Ys: Book 1 & 2

I spent some time this evening exploring the mines on the north side of the main field. I had to level up a few times to keep from being squashed. The mines are dark, confusing and full of weird monsters that like the deflect my attacks. For stages like this, I try to hug a wall and ride it in one direction until that area has been exhausted. The first branch I came to I decided to head south and to the right, after a few minutes I managed to get to my first dead end and was rewarded with the silver armor! From there I started to work my way back and through the rest of the mine, uncovering chests and secrets along the way. During this venture I would continue to head outside because in the field, your health regenerates! This is useful if the whole “staying alive” thing is part of your primary objective.

The fun thing about the Ys series, even up through the more modern games, is that you can go about your business adventuring and then pop back into town to talk to people and you’ll start clearing sidequests. I wound up going back to both towns after getting into the second floor of the dungeon to grab some supplies, in doing so I found out I had a few things people in town were looking for. I also went by the Roda tree’s and found the silver sword!

I haven’t clicked with a game this old this quick in a long time. I’m not adverse to playing old games but sometimes, especially after a longer stint of modern games, it can be hard to get back to the conventions of older games. But something about this game! If this had random, turn based battles I can’t imagine I would be this excited about it.

After the mines I cleaned up some side stories, equipped all of my shining new *silver gear* and got the OK to head towards *Darm Tower*! I wanted to investigate the entrance to this and see what it was all about but in doing so, I got pushed in and you can't go back! The tower was built with a one way door so once you are in... you're in.

CYBERBUFFALO SAYS:

Be sure to buy the gear one-step below the silver! You don't know it now, but you'll need it later!

The tower is exactly what you’d expect - it’s cold, full of strong monsters and confusing. There are floors with exits and entrances and an outdoor balcony that lets you rotate around the tower, often with doors on the opposite side. And surprise! some evil force set a trap for us and dropped us in the dungeon and - oh no! My silver gear is gone! This part starts to get progressively harder because I did not! follow my own tip, since I found the silver shield and armor pretty early on… I’m stuck using pretty crappy stuff during this part. If I can manage to level up high enough, I should be able to get through and hopefully get my gear back? But that’s a task for tomorrow.

I had some time this morning and decided to spend it trapsing through Darn tower! I was right, I did in fact get my gear back - 2/3rds of it, anyway. I’m currently on the hunt for the silver armor. I had a run-in with a particularly fickle boss, a praying mantis looking thing that required me to level up twice in order to walk away victorious. I don’t mind grinding out levels in this game because it never takes too long and it isn’t so mindless that it shuts my brain down. You still have to pay attention, I’m still swapping between rings (power -> armor -> healing) and saving. And the levels really do make a difference so its worth doing!

There was one obtuse puzzle that I didn’t quite understand. After beating the mantis it rewarded me with another Book of Ys and a hammer! I had no idea what to do with the hammer since there hasn’t been any indication that something could be done with it. No cracks in the walls or floors, nobody said anything about it. I found a hallway that drained my health and something called the evil ring - which, according the og manual “Helps Adol to get through certain areas” … but not this area apparently. Equipping the evil ring did nothing. One of the prisoners I met in the tower mentioned a special broach but I didn’t have that at the time. I walked around hitting random things and after a while of that… I looked it up. Apparently there is a guy that is supposed to mention something about a pilar and an evil song that drains your life, but I never found him (worrying). But the solution to this is to bash an evil pilar on the balcony of the 11th floor and that stops the music. Who knew! Hey, if this is the first thing I’ve had to look up in a game this old, I think we’re doing great.

I’m now stuck in a maze of mirrors with the aforementioned broach, but I’m not sure what to do or how to do it, I keep teleporting through the mirrors but can’t figure out if the broach is helping or not. I’m going to put this down and come back to it tonight and see if I can’t figure it out.

