Various different versions of Ys I & II

Originally posted on Facebook on 9 April 2023 

...okay so maybe I'm getting a bit too nerdy with this, but...

Ys I and Ys II are pretty short and quick games, you know? They were originally designed in the 1980s, so of course they couldn't make them very long back then!

You can definitely beat them in just a few hours each, once you know your way around them. And they have been ported to so many different platforms over the years... I was rather curious about all the different versions!

Most of them are similar to each other, but they all have their slight differences. However, there are a couple of versions of Ys I & II that have some pretty major differences, which I find interesting enough to talk about.

So let's talk about the various different versions of Ys I and Ys II.

....As a reminder, I already talked about the TurboGrafx-16 and PSP versions of Ys I & II in previous posts here and here. (in fact, the TG-16 version was the very first Ys game I played)

I'll talk about them in the order I played them in. Let's begin:

- Famicom Ys I

Released in Japan only - I played a fan translated version on emulator.

The Famicom version of Ys 1 is interesting because it modifies the level layouts, and.... most of the changes I don't really understand.

They changed the town layout: they added a river and some wells to Minea, and they also swapped the locations of the fortune teller and clinic... for some reason? And they added a bunch more houses, but if you try to enter the new houses it just says "Nobody is home". Seems a bit pointless, doesn't it? 

The overworld now has more stuff going on - there are now a couple of islands that can only be reached by teleporter statues.

There's also now a rather elaborate quest required to enter the Mines. Normally in Ys 1, the Mine entrance is just open, and you can explore it at any time. But on the Famicom it's unavailable, and it requires you to unlock it with these steps: Find a staff in a well in Minea, find the correct teleporter in the overworld to reach a lake on an island, bring the staff to the lake to obtain a flute, use the flute on a slightly conspicuous arrangement of trees to open a little grotto, get the staff blessed at the grotto, and then take it north to a lake, which will then dry up, allowing you to cross to the Mines entrance... but we're not done yet! Because you'll find that the Mines now have TWO entrances rather than one, one of which is blocked. You go in the unblocked entrance, and all you find is a small maze with nothing in it, except a placard that gives a not-very-clear hint. If you can figure out what the hint means, you go back to Minea town and enter a bunch of doors in the correct order, until it takes you to the ramparts, where finally, a voice from nowhere tells you "I will grant you access to the Mines". ..........

So, um. ...why was all of this necessary lol. Did they really need to add all this? What was wrong with just having the Mines be open from the start like normal?

Anyway... the second half of Ys 1 takes place in Darm Tower as always, however the layout of the tower in the Famicom version has been shrunken by quite a bit.

I suppose they couldn't fit the whole tower map on the small little Famicom cartridge? ...seems like they had to cut some of it out, and then they probably decided to add that elaborate overworld quest in order to make up for the lost content...

Aside from this, the general gist of the game does feel reasonably enough like Ys 1. The rest of the progression was not changed. Some of the dungeon layouts are modified, but they are close enough that they're definitely recognisable. This version of Ys 1 has a unique distinction in being the only version of the game where entering Darm Tower is not a point of no return. You can actually just walk back out of the tower whenever you like. How funny.

Aside from all the layout and progression changes, the game has an irritating problem - the screen doesn't scroll until you're really close to the edge. Early versions of Ys 1 are always like this, but this Famicom version suffers a lot more from it. It makes this version rather annoying to play. Additionally, it's pretty slow-paced compared to the TG-16 version, though I think Ys 1 was always kind of slow originally on PC-88, so this isn't necessarily something wrong with the FC version. Though I did make plenty of use of the emulator's speed-up function while playing because I was getting impatient.

Another problem with the Famicom version is that they didn't include Reah's Silver Harmonica! Reah is absent from Minea Town entirely, and you only meet her later on inside Darm Tower... and there's no mention of her harmonica at all. The harmonica is seen again in Ys II, Ys IV (Dawn), and Ys Origin as an important artifact of the goddesses, so it's kind of a problem to exclude it entirely from a version of Ys 1. ...I guess Ys lore was not so well established back in the day. 

- Famicom Ys II

Released in Japan only - I played a fan translated version on emulator.

After seeing so many changes to the Famicom Ys 1, I was expecting Ys 2 to have similar changes, but surprisingly that was not so! It's actually incredibly faithful to the regular Ys 2, with just a few layout changes here and there, most notably with Moondoria Ruins at the beginning. But once you're past Moondoria, it's pretty much almost exactly the same as how Ys 2 normally is, which is rather impressive. I was expecting there to at least be some more layout changes to Solomon Shrine, the final dungeon, since it's so mazelike... but it actually seems to have been copied over completely intact with almost no changes at all. 

