Ys I & II Chronicles

Originally posted on Facebook on 8 March 2023

I played "Ys I & II Chronicles" for PSP. Specifically, it was the download version available on the PS Vita store, played on a PSTV. 

This is a remake of Ys I and Ys II that has been released under several different names over the years...

...mmm, is it history lesson time again?

Originally these remake versions were released for Windows PC as "Ys I Eternal" and "Ys II Eternal" in 1997 and 2000 respectively. Both Eternal games were then later compiled into a single Windows PC release, "Ys I & II Complete" in 2001. 

The Complete version would then be ported to PlayStation 2 under the name "Ys I & II Eternal Story" in 2003, with a few extra additions and changes. So far all of these releases have been Japan-only.

A Nintendo DS version was released in 2008. In Japan, it was two separate DS games named "Ys I DS" and "Ys II DS", but they actually decided to bring them over to the USA (not Europe though), and combined them both into one game: "Legacy of Ys: Books I & II". Apparently this DS version has some significant alterations that are not present in any of the other versions... so I may need to try out this Legacy of Ys version later and see for myself.

In 2009, we got a PSP version called "Ys I & II Chronicles", which was released in all regions. This version is based entirely on "Complete", with no regards to any of the additions made to the PS2 or DS versions. This is the version I played!

Later on in 2013, a Steam version called "Ys I & II Chronicles+" was released. I don't know specifically what was added for it to have the "plus" in its name, but as far as I know, it's only minor stuff. Then in 2015 they put this version on iOS and Android, this time again as two separate apps. (but honestly who cares about mobile gaming these days eh)

So this one remake has been named "Eternal", "Complete", "Eternal Story", "Legacy", and "Chronicles" over the years. ... That's so many different names for what is essentially the same game each time!

...

Hmm... you know that the original Ys Book I & II for TurboGrafx-16 is itself a remake of sorts?

Ys I and Ys II were originally released in 1987 and 1988 on a bunch of floppy disks, for six different makes of 8-bit computers in Japan only. (specifically these computers are: PC-8801, PC-9801, FM-7, FM77AV, Sharp X1, MSX2). 

These versions aren't exactly very accessible nowadays though, so most people will just play either the TG-16 Ys Book I & II (which is the nicest version of the oldschool style), or they'll go straight for the new modern Ys I & II Chronicles version.

...So let's talk about the new modern Chronicles version, then, shall we?

So first of all, anything that was unique to the TG-16 version was not carried over here. It feels like they didn't even look at the TG-16 version at all when making decisions about this remake. Everything in this remake was redone from the ground up, using nothing but the 8-bit originals as the source material to work from.

Since the TG-16 version was very faithful to the originals anyway, this doesn't make much of a difference for the most part, however it does affect things in two specific ways:

- Firstly, the two games are completely separate. I didn't know at the time, but the TG-16 version is actually very unique, in that it treats both stories as one double-length game - you begin Book II immediately after finishing Book I, and your stats and level carry over. No other version of Ys I & II behaves this way, and so in Chronicles, they're just completely separate games. On the title menu, you select which of the two game you want to play, and they have completely separate save data from each other. ...which is fair enough I guess.

- Secondly, I never knew how jank the EXP system in Ys 1 normally is! Since the TG-16 version lets you carry over your level from Ys I into Ys II, they had to rebalance the EXP system to make this work properly. But now the games are separate again, the EXP system of Ys 1 has gone back to the way it originally was designed. And it's weeeeird! I'll explain in more detail later on.

...

So how do these games compare? Well, these are definitely more accessible, more modern versions of Ys I and Ys II. They are very faithful to the original games for the most part, however they are also expanded in some interesting ways. 

Of course, lots of names have changed. Character names, place names, terminology names - this kind of inconsistency is very common when remakes of Japanese RPGs get translated into English. They very rarely care to keep anything consistent with previous English versions.

My favourite of the TG-16-specific terminology was that the monsters were referred to as "Goons".... which I thought was really funny. But now in Chronicles they are just "Demons". Sure, that's probably better, but... yeah. no more goons. 😕 

Both games have received a new graphical style. We now have some lovely "modern retro-style RPG"-style pixel art, which overall looks very nice. Though it does kiiinda give me "RPGMaker default assets" vibes, but maybe that's being a bit harsh. It honestly looks fine.

