Ys: Book I & II
System: TG-16 CD
Release Date: May 23rd, 1990
Developer: Alfa System
Publisher: NEC
Genre: RPG
It’s a two for one extravaganza with Ys: Book I and II. Follow the chronicles of Adol as he collects the six lost books of Ys by defeating the Demon Boss Dark Fact. Then head to the floating land of Ys to revive the Goddesses and defeat Boss Darm to restore the world to peace and prosperity.
You have to play through Book I in order to unlock Book II, so I played through Adol’s introduction adventure again. Everything was the same as I remember, except it looked a lot better on the TurboGrafx. You regenerate outside of dungeons, but require the Heal Ring in order to inside the dungeons. I hoped for upgrades when I played Ys on the Master System and daggum it, there is one that made me a lot happier. You can adjust the speed of gameplay. After powering up a bit, a set it to fast and never looked back. Grinding is still required, as you have to have a certain level of strength before you can scratch the bosses.
Once you beat up Dark Fact, you’re immediately shot onto Ys and wake up with the same experience, but no weapons, armor, items, or gold. Heading to town and talking to everyone gets you your first quest and some cash to outfit yourself with. There are more item puzzles in Ys Book II, so you have to activate items with Button II at specific points through your adventure. New in this installment is magic. You will use the fire spell a lot. It’s upgraded with homing capabilities with items through the game. I didn’t think the transform spell would be of any use, but it’s actually extremely useful through the adventure. You can talk to enemies and get hints on what’s going on.
Combat is the same through both games. Run into your enemies and hopefully hurt them without getting hurt yourself. I actually found myself in trouble a whole lot more in Ys II than in the original. Friendly reminder, save often. I lost significant progress multiple times because I didn’t think to save. Ninety minutes of trying to figure things out turned into forty minutes when I had to do it again because of a save mishap. If you need to grind, which I had to a few times, whether for experience or money, the basement of Jira’s house is your go to spot. As you level up, the amount of experience you receive from enemies drops, but the sheer volume you can face here makes up for it.
Occasionally through both games you run into voice clips. These are not balanced well up against the awesome music, and they aren’t captioned, so you lose out in these instances. The bosses were either a piece of cake or a nightmare. The final boss took me over an hour worth of tries that averaged about a minute and a half each. I should have gained the last 4000 experience for the last little bit of power, but I was stubborn.
Graphics: 3.0
These titles certainly look a lot better than the Master System version, though they aren’t amazing. The cinematics are nice, but not great.
Sound: 3.5
This is where the game shines. The music is awesome in most spots, especially outside the ruins. The voice clip balance is where it loses points.
Gameplay: 2.5
Combat is still bare bones. There are too many narrow corridors that don’t allow you to flank or attack from behind. Just spam fire and never stop moving.
Difficulty: 3.0
I think the adventure puzzles to move the story forward are fair. I think the combat and bosses aren’t as much.
Fun Factor: 2.5
Moving the story along and solving puzzles are enjoyable. Finding your way through the mazes and stumbling into items, not so much.
Overall Grade: 2.9
Ys: Book I & II earns a B. This is definitely a value proposition. You’ll get your money worth with this compilation, definitely give it a try.