid adding that kind of stuff.

TK: Falcom has had a philosophy, right from the beginning, that has been carried on to this day. When we create a game design, the gameplay system has to be interesting, and if the gameplay system is not interesting, the designers get in trouble. There are people within the company who would say, "Okay, let's use the character to attract the audience." Those kinds of game designs would get canned. They would get in trouble.

That's one of our strong, strong philosophies that has been helping us avoid going in the direction of those otaku, moe characters. If the gameplay system is fun and interesting, we value that the most. If the gameplay system is fun, then we probably might not mind adding those things as another factor to the game, but we don't want that to be the main pull of the game.

Especially with the Ys series, we concentrate on how good the action feels, so we create a lot of prototypes in our development process. The first thing we do is have the character walk and run. And so we have prototypes of the character walking and running, and we try the prototype, and if you feel good just walking in the game, and running in the game, then you know that's a go sign for you to move forward. But if it doesn't feel good at that point, then we just go back and recreate the prototype. So that's how we create games.

That's the reason we don't have those elements in our games too much. Yeah, the Kiseki series, it's not like we've totally said "we don't do that" with it. The Kiseki series has some of those factors. But for us, those factors are never going to be the main pull of the game. We always concentrate on the gameplay systems. The main thing is the gameplay system, for us.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2013 23:48

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

DelphiAegis posted:

So I pulled down the Origin demo on steam and loved every 33 minutes of it, even dying a few times to the boss of the demo (Big fire guy in a circular fire pit). I realize there's probably *story* in there somewhere, and starting with Origin is good even though the gametype is different from I and II, but will the story keep me hooked through those games, or is the gameplay the main hook?

The story in the Ys games is incredibly cookie-cutter, though they do have two redeeming factors to them:

1)They are internally consistent most of the time. None of that "the main character of the last game went back in time and did this so this happened and now everything has changed despite none of it making sense" crap.
2)They are nowhere near as offensively stupid as most JRPG plotlines.

Ed: But to answer your ~~story~~ question, no. The plot will not keep you hooked through the series, though the gameplay will.

Ed2: Question. Why the gently caress did I say story there.

Lance Streetman fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Feb 19, 2013

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 05:20

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Is everybody in Ys 1 allergic to giving directions or something? "Go find my younger brother" Yeah thanks, fucker. Might help if you pointed me in his general direction or something.

Oh well, at least he gave me the silver sword. :black101:

Now to take on that stupid loving bat.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2013 06:53

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Mindblast posted:

Is the music style of Origin comparable to Oath? The first Darm Tower track feels odd to me since I just finished Oath. It feels a tad lacking somehow. Kinda hoping it is not like that throughout the whole game.

Adding on to what raditts said, The music in Origin increases in quality over the course of the game. This is actually true of most Ys games. So you go from this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVL34JQkW6Q

To this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPW_M48Welk

And eventually to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_YKDCfAa0Y

Speaking of music, I was planning to change the music section of the OP to a "best of" listing of ys songs. I'd appreciate suggestions on what should be in there (please link videos instead of embedding them).

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 03:25

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Nate RFB posted:

You'd probably have to play the PS2 version, but Ys VI isn't too far off the mark from Origin and Oath either.

I believe Xseed has said they plan to bring the PC version of Ys VI to steam at some point. So it's probably better just to wait.

I edited the OP a bit to give each game its own screenshot section, and separated Mask of the Sun and Dawn of Ys into separate games. I'll add the music suggestions in later on.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 04:45

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

I forgot to mention earlier, but normal games spoiler rules apply in this thread. Not that ys has much of a story worth spoiling, but be considerate all the same and spoiler endgame stuff, mkay?

Feel free to spoil Ys I, though. There's barely any plot to spoil in that game.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 06:32

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Dinky Duck Race posted:

The best Ys Origin music is the Tension remix, and it's a shame it only plays on one boss even though it is the best boss in the game.

What up. The Tension remix popping up out of nowhere as that boss appeared was loving sweet.

I'm also fond of the Complete version of that song. Much better than the Chronicles version by far:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wnu34rSpvw

# ¿ Mar 1, 2013 08:29

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

So I've been having this problem in Ys origin where the game always seems to think I'm pressing up on the joystick. This only happens when I'm using the controller for some reason.

