Ys: The Ark of Napishtim

YS(pronounced "iiiish"): The Ark of Napishtim is the sixth installment in the YS series, and picks up three years after the conclusion of YS V which debuted on the SNES about 14 years ago. So, if you've never heard of this series that’s probably why. If you do remember this series, and are still playing games, have no fear as everything you both loved and hated about the previous titles is intact one hundred fold. The story goes something like this. You once again don the guise of red haired hero Adol Christian, and in the games intro you and your friend Dogi are offered an adventure by some pirates, however, the Romun Army comes to arrest you and thus you are driven to flee with the pirates. During the ensuing battle with the Romun Navy you are knocked overboard while trying to save a fellow pirate crew member and are swallowed by the great vortex, a mysterious place from which none have ever returned, and is rumored to house a great treasure at its core. Of course the battle has to conveniently take place immediately outside of this thing. After being devoured by the vortex you wash ashore on an island badly injured and are nursed back to health by Olha and her younger sister. These two girls are strange elf/cat people that belong to a tribe known as the Rheda, and inhabit the small island chain inside the great vortex that you are now on. I won't go on, as I think you can see where this is going, but needless to say the hack and slash solo adventure begins in all its simplistic, clichéd, stereotypical glory, and will take you no longer than 20 hours complete.

Now let’s not beat around the bush anymore, ok? This game has some of the worst graphics seen in any recent RPG on any system. The sprites lack any form of detail and the environments are grossly simplistic. In fact, the sprites are so bad that you could actively compare them with those of Final Fantasy 7, a game that was released back in 1997 and didn't even have sprites its characters were simply raw polygons. The environments look horribly dated, though no where near to the extent that the sprites are. There is at least some form of cover up here; however, as the game attempts to use pretty patterns and repeated textures to hide its nudity. What is nice about the environments though is that in many cases they come with some pretty nice watercolor, oil, and acrylic painted back drops, and multiple layers, all of which look great and do a good job establishing unique YS fantasy feel.

The characters are much like the environments in this game. They contain a beauty that is out of reach. Perhaps this is because the games voice acting is beyond god awful. However, there are a few gems and familiar faces here and there such as Sonny Strait (most known for voicing Krillin in the Legendary Dragonball series) who plays the town peddler. You have two options when it comes to the games dub. You can either leave it on, or turn it off. There is no Japanese audio readily available on the disc. However, you can activate it with the proper code from the cheats menu that is available when you go to start a new game. While it's nice that it's still in the games code, I don't think I'm alone in saying that this should have been a feature in the options menu. Not something you bust your ass for in order to “unlock it,” especially since it is considerably better than the poor job done by the American actors. Also once that code is in the system and you've saved that game with that code on it to your memory card, that “cheat” is permanent for the life of that game. That's right permanent, there is no way to turn it off if you want to, and that goes for all cheats, not just the voiceover, many of which are legitimate. However, it’s not really an overly big deal since you can only play with one cheat on at a time. The cheats and terrible dub aside, in terms of characters, you will run across a few old faces from pervious YS games that practically no one will remember for a short nostalgia high. You will also encounter a horde of new characters, many of which are terribly unoriginal, and a few of them look like cheap bootlegs of other well known RPG and Anime Series stars. However, the one cool thing about the characters in this game is that their depth and story are exposed gradually over the course of the game. This is because the game constantly recycles you through the same environments while gradually expanding them and introducing you to new ones. While at first glance you may think this a horrible thing, it’s really not. In fact, it's pretty cool, because what it dose is give the game a large amount of the depth for the small scale that it takes place on. This isn't like Final Fantasy or Grandia where you adventure around and meet people once, get their lines and then are done with them. In The Arc of Napishtim you constantly go back and talk to everyone you have known since the games beginning. This let’s you see how everyone changes in response to your actions and everyone else’s reactions to each other in regard to your actions, as well as the events that come up in the story. After a little while you see that everything is connected and entwined to everything else in the game, and it’s pretty cool. This makes every character in the game 3D and breathes an insane amount of life into the game world. After the initial meeting you feel like you are in a real town and with real people. They gossip. You can feel their tension, their emotion, their stress, and their feelings toward one another, as well as towards you, be they fellow ship wreck survivors, natives, or any of the other groups of magical beings you meet in this adventure. Plus, to top everything off, because new material is constantly coming up going back and talking to the same people never gets old, and you will find yourself constantly coming back for more, even if it’s not important.

