Despite its status as a "classic" action RPG franchise, with roots dating back to 1987, I personally had never had any experience with the series until hearing about Ys Typing Tutor in 2006. Nearly five years later, the first two games in the series are seeing another rerelease (a DS remake was released in 2009), this time on the PSP. Going into this, I fostered no fond childhood memories, and I intended to judge it as a game released for the PSP in 2011.
Otherwise, all I can say before the jump is that I wish I had stuck with just Ys Typing Tutor.
Ys I & II Chronicles (PSP)
Publisher: XSEED Games
Developer: Nihon Falcom
Released: February 22, 2011
Price: $29.99 (retail), $24.99 (download)
Before discussing the real bummers of Ys I & II Chronicles, perhaps it would be better to start with the slightly higher points. One thing about Ys that is unusual among long standing JRPG franchises is that the characters and events from previous games actually carry over in one big overarching plot. This works in Ys's favor, as the plot itself is pretty unspectacular; the story follows Adol Christin, a mysterious mute redheaded swordsman who washes up on an island looking for adventure, and eventually ends up saving the world from a great evil power. It's about as standard a JRPG tale can be, but the fact that it carries through between the first and second game is refreshing.
One thing that Ys II does better than Ys I is present charming dialogue. While the first game takes itself very seriously, the second seems a bit more lighthearted, with a few goofy, fourth wall-breaking lines. Every demon in Ys II has a string of text, and some are enough to bring out a smirk.
For games that were originally released over twenty years ago, the development team did an adequate job with updating the graphics and sound. The visuals are crisp and detailed, though the art direction is fairly generic. Admittedly, it is pretty entertaining to watch defeated enemies explode into a pile of gore and armor pieces. The music, which is lauded as being some of the best in the genre, sounds fine for what it is. Most tracks didn't really strike a chord with me, so to speak. A couple of the songs laden with cheesy electric guitar were a bit jarring and out of place for the fantasy setting, and one in particular (the overworld theme in Ys I) was so obnoxious it had me turning the sound off. For those interested in the music, it should be noted that the retail version comes packed with a soundtrack CD, while the downloadable version does not.
The last strong point that Ys I & II Chronicles has -- and some may consider this a slight against it -- is that for JRPGs, they are both relatively short. I finished each game with about ten hours clocked on the timer, although truthfully, it was probably closer to twelve each considering the number of times I died and reloaded from an earlier save. That said, anybody who enjoys the games enough can find some replay value, as there are multiple difficulty settings and a boss rush time attack mode.
The real negative elements in Ys I & II Chronicles stem from the fact that these are old games with old designs. Remakes like this can update the cosmetic elements, but little was done to update the way the game plays.
Combat is the first real obvious sticking point. Rather than having an attack button, Adol will automatically attack demons that he runs into, and depending on his angle of attack, they may or may not retaliate. It sounds unique, and it saves a lot of time and effort, but it makes for some of the blandest combat I have ever experienced. It essentially amounts to Adol humping the demons until one of them explodes, except after the first hundred or so it isn't nearly as cool as it sounds.
Ys II does improve on the mechanic by giving Adol the power of magic, so instead of mercilessly running into demons all day, he can shoot a fireball at them instead. Indeed, since the fireball is the only attack magic, it is used to defeat almost every boss in Ys II. To the game's credit, the bosses actually change things up enough (some make the game feel more like a bullet hell shmup) to be briefly entertaining, but aside from the boss rush mode, they are few and far between.
The way magic, inventory, and equipment work is also a bit puzzling. For the most part, Adol can freely change which item to have equipped at any given time. However, during boss battles, when he needs the ability most, he is locked into whatever setup he had when he entered the room. Where there could have been some strategy of switching rings mid-battle depending on the circumstances, there is not. Even more aggravating are the health items. In Ys I, Adol can't even use a healing herb during a boss battle (the one time he would need to), and in Ys II, he can't switch between the different healing items that have various effects.