So…… a very annoying thing happened to me during my ascent to the tower! I’ve been traipsing around this damned place and in the back of my mind I’m remember some of the lore that’s been said. At some point one of the guys in the tower talks about a “magical blue amulet” that will “break the curse” of evil - or something like that. And a while ago, like 10 floors ago, I found a “blue necklace” - I had assumed this was the blue amulet! But apparently it. is. not. So here I am, on the top of the tower, in front of the door to a room that probably contains the final boss… and I can’t open it. I need that blue amulet! I think what I need to do is go back to talk to one of those guys, maybe Luta, now that I’ve got the glasses that translate the Books of Ys. I have to go back down from the top of the tower, through two different mirror maze rooms.. it’s going to be like an hour of going down… if you know what I mean. I’ll get to it tomorrow, and I’ll share more of exploits from today then.

Okay. Back through the 9 floors, the catwalks, the mirror mazes and through the tunnel-that-kills-you and down the stairs I reached the right side of the 11th floor where the famed, supposed somnambulist - Luta - was hanging out. SHOCKED! He was, to see that I’ve unearthed yet another book of Ys, so surprised in fact, he gave me a family heriloom, the goddamned blue amulet. Thanks, my friend, I hope your leg gets better.

Now that I’m standing in front of this previously locked door, ready to go in, I’m nervous! What if I’m not high enough level? What’s waiting for me in there? I think the evil guy’s name is Dark Fact - which is such a cool name, by the by - and he wears a shining cape.

Wish me luck.

… Dark Fact is dead, he’s been vanquished! His hubris was no match for my silver equipment (thanks for the tip Lair!) plus I imagine my grinding on the way back from the quest for the elusive Blue Amulet left me at an advantageous level. His fight had a cool conceit - He flies around the void, shooting out round projectiles that then explode into a starburst pattern, making more round projectiles. If you make contact with the boss, a square of energy removes a tile of the floor. I don’t know if he had any other tricks because I was very strong and killed him … fast.

The next 3-4 minutes are so fucking cool that it made me sit back and swear out loud. These were two games and they managed to bridge them with some of the sickest animation, pixel graphics and music I’ve ever seen in a game. It was an incredible feat that puts you right back in the action. I’m now on the top of a floating island, having been rescued by a doe-eyed beauty who ran across a grassy field to save me! I’m going to keep going with this to see how the series developed from the first to second game.

I’m back with an update - I’ve completed book 2, rolling credits on the entire game! I haven’t posted any follow-ups since finishing Ys 1, as I’ve been busy and wanted to chip away at the game without distraction.

Immediately upon starting the second half this game - which I’ll refer to as Ys 2 - there are a few noticeable differences. The biggest is the addition of an MP meter. No longer are you told how much XP you need to your next level at a quick glance, this is moved to the status menu. Adol no longer is saddled to bump and grind his way through the dungeons and shrines that await him, shortly after embarking on this new journey you gain fire magic! Adol has a projectile now! He can shoot fireballs while walking towards his enemies. This is a great addition to the core gameplay mechanics as it brings with it new and interesting interactions with bosses, enemies and the world! Bosses can now be designed with this vulnerability in mind. The world can contain barriers that need to be blasted out of the way and enemies can be pushed back, away from Adol, as a form of crowd control. The shooting mechanic works excellent and as you grow stronger, level by level, so does your magic. Towards the end of the game you’ll notice your magic pushing enemies further and for longer. That same kind of consistent damage attachment that happens to Adol is now happening to goons pushing them towards the end of the screen. It’s a good mechanic that helps make the back-half of the games combat more interesting.

This system also knocked out the various rings to your inventory instead of being lumped in with your equipment - magic staffs come with abilities that you select and, like fire, can be triggered with a button press… if they are not passive magics. This is where the line between magic rings from Ys 1 blurs with magic staves from Ys 2, some of them are passive magic that just work in the background, magic like shield, transform and time stop and light are active as soon as their staves are equipped. Only fire and return are activated with the press of a button. The rings in this game are also different, gone are the strength, heal and protection rings that proved vital in navigating the tower (especially when your high-powered gear was stolen!). The rings in this game are much more vague in description and only affect your magic consumption, movement speed and a secret, third thing that helps with the boss. There is a cape that will heal you but in my play through I did not find that! This change does a lot to make the stakes of this second phase, Ys 2 feel much higher, as there isn’t as regimented a loop, especially since the level design is far more purposefully confusing. No longer are you able to reach a higher level and then progress down to a floor where the enemies get progressively harder. Now you are in winding dungeons where the structure folds in on itself, offering few dead ends to check off your own lists, and instead offering room after room filled with multiple doors and branching pathways. From the first sacred area you visit this level design is made abundantly clear and becomes much more confusing, so much so that I devised a system of note-taking to keep track of where I had been and where I was going.