Famicom Ys 2 is much faster-paced than Famicom Ys 1, which is a nice upgrade.

The biggest problem with this version is the required grinding. It has WAYY more required grinding than the other versions do. Every time you reach a new area, you can't damage any of the monsters, so you need to go back and grind on the previous area's monsters until you level up. It's rather annoying, though thankfully I used the emulator speed-up function to help mitigate the tedium.

I definitely wouldn't recommend the Famicom versions over the TG-16 Ys Book I & II by any means - they're worse in every regard. But it was indeed interesting to see how they differed, especially with that weird new overworld quest in Ys 1. 

Overall, they're not bad. Ys II is especially impressive for Famicom standards, actually. If you're JUST looking at action-RPGs specifically made for Famicom, then it's no exaggeration to say that Ys II rivals the likes of Faxanadu and Crystalis in terms of sheer quality. It's an impressive effort. That being said, the Famicom version of Ys II is definitely not the ideal Ys II experience.

- X68000 Ys I

I played on emulator, and there exists no fan translation for this game.

This is a weird little version of Ys 1, with no corresponding Ys 2 to go with it. The most notable thing about this one is how it doesn't use anime-style characters. The portraits used for the shop NPCs have a really bizarre semi-realistic style that I think looks really really bad and off-putting.

Aside from this, the progression design is similar to how Ys 1 is normally, except that you need to beat the Shrine before being allowed in the Mines. The world layout has been completely changed, and there's barely any overworld this time - it has been reduced to nothing more than a tiny field. Minea town, on the other hand, has been expanded a lot. And so this is a version of Ys where Minea town is somehow actually larger than the overworld field in terms of map size. And that is ridiculous. 

There are now a lot more houses, a nice fountain square, and lots more NPCs wandering around - it's all very nice-looking, however there isn't actually anything new to do in town. It's all just visual fluff. In fact, they even removed some things from this version - The clinic is gone, and you can't sell any items to Pim any more, nor return the Sapphire Ring to the guy in the pub. So in expanding the size of the town, they actually removed a few things and added nothing new to replace them. The only sidequest left remaining is returning the Harmonica to Reah. I wonder why they didn't include the other things? It's not like there isn't room for them to still be here.

The dungeon layout for the Mines has been redesigned entirely, however Darm Tower is extremely faithful to the original - it is basically 100% intact. This leads me to speculate that maybe Darm Tower was created first for this version, and then they ran out of disk space, so they had to remove most of the overworld to make it fit. 

...Hey, you know that these games came on floppy disks, right? The original PC-88 version of Ys 1 came on two disks, one for the main overworld and one for Darm Tower. (that's why Darm Tower is a point of no return - it was originally the point where you swap over to Disk 2!) ...so with this in mind, why didn't they do the same thing with the X68000 version? This version is just one disk, which has the full Darm Tower on it, but a severely reduced overworld. Hmm...

One thing about this version that surprised me is just how nice the boss fights are. Most old versions of Ys 1 have pretty janky fights, but the X68000 versions of the bosses all felt really fair and were quite fun. I was rather surprised by that. Additionally, this is a version of Ys 1 where I felt the Timer Ring, which slows enemy movements when worn, is actually very useful. Some of the areas in Darm Tower are full of lots of fast-moving enemies, much moreso than I've seen in other versions previously. I think that's cool.

Overall, this one is certainly an oddity, though it is actually pretty fun to play. Playability-wise, one of the best versions of Ys 1. But contentwise, it is very much lacking. Oh well.

- MS-DOS Ys I

I played on DOSBox. This version exists only in English - not even in Japanese, I don't think...

A very simple but fun version of Ys 1, which again, has no corresponding Ys 2 to go with it. Everything is fully intact - there are no compromises in content here. The gameplay works well enough, and it's a very speedy version of Ys 1 too, especially compared to some of the slower 8-bit console versions. However... the presentation in this version is horrible. The graphics are very ugly, and the music is literally just single-channel beeps pretending to be a soundtrack. I think if I wasn't playing on modern hardware with DOSBox, the beeps would be literally coming from the motherboard's internal speaker, and not from any sort of sound device. ...Remember when some older DOS games actually did that??? Weird times... This version is only good if you turn the sound off completely and play in silence.