Another gameplay element that just doesn't fly today is in the level design. Although the game worlds aren't technically big, they are infuriatingly confusing. Most dungeons are frustratingly convoluted mazes, with pointless dead ends and different sections that are visually indistinguishable from one another. This problem is compounded by the fact that there is no in-game map to reference. It seems like it would have been a pretty easy thing to implement, but then, that would probably cut gameplay time down by half, since the player wouldn't be wasting so much time unnecessarily revisiting areas simply because navigating the world is so cumbersome.
Short as Ys I & II may be for RPGs, they do still feel padded to make them longer. Like many older games, the player is given very little instruction at times, and must stumble upon the desired solution by using every possible inventory item and exploring every little nook and cranny. The developers' need to artificially increase the length is most apparent when climbing the twenty-story final dungeon in Ys I, only to get to the top to find out that the door is locked, and Adol must backtrack down to the tenth floor in order to get the unlocking crystal from an NPC he has already talked to. Except, of course, the game doesn't explicitly say that's what needs to be done, just that the door is locked and that someone somewhere may be able to help.
Also, since Adol can only carry a handful of healing items at a time, most healing is done with relics that automatically regenerate health while standing still. Regenerating health isn't a terrible concept on its own, and in fact Ys would be even more frustrating without it, but it happens so slowly and damage can be so severe that it feels like every few minutes in a dungeon, the player has to stop and just stare at nothing for twenty seconds before continuing on.
When it comes down to it, the few infrequent high points where Ys I & II Chronicles does something charming with the dialogue or engaging with the boss fights simply does not make up for the majority of the games being abysmal journeys through uninteresting labyrinths with little direction on what to do or where to go. The only people I can imagine enjoying this rerelease are either nostalgic fans of the original games, or fans of the newer games who want to learn about Adol's earlier journeys. And for both of those cases, they probably already checked out the DS remake that came out two years ago. Most everybody else will want to steer clear of this.
Score: 3.0 -- Poor (3s went wrong somewhere along the line. The original idea might have promise, but in practice the game has failed. Threatens to be interesting sometimes, but rarely.)
Contest:
5:00 PM on 05.02.2011 | 
For the record, I thought his Tactics Ogre review was off the mark and I loved that shit.
Note: I even agree with some of the points in the review.
The review itself is decent and long enough(not tiny as I said) but you spent as much time pointing out positives as you did the negatives(and then gave it a 3)
Considering dtoid's blog format, do you not think it's a bit pointless to review a game that came out many months ago. If you wanted to review a falcom game XSEED have put out much more recent releases.
I appreciate you playing a game to completion for your reviews. It really gives you an advantage when deciding which games to recommend. Demand for this review was not likely high, so you are allowed that indulgence.
@goonkid93: it took so long to review for a couple of reasons. One, I wasn't sent the game until a couple weeks after its release. Two, this isn't my full time job, so I do other things with most of my time. And three, which is probably the most important, I was not enjoying my time with the game, so I found it very difficult to commit any large chunks of time to it. Granted, it only took me about twenty hours total to finish, but those were broken into small chunks that were few and far between because I would much rather have played just about anything else.
@ricochetguru: Yes, I spent a fair chunk pointing out positives for the game, though if you read carefully you may notice that I don't think the positives are that positive. And in the end, I mention that the majority of time spent playing involves the negatives, with only a small fraction of the game hitting the positives.
@Remo: I don't expect this review will affect game sales one way or the other, but I don't consider it pointless either. I was asked to play this game and provide my opinion about it, and regardless of how long it took, I committed to do that.
Granted, if there were glitches and broken gameplay from a hasty port (Sega...), I could understand. That is not the case, however. The original gameplay is intact, which is the point in a collection. You might as well bash any rerelease of Super Mario Bros as a "dated platformer with horrible graphics and unrealistic physics".