The gameplay uses the classic "bump combat" system from the originals, except now we can move in a full 360 degrees range of directions with the analogue stick. Running into an enemy from a slightly diagonal direction is the best way to fight them in this version. And it's still as fast and satisfying as ever - maybe even more so with all the extra possible angles.

Despite the 360 degree movement, the level design remains very faithful to the original, so the environments are still quite blocky. This means that the smoother movement is sometimes detrimental if you're trying to keep a perfect angle -  but this is fine because there's an option in the pause menu to restrict movement to 8 directions whenever you like. I'm glad they thought to include this! It's fun to have such smooth movement, but against some of the tricky bosses, I did prefer to have more absolute control over direction I was facing.

Both games have added an in-game bestiary to fill out, multiple difficulty modes to play with, and an unlockable boss rush for after you finish the game. Seems like this stuff is becoming standard for Ys games, which is good.

The environmental design has been kept the same for the most part. Dungeon layout design is basically 100% identical to the original, however the towns and the overworld areas have been expanded in significant ways:

In Ys 1, they added an entire town to the game, which is notable because Ys 1 only had two towns previously. Now it has three!

Originally you would just begin the game in Minea town, but now there's an added intro section at the beginning of the story where Adol is shipwrecked and wakes up in Port Barbado, located a little ways south of Minea. There's a new section of overworld connecting Barbado to Minea now, and the main overworld between Minea and Zepik has been greeeaaaatly redesigned and expanded compared to the original game. There's a few more paths, the entrance to the Mine has been turned into an abandoned ruined village to give it some more backstory lore, the two Roda trees have been given much more grandeur, and there's a couple of new hidden passageways where they hid a few extra treasure chests.

This Ys 1 overworld is the most significantly changed location in the game by far.

...Something about the sheer simplicity of the original Ys 1 overworld really appealed to me, however I suppose it would be fair to say that the new version is much more interesting to explore.

By the way... Port Barbado is an interesting addition, because, as far as I am aware, it only previously appeared in Ys IV: Dawn of Ys before now. And I thought that Dawn of Ys was considered completely non-canon by Nihon Falcom at this point? ...hm actually it's possible that Barbado might have been mentioned in the original Japanese instruction booklet or something, so it was probably canon all along. I don't know lol. Just something I noticed.

Ys 2 never had all that much of an overworld, but what's there has also been redesigned too. There's now an apple tree field between Lance Village and the entrance to the ruins, and the various towns - most notably the volcano town - have been greatly expanded.

Okay, let's start getting more specific with the changes in this version. And let's start with Ys 1's weird EXP system.

So Ys 1 is divided up into two halves. The first half is spent running around Esteria, while the second half is spent climbing the very tall Darm Tower.

On the TurboGrafx-16 version, I was level 20 before entering Darm Tower, and at the end, I had reached level 36. I then began the Ys II portion of the game at level 36, and the level cap here is 62, which I finally reached when I was almost at the very end of the game. It feels like the level progression was pretty well-balanced in the TG-16 version.

In the new Chronicles version, (which is supposedly based more on the 8-bit originals) the level cap in Ys 1 is just 10. Just ten! At level 10, you are max level. And you will definitely get more than enough EXP to reach level 10 waaaayyy before entering Darm Tower. And this introduces two problems:

- Problem 1: There's no reward for killing anything within the tower, as you no longer get EXP. For the entire second half of the game, the sense of gradual character growth is just gone, and all the enemies are reduced to nothing but minor obstacles.

- Problem 2: If you're struggling on a boss, there is literally no respite. You can't level up a bit and give it another go - instead you need to just get good or give up.

This wouldn't be such a huge problem if Ys 1 didn't contain a couple of very very VERY annoying bosses. In particular, there's a demon named Vagullion who seems designed specifically to be as obnoxious as possible. He transforms into a cloud of bats that cannot be harmed, and he will only make himself vulnerable for a very brief moment every once in a while. The timing on his vulnerability is very very precise - you have to react to his animation pretty much immediately, and it happens at very irregular intervals, so there's no consistent pattern to it. Most of the time in this fight, you're just running around dodging bats, and they can be a real pain to dodge - the swarm can sometimes expand to fill almost the whole room, and if so much as as single stray bat brushes past you for just a second, you're taking 50+ HP of damage, in a game where 255 is your max health. You have to be constantly vigilant to dodge the erratic bat swarm, and must always be ready to immediately U-turn at a moment's notice when the very brief opportunity to land a hit arrives - and you must keep at it for long enough without taking too many stray hits. Even at level 10 with the best equipment, he takes so long to defeat, and he can drain your health in an instant if he catches you in a bad spot. It...SUCKS. 