This might be one of the easiest versions of Ys 1. The bosses are all pitifully easy, and none of the enemies can significantly slow your momentum. You still need to grind, of course, but it doesn't take very long to do so.

One interesting note about this version is how all the names have been changed. Adol is now "Arick", and every single other character now has a completely new made-up name. ...except for Sara the fortune-teller. She got to keep her name for some reason. ...But yeah, it's always annoying when they do this. Even the amazing TG-16 version of Ys Book I & II changed a few of the character names for no real reason. It's so annoying! It always leads to continuity problems when future games come out... For example: in Ys 6 for PlayStation 2. Adol's former-thief friend Dogi and the old-man scholar Raba have a scene where they reminisce about their time spent trapped in Darm Tower back in Ys 1 - except, in the TG-16 version, their names were Colin and Rasta, and here in the MS-DOS version, their names are Ogien and Aldon. ...ugh, changing character names willy-nilly like this just screws everything up for the future.

And Dogi ended up becoming a major character in basically every single Ys game going forward, so it's really unfortunate that his first appearance in the series gives him the wrong name in the initial English versions. ...At least the modern "Ys I & II Chronicles" version uses their proper names.

- Sega Master System Ys I

For this one, I played the game on real hardware with an actual Sega Master System cartridge - the PAL version.

I was interested in playing this because the Sega version of Ys 1 was the only Ys game to be released in Europe AT ALL. This Sega version was the only thing Europe saw of the Ys series, until 16 years later when Ys 6 came out on PlayStation 2. So I wanted to see what it was like, you know? This is also why I was keen on using the actual physical game cartridge instead of emulating it.

Interestingly, this release gets the game's title wrong. It's called "Y's", with an apostrophe, which is just.....not correct lol. You're not supposed to put an apostrophe there. This is only wrong on the packaging and cartridge label, however - in-game, the title screen is correct and any mention of Ys in the dialogue is correct. Hmm...

And they also changed Adol's name yet again, this time it's "Aron". However, unlike the MS-DOS version, all of the other characters got to keep their names... though some of them have alternate spellings (Luta Gemma is now "Luther Jemma", Raba is "Rauba", etc. A lot of these are actually closer to the way Japan typically romanises the names though, so they're not necessarily wrong.)... Dogi amazingly enough is correctly named Dogi in this version, which makes it the only English-localised old-school version of Ys 1 to get his name right. The weirdest name change is with Darm Tower, which is now called The DOOMED Tower... and with Dark Fact, the final boss, who is now named Dulk Dekt. Other than this... they didn't mess with the names too badly.

So, anyway, how was it then? ...well, this is probably the least-fun version of Ys 1 I have played so far. The reason being is that it's just... so... SLOW. It's absolutely maddeningly slow. 

The MS-DOS version took me two or three hours to blaze through, since it was such a speedy little version... but this Sega version took me around 7 or 8 hours. Ugggghhh. 

It probably didn't help that I was playing a 50hz PAL version of course, but even so, it's much slower than any other version of Ys 1 I tried, by a significant margin. 

There is no missing content in this version, however for some reason the dungeon layouts have all been fiddled with. They're not totally redesigned, but for some reason, they decided to flip some (but not all) of the rooms like a mirror image, and they occasionally redirect paths so that they lead in different directions than normal. I don't understand this at all - at least the layout changes on Famicom made sense to me, as they might have been running out of space in the ROM - but here on Sega, the dungeons aren't any smaller, they're just reconfigured a little bit. It is baffling.

The grinding is pretty bad in this version. There are so few enemies here... in areas where you'd normally find five or so enemies in other versions, the Sega version has... maybe two? And they take forever to respawn too. ughh. Grinding takes forever, walking takes forever...It's so annoying to do anything in this version. Also it feels like the bump combat system has been implemented rather poorly, as I can take damage even when I feel like I am properly positioned. It just feels sloppy.

Overall... bleh. This version is fine if you have a LOT of patience, or if you play on emulator and use speed-up (which I didn't lol). Otherwise.... there's just no benefit to playing this one. (but I am glad I got to see it through anyway, make no mistake 😃 😃 😃 ).

- Sega Saturn Ys I

This is a Saturn CD-ROM titled "Falcom Classics", which includes Saturn remakes of three Falcom games: Ys 1, Xanadu, and Dragon Slayer.