Ports and anniverary collections can't change the source material without creating an entirely new game. Faulting a game for being innovative 20 years ago and date today isn't fair when they set out to duplicate the original experience for the most part.
These graphics look lovely compared with the DS version, but man, I had no fun with that game whatsoever.
Grading and scoring this set to 2011 RPG game standards is slightly ridiculous though, regardless of whether it is your first time with the series or not. It would be like reviewing a new port of Final Fantasy 1 and mentioning that the plotline and game mechanics feel old. No duh.
But regardless, much like this fellow's Tactic Ogre review, I disagree, strongly. I don't understand the Tactics Ogre one at all. If you're into tactical RPGs there's literally almost NOTHING to dislike about that game. Even to today's standards for the genre it's a masterpiece.
YS is a little less hardcore, the series had Zelda on it's brain when it was conceived, I'd almost be sure. But it turned into something quite different and in my opinion wonderful.
Darren Nakamura's opinions are his own, and he's entitled to them. But I think he isn't the best fellow for the job when it comes down to reviewing these portable (or any) RPGs.
I dont even know why I clicked on this article.
Help.
The PSP has a number of collection games and none of them do anything to update the gameplay. That's the point of a collection. Fans like the old gameplay intact and untouched. Most collections are lucky to even get cosmetic updates.
The game is clearly targeted at fans of Ys and doesn't try to lie about being a modern game. For all intents and purposes, it's a game from 1987. It wears that on its sleeve.
If I buy a PS1 game on PSN, I try to hold it to the standard of gameplay at the time of it's release. I know there were limitations for developers at the time, and I curb my expectaions accordingly.
I'm sorry you didn't find the game fun. I guess we just play video games differently.
@ GRiVEN
Falcom has proved before that they are able to modernize an ancient game while still retaining what the original game felt like. This version of Ys I & II is definitely a remake (well, a newer port of the 2001 PC remake), which should be an attempt to bring a classic to a new audience. To see how this is done right, you only have to look at the wonderful job Falcom did on Ys III, remade as Ys: The Oath in Felghana (my concurring Jtor review is here).
While I disagree with Darren on just how much the out-dated design principles impact the result, there is no denying that Ys I & II was a missed opportunity, in light of Felghana's successes. Nowhere is this more apparent than the need to include a walkthrough of the first game in the manual.
If fans want the original gameplay intact and unchanged, they may as well go play the original. To present the same thing in a very similar format is almost pointless. Having never played the US Turbografx release, I was happy to try it out and enjoy the extremely minor enhancements, but the game simply isn't made well enough for the modern player. I still think that the game has some merit, hence the differing scores, but Darren isn't really "wrong" in any of his assessments.
I don't think Falcom was trying to do anything new and that is reflected in MSRP.
I still believe that you can't judge a blatant port as a "new" game, however. That's my primary bone of contention.
It really isn't just a collection or "blatant port," though. If you look at the history of Ys I & II, they've been remade approximately a dozen times now. Hell, the original US release, the Turbografx version, was a remake of the original PC-88 versions. This PSP "port" is comprised of newer remakes for PC done in 1998 and 2000, with further enhancements made in 2001. At the very least, we should be able to hold them to the standards of that time, sidestepping the fact that by 2011, even those standards might not hold up well. That's not even to get into the fact that the original design was kept in those remakes too.
"If fans want the original gameplay intact and unchanged, they may as well go play the original."
Do you think fans can go to a convenience store and pickup the original? No. The game is out of print. That's why we have re-releases in newer consoles, so fans and new gamers can enjoy them. Some people do like old school games in this day and age, despite how archaic they may feel to some.
GRiVEN pretty much touches all the points.
The translated English release of Ys I & II for Turbografx is available for less than $10 on the Wii's Virtual Console. Also, I find it hard to be a fan of a game if you've never played it before, which would necessarily require having access to the original game in the first place.
First his disgustingly bad Tactics Ogre review and now this...
