Ys: The Oath in Felghana（イース -フェルガナの誓い-）

I started Ys: Felghana no Chikai (that's "oath" for the non-jhipsters) pretty much right after I beat Ys 2 since it's a remake of Ys 3. In the good ol' days, people used to use numbers so customers would know what order shit came in. But now, we have games like Ghostbusters 2016 aka "AHAHA you bought this garbage??", Tomb Raider 2013 aka "we spent that whole year working on Lara's hair", and Prince of Persia 2008 aka "maybe it'll sell better if you can't fucking die joke edition" so yeah whatever, we're all fucked. Where was I? Oh yeah.

So Falcom is probably THE pioneer of series you can never figure out without consulting Wikipedia (fuck you Dragon Slayer 2 Legend of Heroes -4 Xanadu not Next). So after looking up what games are in what order, I decided to skip Ys Wanderers From Ys, and went straight to the remake.

For fuck's sake, jut put the goddamn 3 on the cover

I mentioned previously that I was traumatized on the series from the start with a rental of the SNES side-scrolling version of this game. Fortunately, Falcom went back and fixed it all up and made a completely different game which is probably why they changed the subtitle.

They scrapped the side scrolling thing and went with the 2.5 style of the later Ys games. The classic bumping mechanic is gone and you now have to jump and climb platforms and shit. When I first started this game after finishing Ys 2, it was weird having to swing your sword like some kind of barbarian. I imagine Adol was previously using some impressive Iai invisible sword attacks during the bumps previously so this brute swinging style seems like a few steps backwards for the swordsman in terms of technique.

This is Adol in Ys I+II... IMO.

Personally, I preferred the old style without all this fancy double jumping and attack button. Even though the platforming segments were pretty tame and not super annoying, I'm not a big fan of jumping on shit, falling, and having to start again. (Did I mention I'm not big into platformers?) What was REALLY annoying were those TINY flying monsters which were such a pain to attack especially before you get the green ring.

...well at least it's better than Mario...

In fact, this game is pretty annoying until you unlock at least the dash ability (aka oh thank god, I can move at a normal speed FINALLY). The options give you the ability to have dash on at all times or by double tapping a direction but seriously why?? Turn it on always. DUH!

Take my advice and turn dash on always. Screw that arrow key x2 BS.

Another tip is to not worry about having enough Ravel ore. I never upgraded my equipment until the end because I was a Ravel hoarder. Only to find out near the end that enemies in the last dungeon drop Ravel so there's no need to hoard. Another great tip for boss battles is the healing cloak. While it will never restore HP by itself during boss battles because you can't stand still long enough, it WILL restore HP when you boost after the curly bar totally fills up. I unfortunately didn't realize this until the last two bosses but it definitely came in handy for the tough final boss. My final tip is to check the castle entrance frequently as there's a missable escort event there.

You can press L to quickly switch to the cloak

The exploration gets easier as you unlock other abilities such as teleportation to save points and pretty much becomes a cakewalk when you get the healing cloak except for the bosses. Oh boy, the bosses. I played on Hard difficulty (cause hardcore gamer) and each boss battle was an exercise in trial and error by death. Nearly every boss battle was tense, frustrating, and while winning had that great feeling of satisfaction, it was mentally exhausting as well. Especially near the end, it seems like there's yet another boss around every corner.

I've been playing this game on and off for over a year now because I always felt a need for a break from yet another extremely tense boss battle. Since I'm hardcore but not masochist, I didn't play on Nightmare mode in the previous games and this game unlocks an even HARDER Inferno difficulty upon completion. You can get New Game+ bonuses but yeah... maybe next time.

Overall the boss battles are definitely the highlight making this game so fun but frustrating. That ice dragon thingy took at least 10 if not 20+ tries to beat. One personal highlight was Zirduros, The Clockwork Cannon. On about my fourth try, I've pretty much given up on winning after a dumb start and only one hit away from death. Then I got into some kind of crazy groove where I was able to dodge or ram through every one of his attacks with the yellow ring. HELL YEAH!!