As you push through the game it becomes apparent that all of these changes were devised to build the last half of this game, a giant labyrinth of doorways, rooms, bridges, tunnels and levels that span across the world multiple screens tall and wide - the Solomon Shrine and Canals. This area is where you spend the entire second half of the game, and you do a lot of it… as a demon. That’s right, not unlike the mirror world in A link to the Past, poor Adol needs to navigate much of this confusing area as his little, yellow kangaroo persona, tricking goons into letting him into unauthorized areas, getting security credentials and gathering intel.

This entire section took the game we’ve been playing, and turned it around. No more were the goons these lifeless drones hell-bent on destruction, suddenly we are examining them, listening to the inner workings of their society, getting information from them - they are sentient creatures! And while the game doesn’t go much further than that, and it certainly doesn’t intentionally raise any moral questions about if it’s right or wrong to slay them, it does turn the entire genre up on end. The beginning part of this section is best played entirely using your transform magic, as most of the enemies are too strong to best reliably. The better gear and higher levels you receive as you progress will make that a relatively trivial problem later on… but before you can even get to that point Adol is transformed PERMANENTLY into yet another gruesome demon! That’s right, as punishment for his spying, a curse was placed upon him, interrupting his journey and causing him to reach out to some friendly villagers for help.

The game has a great story progression, where they use a threat of constant impending doom to keep building on tension, without resorting to something like time limits or a stranglehold on resources. In the first section you are told of a villager who is sick and needs her medicine, here outside of Solomon Shrine in Ramia Village you are told villagers are kidnapped and executed as a sacrifice. As you storm a bell tower you are told that on the fifth toll the next sacrifice will occur and as you move through levels and doorways the chimes continue to come! Of course this is all part of the story, but it helps to keep you focused and pulled taught to your goals. Its constantly building. The big, beautiful ensemble cast of the first game continues on into the second and stacks right on top. By the end of the game Adol has saved the entire cast of a small play and they all come out for their own curtain call.

My biggest complaints about the second game is the lack of any kind of map. The shift in level design really would have lent itself to having access to one, even if it were to come in the manual. I ended up using this hand-drawn map & guide to help me navigate the very confusing Solomon Shrine and a some of the subsequent canals. These spaces look so similar that it became impossible for me to recognize where I was, especially if I had to put the game down or take a break to be a normal, functioning adult human. The lack of visual differentiation between the east, west and mid sections and in order to get from the west to the east you may need to go west first and get onto one of the many different levels or in through a doorway which leads to a series of hallways that spit you out somewhere else - it’s a labyrinth without bisexual rockstars or muppets.

After more days than I would have liked of bumbling around, I made it to the next part, what would ultimately be the finale, and I was able to get my bearings and a warp point and take care of a few last minute things. Getting new herbs, finding the final pieces of gear, you know, Ys stuff. The last boss in this game was so goddamned hard I must have attempted him at least 50 times, I think possibly even 100. He’s carrying the fabled black pearl and in order to do damage to him, you must bump him, he’ll turn into the pearl, and you bump that. But he’s blasting energy orbs at you in a random pattern while teleporting all around the screen also at random. Even with the full line of Cleria tools, shield magic and the goddess ring equipped, I would also run out of health before him. I’d get REAL close but never close enough. So after my upteenth time I decided I needed to push Adol to the final level. I needed 3500 XP to get to 99999 XP and gain the final level. 30 minutes later I was able to beat the boss in one shot. Never underestimate one level in Ys, I tell you.