Ys I & II
イースI・II1989Ys I & II
イースI・IIALSO KNOWN AS YS BOOK I & II
Adol Christin rams his way through two adventures, now with voices.
Ys I & II joins the first two Ys games into one CD release. Both began as PC-8801 games by Nihon Falcom, and this version adds voice acting, cut scenes and CD audio.
| RELEASED IN JAPAN | 1989 |
|---|---|
| NORTH AMERICA | 1990, as a TurboGrafx-CD title |
| ORIGINAL GAMES | Nihon Falcom, on PC-8801 |
| PUBLISHER | Hudson Soft in Japan, NEC in North America |
| LATER FORMAT | Super CD-ROM² |
| PACK-IN | TurboDuo, 1992 |
You control Adol Christin, a red-haired swordsman, and combat works by ramming enemies. A 1990 review called this system unusual, and a reviewer also praised how well the enemies chase you.
A combo value rises while you keep attacking without taking damage. Rings give special effects at certain combo values.
In Ys I, Adol explores the island of Esteria and searches for the six Books of Ys. In Ys II, he is carried to the floating city of Ys. There he tries to end a demon threat and free the goddesses.
Tomo Yamane drew the graphics, having just left Falcom. Iwasaki rebuilt the scenario after interviewing former Falcom staff. The soundtrack came from Yuzo Koshiro, Mieko Ishikawa and Hideya Nagata.
TurboPlay called the music the best ever recorded for a video game in 1990. A 1992 PC Engine Fan poll ranked the game third of all time. PC remakes followed in 2001, with PSP and mobile versions later, and the PC Engine Mini included it in 2019.
It is one of the best-known early CD-ROM² games, and it used voice, cut scenes and CD audio when few games did. An RPGFan review in 2001 called it the first RPG on a console CD-ROM.
- The PC Engine version uses 512 colors.
- The US version has different graphics from the Japanese version.
- The English version was one of the first games with voice dubbing.
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