Super FamiComplete #17: Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (Redux)

Title: Ys III: Wanderers from Ys

Date Released: 6/21/91 (JP)

Developer: Advance Communication Company

Publisher: Tonkin House (Japan), American Sammy (US)

Once again, amazing Super Famicom box art. In this case, though, the SNES box art is no slouch either. Both are really nice takes on the same theme, though the Super Famicom box is a weird action shot of your man attacking a giant knight (?), so that is my favorite.

Alright when I first blogged about this game, I didn't really know what to expect. The Ys series is one that still regularly receives updates (almost on a yearly basis), but with over ten installments I still hadn't given one of their games a shot. This was my first time with this storied series. It was a game that ended up being a solid retro RPG experience, but one with a ton of flaws.

Backround
This was also the first game in a block of three of the first RPGs for the SNES/Super Famicom. This was also the first action RPG for the system (though an argument could be made for Actraiser being the first RPG). It is a game, in my opinion, that would be most akin to Zelda II for the NES, in that the action is very similar to a 2D platformer/dungeon crawler hybrid.

The Ys series started on the NEC-PC in 1987 with Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished. It followed the adventures of Adol Christin, a plucky adventurer who just is an all around swell guy who is sent to explore an ancient tower. The sequel, Ys II is actually a direct sequel to the first game, it involves Adol finally ridding the land of Ys and his homeland of the evil forces that plague it. This story directly picks up in this game, but we will go over the plot a little further down.

The series has long been known as a Nihon Falcom property, a company known for its off-beat action RPGs, with the Ys series being its flagship property. This port of the game, though, (yes this is a port of the PC Engine and Turbografx game) was handled instead by Advance Communication Company, a Japanese development company known for mainly games that did not escape Japan. Probably the only other games they could be known for were the two SNES sequel ports of Ys and the infamous NES game Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The publisher for this game, in Japan, was Tonkin House, a publisher who did very little else but was most prolific during the 80s and 90s. In North America, though, the publisher was American Sammy, the eventual publisher that would bring the Guilty Gear series to these shores.

Story
 Ys III follows the series' protagonists, Adol Christen and his best buddy, Dogi, on their adventures to Dogi's home country of Felghana (in fact, the remake of this game for the PS2 is subtitled Oath in Felghana). The plot is fairly simple: the protagonists arrive in Dogi's country to learn that Dogi's home village of Redmont is undergoing oppression from the local nobility, Lord MacGuire. This lord is using one of the favored sons of Redmont, Chester (also brother to the main love interest, Elena) to gather four sacred statues that MacGuire needs to revive the dark monster, Galaban. It is up to Adol to retrieve the statues himself and thwart these nefarious plans, all while seeing why Chester turned evil, and THEN trying to save Elena from Galaban's clutches. It is pretty standard stuff really. The narrative of the story is really only delivered in a few scenes that divide up the main action; really only minute long texts blocks to break up the "stages" of this game.

There are a few nice moments, though, where Ys III's narrative shines. The narrative starts and ends with an "anime" style cutscene that are quite enjoyable, even on the limitations of a 16bit system.

While these style scenes only bookend the game, the narrative has a few other nice moments. The scene where Elena is kidnapped by Galaban is well handled, as is the story arc of the anti-hero of this tale, Chester. These nice moments, though, are few and far between, and the rest of the tale is quite a bland and poorly constructed affair.

 
This apparently was picked up by critics of the time too, and this game is widely considered to be the black sheep of the Ys series. For one, many players did not like how the game departed away from Ys and had this complete side story; many complained that this game was more of a gaiden than a true Ys tale. Secondly, many of the critics of the Turbografx port, which did have voice acting and a bit more production value, complained that this voice acting was a huge step down from the re-release of Ys Book I & II  (a Turbografx re-release of the first two games in one). Thirdly, they also picked up on the fact that the plot is very rote and simple; a typical fantasy story of a plucky adventurer saving a beleaguered town from an ancient evil, all while rescuing the damsel in distress.
The average reviews seem to hover around a C?

Gameplay
Well...I will go ahead and say it. This game did not age well. The game seems half-baked, unpolished and, in some areas, very poorly designed. Not a good start for RPGs on the SNES.

The graphics are quite bland. The landscapes are simple textures and models, and the character/enemy models are so muddy that it is hard to distinguish what they are. As it is an SNES game, there are plenty of sections with Mode 7 graphics and some dynamic backgrounds are utilized but these sections are few and far between, and just seem added in for the sake of saying they used Mode 7.



Now moving onto gameplay. The core gameplay of this game is simply not that much fun. Most sections of the game go like this: enter the town, you are told by the guard to talk with someone, you talk to them, they tell you where to go, you go there, fight through hordes of monsters, fight a boss, get item, rinse, and repeat. Now to be fair, most RPGs feature variations on that same formula, but Ys III keeps it as skeleton bare as possible. The story segments are never that interesting or novel to invigorate the player to fight through the action segments, and the action segments are definitely flawed in their own right.

For one, the game is really, really hard. When you enter a dungeon, enemies can sometimes come at you from all angles, very quickly. There is no real careful placement of enemy units, and the game is really inconsistent on how enemies appear to the player. In one dungeon, the enemies may be numerous, but they are structured so that you face them one at a time, but in another dungeon, you may have multiple enemy types rushing at you from every angle like a terrifying bum rush. The third dungeon, the volcano level, is particular difficult, because enemies are just all over the place. When you add in the environmental hazards, many of which kill you instantly, this game can be one tough nut to crack.

Another thing that makes the game so darn tough is the fact that the hit-box system for the player and enemies is very wonky. Every enemy, including bosses, can hurt you by running into you, and most enemies attack you by trying to touch you. Now normally, in a game, say like Zelda II, damage from a bad guy would knock Link back a step and give him a brief second of invincibility, so that an enemy could not just continually touch Link and drain his life in a matter of seconds. Ys III, though, completely disregards this notion. An enemy can walk into your player's hit-box and just continually sit there, delivering massive DPS until your player dies. This death happens very quickly as it never feels like you have much health. Add to this the fact that the only way you can really damage enemies is through short-ranged melee sword attacks, you are going to get hit a lot by enemies. It feels like poor design like this makes the game harder than it needs to be.



As well, Ys III is grindy for an RPG. It expects you to skulk around the dungeons for a long while and continue to upgrade your health by working your way up the enemy food chain. Leveling up takes forever in this game, but the grind is essential if you ever hope to make progress. The bosses especially are quite the heavy hitters, and if you are not properly leveled then you will most likely not stand a chance.

The bosses I would say are actually one of the highlights of this game. They are certainly difficult, but the gameplay and the fights themselves reminded me of the boss fights in Actraiser, and thinking of that game makes me happy. The only boss that I couldn't enjoy was that of the final boss, Galaban. This boss is not a great boss. It requires that you buy a particular item, one that it doesn't mention you would ever need, in order to damage the boss. It took me a while to figure out what I had to do against this boss, and after I figured it out I got all upset because I had to exit the dungeon and run back to town to buy the proper item.

Any good music?

There is some! Check it out. 

Ads, Art, and Commercials

I could not find a commercial for this beast, but here is something I just have to share.

Final Verdict

I could go on and on about why this title is only a mediocre title, but I think I have made a pretty good case already about why this one might deserve a pass. It was definitely an interesting game that I had never played before, and I assume if you enjoy the Ys series then this one might be enjoyable. It is pretty cheap to purchase if you are looking, as I only picked mine up for about $13.