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You know what’s worse than the fact that it took me this long to write something up about the playable Ys 6 at Konami’s E3 booth? The fact that this late in the goddamned (metaphorical) game, nobody beat me to it. That’s kind of depressing.
The game itself was kind of depressing too though…but only kind of, so don’t get your suicide boots on yet.
Ys 6, for a spot of background, came out on the PC in Japan some months back, and was incredibly successful, by degrees. The PC market is relatively small there, given that prices tend to run between $80 and $100 for a new title, and that, well, there aren’t as many PC gamers in Japan. So it was rather impressive to everyone that the game sold over 500k units (if I properly recall). Falcom is really the only company, aside from Square-Enix, that can boast those kinds of numbers for PC games. Thus the Konami PS2 port.
I have not played through the PC original, in spite of having owned it briefly. So unfortunately, the displayed demo is going to be an island unto itself.
I played the demo three times, so I’m pretty aware of what’s going on in there. The first time through, I talked to all of the characters. There were only three, so it wasn’t tough to do. You’re Adol once more, in all of your red-haired glory. Interestingly, in these games he tends to be the only red-haired person in the entire world. I guess that’s what hero status gets you. But (up until the Ys Eternal ‘extra characters’) within the world of Ys, all characters have pretty nearly natural hair colors. So it’s a bit odd, and very intentional that he’s the only red-haired cat around.
But I digress – in the demo, you’ve got to find a young maiden who’s gone to the fountain – there are monsters about, so the villagers are worried about her. These characters are pretty generic in design so far, but fit within the Ys world by virtue of their aesthetic design. They’re just drab, is all. One of them gives you a potion, one of them gives you a level-up, and the other is just confused about where the girl went. There’s not a whole lot to that.
Aside from the large, healthy, high-res character portraits that pop up during conversation, everything else in the game is 3D (oh, I have to amend that – enemies’ dropped items can be 2D on occasion). The 3D is…competent. Not really amazing by any standard, and in fact there’s not a whole lot to distinguish this as the Ys world specifically yet. Perhaps later in the game, when we get to more pillars and ice slides, it’ll start to feel like Ys for me.
Ys, for as much as I love it, has always been split up in areas as generic as a sonic title. Here’s the Grass level. Here’s the Desert level. Here’s the Fire level. Ice level. Tower level. But this is not what compels me about Ys – in general, it’s the vibrancy of the world, and the shallow depth of the story. That is to say – the story is not revolutionary, but it is told with emotion and care…it makes me want to finish. Can’t tell much about the story here, just yet.
The music is what accounts for the vibrancy of the world, in general. The music here is…passable. Can’t make final judgment yet, it was a loud booth. The other vibrancy factor is the breakneck pace of the action. As action RPGs go, Ys has always been the fastest and most furious. In three out of seven games (yes, there are two fully different Ys 4s), attacking was done with just the d-pad. You strike enemies by running into them at an angle – perfect for an analog stick. This worked remarkably well in the PS2 Ys Eternal port, which was otherwise…well…lackluster. It’s the simplicity that makes the combat so fast – you can have a mob of enemies, and fend them off properly without pressing buttons unnecessarily. The game *knows* that you want to hit enemies, so it does that work for you. You just have to come at them from the proper angle.
Ys 1, 2 and 4 (PCE version) are the games that used this combat style. 3, 4 (SFC version) and 5 all took button presses. And they had jumping, whereas the other three did not. For true Ys fans, the former three are the ultimate – and Ys 3 occasionally gets a nod for its unique side-scrolling action.
Unfortunately, Ys 6 falls into the latter category. It doesn’t really seem necessary to me, but I guess some people like pressing buttons. My take on it is this: if you’re going to make me press buttons, make an interesting combo system, like the one in Data West’s Brave Prove. Otherwise, why bother taking away the thing that made Ys combat unique??
They didn’t put in an interesting combo system. It’s pretty disheartening. But! They did give you different swords to mess around with. Fire,
Lightning and Wind so far – switch between them on the fly with the L1 and R1 buttons. They all have different properties – the fire sword has a multi-hit projectile charge attack, the wind sword is very fast and combos for a longer period of time, and the Lightning one…it didn’t seem to do a whole lot. I’m sure it has some special property as well though.
Jump attacks are varied depending on the button press. Press attack as you rise, and you’ll perform a sort of uppercut slash. Press as you come down for a multiple hit downward thrust. Unfortunately so far, in spite of there being a few flying enemies, the jump attacks are only truly useful in the boss battle, where you actually have to get up there to get a good hit in his weak spot.
Jumping is further made useless by the fact that you can’t jump on any of the surfaces around you that look perfectly playformy. I get the impression that jumping will be used for specific puzzles, not as a device for world exploration, which is not very heartening either. I should say that one can occasionally jump over boss attacks though.
But back to my first play-through. I died at the boss. It didn’t take me very long to do so either – he smacked me thrice, and down I went.
I left the game alone for a few hours, then came back again. I collected more potions this time – you can use an equipped item by tapping a button. I died again, and I gave up.
Everyone I saw playing this game died. People were trying pretty hard, too, especially the girls. I’m not sure if it’s the sexy red hair, or the fact that you never had to fight for a spot on one of the two stations, but girls seemed to play this game a lot. Of course – none of them ever beat it either. So I got an idea – why not level up. On day three of E3 I decided that I was going to beat the Ys 6 demo, and damn the time it took. This was a real task, because I hadn’t been particularly impressed by the game. It feels like another placemarker till the real Ys sequel comes out. I’ve been waiting for that game for about 11 years now, so perhaps it’s time to give up the ghost.
I grabbed the controller and went to it. There was a tall Konami booth employee with bushy dark eyebrows standing by the kiosk. When I say ‘by’, I mean that he was leaning on the moniter, staring at it, and the surrounding area. His face was perhaps a foot and a half from mine, which I’ll admit made me slightly uncomfortable.
I leveled up for an hour, back and forth through the few screens of enemies time and time again. Bear in mind – this was all to level up one time. Ys has always been a game of level gaining, but this is primarily enjoyable in the early Ys model of stick/d-pad play. Not so much in the ‘press press press’ play style. By the half hour mark I was getting frustrated, but after another 15 minutes, I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, so all was not lost. The creepy Konami guy was still standing there. He wasn’t really looking at me, but it was disarming nevertheless.
So I leveled up two times – once from the ‘strength’ given me by the village elder, and once through the power of my own limbs. I faced the boss, and cut him down without using a potion., or getting particularly hurt. It was rather satisfying to completely annihilate the giant monstrosity (big half-screen bosses this time round), after having seen so many failed attempts, two of them mine. The Konami guy raised his eyebrows.
I’m left with a very mixed feeling. The only joy I got from the game was in triumphing over that boss. It was a very Ys feeling. But I had to bore the crap out of myself for an hour to get it. I’m really not sure if the tradeoff will be worth my time in the final build. The situation is not entirely gorgeous. I can’t say I was disappointed, as I was not really expecting big things. But I would have loved to have been surprised.
brandon sheffield wants an Ys 4 eternal.
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