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Legacy of Ys: Books I & II

• By Will Herring
• February 23, 2009 23:55 PM PST
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Originally released for Japanese computers in 1987, the Ys series is no stranger to remakes. From the Famicon to the Sega Saturn all the way to your Wii's Virtual Console, the story of the books of Ys has been told time and time again. Developer Falcom has decided to spruce up this age-old tale with some fantastic new visuals and attributes in the titles latest release, Legacy of Ys: Books I and II.

THE VERDICT by Will Herring An RPG classic revitalized and re-engineered from the ground up, this decades-old adventure holds its own in this remarkably solid remake.

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"Ees?" "Whys?" "Whose?"

Legacy of Ys chronicles the adventures of sprightly young warrior Adol and his quest to protect the ancient Books of Ys from the clutches of an evil wizard. While Ys' story may not be the most original, the classic dungeon-crawler has stood up remarkably well over time thanks to its many tweaks and updates. While many of Ys' improvements are solely aesthetic, they certainly help draw the player into the world of Esteria: beautiful hand-drawn characters compliment the new 3D playing field, both adding a nice bit of depth to the maze-like dungeons scattered throughout the game. Speaking of dungeon-crawling, thanks to the DS' dual screen capabilities a map is constantly present, always displaying Adol's current location, hit points, enemy life, current objective and even equipment choices.

The game's battle system has gone unchanged, so for the uninitiated, the name of the game is still randomly bumping into enemies to cause damage. When playing with stylus controls, the game almost plays like a Benny Hill comedy with Adol zipping around the screen at incredible speeds, randomly obliterating enemies with an accidental slash of his sword. Still, after you've gotten used to the battle system and all of its quirks, the game's combat is easy to master, and - at times, a bit too easy, as accidental over-levelling was a constant problem for my adventurer. Not even two hours in, and my sword-swinging escapades had capped out Adol's level, leaving a series of incredibly simple boss fights in my wake.

Diamond in the Rough

Legacy of Ys oftentimes walks the fine line between epic and simplistic, but if you can wade through the level-grinding and linear plot, I can guarantee that most RPG enthusiasts will find an adventure worthy of their time in the Ys compilation.

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