This Saturn game was only released in Japan, of course. ...hey, you know, I DO just so happen to have a Japanese Sega Saturn, right? so... yeah, I played this one on real hardware too. 🙂

This Saturn version of Ys was the very last of the "Classic style" versions of Ys I & II. All versions of I & II released after the Saturn version are based on the new and modern "Eternal/Complete/Chronicles" version, with the expanded overworld and added content etc.

The Saturn version is a very faithful version of Ys 1. You'd expect as much on the Saturn, as there shouldn't really be any technical limitations to speak of for such a simple 2D game. It has more detailed graphics, and also includes 8-way movement and a "run" button - but aside from these additions, it is pretty much a direct, basic, faithful version of Ys 1. Nothing added, nothing removed, nothing changed. (well, actually, I noticed a single change - the Treasure Chest Key is no longer found in a chest, but rather given to you by Feena once you rescue her. Not sure why this was changed when nothing else was...? anyway) This version plays quite well with the smoother movement - I quite enjoyed it, especially since I played it immediately after the horribly slow SMS version.

I thought it was quite good! The one problem this version has is that the boss fights cause the entire screen to rapidly flash white whenever you deal a hit of damage, which is really painful to look at. I actually had a big headache after finishing this version... 🙁

This is another very speedy version of Ys 1. Beat it in around 2 or 3 hours or so. Not bad!

I suppose I could say that this version of Ys 1 is very unremarkable. It doesn't have any interesting additions, nor any bizarre quirks. It's just a played-straight version of the game, and it's been done quite well.

...I've actually been rather curious about the Dragon Slayer and Xanadu series by the way. I don't know if this obscure Saturn collection is the appropriate starting point however - I would like something in English to begin with, if at all possible.... but that's for another day. For now my focus is on Ys.

- Sega Saturn Ys II

This is a Saturn CD-ROM titled "Falcom Classics II", which includes two more Saturn remakes of old Falcom games: Ys II, and "Taiyou no Shinden: Asteka II", which is also known as "Tombs & Treasure" in English.

And again, this Saturn game was only released in Japan, and I played the original CD on my Saturn. 😃

...I would like to play Tombs & Treasure on NES one of these days... I'm not too interested in the Saturn version for the moment, since the NES one is actually in English. So yeah, of course my focus here is on Ys II for the moment.

Again, this is a very straightforward faithful rendition of Ys II, with no additions and no changes. The same control improvements from Saturn Ys 1 are present here too, and they make for a very speedy version of Ys II. Completed it in around 4 hours, which is pretty fast for Ys II!

Interestingly, they actually included VO this time, whereas Saturn Ys 1 did not have any voices at all. What's funny is that in the title menu, there's an option to see some of the scenes from Ys 1 with added voices. I wonder if fans were complaining that Ys 1 on Saturn was not voiced, so they decided to include some newly-voiced Ys 1 scenes as an apology or something. Very peculiar.

The bump combat was implemented much better here than in the Saturn Ys I. In Saturn Ys I, it's too easy to run right through the enemies, as it seems like the bump system was not updated properly to accommodate the faster movement and new diagonal movement. That has all been fixed in Saturn Ys II, which makes it feel a lot nicer.

Overall, the two Saturn versions of Ys I and Ys II are some of the better ones for sure. There's still a lot of mandatory grinding, unfortunately, but other than this, there are no major gameplay issues or compromises. They are just fun versions. My only complaint is the horrible screen flashing effects during bosses. ...And also that they are in Japanese only.

- PlayStation 2 Ys I & II Eternal Story

This release was exclusive to Japan. I played it on the original PS2 disc.

At first I thought this was going to be exactly the same as the PSP version I talked about in a previous post, since they are both based on the same "Ys I & II Complete" remake that was initially for Windows PC, however Ys I & II Eternal Story for PS2 does have some notable differences compared to the PSP version.

From the title menu, you can select three options: There's "Ys I" and "Ys II" separately (like normal), but there's also a new and exclusive "Ys I & II Eternal Story" option, which at first appears to be a combined version. I thought it might be something similar to the TG-16 version, maybe? Well, as it turns out... not really. It doesn't really combine the two games into one... rather, all it does is add a bunch of strange changes to the games.

So if you want to play the standard, unmodified remake versions of Ys I and Ys II , the option is there. And if you play them separately, then yes - it's pretty much exactly the same as the PSP and Steam versions, like I was expecting. When playing in the standard mode, the biggest difference is that the loading times are way worse on PS2 than they are on PSP - they're especially bad in Ys II specifically for some reason. It makes the PS2 version a chore to play in general. ...Because of this, the PSP / Steam version is absolutely the better way to play. (and also the PSP and Steam versions are available in English too - that's pretty important!)

