A look back at: Ys III

Yikes, it's only been three entire days since my last RPG. This is what happens when I play a more simplistic NES game. But then again, not all the time. Anyways Ys III. Like the other ones, something that's an action RPG, where you can grind by any chance you get, get to max level, still have a chance to get your ass kicked in the end. Oh, and it's a side scroller in Zelda II style now instead of the normal "run into enemies" thing from the last game. I would've hated it if there were bottomless pits or anything Ninja Gaiden-style, but thankfully that doesn't happen. Bosses are once again fairly dangerous but at the same time with the proper leveling and healing items they go down in seconds. The game does attempt to make the plot important at several intervals and overall doesn't do terribly in that regard. Of course, Dogi's reappearance was somewhat interesting here.

Also The Oath of Felgana is apparently the remake, fledging out and retconning a good chunk of the story I played from the Famicom release. But for the most part I don't care all that much. It's just help some miners, find out the conspiracy, the next few plot twists, kill the unsealed evil, and more adventures await. And it doesn't take long, even to grind or go through things. This is easily the simplest of the Ys game and that says...not a whole lot, really.

A look back at: Ys II

The action RPG mantra definitely hits its curves, and there's usually not a single game in this genre that is easy. I've played Odin Sphere, Vagrant Story, Hydlide, and the first Ys, and they are all difficult. Ys II honestly is the easiest so far but still manages to be somewhat hard. It's kinda interesting really, you could perhaps combine both of the first two Ys games together (some ports actually do this) but both games are relatively short, can grind up to certain levels, and the running into enemies to damage means you can exploit them fairly easily.

The plot and the progression are better than before, it's not as easy to get lost as it was in the first game. But it's still a bit annoying with the backtracking and using key items, which is blatant in the Demon Shrine portion, the final area of the game. By then the game isn't that hard save for a few enemies, and the final boss is actually a Nintendo Hard kind. Speaking of bosses, most are immune to contact damage but given you can spam A on bosses with the fire spell equipped and kill them in one go it seems equal enough to go ahead and make the final boss significantly tougher. And I was on max level if you wanna know. Still though, the Ys games just seem fairly mild and not too amazing.

A look back at: Ys

This RPG took about three days, especially since I played the Famicom version, but do you think I'm gonna like something with a battle system similar to Hydlide? Obviously not.

It's amazing that Ys somehow became an RPG series, with a rather awful name and having this crummy battle mechanic. I guess later games end up being improvements, but I wouldn't know that until, you know, I get to them. Regardless, Ys is relatively short, but nasty hard, the guides practically prepare you for death when and if you come underprepared. I didn't even know how to equip weapons and armor at the start, thanks for NOT telling me how to do that. Ah, old games. I gotta admit though, finding a loophole in the battle mechanic and using it to gain free hits on an enemy is quite nice. All the normal enemies act the same anyways, they aimlessly wander, and if you hit them from the back, sides, or at an angle it's basically a free hit. The same for the player though. Unfortunate that the dungeons sometimes have corridors so thin that a hit could be unavoidable. Might as well stock up on the potions and better armor, oh, and they're quite expensive.

But after awhile, you don't need any more money or levels, since they cap off at 65535 XP and gold. Bleh. Anyways, the real reason I was annoyed should be obvious, the fetch quests and the easiness of getting lost. Those mines were a pain in the ass due to limited visibility, but they're nothing compared to Darm Tower. So much to do in that chapter, get to meet a few NPCs, oh wait, is that a trap where I lose my silver equipment? Yep, great. Thankfully I was able to equip the class under it for awhile, but having to find them back was kind of a hassle. There's also the teleporter maze with mirrors and the rest of the bosses. Needless to say there was a lot of frustration trying to figure out where I needed to go and what I needed to acquire. There's equipment better than the silver equipment? Cool, but I should be getting my silver equipment back first. Oh no, did you just tell me I needed to go back to that guy to get the Blue Amulet to reach the final bosses? There were no hints for that. Even worse, no hints that you have to equip all silver equipment just to hurt the final bosses (and yes there's two). Don't equip all of them and you're screwed. I'm okay with curveballs and hard difficulty, but only if I know about them, otherwise I just have WTF moments when I play things.