Hey, here's one last little Ys post before the new Zelda takes over my life. :)
Previously I talked about three PSP Ys games I played on the PlayStation TV. These were Ys I & II Chronicles, Ys: The Oath in Felghana, and Ys Seven.
However there are actually two more Ys games released for PSP that are not available for purchase on the PSN digital storefront. So if I wanted to check these out, I had no choice but to play them on the actual PSP with the proper PSP discs. ...And so I did!
- Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim
First of all is the PSP version of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim. Just like the PS2 version, this port was handled by Konami.
Unlike the PS2 version, there is no voice acting any more. The English script seems to be the same as on PS2 though.
Most notable is this version's performance. It's awful! The framerate is so bad that it makes it very difficult to tell what's going on most of the time. It's mostly bad when there are a lot of enemies in a large area - which unfortunately is the exact kind of scenario you'd need the game to be functioning properly. The loading times are also worse in this version. Overall, it's a pretty dismal time.
The poor framerate can sometimes affect gameplay in significant ways - in the particularly laggy areas, your inputs are frequently dropped, which actually makes certain attacks that involve rapid button mashing impossible to perform. Dropped inputs also mean that the infamously fiddly dash-jump gets even more annoying to perform, and occasionally I would clip through a wall, likely due to framerate issues as well. Very frustrating when these things happen.
These issues make it hard for me to get immersed into the game. When the framerate gets to slideshow levels of bad, I feel like I'm not really part of the action. Everything is so choppy and blurry and it just gives me a headache to look at. It really takes me out of the experience, it makes me feel like I'm only allowed a vague glimpse into the game, and I don't feel like I can properly understand what I'm looking at.
The only reason I was able to figure out boss patterns and maze layouts is because I already knew them from my time with the PS2 version. If I had played this version first, I would have been extremely frustrated with this game, and it would have given me a very bad impression of Ys 6 in general. I'm glad I didn't play this first!
It's a shame, really. Oath in Felghana and Ys Seven were great on the PSP, so I know the little machine is perfectly capable of handling a game like this. Konami really must have been struggling to port the game over for some reason.
It's not completely unplayable, though. If you can deal with the extremely poor performance, it is indeed a fully intact version of Ys 6. The whole story is there uncompromised. The PS2-exclusive content is missing, however the PSP version actually has quite a lot of exclusive content of its own!
They added a bestiary and a sound test, which makes it the only version of Ys VI to include these features. I always find it fun to fill out a bestiary in RPGs, so this did give me some incentive to keep playing this version to the end. Heh, playing an awful version just to unlock some stats and flavour text for the monsters, lol... well, it was a good enough incentive for me, anyway!
And there's also a new and exclusive minigame room with nine different minigames to play. ...It's just too bad that these minigames are all pretty awful.
The minigames include:
- A game where you must complete an obstacle course without falling off the thin platforms
- A game where you can't let a single monster reach the bottom of the screen, while also not accidentally hitting the villagers
- A game where you have to hunt hidden items on the beach within a time limit, and some of the hidden items are actually traps that slow you down
- A game where you have to knock falling monster eggs off a platform before they hatch
- A game where you have to dodge a roomful of enemies for several minutes without getting hit once
- A game where you must hunt down fleeing monsters to steal their gems within a time limit
- A game where you must kill hundreds of enemies in a row with minimal healing in between rounds
- A game where you must protect villagers from enemies using specific elemental attacks
- A game where you must find an NPC in a maze and escort them back out without them getting lost or killed
It's all pretty annoying stuff. There really isn't much "fun" to be had in these games. They're all fiddly tedious busywork, which can get really frustrating due to the harsh fail conditions.
The jumping is very fiddly in the PSP version, so the obstacle courses are awful. And most of the other games are very annoying in that there's hardly any room for error, and failure means having to redo the challenge all over again. And in order to fully complete a minigame, you have to play three full rounds of it, and then after you beat it, you have to play it again this time doing TEN or even TWENTY rounds in a row, without the chance to stop at any point.
And these minigames are played with your current character - which means that if you're underleveled, you may not be able to complete the later rounds of a challenge at all, forcing you to replay them from round 1 when you retry later. And if you forget to equip the Bell of Silence (which makes a specific type of enemy vulnerable) before doing the enemy gauntlet, then you'll find out at round 16 out of 20 that it is impossible to complete, as it chooses this moment to introduce the invulnerable enemies into the challenge... and since you can't change your equips midway through, you'll just have to quit, equip the bell, and get all the way to round 16 all over again. ugghghhh!
... these minigames.... are not very fun. Not very well-designed. I kind of hate them.
The reward for clearing these PSP-exclusive minigames is the same as the reward for clearing the PS2-exclusive trial dungeons: You get a choice of Gold, Emel or EXP. However, unlike on PS2, the game doesn't arbitrarily prevent you from getting the EXP reward, so it's actually really handy if you want to reach the max level. For this reason, the PSP version has the easiest time reaching max level of all versions of Ys 6.
...You know, I think the PS2 trial dungeons were a billion times better than this assortment of rubbish the PSP version got. ... but I'm glad I played this version and got to see them anyway! I actually wasn't even aware the PSP version had exclusive stuff like this in the first place, so discovering it was a nice surprise. I find it interesting.
Now that I've tried it, I can fully understand why this game was not made available for download on PSN. It's a pretty poor version of the game! I'm sure at this point Nihon Falcom wanted to completely forget about the PSP version entirely, and so nowadays they only offer the Steam version for digital download.
...Now, onto the other PSP game I played!