However, let me go into detail about that weird new "Eternal Story" mode that is exclusive to the PlayStation 2 version.

When playing the game in "Eternal Story" mode, it starts off in Ys 1, and then when you beat it, it goes on to Ys 2. Unlike on the TG-16 version, however, your EXP does not carry over - which means the two adventures are fully separate. ...I don't know why they decided to combine them in this mode when it doesn't actually behave as a combined adventure in practice, but whatever.

More importantly, when playing in the Eternal Story mode, a bunch of changes are applied:

- In Ys 1, the level cap is raised from 10 to 50. This makes it so that you can grossly overpower the bosses if you feel like it, but it also significantly screws with the balance of the game. (Though, to be honest, I'm just glad I didn't have to struggle with the Vagullion fight again for this playthrough...) 

In Ys II, the level cap is raised from 55 to.... I don't know. I was at 71 when I finished, and it seemed like I could go higher. Most likely it was raised to 99.

In order to accommodate the higher level caps, all of the monsters in the whole game were rebalanced. And to be quite honest, it doesn't feel like they were rebalanced very well. In Ys 1, you will start to overpower everything very quickly, and in Ys 2, you tend to feel underpowered throughout the whole game. ... It felt much worse than my PSP playthrough did.

- A bunch of "effects" can now randomly happen when you attack enemies, depending on which kind of sword you use: "Stun", to make enemies stop moving, "Critical Hit" to deal a lot more damage, "Killed" to randomly instakill an enemy, "Counter" to deal damage back if you trade blows. Since it happens randomly, there's no real strategy to making use of these other than just getting lucky. It just makes the game easier at no cost.

- There's a new "combo" counter which keeps track of how many hits you have dealt to enemies in a row, which resets to 0 whenever you take damage. I think having a higher Combo number is supposed to make your accessories more effective or something?? I didn't quite understand it, and I didn't really notice any benefits at all.

- You get a new item, the "Dreamy Jewel" which can transport you to a screen where you meet up with two new characters: Misha the artist and Jeanne the singer. If you keep clicking the "talk to Jeanne" button, then Jeanne will add more songs to her song list, depending on your current story progress - basically she acts as the Sound Test function. As for Misha, she will paint you ten paintings if you bring her ten specific items that have been hidden in the world. There's a seashell, a ribbon, a pair of golden earrings... you get the idea. These items only exist in the PS2 version, and they only exist for this purpose. 

- The voiceovers are exclusive to Eternal Story mode... for some reason??? If you play in the standard mode, all dialogue is unvoiced. .... It's pretty ridiculous to limit it this way, it has to be said.

- Other miscellaneous small changes are also applied. For example: In Eternal Story mode, it's possible to get the Short Sword from Slaff for free if you talk to him and listen to all his dialogue options. Whereas you normally have to pay 500 gold for it in Minea's shop. ... There may be other small changes like this that I didn't notice.

And... that's it. They added ten hidden items to the world, added random critical hits, and significantly screwed with the game balance. And also the loading times are way way worse. That's what you get for playing on the PlayStation 2 version.

Personally, I would stick with the PSP / Steam version, "Ys I & II Chronicles". The new additions exclusive to Eternal Story are just not all that worthwhile. This version is only good for if you are really struggling to beat that damned Vagullion fight on PSP or Steam, and want a version where you can overlevel lol.

Additionally, the game crashed once for me. Not sure how rare that is, but it's worth noting.

Also annoyingly - there are three different modes and four different difficulty settings, yet the game only lets you save three save files. It's just not enough. I know you can just swap memory cards if you really wanted to, but it's not ideal.

Overall... yeah. Not a fun version of Ys I & II, mostly due to the screwed balance and baaaad baaaad loading.

- Nintendo DS Legacy of Ys: Books I & II

This was originally released as two separate Nintendo DS games in Japan, however the USA version combined both into one DS cart with a selection menu on the title screen.

They did not release this game in Europe, so I had to go get myself the USA version from eBay. Of course, I played on a proper DS - I don't like emulating DS games in general since the dual-screen and touchscreen stuff just works best on the actual device, you know?

This DS version is rather unique - it's primarily based on the Eternal/Complete/Chronicles remake version of Ys, however it is not a direct port at all. The graphics have been overhauled, and the combat system has been adjusted too.

