Ys: Book 1&2

Mere words cannot describe a game with such a great story. Tears of nostalgia come to my eyes, whenever I hear the opening song, or any song for that matter. It's unfortunate, that America has never really expierienced this game, because, the Turbo Grafx, although the BEST system of the 3 16-bitters, didn't generate enough popularity. But, this game, is worth buying a Turbo for it! There are ofcoarse loads of other great games, but, this is deffinitly one of the masterpieces! I highly recomend it.

The first time I popped Ys Book I & II into my Turbo Duo, I knew I was in for the greatest videogame experience of my life.

I had never played a CD-ROM game before, so I was completely amazed when I heard an actual narrator (Alan Oppenheimer) telling me the story of a hopeless world oppressed by evil forces. The complete awe I felt watching the introduction never once dimmed as I made my way through the adventure.

The story may sound like countless others you've heard in you life, but Ys tells it with so much quality. A young man, Adol Christin, must gather the books of Ys in order to bring down the megalomaniac, Dark Fact (beautifully voiced by veteran cartoon man, Michael Bell). Once he recovers the books, Adol is then transported to the land of Ys where he must face the most powerful and frightening of foes - Boss Darm.

Without giving the entire story away, I must say that Ys presents one of the most sweeping adventures of all time; this includes movies, books and radio. I was absolutely mesmerized as I made my way through this enormous quest, never once wanting to put the controller down. When I finally beat the game, I was left speechless. The ending was moving and uplifting all at once. The game beautifully wrapped everything the player experienced throughout the adventure into an unforgettable denouement.

I can't begin to say how much this game moved me. It developed the characters into people you cared about, it swept you through a land filled with challenge and excitement, and at the end, it made you beg on your hands and knees for more. This is by far the greatest game I have ever played, and I can safely say that no game since has touched me the way this one has. The music and voice acting are second to none, and although the graphics appear dated, they still retain much of their charm to this day. If you love RPGs, videogames, or love epic tales, then by any means necessary, dig up a Turbo Grafx CD player and this disc. You will never look at videogames the same way again.

My problem is this is the first video game RPG I've ever played. See, that's a huge bias with me because it totally blew me away. I borrowed a TurboGrafx 16 with a CD player and a ton of games for a week in high school and the whole experience totally excited me. This system was not popular, so me and my few friends were probably the only kids in the entire school who even saw it. This is back in the days of SNES and Genesis, 16-bit gaming. Back then, there was no such thing (to console gamers) as voice in video games or CD quality music.

So enter the Turbo CD games. It was expensive so no one had it. It had tons of anime games but nobody knew what anime was back then! Can you kids imagine? I had never seen a narrated intro anime movie (movie!!) for a video game. That didn't exist back then. There were cut-scenes with graphics and text on the SNES and Genesis, but not animated with orchestrated music and with a real narrator. This game was years beyond what I expected to see video games do and only a few of us saw it, the few people who had TurboGrafx.

Combine that crazy stuff with the fact that this was my first RPG makes it amazing to me. Also be aware that I was a huge cartoon and anime geek at the time, and the fact that well-known voice actors from all my favorite cartoons were in this game almost made me die of happiness. See, these hobbies are very acceptable and popular now, but back then nobody knew about them and certainly didn't think it was cool.

So I'll try to rate this game looking back at it without letting too much of my feelings mess with it. Although it's bound to happen, so don't hold your breath.

The game has a perfect difficulty. You don't have to spend too much time leveling up but you do have to do a little. However, the exploring you do while you are trying to figure out how to get through the game will level you up at a nice pace. This game also has quite a wonderful atmosphere. The incredible music definitely sets the tone brilliantly, but also the story and environments certainly take you away. The game play is great. It's an accelerated RPG, which means instead of wasting your time with random encounters and battle screens, you simply run your character into the enemies and the game immediately takes into account your stats and the angle in which you approached the enemy and reacts accordingly with damage. So if you're the impatient type like me it's a great game. It's a nice long game, it took me a week to get through playing after school for about 3-5 hours a night. It might be too short for you if you have lots of time on your hands. There's a reason EGM magazine gave this game a perfect 10 score when it was released. It's a tight game in most respects.

Playing it now, you'd probably think it was just a 16 bit game with awesome music, and you'd be right. It is fairly straightforward, no real side quests and linear, but that's how games were back then. You also might think the cut-scene animations are primitive, but again, that was the technology back then. You have to remember that full screen images of people on screen and talking were literally something no console gamer ever saw before. Also, this is one of those 'main character doesn't talk or have any emotions' type games, which were extremely popular back then. The idea was for you the gamer to take the full brunt of the emotions and situations presented to you (kind of like some first person shooters like Half-Life) and the character on screen was just an extension of you, instead of you controlling a person on an adventure who you may or may not agree with. This game pulls it off nicely, although there is still a bit of disconnection, especially now with games being so complex.

Anyway, if you consider yourself a gaming nut and you think you need to know and play all old legendary games to make yourself an expert in the history of gaming, this is a must-play. Play it alongside the popular SNES and Genesis games released in 1991 and see for yourself why all the people (look at all the comments here in IMDb so far) get all teary-eyed when they think back about it. That's the only way to see what people were seeing and expecting of video games and how far the Turbografx and Y's were beyond those expectations. It really was an amazing experience for us

I loved Y's 1, 2, 3, 4 on the Turbo Duo (PC Engine in Japan) by NEC. Y's 4 was all Japanese though, so never completed it. Y's 1&2 were by far the best of the Y's series. 4 was more like 1&2, but all Japanese, so was hard to play and enjoy as much. I know there is a Y's for the PS2 now and I really want to try it.

Dragon Slayer is also another awesome RPG on the Turbo Duo.

Playstation 1's Alundra (not Aludra 2 though) and Vagrant Story are two more awesome RPGs.

I have yet to find an RPG that I can say really stands out on the PS2. Final Fantasy lost me with FF7 and up. Though I mostly liked FF1-4 If anyone knows of any great RPGs for the PS2, I may check them out. But so far I haven't really enjoyed any of them. Hated "Kingdom hearts", ICO was too slow.

Really, I think the only 3D RPG I have really liked so far is Vagrant Story on the PS1.

"Ys Book I & II" in many ways is your standard RPG (Role-Playing Game) about a boy who would be hero (Adol), out to destroy the "great ancient evil" (Dark Fact) which has blighted his homeland for generations from atop Darm Tower. The story is as strait forward a cliché as it sounds and the graphics are standard late 80's simplicity, but as one of the earliest CD-ROM games it blazed some brilliant new trails in its use of fill in cinematic story telling and true voice narrations. It also shocks the first time player with the revelation that just when you think it's over, that's only "Book I". In a stylish revolution stolen by every "Zelda" game since, the first challenge (Book I) is followed immediately by a longer, harder challenge (Book II).