Ys III: Wanderers from Ys

Originally posted on Facebook on 10 February 2023

Ok so I actually did decide to play "Ys III: Wanderers from Ys" (a game from 1991) with a TG16CD emulator.

And now that I've played it I can fully understand why it wasn't chosen for inclusion in the PC-Engine Mini.

And I'm also glad I used an emulator and didn't try to find the rare and expensive game CD-ROM secondhand...

....It's because Ys III is nowhere near the high quality of the previous game!

Ys III is really short, simplistic and not very well designed in my opinion.

With this game, they decided to turn the Ys style of gameplay into a side-scrolling game, but still with the rudimentary RPG elements to it. 

It makes it sort of feel similar to the Monster World (Wonder Boy) games in a way, except nowhere near as good. (and that's saying something because I think Monster World games are pretty mediocre all things considered (...even though I still like them a lot) )

There are only five areas to explore in Ys III, and they are extremely linear and simplistic. Most of the time you're just walking through straightforward corridors, with the same bunch of enemies to deal with over and over. There's no interesting puzzles to solve, no mazes to explore, no hidden treasures to find, no hints or clues from the townsfolk - there's none of that interesting stuff from the previous game here. It's just a series of extremely basic sidescrolling levels with really wonky sword combat, choppy scrolling, and bosses with borderline impossible-to-dodge moves.

The game wasn't awful, but it wasn't all that interesting either. I enjoyed having more stuff to do within the Ys universe, but the actual gameplay has very little going for it. I completed the whole game 100% on the same day I started it. There's just nothing to it! You just do a few levels and it's already over! wow.

I didn't mention this in the previous Ys post, but I'll mention it here since it's so prominent, especially in Ys III... But the English voice acting for the early Ys series is SO laughably poor. 

It really feels like you're listening to the actors just reading lines from their script, as they speak in awkward unnatural ways. I don't mind it so much - actually I rather enjoy retro gaming jank like this. The poor voice acting actually made me want to continue playing all the way through, so I could see how the whole story goes. The story is nothing remarkable btw. Just "stop the evil guy from destroying the world" kind of thing.

...It's weird though - in this game, during voiced scenes, the hero Adol is kept unvoiced. So he responds with textboxes to the other characters who are speaking in full voice. It's certainly a bizarre design choice.

I don't really know why the game turned out so low quality, especially compared to the really good previous Ys game, and the really good capabilities of the TG-16 in general. The TG-16 CD had Castlevania Rondo of Blood for crying out loud, which is a masterpiece of sidescrolling action. It wasn't the TG-16's technical limitations that forced them to create a subpar action game.... 

Ys III was also ported to SNES and Mega Drive, and we all know how amazing those two machines are at sidescrolling action.

Seems like it turned out this way because they awkwardly tried to fit the Ys style into a sidescroller. ...and they just didn't do all that great a job at it. It's like they were not sure what kind of game they wanted to make - a new Ys-style game, or a new action sidescrolling game - and ended up creating something that sort of tries to be both, but doesn't succeed in being either.

...

It seems that in modern times, Nihon Falcom decided to create an entirely different game to "replace" Ys III's spot in the series continuity.

They made a game called "Ys: The Oath in Felghana", released on PSP in 2010, which follows the same basic story as Ys III, but is greatly expanded, and entirely recreated to play like an actual regular Ys-style RPG, completely ditching the attempt to make a sidescroller. Seems like they just wanted to bury the original Ys III concept entirely. ...I may have to play Oath in Felghana at some point soon. I guess nowadays Oath is considered the current "canon" Ys III story.

Since Ys III was such a "nothing" game, I think I'm going to hop straight into Ys IV next. This series is pretty fun to explore! 🙂