Game play is by far Ark of Napishtim's strongest suit. It’s not more than shallow hack and slash, and the interface is clunky and dated. The fact that you can't access your inventory during boss battles, for instance, makes them down right infuriating. However, the simple play control and fast pace of the hack and slash action will have you mindlessly addicted to the very end. Battles never get old, no matter how many of those stupid little green gem's you need to collect to upgrade any one of your three magic swords, or how many monsters you need to kill to level. In fact, and I know that others can attest to this, if this game had a co-op story mode it would be THE HOTTEST thing to hit any console since Square’s “Secret of Mana,” back in 1993. Yes, despite the bad things I've said this game IS that good, and it's all thanks to mindless fun of the combat system.

My only complaint when it comes to the battle system is its simplicity is its downfall. The reason for this is after the first boss battle you start to get the games elemental swords. There are three in all, each coinciding with one of the games elements, one wind element, one fire element, and one water element. Each is given to you, just as every typical RPG does, after beating a boss. Now while each sword has its own special and moves, the problem is that there is no elemental base to this game. That’s right, there is no table of elements in YS: The Arc of Napishtim. So because of this you do just as much damage to the giant ice golem over there with your level 7 water sword as you do with your level 7 fire sword and level 7 wind sword. This situation shouldn't be the case! One of your swords should do extra damage, one should heal the enemy, and/or not have any effect on him like the third sword. Anyone who is remotely familiar with RPG’s knows this, and by not having it apply there is no point in the second and third swords being in the game. Instead, the developers opted to make everything in the game is level based. What dose this mean? It means that all you have to do is over crank your sword(s) and you will be able to run through the game slaughtering anything that gets in your way. Worse yet, if you build your swords evenly and kill enough enemies to use the swords special attack and then go into the boss battle and let loose on him with your swords, those nightmarish boss encounters mentioned previously become a joke, and the game looses all it’s challenge, minus the annoying plat-forming elements in the dungeons.

All and all, YS: The Arc of Napishtim is a lot of fun despite its many problems. Music, something the YS series is known for, is nothing you'll want a soundtrack of, but nothing bad either. While the story is pretty stereotypical and clichéd, the way that the other characters in the game unfold and open up to you as the game progresses still makes it interesting and keeps you thinking. The combat system, which is simplistic and yet fluid, is by far and large the games mind, body, heart and soul. Everything else in the game is an afterthought in comparison to the combat. Most of your time playing will be spent going around in the wild and slaughtering everything that dares to cross your path, simply because it's just so much fun. The game has a new game plus mode, well sorta, similar to “Chrono Trigger’s,” which unlocks when you beat the game for the first time. However, this new mode is mostly just a bunch of crazy added and unnecessary challenges that you can undertake, and upon completion, reward you with either an automatic sword upgrade of your choice, an item, or piece of equipment that is as crack-fiendish as the challenge was. Upon completing these challenges there are slight alterations to the ending, though it's nothing to write home about, and most people will definitely be able to get by without it. This added mode feels tacked on at the last minute, and is simply there for what die hard fans of the YS series remain. The one thing this game really leaves to be desired is an option to play co-op with a friend, simply because the combat is much fun, and so reminiscent Secret of Mana. Also, if co-op was present, then this would be best RPG to hit consoles since Secret of Mana in 1993. SoM was an unforgettable experience that causes me to salivate when I think about repeating that experience in a new game. Sadly YS: The Arc of Napishtim is not that new game. However, the game definitely shows enough potential to see that it could have easily been said game if its developers had just taken a little more time, and aimed a little higher. Depending on how you look at it. The Arc of Napishtim does and does not have trouble competing with other modern RPG's and old school RPG's on the market. Its graphics are bad. Its sound is nothing special. Its story is cliché, but its game play is awesome. Once you take into account that it’s first YS game in nearly 14 years, it’s easy to see that it’s everything it should be, even though it fall's short of everything it could have been.