This is the controller I'm using, BTW:

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-940-000110-Gamepad-F310/dp/B003VAHYQY

Anybody else get this problem?

# ¿ Mar 3, 2013 08:25

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Saralene posted:

Have you tried adjusting the deadzone in the config? It might be a problem where the controller's stick is always pointing just a tiny bit up, enough to throw off the most sensitive programs like that.

The deadzone thing didn't work, though I managed to fix the problem by putting it in direct input mode. Thanks anyways.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2013 11:52

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

DelphiAegis posted:

You start to get used to Yunica's moving while attacking after a while, honestly. What I loved about Origins is the extra characters that play entirely differently from one another. Doing Hugo after Yunica was just a massive change in how I approached enemies. And then the other. Oh man.

I want to pick up the other ones on steam besides I and II (Oath and Felghana, right?) but I fear my 30+ hours in origin shall ruin my experience of the fighting mechanics.

In the steam version, you only need to beat one of the character's campaigns to unlock the third character, and I think you can beat it on any difficulty.

Speaking of Origin, I beat Yunica's campaign last night and holy gently caress, that final boss was an annoying bastard. He's not even that difficult, he's just really cheap and really boring. Why did Falcom bother making a waiting boss, again?

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 06:36

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Gwyrgyn Blood posted:

You probably missed something because there's no waiting at all in that boss fight. First form you just hit him, second form you hit him with the same color magic as his barrier, third form you just hit his drones.

Maybe I'm just dense, but I'm pretty sure he blocks all your magic until those wings of his come up, and you have a very short window of time to get rid of his shield.

Ed: Well gently caress me, looks like I was wrong. That stupid cock laser in hyperspace thing is still really cheap and annoying, though.

Lance Streetman fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Mar 6, 2013

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 06:56

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Jenocres was such a fun boss. Jazzy music, neat visuals, and he really forced you to mix up your regular boss strategy.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 08:28

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Sir Ilpalazzo posted:

I have been switching between wind and fire for this fight a lot. The fire magic itself seems overall more useful but I really dislike the sword. The wind magic helps for mobility and attacking while moving, so I generally try that, but it's so much weaker than the axe that I only use it when I need to attack and move away from him immediately afterwards.

I wasn't actually talking about the lunge attack (which I can never do consistently either); I just don't like how you move forward when you attack. It's hard enough finding safe spots to attack from when you can't see yourself on the screen without having to worry about your own attacks shooting you into fire.

edit: I got him down to half health for the second time and I have to wonder what the secret to beating him is. After his health gets low enough he permanently turns every pixel of the center of the room into a death zone and camps there forever. Is this fight supposed to only be for Hugo?

Wind magic is actually super useful, as the charged up wind magic creates a ring around you that keeps inflicting damage even if you aren't moving. And you don't need to worry about attacks pushing you forward if you're facing an enemy, as enemies don't do contact damage.

What difficulty are you playing on?

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 09:24

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Double-post, but I just realized I forgot to link this at any point in the thread. So here, enjoy some long-haired Japanese men rocking out to Ys music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhO37PCNAu0

# ¿ Mar 6, 2013 10:10

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Sir Ilpalazzo posted:

I know that wind lets you stay still for a few seconds while inflicting damage but it still has the same problem where you get launched forward during the initial cast. And I know that touching enemies doesn't do damage but you do bounce off of enemies if you ram them with wind and that just gets you launched into the statue attacks in the Jenocres fight.

I really underestimated how much more damage wind does than melee for this fight, but I'm still thinking this is a Hugo boss that fell into the wrong story. I literally can't damage him in the second phase unless he bunches the statues into a square and gets inside them, like he spends 90% of the time inside a field of fire or lasers that never goes away. If he ever does come out, he stays out long enough for one hit, and one hit every three minutes would make this fight take hours.

What difficulty are you playing on, what level are you, and what equipment do you have/what level is your equipment/have you properly tempered your weapons?

# ¿ Mar 7, 2013 02:43

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Sir Ilpalazzo posted:

I'm on hard. I'm pretty confident I have every upgrade so far (my weapon is level 4, my armor and leggings are as recent as they get and are both blessed). I'm at level 25.