I remember this guy from the TG-16 version too, but I was able to level up a couple of times to make it more of a fair fight. But no such luck here in the modern Chronicles version. He's a dang hard fight at Level 10, and that's the highest level you're gonna get.

This would also be a good time to mention that you STILL cannot open your inventory or use a healing potion mid-battle in Ys 1. They must have really liked this aspect of the old-school style of difficulty from the original Ys 1 to leave it unchanged like this...

... but interestingly enough, they actually DO allow you to use healing items in Ys 2???. ...which is a little backwards, because Ys 2 features a perfectly normal EXP system, so overlevelling is always an option in Ys 2 anyway. I was level 53 at the end of my Ys 2 Chronicles playthrough, and still had not reached the level cap. So yeah... They really could have made Ys 1 just a tad less insane and just allowed you to use your potions during bosses - if they were willing to change this for Ys 2, why not for Ys 1??? the game that needed it more???

ughhhh. I honestly feel reluctant to recommend Ys 1 Chronicles to new players just because doing so would mean I'd be subjecting them to the Vagullion boss fight. It's such an unnecessary difficulty spike. I'd feel so bad saying to someone "Hey, try out the Ys series! Give the Chronicles version on Steam a go, it's a remake of the first game!" and I'd then have to live with the knowledge that I've just condemned someone to a cruel fate of utter despair and frustration when they eventually reach Vagullion. ...Would I really be so willing to do this to someone?!?

...anyway.

Other than this, I really liked the Ys 1 remake. It was very faithful to the original in terms of its dungeon design and quest progression, and it was great seeing everything revamped in a nice new modern style. Overall pretty good!

Ys 2's remake contains its own set of weird oddities.

The weirdest new addition is a system where you can now collect fruits and flowers from the overworld, and then give these items to the NPCs as gifts. When you give gifts, the NPC will give you a piece of advice in return, though the dialogue they give is not always helpful. Most of the time it's just funny and inconsequential. If you give enough gifts to the same NPC, you will unlock their "mascot", which means that you can have their sprite dangling on a keyring chain from the top of the screen, like some kind of rear-view mirror toy. ...why you would want this, I have no idea. ...so of course I felt compelled to unlock them all, haha. 😉 I don't really recommend unlocking them all btw because that means a LOT of going back and forth to keep collecting the gift items over and over. You can put on a youtube video in the background to keep you company while doing this I guess.

Other than this, there aren't really all that many changes to Ys II. I felt like Ys II's remake was a lot more faithful than Ys I's one was. Ys II was always a more well-defined game than the first one was anyway, so I'm not too surprised they didn't really need to change it all that much. None of the bosses really stood out to me as stupid or impossible in Ys 2, and overall it's a fun, breezy little RPG adventure! And I really liked the new renditions of the music in this version, especially the track for Ramia Village. I have been listening to Ramia Village's theme on youtube for a while now, it's just so peaceful...

Overall... this game, Ys I & II Chronicles as a whole, is a very good remake version of Ys I & II. I think they did a great job with it. Maybe I would have preferred if Ys 1's EXP system was more similar to the TG-16 version, but other than this, it's all good stuff. I particularly enjoyed how the dungeon layouts were 100% unchanged - I'm always worried that new versions of oldschool games might "dumb down" the trickier aspects. But Ys I & II Chronicles definitely does not dumb anything down. It's classic oldschool game design through and through - just in a nice, modern-yet-still-kinda-retro looking package. 

I liked playing through it. 🙂

What's next then? How am I not sick of Ys by now? I still have this urge to play ALL of them! Wow, what a fun game series! I never expected I'd get SO into them! Especially after Trials of Mana so utterly failed to enamour me. 

I'm interested in seeing some of the other remakes that were released around 2003-2006ish - there's a bunch of Japan-only Ys remakes on PS2 that I want to try - but also I think it might be time I actually progressed my journey through the series... so I might instead decide to go for Ys Origin next. Who knows?