The story was adequate to move the action along and voiced, which was nice. The music was, you know, the usual Ys stuff.

You're going to be hearing this a lot on Hard mode
Score: 3 oh you better believe some oaths will be said while you play and they will have nothing to do with Felghana out of 5 (19 hours on record to beat but probably more with resets)

I didn't enjoy this game quite as much as the first two. All that complicated jumping and swinging sword seemed to detract from the pure precision and skill required of the first two games (well except for that bullshit falling tile hope you're lucky final boss in the first game). However, while the exploration and grinding before boss battles were ho-hum, the boss battles were definitely sweaty hands good action, though a bit tiring.

Being a Ys game, it's localized in English and easily accessible on Steam (I played the #BAE PSP version of course). I don't know if the drama CD is localized however. It's pretty much a rehash of the same story anyways. Non-jhipsters aren't missing much. Those hoping for a hot spring scene with Elena will be sorely disappointed (um... not me!).

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Ys I & II Chronicles（イース I & II Chronicles）

The first time I ever played a Ys game was on the SNES. The game left such a bad taste in my mouth, traumatically wasting a precious video game rental, that I avoided the series for about a decade until Ys I & II on the PSP.

Despite my self-delusional fantasy of growing up in Japan, my <sarcasm>wonderful childhood</sarcasm> in New Jersey left me deprived of all the good games from Japan and things like the PC88/98, MSX, and FM TOWNS were totally unheard of. Nowadays, every Joe Schmo thinks they're some sort of expert because they can use Google but back in the dark ages, we only knew about whatever was on TV or at the local video rental (or Toys"R"Us for the rich kids). So yeah, good luck on finding out about the TurboGrafx-CD version in 1990.

This is SO nostalgic in my fake Japanese fantasy childhood.
(http://www.tokyorpgfactory.com/)

Starting up Ys I & II as a newcomer was quite a shock for me as a retro newb. I was frantically trying to figure out how to attack the enemies. Eventually, I got a sword and still it totally did nothing. Apparently, I wasn't retro enough to realize that your sword doesn't actually move and you just run into enemies. Now, if you have not played these games, just running into enemies sound completely boring and pointless but the trick is to not run at enemies head-on (this hurts you) but from at an angle or from behind.

You're better off going at it from behind (hardy harhar)

You may be tempted to think just running into stuff won't be a very fun game but you would be OH SO VERY WRONG. I beat both games on Hard and some of the boss battles are incredibly challenging. It will take all your reflexes, pattern learning, and coordination not to mention hours of practice to beat both games on hard. Be prepared for a very sore thumb and an intense feeling of satisfaction when you finally beat the game.

The first game especially was brutal at some parts. Yes, the bat boss in the first game was HARD AS HELL but at least you could grind for it. The last boss with the collapsing floor tiles was just ridiculous and there's no way to grind past the max level. I didn't really like how luck played a large part as sometimes you can get completely stuck if you're unlucky with a falling floor tile.

The second game is not as hard as they added magic and the ability to use your items during the boss battles. Having items during the battle made a huge difference in terms of difficulty but it's still no push over.

Shooting fireballs makes Ys 2 a bit easier even on the first boss

Overall, I shudder to think what the games are like on Nightmare mode.

The game has the original PC88, PC engine and a newly arranged soundtrack and it's all good even though I'm not normally a fan of rock guitar music. Koshiro Yuzo was one of the original composers so I don't think anything more needs to be said about that.

There are better tracks but you'll hear this one for so often, you'll never forget it
By now, everybody and their moms have talked the Ys series to death but I still have to add my two cents to say I&II is really a lot of fun. I would even go as far as to say I missed the bumping mechanic while playing Oath in Felghana. You have to do all this CRAP such as jumping and swinging your sword around that I'm just like UGH, I wish I could just run into shit.

Score: 3.5 OW MY THUMB!!!! out of 5.

I liked the PSP version so much that I even bought the PS2 version in case I'm ever in the mood for some good ol' bumping action on the big screen.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely