These two games are... perhaps not THE best (that, for my money, would be the Turbo CD version released back in 1989), but certainly the most modernized and accessible versions of the classics Ys I and II. The reason I enjoy these games so much is their unique action-RPG gameplay... you don't kill enemies by mindlessly whacking your sword at them, but rather by running into them, either off-center or at an angle. Attacking them head on will almost guarantee pain on Adol's end. A fair warning: these games are NOT like modern JRPGs. They don't hold your hand, and even on the Normal difficulty setting, the challenge is pretty brutal. You need to pay attention to the story, item descriptions, NPC dialogue, everything. Some enemies and bosses require special items or tactics, and sometimes it's not blatantly obvious where to go next... although the games aren't HUGE either, so sheer exploration and patience can usually solve that problem... and in fact, meticulous exploration is kinda necessary anyways. And while Ys I has a low level cap of 10 that you'll reach long before it's final boss, Ys II can be a bit on the grindy side at times. But it's all amazingly fun. The unique gameplay mechanics allow for an amazingly tight, well paced experience, and force you to think and act differently from typical action-RPGs. The graphics are a beautiful, charming anime style. And the soundtrack is legendary, composed by geniuses Yuzo Koshiro, Mieko Ishikawa, and Ryo Yonemitsu, and rearranged by Yukihiro Jindo for this particular release. They even give you multiple versions of the soundtrack and art styles to choose from! Go in with an open mind... and let the world of Ys immerse you in it. P.S. Here's hoping we eventually get the PC versions of Ys: Ark of Napishtim and Ys Seven! P. P. S. Also, Origin and Oath in Felghana are amazing too, and Origin in particular is intricately connected to the stories in Ys I and II. Definitely pick those up as well! :D
First of all these are the DOS versions, NOT the arcade or GFWL/XBLA versions. That said, the DOS versions of MK1 and 3 are spot on with only a few extremely minor differences. They play virtually identical to the arcades. MK2 is not quite as close... it's still a mostly faithful port, but the music is nowhere near the quality of the other two games here. There is one major downside though, and this is the reason I can only give it four stars... since these are the old DOS versions from the 1990's, an Xbox 360 controller by itself is not gonna cut it. You either need a controller that DOSbox and these games can easily recognize, or you'll need some third party software. If you don't have at least one of these things, you may want to pass on these versions, as getting a 360 controller to work natively on these games is probably not gonna happen. Another thing to note, and I'll leave it to your judgment whether this is a good thing or not, MK1 and 2 do NOT have freeplay enabled by default (MK3 however does). They give you four credits to make it through the game. For those who want freeplay in these versions: - In MK1, press F10 to access the options menu, then, while holding SHIFT, type "DIP" which brings up the DIP switch screen. Switch 5 allows freeplay, and AFAIK, only needs to be toggled once. - MK2 also has a freeplay cheat, but it is much harder to do. As soon as the copyright screen appears when the game boots up, type "AICULEDSSUL" VERY quickly. You'll hear a special sound effect if you did it right (it may take a few tries, as you have to be extremely quick); at this point hit F9 and you'll be taken to a cheat menu where you can enable freeplay. And unfortunately, this has to be re-enabled every time you boot the game up. But yeah. If you can handle the specific circumstances of these ports, they're fantastic once you get them working the way you want.