That is actually what I'm doing for the first phase and it works pretty well. The problem is that after the first phase I can only get in one or two hits at a time and those don't add up. Once I did nearly kill him because he did the statue square formation and sat inside it until I took him down to around 5% health, but that's not something that's replicable.

Here's a video of the boss on hard, in case it helps. Also story spoilers at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnY1m4-nwbQ

You basically need to get really good at jumping into the fire and then jumping out of it once you've done some damage. Kinda like the Ys 1 version, except nowhere near as hard.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2013 03:05

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Ryuga Death posted:

After beating Ys Origin with the awesome Yunica, this little game has become an instant favorite of mine. This game has such awesome music and this is probably my favorite song. I have Ys Oath (got from a trade), but I want to get Ys I & II as well since Oath seems to be the third game, chronologically. Now I feel like getting the PSP game and even a Vita for the upcoming Ys game. Will any of those be getting a PC release?

General consensus on 7 says no, but Celceta is up in the air. If it does get a PC release it probably won't be for awhile.

And don't feel pressured to play Ys I & II before Oath. Wanderers from Ys barely referenced Ys II (one character showed up in the intro for 5 seconds) and this was written out for Ys Oath. All you need to know is that Adol likes going on adventures and Dogi breaks wall. You might want to play Oath before Celceta, though, as I think the ending to Oath leads directly into Celceta.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2013 08:54

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Sir Ilpalazzo posted:

I'm up to Pictimos now and I just realized that you don't have to pause to switch spells.

I think I found your problem.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2013 08:57

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Sir Ilpalazzo posted:

I don't think it really mattered, I only used wind throughout the whole Jenocres fight anyway, and even in the two boss fights afterwards, I can't find any reason to use any spell besides fire.

I actually did guess that you could cheese Jenocres by sniping him with fire for the whole fight but it did so little damage that I just didn't have the patience to try it for twenty minutes, die, and start over.

Speaking of spells, is it just me or is Yunica's thunder spell not very useful? The game said you can use it to block certain attacks but I've never seen that happen. It seems like there's no reason to ever use it unless the enemy you're fighting is specifically weak to it, and the wind and fire spells have a lot more utility.

Lightning is stupidly useful against flying enemies, as it just first straight upwards. I found it essential for taking out some of the wizards in later levels.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2013 09:08

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Completely forgot to put this in the OP, but back in '08 Oyster did a screenshot LP of Ys 1. So if you ever wanted to see the original version of Ys 1, here you go: http://lparchive.org/Ys-Ancient-Ys-Vanished/

# ¿ Mar 13, 2013 19:21

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Ryuga Death posted:

Just wanted to say, that's a great avatar.

Aw, thanks.

unimportantguy posted:

Man I'll take the Ys II Colin thing over just about anything to do with the TurboCD Ys III. Demonicus indeed.

Dude, I have no idea what you're talking abou

Ed:

Lance Streetman fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Mar 15, 2013

# ¿ Mar 15, 2013 08:01

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

So I just got to the Lava Zone in Oath and I gotta say, I think I actually prefer this game to Origin. The leveling is hosed right up the rear end compared to Origin, sure, but I feel like it's forcing me to make use of my character's abilities far more than Origin did.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2013 19:53

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Yo. If anybody wants to see what other types of games Falcom makes, Cake Attack just started an LP of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3538755

:getin:

# ¿ Mar 16, 2013 20:37

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Ryuga Death posted:

I don't know, from the trailer of Ys I+II, the combat looks fun and simple. Plus, I want to buy it anyway to show that it'd be nice if they released their other Ys games onto PC.

Don't let the negative comments stop you from trying it. It's fun, you just have to go in with the knowledge that's it's a remake of a really, really old game. If you find yourself having trouble with the game, just refer to Toddy's LP of it for help.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2013 22:04

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

toddy. posted:

Ys IV (SNES and PCE) returns to Esteria at points. They even have Darm Tower in it, but it's far less challenging (save for that loving fight against Garuda, he's awesome but seriously gently caress that fight).

With regards to the storyline chronology technically every single Ys game leads on to one another in some away except for Ys III which happens after Ys IV. It's a massive spoiler for Ys VI if I say how the games are tied together and it's completely out of left field, so just take my word on it.

Or play Ys VI, your choice I guess.

I thought that with the release of Ys: Celceta and Ys: Oath, this was reversed? At least, that's the impression I got from the ending of Ys: Oath and the story details released so far for Celceta. Though I haven't seen the ending to IV, so maybe that will clear things up.

Ed: I mean Ys VI.

Lance Streetman fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Mar 24, 2013

# ¿ Mar 24, 2013 08:24

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

sandpiper posted:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/xanadu/xanadu.htm

You're close. This is Xanadu. Xanadu Next, however, is a Diablo-like that strips out the bullshit that plagues the Diablo games and replaces it with good story and a lot more streamlined progression, as far as I can tell. At least from what I know about it.

And yes, it wasn't that easy to get. Quite hard, actually, the copies on Rakuten were either the XP versions which don't run on 7/Vista, or scratched to gently caress, or both. I had to use a proxy service and Yahoo Japan Auctions to get it.

drat, that's some effort. And yeah, this doubles as a general Falcom thread. If people feel like doing write-ups of other Falcom products, I'm happy to put them in the OP.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2013 08:38

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

toddy. posted:

Also I checked their site and the patch is up and has been for a month now! That's was good timing that you brought this up!

Tossed that at the top of the OP. I'll find a better place to put it (and might do a quick section on it) when I have time.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2013 09:36

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

The Mimic posted:

Every. Single. Time. I'm so close to just ordering one now. Especially with stuff like Soul Sacrifice coming out for it, too. I'm just afraid the whole platform is going to go belly up due to the poor sales.

The ultimate problem is that Falcom is catering to their Japanese fanbase - which is fine, they're the homeland - but if Celceta and the vita don't sell well overseas, then I don't know if we can count on Falcom to reach out to their western fans.

Ne: And sandpiper already answered this for me.

Unrelated, but it looks like I'll be busy lately and won't have enough time to do that Xanadu Next section for the op. If anybody feels like taking a stab at it so the link at the top of the OP doesn't look so out of place, I'd really appreciate it.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2013 10:04

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

sandpiper posted:

http://bofgames.com/projects/zwei-2/

Might as well post this here. The eng patch beta was announced near the end of last year, it should be out soon.

Welp. Guess I need to get this, now.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 17:36

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Updated the OP with sections for Xanadu Next and Zwei II. They're fairly bare-bones right now, so as always, give me a holler if you want something changed.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 21:11

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Fergus Mac Roich posted:

If I like Legacy of the Wizard(despite it being so loving hard), do you think I could appreciate Xanadu? Are they anything alike?

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/xanadu/xanadu.htm

Here's an article about Xanadu and it's spin-offs. The next page has more info, as well as a section about Xanadu Next.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2013 23:20

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

I dunno why Elena's even bothering with the whole warrior business. She should just patent that magic growing skirt and make millions off of it.

But seriously, what the hell is with the skirt length in the first picture? It looks like somebody stole her pants and she's desperately trying to turn a jacket into a full tunic.

"This is totally how Chester wore his outfit. No, there's nothing missing."

Ed: loving hell, it is a jacket.

Lance Streetman fucked around with this message at 02:47 on May 23, 2013

# ¿ May 23, 2013 02:45

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:29

Lance Streetman: Feb 20, 2011; A parfait is a dessert, but it is also the French word for perfect.

Yo, all the Steam Ys games are on sale at the moment, though they might go even cheaper if you feel like waiting.

11.99 USD/AUD
7.79 Pounds
9,59 Euros
239 Rubles

8.99 USD/AUD
5.99 Pounds
7,19 Euros
179 Rubles

8.99 USD/AUD
7.19 Pounds
8,39 Euros
179 Rubles

Ed: And since Spacedrake is so active in the thread, I'll give his poo poo a callout. All the Carpe Fulgur games are on sale ATM as well, with Chantelise at 2.49:
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=Carpe%20Fulgur%20LLC

Lance Streetman fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Jul 12, 2013

# ¿ Jul 12, 2013 02:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Everybody Loves TitS - Ys/Falcom Megathread, Now With Trails in the Sky

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