The graphical style uses a mixture of 3D polygon environments with 2D character sprites, and... well, I'm actually a big fan of it! 😃 😃 It feels so very "DS" to me in a way that makes me nostalgic for the days of playing Pokémon Gen 5 and other DS games with this kind of style. I like what they've done here, though I'm sure there are fans who prefer the fully 2D style of the PSP and Steam versions.

That being said, there are a lot more loading triggers now, especially in Ys II. Lance village is awkwardly split in half with a loading trigger down the middle... Thankfully the loading times are very short, but the extra fadeouts make some of the traversal feel a little bit unusual - this is most notable in the Noltia Ice Ridge, where it has a loading fadeout on almost every staircase.

They added a mini-map to the bottom screen, which is a standard feature in many DS adventure games, but it actually marks the very first time an Ys game has ever had a mini-map. It's sooo useful in navigating the mazelike dungeon areas, especially since the view on the main screen can feel a little cramped.

The dungeon layouts were not altered at all, however the navigation is so much easier in this version, just because you can see so much of the surrounding dungeon layout on your touchscreen at all times.

Combat has been completely changed...and to be honest, not in a good way.

Okay so... the bump combat system is in this game, for about five minutes of gameplay. Once you reach Minea and buy a sword, suddenly the bump combat is gone completely. 

Once you equip a weapon, you need to press the Y button to swing the sword, and it's a very short-range swing. You sort of have to approach enemies while swinging the sword in order to hit them - sort of like a combination of bumping and regular swordplay, but you have to time it properly in order to make it work, and it's rather fiddly and awkward. ...I find it funny that the obscure Korean "Ys II Special" has a waaayyy better implementation of Ys sword combat than this much more well-known DS game lol.

If you hit enemies in quick succession, the word "combo" appears on screen, and according to the instruction booklet, this will increase EXP gain from the enemy, though I'm not sure I noticed the difference.

This new method of combat feels really sloppy. You can just button-mash to victory, but if you try to be a bit more efficient, then you can just end up taking damage seemingly out of nowhere. And sometimes enemy attacks can hit you even when you are trying to be careful. It's kind of not so great...

If you go into the options menu, you can switch the control scheme to "Stylus Mode", where now the buttons don't do anything, and instead you control Adol with the touchscreen, in a manner very reminiscent of the two Zelda games on DS. While playing like this, then bump combat works - you just ram into the foes. I generally prefer the D-pad controls though, since they have more precision - so I have no choice but to get used to the weird new combat.

...You know, I don't understand why you need to change a setting in the options menu to swap control schemes? When using touch controls, the buttons do nothing, and when using the buttons, the touchscreen does nothing.... so wouldn't it be much simpler to have both styles active at the same time then? So we could easily just start touching when we wanted to, rather than having to specifically change a setting? ...

Anyway, the poorly-redone sword combat actually wasn't a huge problem in the end, for two reasons:

Reason 1: They made Ys 1 WAY too easy in general. And Reason 2: In Ys II, they made the fireball spell VERY strong, so you don't really need to use the sword at all.

This is the easiest version of Ys 1 I have ever seen. Ys 2 in this version actually has a decent difficulty comparable to other versions, but Ys 1 is an absolute joke. 

In Ys 1, the basic enemies never feel like they pose much of a threat. They adjusted the levelling system a little, and so the level cap has been raised from 10 to 24...but you gain EXP so quickly that, even with the increased level cap, you still will reach max level before entering Darm Tower. The early game bosses can be a little tricky, but the fast EXP gain means it won't be long until you can easily overpower them. But all of the Darm Tower bosses are absolute jokes. There is zero challenge to be had with them.

Additionally, they adjusted the game to fully ensure that players will never get themselves in sticky situations - you can no longer enter the Mines before completing the Shrine (when you try, it just says "There is no reason to go here"), and in Darm Tower, some of the empty treasure chests (that normally serve as decoys) have actually been filled with spare weapons and armour, just in case you didn't buy them before the point of no return. 

They also added a brand new location to the game! After clearing the Shrine and before entering the Mines, you have to traverse a new area called the "Vageux-Vardette". This is a small maze area where you have to hit switches to open gates. It's actually pretty fun to explore a never-before-seen area in Ys 1, but this place has some treasure chests that give you a very powerful weapon and set of armour for free - which completely breaks the point of having to save up money to buy the stronger items in Minea. 

...the back of the box claims this version of Ys has "new equipment", and... that's literally only true because of these added items in the Vageux-Vardette, and they really don't amount to much other than further breaking the game balance.

