Well now. Isn't this interesting. Xseed have started to publish games on Steam. We may now finally have a chance to see all these Falcom classics in their intended format. Now for a short history lesson. Falcom is a Japanese game company who developed a ton of games, most of which never saw the light of day outside Japan. Their most famous is probably Ys (Pronounced iss or ees). It was? Originally released on the NEC PC-8801 in Japan. The only English port around that time was on the Sega Master System. Unlike action RPGs at the time. You did not have an attack button but you'd run into the enemy to exchange damage. The trick is to try and either hit the enemy from the side or back or just chip the edge of its sprite. The game can be pretty hard in the early stages of the game but it was surprisingly fun and addictive. In later years Falcom pretty much focused their efforts into making their games for the PC and as Japanese games are not popular within the PC market in the West, we did not see an official translation until now.
I should mention that The Oath in Felghana is a remake of Ys III, which has seen an English release but the original game was absurdly difficult and almost entirely forsakes its roots and pulls a Zelda 2 in turning into a side scroller. The Oath in Felghana however, borrows the engine from the more recent The Ark of Nepishtim. No longer do you run into enemies to deal damage but it's still a fast and furious action RPG. Ark of Nepishtim saw an English release on PS2 and PSP but was originally released for PC in Japan. Thankfully you do not really need to have played any Ys game to understand the story. Other than a couple of recurring characters, it's totally independent. The only real exception to this rule is Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished and Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished – The Final Chapter. As these are directly connected in plot. This has also seen a nice release as a double pack for PSP and DS in the US. The PSP game pretty much keeps the game engine of the original game but I cannot speak for the DS one.
As of now there is no way to play Ys Origin in English without turning to a translation patch. I'd hold off on doing that for now if you're new to the series and play the others first as I'm sure Xseed are right on that now that they have opened the doors to Steam. I want to mention a little bit about Ys Seven, even though I've only played the game briefly. This was the first game on the PSP which was built specifically with the PSP in mind from the start and it looks and plays great. It does take a few elements from modern game philosophy. In which I mean it has quite a lot of Quests and farming but it's all reasonably fun to the point I played. The game also introduces a tag system so you can finally play as Dogi... Don't know who Dogi is? Play some Ys and find out. If he can punch down a wall, He will.
In all. If you love action RPGs then you owe it to yourself to try Ys. All of the games mentioned apart from Ys Origin can be played easily in English now. PSN has pretty much all the PSP games or if you don't mind importing you can buy physical copies from the US. Ark of Nepishtim will be best if they release an official English release on Steam but the PSP game mostly emulates that anyway. So far the only Ys game that let me down a little was Ys III so that's a pretty good track record. Stop reading this and go buy it.
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