- Ys VS. Sora no Kiseki: Alternative Saga
The second PSP Ys game I took a look at was "Ys VS. Sora no Kiseki: Alternative Saga".
This is a crossover fighting game released in 2010.
Now, while I do know Ys quite well at this point, I haven't played any of the Trails in the Sky games yet, so for the moment, I'm only recognising one half of the crossover. That's okay, though, because this game was only released in Japan, so all the dialogue scenes are flying over my head anyway.
...I very much do plan to play Trails in the Sky soon! There's just so many RPGs on my "to-play" list, you know?
So, this is the kind of fighting game where you need to level up and equip your characters. Everyone starts at level 1, and as you play through the singleplayer modes, you gain EXP and Gold, which you use to buy new skills and equipment. To give an idea of how quick it is to level up in this game: after playing through Adol's story mode once, I went from level 1 to level 28. The highest possible level is 99, so if you have any interest in actually fighting versus other players, there'll be a lot of prerequisite grinding you gotta do before you can really have a fair fight. ...Either that, or I guess you have to make sure you only play against players who are also still at a low level...? Either way, this isn't exactly a super-serious balanced kind of fighting game. It's more a casual kind of game for the fans.
...That being said, I don't actually know how multiplayer works in this game. My guess is that everyone just fights at whichever level they happen to be at the moment, but maybe there are some handicap features too. I have no idea.
Regardless, there is no online play - just wireless local play. So if I ever wanted to try the multiplayer mode, I'd need to get a second copy and play on two PSPs at the same time. And I don't exactly feel like doing that.
There are 17 characters total, though you only have access to 10 at the start. You need to unlock the other seven by playing a whoooole bunch of singleplayer. I really didn't play this game very much, so I only unlocked two characters.
The combat system in this game is pretty much exactly the same as Ys Seven. It's got the equipable skills, SP gauge, EXTRA gauge, charged attacks, Flash Guard - pretty much everything is copied directly from Ys Seven, with one notable addition - the ability to jump! Jumping lets you do aerial combos, and also lets you navigate around the terrain.
The stages in this game can have a lot of different levels of elevation, and occasionally treasure chests appear in specific spots that give whichever player reaches it first a boost of either SP, EXTRA meter, or even HP.
So yeah - they basically took Ys Seven and turned it into an arena-style fighting game. It's not bad, but it's not a particularly amazing fighting game system either. It was designed for an RPG after all.
After every match, you gain EXP for your character, and Gold to spend in the Shop on the main menu. the shop has extra skills, accessories, and stat upgrades for all your characters. And... yeah it looks like it will take a LOT of grinding to get enough EXP and Gold to fully upgrade everyone...
There are two main ways to play this game in singleplayer: "Story Mode" and "Arcade Mode".
There are five different Story Mode campaigns to play - Adol, Geis, Estelle, Klose, and Tita. And yeah, they only made these five stories... If you want to play as any of the other twelve characters, you'll have to settle for Arcade Mode, or just play regular matches in Free Battle mode.
I played through Adol's story, and it was okay. It was 21 battles, mostly versus other playable characters, but occasionally against big monster enemies too. I'd say there were around... four or so different types of non-player big monster, including the final boss.
The final boss isn't even from Ys or Trails - it's a big dragon monster named Galsis from the Xanadu series. Heh, I may need to play Xanadu at some point in the future...
After beating Adol's story, I tried Estelle's story... and to my dismay, it was literally exactly the same as Adol's story. 21 stages of the exact same fights, with maybe a couple of the opponent characters swapped around a bit.
The stories did have different cutscenes, but since this is a non-canon crossover, I really didn't care to try and understand the Japanese dialogue. It's literally just character portraits talking at each other, and I'm certain the storyline is just contrived excuses for them to be fighting one another. There's nothing worth caring about here, I don't think.
But, since both Adol and Estelle had the exact same story mode, I have to wonder why you are only allowed to play Story Mode with five of the characters? Is it really because they didn't want to write dialogue scenes for any of the others?
Well, whatever. I didn't exactly feel like playing the same 21 battles for a third, fourth, or fifth time, so I gave up Story Mode and tried Arcade Mode.
I selected Dogi, who is Adol's best friend in most of the Ys games, and... promptly got obliterated by the opponents. ...Since Dogi was still level 1, I wasn't strong enough to really stand a chance. ...Hoo boy. At this point I realised just how grindy this game really is, and decided I really didn't want to spend any more time on it.
I got the gist of it, so I don't need to sit here and grind when there's no story, no exploration, no adventure...
I'm glad I played the story just to see the Galsis boss at the end - it was fun... not as good as any of the actual Ys Seven bosses, but it was a decent Ys-style boss nonetheless. The entire rest of the game, however... yeah. It seems to literally just be grinding for the sake of grinding. Just keep fighting opponents over and over to get everyone to level 99. That's the main progression goal of the game right there. ...and I really didn't want to spend my time like this.
...
I noticed that almost every Ys character in this game comes directly from Ys Seven specifically. The only non-Seven character is Chester Stoddart from Ys: The Oath in Felghana. I guess there must have been some recency bias when it came to picking the roster, as Seven was the most recent Ys game at the time.
According to the Wiki, some of the non-playable support characters come from various other Falcom properties, including Zwei, Gurumin, and Brandish.
...You know, Brandish was actually on my list of SNES RPGs I wanted to play in the future heh. There are too many games...!!!
So yeah. Fun crossover game, but it demands a lot of your time for very little payoff. No thank you!