In Ys 2, while the difficulty for the bosses remains fairly intact, the fire magic is absurdly powerful compared to your sword. Normally in Ys 2, your fireball has a comparable power level to your sword - with the benefit being its long-range, and the drawback being the MP cost. But here on the DS, the fireball is so so so much stronger than the sword, there's basically never a reason to use the sword for anything, except for the odd enemies immune to fire.

...

I have a theory about this DS release. I think that they were trying to turn Ys into a "casual-friendly" game for the Nintendo DS market. The DS was very popular with a more casual audience, in a world before smartphone games really took off. Game developers wanted to appeal to this new kind of audience, so they had to make the games simpler and easier and more hand-holdy to achieve this... This is why we ended up with the two DS Legend of Zelda games that were much more straightforward (and much more boring) than any previous Zelda.

I wonder about this, though, because Ys 2 DS actually retains some of its difficulty. I wonder if they felt like they went a bit overboard with Ys 1, and toned down the "casualification" a bit for Ys 2? It makes sense when you realise that the games were separate releases in Japan. 

The DS version doesn't include all of the content from the other modern remake versions of Ys I & II. It does not include the bestiary, character logbook or adventure journal.

It does include a boss rush mode, though, so at least there's that. Strangely, there's also a brand new "Multiplayer" mode??? Unfortunately, I couldn't take a look at it because it requires multiple Legacy of Ys cartridges, and just getting one was kind of expensive. But it seems to just be a simple competitive minigame of "kill the most monsters to win". Again, this very much reminds me of the Zelda DS games which also had a rather tacked-on competitive mode. ...Was this also something seen as appealing to casual players?

There are many things that make this version feel like a rather sloppy job:

First of all, there's a lot of slowdown during most of the Ys 2 boss fights. Whenever there are a lot of bullets or objects on screen at the same time, the game slows to a crawl, which is kind of annoying.

Various animations are messed-up or missing - most notably when you obtain an item in Ys 1, its picture is supposed to appear on screen, but it kind of appears just for a second in a way that doesn't feel right. Teleporters in the dungeons have no visual or sound effects at all, and some animations such as Adol drinking the holy water in Ys 2 are just not included. Additionally, the screen doesn't scroll correctly in certain scenes - most notably with Maria in the belltower: you can talk to her, but you can't see her because she's just a little too far off screen. It kind of makes this frantic part of the story lose a lot of its impact.

The item that gives you access to the bestiary was removed in Ys 2, however there is still NPC dialogue that hints to its location, which is just bad and confusing... And toward the end of Ys 2 when the land of Ys is supposed to have descended from the sky and landed on earth - if you go to the beginning cliff, the background graphics still show us being high in the sky... which completely breaks the story the game is trying to tell. They couldn't just swap out the background graphic here like the PSP version does? Or did they just forget to?

Overall, it's a pretty decent, fun version of Ys I and II. Despite the drastically lowered difficulty, I thought the game was still pretty fun. It's a very fast-paced version of Ys, and it's still just fun to run around the dungeons collecting everything, especially with the mini-map making navigation a breeze.

I actually enjoyed this version a lot! ...Though I wouldn't consider it to be a definitive version by any means. There's no denying it's a very flawed version compared to the others. Regardless - if I had this game when I was younger playing my DS all the time, I am certain I would have absolutely loved it.

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Okay, so. If I were to rank all of the versions of them... hmm..

- 1st Place: TurboGrafx-16 CD Ys Book I & II

I like how they combined both games into one large game, which has the effect of rebalancing the entire EXP system. This fixes some of the problems with grinding that plague all other versions of Ys I and Ys II. There are no compromises in content, and it maintains the appealing retro feel of the older versions while still playing well. (well, okay, the retro style is more appealing to MY tastes anyhow) Additionally, it has the best version of the soundtrack for sure!

- 2nd Place: PSP Ys I & II Chronicles

This is the main remake version of Ys I & II, along with the Steam "Chronicles+" version which I believe is basically the same thing (though I have not personally tried the Steam version). It expands the game and makes everything modern, without losing the essence of the original. It's a very nice remake, however I have more personal attachment to the TG-16 version. To me, the biggest problem with this version is the ridiculous difficulty spike at the Vagullion boss. I know I keep complaining about it, but I seriously have an issue with the way this boss has been designed in this version, and it seriously impacts my enjoyment and my ability to recommend this version.

