Ys Origin

Originally posted on Facebook on 20 March 2023

Ys Origin.

This game was initially released for Windows PC in 2006 in Japan only. It was first released worldwide on Steam in 2012, and then later on Vita and PS4 in 2018ish.

I played the most recent release, the 2020 Nintendo Switch version. 

This game is rather unique compared to the rest of the Ys series in a few ways:

Firstly, it's actually a prequel story! It takes place 700 years in the past from the main timeline, and depicts the events that would eventually lead into Ys I & II's story.

Due to this, our beloved red-headed hero Adol Christin is not the protagonist here. For the first time, we have some new playable characters in an Ys game. Oh my!

Additionally, this game takes place entirely within one location: Darm Tower, the huge evil tower that was first seen in Ys 1. There's no overworld, no towns, no dungeons - none of that. Just 25 floors of the tower to traverse through, and that's the whole explorable game world right there.

Despite the entirely new premise and characters, the basic general gameplay is very similar to how it was in the previous game Ys: The Oath in Felghana. Enemies drop little stat-buff potions and healing herbs, and you still cannot carry healing items with you at all. You get access to three different magic spells, and enemies also drop gems (called "Spirit Power") that can be used to upgrade your gear. On a moment-to-moment level, the gameplay feels like it's been plucked straight from Oath in Felghana with very few changes.

The game doesn't have any voiceovers this time, except for the opening narration - which is spoken in French. 

I didn't know this before, but the concept of an ancient lost city called Ys actually comes from French mythology... How interesting. I suppose that's why they wanted the opening narration to have a French flavour to it, although the Ys series is very much set in its own fantasy world.

When you begin a new game, you have to select your character and choose your difficulty.

The difficulty options are: Easy, Normal, Hard. The two characters are: Yunica Tovah the knight, and Hugo Fact the mage.

Yunica is a young knight-in-training who is earnest and loyal, but still unsure of herself. Her story involves her coming to terms with her own weaknesses, and triumphing by instead focusing on her strengths.

Hugo is a bad-tempered lone-wolf mage who discovers that his long-lost brother is on the enemy side, and his story involves him fighting back against his own feelings of resentment and hatred.

When playing as Yunica, the combat feels almost exactly the same as the combat from The Oath in Felghana. She has a basic string of combos, a rising jumping attack, a downwards-slamming attack, and she obtains three spells very similar to the spells in Felghana, though they are not exactly the same. She gets a whirlwind, a ground-slam that creates a tall pillar shockwave, and a fireball projectile. I enjoy using the whirlwind spell the most.

Yunica is fun to use, and I like how her whirlwind can be used  to fly over longer gaps, or as a fast-moving dodge. Her fireball can pierce through enemies when charged, which makes it useful for dealing with large swarms, or for attacking through armoured enemies. There's some strategy with switching between the three spells to suit the situation.

With Hugo, your basic attack is a quick mid-range magic projectile, which can be fired in rapid succession. He doesn't have any special jumping attacks, though he does have a stunning shot that has a rather awkward input - you need to press the attack button immediately after coming to a standstill from walking... I kinda wish this move had its own button, but whatever. He also gets three spells - a protective barrier, an explosive mine, and a spinning close-range fireball that can charge into a long-range laserbeam. 

Because he gets the protective barrier so early on, I find Hugo needs to be less careful than Yunica most of the time. Often when traversing through the tower, I would just cast the shield spell, stand in front of the enemy, and just fire away, not really caring to avoid the upcoming attack as the shield negates all damage. If you charge the shield spell before casting it, it can even protect against more than one attack too. Of course there's the odd enemy that requires more thought, but for the most part, enemies are easily tanked with the shield spell. 

During boss fights however, things are not so simple - bosses launch attacks faster than Hugo's MP can recharge, so the shield spell can't keep up. This actually makes it quite strategic - if you cast your shield with good timing, you can safely tank a boss's hit, so you can focus on firing more shots at the boss during what would otherwise be an unsafe moment. It's an interesting dynamic, which makes Hugo feel very different to Yunica. I enjoy it.

Hugo's playstyle is pretty fun, except for the fact that I am connnnsstantly rapidly tapping the button to shoot the little magic shots. I really wish there was a turbofire option for Hugo in this game, but alas, the only option is to break my fingers instead. ...Heh, remember when this series was on TurboGrafx-16, a system that had turbofire built in to the controllers by default? ... good times.

