Ys Eternal
You may have seen me extolling the virtues of the game Ys, elsewhere,
but I have new information, including where you can download it
First, what is Ys?
Ys Book I and II is a game made for the CD-attachment for the
game console, Turbo-Grafx. As far as I know, the Turbo-Grafx was the
first gaming system to use full-sized CDs for games. In looking for a
download, I've seen it described as a "cult classic". I guess I fall
into that category, as I LOVE it!
At first glance, Ys is your typical throwback game, with chibi (little)
characters that run around doing quests to collect experience (so you
can go up levels) and gold (so that you can buy new equipment). This
game does have a much deeper level to it, though. This is the first
console game I ever saw with animated cutscenes - and at the time, they
were amazing! They still don't look bad today!
There are intermittent voice overs, and the cutscenes all have voice
overs, as well. There is a driving story that takes you seamlessly from
Book I to Book II (If I recall correctly, they were on different
disks... either that, or it took a different loading cycle - I'll come
back to that, though).
I'm going to talk here about Ys Eternal, as I have not played the Turbo-Grafx version for several years. So, what is Ys Eternal, you ask? Ys Eternal
is a wonderfully extended version of Ys Book I and II. There are whole
new scenes to visit, new characters, new monsters, extra storyline, and
new ways to interact with characters.
Story - Adol Christian is the red-headed
warrior who will save the land of Ys. from destruction. Along the way
you will fight evil demons, help villages, save kidnapped people, find
ancient relics and become a conduit for the twin goddesses. You'll even
become... Well, I don't want to give too much away
Combat is very simple - all you have to do
is is "run into" the enemy. Sounds easy enough, but there is some
strategy to it. If you hit them at an angle (diagonally), you're much
less likely to get hit, yourself. You can actually kill enemies that
are much higher level than you by using this technique. Running
straight-on at an enemy will quickly spell your doom if you're low
level. In Book II you will use not just your sword, but learn magic and
be able to use fireballs against your enemy.
Character Interaction - Again, simple!
Bump into someone to talk to them. I mentioned a new way to interact
with characters, too. This is for Book II only, as I recall. If you
equip certain items before talking to someone (flowers, apples, herbs,
rhoda tree fruits, etc), a though bubble will pop up with a picture of
the item in it. If you click Give (or Yes, or whatever it asks), you
will give the item to the person you're about to talk to. This will
make them like you more. The more they like you, the more information
they'll share... and sometimes they will give you things that you can't
get in the game, otherwise! You can change how the main female
character reacts to you by the number of flowers
(or other items) you give her, and it will change the ending of the story!
TIP: Save the game before offering items
to people. Sometimes it takes four items for them to give you something
in return, sometimes they won't do anything special for you at all.
EQUIPMENT - Like any RPG, you will find and/or buy new equiptment as you progress through the game(s). You MUST REMEMBER to equip your sword, armor, special items and/or magic wands! If you don't manually equip them, you're not using them!!!
ITEMS - There are two types of items in the
Ys games: The kind you can use in combat, and the kind you can use at
any other time (although there are some all-the-time items you can use
in combat, too, such as healing herbs). You will have two screens - one
for Equipment and one for Items.
If you "equip" an item from the Items
screen, you can usually use it in combat. You can also offer that item
(some of them) to other characters in the game, as described above in Character Interaction.
Equipment will show your armor, the item
you currently have equipped and (in Book II) any rings you might have.
The rings work towards resisting damage, slowing down the enemy, upping
your protection, etc. Memory is slightly fuzzy, it's probably been
about a year since I played
Soundtrack - Really good. The music changes depending on where you are and what you're doing. I think it's lovely.
LENGTH - I don't see any way you could make
it through even Book I in a single day, much less the entire game.
This is a nice LONG game, and one you can walk away from for a while if
you need a break. (Though it's compelling, it's hard to stop!)
YS ETERNAL - FREE DOWNLOAD
First, a description of why this is free. From what I understand, this
expanded version of Ys Book I and II was made but they decided not to
bother translating it into English. Someone in the US (a fan group? a
company?) translated the game into English for us, so that we can enjoy
it, too. ^__^ As far as I know, free download is the only way you can
get it - I have not found any English version for sale. It's old enough
that I can't even find it on Falcom's official site.
You can download this game via torrent (I know you don't like torrents,
Khat, but it's the only way I know of to get it!) at ISO hunt here: http://isohunt.com/l...rnal%20Complete - Choose the (currently second one down), Ys I and II Eternal Complete English-ELAZUL
This game is almost a gigabyte in size, and worth every bit of space it takes on your hard drive. In Ys Eternal, Book I and Book II
are loaded separately via a .bat file. You finish Book I, exit, then
enter Book II. If you feel like it, you can skip Book I entirely
(though I don't recommend it until you play through Book I at least
once). You do not carry forward equipment or items, but there is a VERY
good and logical reason why you don't, hence the perfect break between
Book I and Book II.
If anyone decides to play the game, be sure to look for a walkthrough or
ask for tips here in this thread. DO NOT enter Darm Tower (in Book I)
without saving first - you can't get back out, and... something else
that I won't go into unless asked, just a warning
A comprehensive Ys site: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/ys/ys.htm
They do a wonderful job explaining the world of Ys - much better than my
attempt. PLUS there are MP3 downloads from the game and more!
In 2001, Falcom bundled both Eternal games, enhanced
the graphics on the first title to make them match the brilliance of
the second, and released them together under the name Ys Complete, this
time with a fully animated intro. While the plans to release this
package in America fell through, a fan translated patch exists that puts
90% of these games in English, as well as enabling play on non-Japanese
Windows systems.
