Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished

Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished,

Ys was a precursor to role-playing games that emphasize storytelling.[4] The hero of Ys is an adventurous young swordsman named Adol Christin. As the story begins, he has just arrived at the Town of Minea, in the land of Esteria. He is called upon by Sara, a fortune-teller, who tells him of a great evil that is sweeping the land.

Adol is informed that he must seek out the six Books of Ys. These books contain the history of the ancient land of Ys, and will give him the knowledge he needs to defeat the evil forces. Sara gives Adol a crystal for identification and instructs him to find her aunt in Zepik Village, who holds the key to retrieving one of the Books. With that, his quest begins.

Gameplay

The player controls Adol on a game field viewed from a

Combat in Ys is rather different from other RPGs of the era, which either had

Aside from graphical differences, the game layout remains essentially the same across the many ports of Ys; there are some versions where the details were changed. The Master System version, for example, saw some of the game's dungeon areas flipped horizontally (including some other minor differences).

The most distinctive of the early ports was the

The 1991 remake for the X68000 uses pre-rendered 3D graphics for the boss sprites, which was called "a bizarre contrast" with the game's mostly 2D graphics.^[8]

In 2024, a Nintendo Switch port based on the PC-8801 version was released by D4 Enterprise as part of their EGGCONSOLE series.

Music

Composed by Yuzo Koshiro along with Mieko Ishikawa, the soundtrack is notable for its rich melodies,^[9] in an age when video game music was beginning to progress from monotonous bleeps. The Ys soundtrack is considered to have some of the best video game music ever composed,^[2][9][10] and it is considered one of the finest and most influential role-playing video game scores of all time.^[2][11]

Several soundtrack albums dedicated to the music of Ys have been released by Falcom. This includes:

• Music from Ys (1987): Contains the soundtrack to the original PC-8801 edition, along with a number of unused tracks and the replacement tracks used in the MSX edition, many of which were later incorporated into the Ys Eternal soundtrack. Also included are five arranged tracks from Ryo Yonemitsu, who arranged the soundtrack to the
  TurboGrafx-CD version of Ys I & II
  (1989).
• Perfect Collection Ys (1990): A two-disc release, the first disc of which is a new arrangement of the Ys soundtrack by Ryo Yonemitsu. The second disc contains assorted arrangements of tracks from both Ys I and II.
• Music from Ys Renewal (1995): The complete Ys soundtrack, including the bonus tracks, reproduced on upgraded synthesizer equipment.

Reception

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The Master System version of Ys received positive reviews. It was reviewed in the March 1989 issue of Computer and Video Games magazine, stating that it has some of the best graphics on the system and that it "offers depth and playability" that "will keep you engrossed for weeks".^[14] The Games Machine compared the game to The Legend of Zelda, stating that "in many respects, the character detail and all-round presentation make it the better game visually", and concludes that Ys is "one of the top-rank RPGs around".^[22] ACE magazine in 1989 listed Ys as the second best Master System game available at the time, praising the "huge scrolling" world, characters who "can be questioned" and "good deal of role-playing" depth.^[13]