Actually that's a point - Oath in Felghana supports full controller remapping, yet Ys Origin doesn't have any control options at all. What gives? I wanted to remap Magic to the ZR button, but I just can't. ... I don't understand why game devs remove important features like this.

The level design in this game is very straightforward and linear, for the most part. Unlike most previous Ys games, there really aren't any mazes to solve or sidequests to do, or anything like that. The progression is never obfuscated, and the next objective is always clear. There are a couple of side-paths and hidden treasures here and there, and occasionally the plot makes you travel back to previous areas for a cutscene... but for the most part it's just a straightforward climb to get to the top of the tower.

It kind of reminds me of Oath in Felghana in this way. Oath in Felghana was itself a redux of the extremely linear and simple Ys III, and thus it kept things relatively straightforward so it would not lose the essence of Ys III. And Ys Origin, the game that came straight after Oath, also feels like it was made with this kind of intention in mind.

The level design is not bad, but I do generally prefer to have some more exploration and discovery in my RPGs. This game is a little bit too straightforward for my tastes.

I first played with Yunica in Normal mode, and after I beat her story, I played Hugo in Hard mode.

Both characters play through the exact same levels, and the plot follows the same sequence of events for the most part.

What's interesting, though, is that the two stories... kind of contradict each other, somewhat? At first it feels like they're just gonna be alternate perspectives of the same story, but after completing them both, there are some events that only occur in one story, or don't occur in the other. They're like two different timelines, two different "what-if" scenarios, where things play out differently because it's Hugo climbing the tower rather than Yunica, and vice versa. Very strange.

I felt like the difficulty balance is pretty good in this game. Normal mode felt right. You have to be careful around enemies, but they're not too much of a threat for the most part. And the bosses are pretty challenging, but manageable once you get to know their moves.

Hard mode was definitely noticeably harder. Enemies are definitely more of a threat in Hard mode, and some of the tougher bosses require some serious practice in order to beat.

Once you complete both Yunica and Hugo's story, you unlock a whole third story. You now get to play your third playthrough as Toal Fact, Hugo's brother who is (initially) working for the demons.

Toal fights with razor-sharp claws, and his basic controls are similar to Yunica, though his combos feel faster. He also gets his own set of three spells - a speedy dash, an explosive thunder punch, and a fiery tornado. I found myself using the thunder punch quite a lot as my go-to attack, it's pretty powerful!

When you select Toal on the character select menu, the game says that he is intended "for experts"... I had just spent an afternoon struggling to finally beat Hugo's final boss in Hard Mode, so I didn't exactly feel like selecting Hard again for this supposed "expert" character. However, when I played Toal's story in Normal mode, I found myself having a pretty  easy time overall. So I don't really know what they mean by "expert". Maybe I will understand if I ever try Toal in Hard mode.

Toal's story is again different to Yunica's and Hugo's stories in a way that makes it incompatible with them. The way it ends suggests that Toal's version of the story is the "canon" one, which I suppose is important to establish if they wanted the series continuity to make sense.

After beating Toal's story, the game still has more stuff to unlock, wowee! You unlock two new difficulty modes: "Nightmare" and "Very Easy". And um... what? Excuse me? Why is "Very Easy" mode unlocked after beating all three stories? Is there a rationale to this? Is it just to let players have fun blasting through the tower again without a care in the world? ...

Additionally, you unlock Boss Rush, which seems to be a standard feature in Ys games at this point, but there's also a new "Arena mode", which is like a boss rush, except it's against waves of regular enemies instead of bosses. Pretty cool. You can earn points by playing in arena mode, and you can spend these points to unlock more unlockables. 

Interestingly enough, you can unlock the extremely non-canon ability to use Adol Christin as a playable character in these Time Attack modes. How cute. I can't be bothered to play this game any more after three entire playthroughs, but I may very well get back to it in the future to unlock the bonus Adol, just for the fun of it.

So yeah. Ys Origin was interesting! I have to admit, it was definitely getting pretty repetitive since you have to play through the whole thing three times to unlock the true ending. The level design is fine, but I don't feel like it's interesting enough for them to make me play through it three times in a row... But other than this, I'd say Ys Origin is a good entry in the series.

Sooooo, what am I playing next? ...more Ys games. Heheh.