- 3rd Place: Saturn Ys I and Saturn Ys II

These are the probably the nicest versions of the original "pre-remake" Ys 1 and Ys 2. They have all the content and none of the compromises, and they control really smoothly as well. I rank them below the TG-16 version, however, because the TG-16 put so much extra effort into the presentation, whereas the Saturn versions very much play things safe and may feel a bit more "boring" in comparison. Also the harsh screen flashing effects during bosses are very unfortunate. ...and they are also only available in Japanese.

- 4th Place: Nintendo DS Legacy of Ys: Books I & II

This is primarily based on the Eternal/Chronicles remake version, but has its own unique graphical style. I think this is a very fun and fast-paced version of Ys I & II, however the drastically lowered difficulty, altered sword combat, and other changes make for a flawed version that is not on par with any of the other releases of the remake. Still a fun game. 🙂

- 5th Place: X68000 Ys 1

Definitely not the ideal way to play Ys 1 since it is missing so much content in the overworld, but anyone who is already a fan of Ys 1 should definitely give this version a try at some point, just because the boss fights are so uniquely fun in this version. This version would rank higher if there was also a corresponding Ys II to go with it, or if the overworld was fully intact. It really does play very nicely. It's only available in Japanese, but that's okay since realistically, at this point, this version is only going to be played by someone who's already a fan and already knows the game anyway.

- 6th Place: PlayStation 2 Ys I & II Eternal Story

This version is basically the exact same as the PSP edition, except the loading times are way worse, making it less fun to play. It also has a new way to play, the "Eternal Story" mode, that is mostly the same but with a bunch of weird changes that screw with the game balance. Generally made redundant by the PSP / Steam version, unless the weird changes are particularly appealing. Only available in Japanese, which hurts it too.

The reason this is so low down the rankings compared to the PSP version, despite being almost exactly the same, is because the long loading times really affect the enjoyability of this version.

-7th Place: Famicom Ys I and Famicom Ys II

The only remarkable thing about the Famicom versions is the bizarre new overworld content in Ys 1. Otherwise, the Famicom versions are just generally worse than most other versions. The grinding is very pronounced, and Ys 1 in particular feels very lacking in its presentation. That being said, Ys II is a pretty impressive game for Famicom standards.

-8th Place: MS-DOS Ys 1

This isn't too bad a version in terms of playability, but the abysmal music makes it impossible to recommend. There is no reason to opt for this version. Though to be fair, it ain't a bad port at all despite its appearance.

- 9th Place: Sega Master System Ys 1

This version sucks compared to the others. It's just so slow. If this is the only version of Ys 1 you know, then yes, it's a pretty fun adventure game for Sega. I'm sure it had its fans back in the day, especially for being the only Ys release Europe got. But it has to be said... basically any other version is superior.

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Honorable mention:

Ys 1 and 2 were originally released on five different computer systems in Japan. PC-8801, PC-9801, FM7, X1, MSX. I really wanted to try one of these versions.

So I downloaded the MSX rom and ran it in an MSX emulator, and this is what you get:

You get a game with relatively slow movement and extremely choppy scrolling. The MSX wasn't known for its scrolling, it has to be said.

You also get an EXTREMELY AWKWARD saving system: Whenever you press the F4 key to save, everything immediately stops, and it prompts you to swap the game disk with the user disk, which is a blank floppy disk for your save game to go on. After it's finished saving, then you need to swap the user disk back with the game disk.

This wouldn't be so annoying if it wasn't for the fact that you have to do this every single time you die as well.

I think the MSX system did have two floppy drives, but Ys specifically asks to use only Drive A for both disks, forcing you to keep swapping. I wonder why it can't use Drive B??? There must be a technical reason, right?

On emulator, "swapping disks" means browsing for the game's .dsk files on your computer's dekstop folders, and loading them into the emulator every time the game asks to swap...

Thankfully if you're on emulator, you can also just use savestates to mitigate the awkwardness.

I don't really want to rank the MSX version to be honest. ...it feels a bit unfair to call it a "bad version" when it was in fact one of the original five versions of Ys in the first place.  All I have to say is.... the slow SMS version being the way it is makes a lot of sense if this was its source material. (aside from the restructured dungeons - I still don't get that)

I did not play the MSX version to the end. I only wanted a peek. Overall.. definitely an amazing game for 1980s standards, absolutely. But all future versions have greatly improved upon the playability, making the original five releases the most non-ideal way to play.

Okay.... so now that I have played through Ys 1 and 2 like ten times... is it FINALLY time to move on? I say so. 😃 So next time I will actually be making progress with my journey through this saga, and I will be playing Ys Seven next. 🙂