Darren, why don't you go find another profession? Maybe something you are good at? Or at the very least, something you can do competently...
Cosmetic changes don't affect gameplay. Other than graphics, there are only minor changes between the original Ys I & II and Chronicles. I believe that was the intent. They wanted to preserve the bumping combat etc. Modernizing Ys I & II would make them entirely different games. That's why Wanderers from Ys and The Oath in Felghana have completely different titles. They aren't the same game anymore after all the differences.
Seriously first Tactics Ogre and now this...at least give the games a fair score even if they aren't your cup of tea....or go review your cup of tea.
just because its not means you get some pass for half assing a review?
i don't care, if you're gonna do something, do it right.
I also didn't agree with your opinion on another game so that makes this review even more horrendous...you are "literally the worst"!
-_- We hardcore re-release RPG fans are not amused Darren, not amused at all...
please act like an adult and stop insulting people's intelligence because they disagree with you on something so subjective as a work of art.
You need to review something you actually have a small chance of enjoying. Everyone who likes these games views your review as an insult, and you know that full well. I have a hard time believing that you really don't know why people dislike these reviews. Tactics Ogre is a masterpiece of its genre, a game that many feel is a 10/10. Y's I and II are rereleases of classic old school games (ironically, most of the criticism that JRPGs get recently centers around them not being old school enough).
In short, this review is not fair. Next you should hand off the Madden review to someone who hates football.
My point is that I like good RPGs, but I don't give a pass to every RPG simply because they are RPGs, and I think too many RPG fans do just that.
And to reiterate, I enjoyed Tactics Ogre just fine. If I remember correctly, I said that the game was okay and I even recommended people rent it. And just like now, I think I elaborated in the review text exactly why the game got the score that it did. This thread, of course, is not about Tactics Ogre.
And I read the text of the Tactics Ogre review, and this one. I didn't agree with the way you broke it down, and I think you really minimize, or completely overlook huge positives about the game.
And you have to realize, you're walking into the middle of a war here over JRPGs. This site in many ways has declared war on the genre, largely through Jim Sterling's hyperbolic reviews. You have demonstrated that you clearly want to be counted on one side of that fight, and people are reacting accordingly.
Anyway, that's my interpretation of it.
will buy this for sure :P
been looking for this for some time now
From your review: "is that for JRPGs, they are both relatively short. I finished each game with about ten hours clocked on the timer, although truthfully, it was probably closer to twelve each considering the number of times I died and reloaded from an earlier save"
This is the kind of contradictory crap running throughout your review and defense.
"My favorite part is how nobody but GRiVEN has pointed out anything in particular that may be "wrong" with the review"
You should re read the comments as just about everyone has pointed out what they believe is wrong with it.
I think Shinta has pretty much said everything else thats on my mind.
if ya didn't like the game, oh well, its not like i have psp to refute it with you. if i did and had the game, i would offer my opinion of it. it may suck, it may not. i think you covered most of the bases in the review, i just can't figure how it got a 3, you made it sound like a 6 imo.
If you want to write reviews of newer more modern games, maybe you should write fairer reviews and they'll give you pre-release copies. It seems like you're a bit hurt that you're not reviewing the new halo or something.
@bakasama - Since you're the last person to post this I'm going to call you out:
- How exactly is this review "Not fair" - since you claimed "maybe you should write fairer reviews".
The reviewer posted their experience with the game.
The reviewer posted the viewpoint they were going into the game with.
The reviewer posted both positives and negatives of the game and explained why they felt that way.
There is nothing wrong with this review at all; people are just raging because it's not the review they wanted to see. If you want a review from the perspective of someone who has played the original game, I'm sure there're plenty of other reviews out there. But complaining the review "isn't fair" because the reviewer doesn't give the game the benefit of the doubt because it's old, or doesn't give the game a high score because it's faithful to the old game [newsflash: if the old game was poor then the game is still poor] is ridiculous.