You may have seen me extolling the virtues of the game Ys, elsewhere,
but I have new information, including where you can download it
First, what is Ys?
Ys Book I and II is a game made for the CD-attachment for the
game console, Turbo-Grafx. As far as I know, the Turbo-Grafx was the
first gaming system to use full-sized CDs for games. In looking for a
download, I've seen it described as a "cult classic". I guess I fall
into that category, as I LOVE it!
At first glance, Ys is your typical throwback game, with chibi (little)
characters that run around doing quests to collect experience (so you
can go up levels) and gold (so that you can buy new equipment). This
game does have a much deeper level to it, though. This is the first
console game I ever saw with animated cutscenes - and at the time, they
were amazing! They still don't look bad today!
There are intermittent voice overs, and the cutscenes all have voice
overs, as well. There is a driving story that takes you seamlessly from
Book I to Book II (If I recall correctly, they were on different
disks... either that, or it took a different loading cycle - I'll come
back to that, though).
I'm going to talk here about Ys Eternal, as I have not played the Turbo-Grafx version for several years. So, what is Ys Eternal, you ask? Ys Eternal
is a wonderfully extended version of Ys Book I and II. There are whole
new scenes to visit, new characters, new monsters, extra storyline, and
new ways to interact with characters.
Story - Adol Christian is the red-headed
warrior who will save the land of Ys. from destruction. Along the way
you will fight evil demons, help villages, save kidnapped people, find
ancient relics and become a conduit for the twin goddesses. You'll even
become... Well, I don't want to give too much away
Combat is very simple - all you have to do
is is "run into" the enemy. Sounds easy enough, but there is some
strategy to it. If you hit them at an angle (diagonally), you're much
less likely to get hit, yourself. You can actually kill enemies that
are much higher level than you by using this technique. Running
straight-on at an enemy will quickly spell your doom if you're low
level. In Book II you will use not just your sword, but learn magic and
be able to use fireballs against your enemy.
Character Interaction - Again, simple!
Bump into someone to talk to them. I mentioned a new way to interact
with characters, too. This is for Book II only, as I recall. If you
equip certain items before talking to someone (flowers, apples, herbs,
rhoda tree fruits, etc), a though bubble will pop up with a picture of
the item in it. If you click Give (or Yes, or whatever it asks), you
will give the item to the person you're about to talk to. This will
make them like you more. The more they like you, the more information
they'll share... and sometimes they will give you things that you can't
get in the game, otherwise! You can change how the main female
character reacts to you by the number of flowers
(or other items) you give her, and it will change the ending of the story!TIP: Save the game before offering items
to people. Sometimes it takes four items for them to give you something
in return, sometimes they won't do anything special for you at all.
EQUIPMENT - Like any RPG, you will find and/or buy new equiptment as you progress through the game(s). You MUST REMEMBER to equip your sword, armor, special items and/or magic wands! If you don't manually equip them, you're not using them!!!
ITEMS - There are two types of items in the
Ys games: The kind you can use in combat, and the kind you can use at
any other time (although there are some all-the-time items you can use
in combat, too, such as healing herbs). You will have two screens - one
for Equipment and one for Items.
If you "equip" an item from the Items
screen, you can usually use it in combat. You can also offer that item
(some of them) to other characters in the game, as described above in Character Interaction.
Equipment will show your armor, the item
you currently have equipped and (in Book II) any rings you might have.
The rings work towards resisting damage, slowing down the enemy, upping
your protection, etc. Memory is slightly fuzzy, it's probably been
about a year since I played
Soundtrack - Really good. The music changes depending on where you are and what you're doing. I think it's lovely.
LENGTH - I don't see any way you could make
it through even Book I in a single day, much less the entire game.
This is a nice LONG game, and one you can walk away from for a while if
you need a break. (Though it's compelling, it's hard to stop!)
YS ETERNAL - FREE DOWNLOAD
First, a description of why this is free. From what I understand, this
expanded version of Ys Book I and II was made but they decided not to
bother translating it into English. Someone in the US (a fan group? a
company?) translated the game into English for us, so that we can enjoy
it, too. ^__^ As far as I know, free download is the only way you can
get it - I have not found any English version for sale. It's old enough
that I can't even find it on Falcom's official site.
You can download this game via torrent (I know you don't like torrents,
Khat, but it's the only way I know of to get it!) at ISO hunt here: http://isohunt.com/l...rnal%20Complete - Choose the (currently second one down), Ys I and II Eternal Complete English-ELAZUL
This game is almost a gigabyte in size, and worth every bit of space it takes on your hard drive. In Ys Eternal, Book I and Book II
are loaded separately via a .bat file. You finish Book I, exit, then
enter Book II. If you feel like it, you can skip Book I entirely
(though I don't recommend it until you play through Book I at least
once). You do not carry forward equipment or items, but there is a VERY
good and logical reason why you don't, hence the perfect break between
Book I and Book II.
If anyone decides to play the game, be sure to look for a walkthrough or
ask for tips here in this thread. DO NOT enter Darm Tower (in Book I)
without saving first - you can't get back out, and... something else
that I won't go into unless asked, just a warning
A comprehensive Ys site: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/ys/ys.htm
They do a wonderful job explaining the world of Ys - much better than my
attempt. PLUS there are MP3 downloads from the game and more!
In 2001, Falcom bundled both Eternal games, enhanced
the graphics on the first title to make them match the brilliance of
the second, and released them together under the name Ys Complete, this
time with a fully animated intro. While the plans to release this
package in America fell through, a fan translated patch exists that puts
90% of these games in English, as well as enabling play on non-Japanese
Windows systems.