The game is competing with modern PSP games. The game didn't hold the reviewers attention. He even claimed in the comments it was a grind for him to play through - so why on earth should he give the game a high score?
He shouldn't. It's that simple - the review is his opinion on the game, not yours...
@Shinta - Please tell me your joking, some of these comments are just dreadful:
"I think you really minimize, or completely overlook huge positives about the game."
Yeah, that would be what is called an opinion...
"And you have to realize, you're walking into the middle of a war here over JRPGs"..
And just what are you trying to imply with that paragraph - that the reviewer should give the game a high score because it's a JRPG?
Look at the average, it's about 63. Once again, he is at half the average score of the game. If he wants to make it his mission to tear into JRPGs, he's going to get a lot of backlash. The context is pretty clearly explained in my posts. He can keep doing whatever he wants. I'm sure all the commenters will do the same.
"And just what are you trying to imply with that paragraph - that the reviewer should give the game a high score because it's a JRPG?"
I think that JRPG fans are just tired of being constantly shit on. They should let a JRPG fan review the next Call of Duty. It would probably get a 0/10. Any problem with that? Opinions are opinions after all.
"Yeah, that would be what is called an opinion..."
Yeah, my comments are opinions too. Yet you seem to constantly have a problem with them. Funny. If there's anything I hate, it's the "it's an opinion" argument. As soon as you bring that up, yet take issue with my opinion, you have already proven that your argument is pointless.
Just want to say I apologize if I come off as unreasonable. Your entitled to your opinion which doesn't change my enjoyment of the game.
@MindDuck
I think he made a ton of good points that I agree with(and so have other people) Most of our comments are coming through with a bit of (unneeded)rage so it can be harder to agree with.
"Once again, he is at half the average score of the game."
So what you're saying is that all reviews should be the same? He can score the game how he wishes, he doesn't need to follow everyone else's lead.
"I think that JRPG fans are just tired of being constantly shit on. They should let a JRPG fan review the next Call of Duty. It would probably get a 0/10. Any problem with that? Opinions are opinions after all."
They can do what they wish; if they want to let someone inappropriate review a game they can do. The difference is Darren explained where he's coming from concisely. You seem to have an issue with the score rather than the review itself; and that's just sad.
'Yeah, my comments are opinions too. Yet you seem to constantly have a problem with them. Funny. If there's anything I hate, it's the "it's an opinion" argument. As soon as you bring that up, yet take issue with my opinion, you have already proven that your argument is pointless."
Oh do shut up. Your opinion is that the review is incorrect because you don't agree with it.
That's fine, you don't have to agree with it, but your opinion of a game doesn't make the reviewers opinion any different. Just because you liked a game doesn't mean they did; and your comments pretty clearly show that you enjoyed a particular game and felt it deserved a higher score. Of course it's not going to get a higher score because the reviewer didn't feel the same way. I take issue with the way you're conducting your argument, you're more than welcome to hold an opinion on the game - but to come into the comments crying and shouting - insulting the reviewer - because they don't hold the same opinion as you, is pathetic.
No, I never said that. If you want to see what I'm saying, you can quote me directly instead of inventing quotes. What I'm saying is that being half of the average, consistently, is a good indication that someone is probably not a huge fan of the genre.
"They can do what they wish; if they want to let someone inappropriate review a game they can do."
Believe me, I'm aware. They do it for almost every JRPG. That's why I'm pissed off, because I'm sick of it. It's every other review. Yet they hand the Dragon Age II review to someone they know will review it as favorably as possible. You even call it inappropriate. Defend it if you want, but don't expect me to.
"I take issue with the way you're conducting your argument"
Like I said, there's a context that you can choose to ignore, or be aware of. If you think I'm the only one that has conducted my argument in an aggressive and insulting manner, then you're sadly mistaken. I don't have to change how I act because you have historical amnesia. This site's most easily defining characteristic is it's insulting, exaggerated tone in many of the reviews and articles (largely from Jim Sterling).