Hey all, and welcome to another break away from the hectic E3 season. Most of the site wholeheartedly embraces the maelstrom of reveals and news during what is still currently the biggest event in gaming - no-one's more excited than our own moderator king Marino, who is already busy uploading dozens of trailers I'll have to review later (""""have to"""") - but I always find the hustle and bustle a little enervating. I'm glad to be there front and center when the conferences and Giant Bomb live night shows are in full swing, but would much prefer to spend the downtime contemplating games that have long since been released rather than those to come. That's where my annual "Alternative to E3" series comes in: it's an excuse to wax lyrical about anything that isn't E3-related, released per diem over the five days of the event, and invite others to relax in this oasis from marketing hype and hyperbole.

In lieu of the usual LPs of previous years, in 2018 we took a glance at a number of different "randomizers" - ROM hacks that introduced procedural generation to classic games, most famously with the chest randomizer of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - and this year I felt like digging into the wider world of Falcom games. Falcom, or Nihon Falcom, is a video game company with a long history of producing RPGs with an uncommon predilection towards home computers. Many of Falcom's earliest games were released on popular Japanese PCs the NEC PC-8801, its successor the PC-9801, the Microsoft MSX, the early Sharp series like the X1, and the early FM (Fujitsu Micro) series like the FM-7. Falcom would also branch out to consoles of that era - I don't think there was a Japanese game developer in existence that didn't try their hand at Famicom development at some point - but were predominantly known for their PC games, more so than contemporaries like Square or Enix who would fully make the switch to console gaming.

Anyway, Falcom's (founded 1981) been quietly doing their thing for longer than Square (founded 1986) or Tales Studio (founded 1986, as Wolf Team) or Enix (though they've existed since 1975, they only started developing games in 1983) but with far less fanfare, at least internationally. Serendipitously, it wasn't until the western gaming world got way into PC gaming again with the advent of client-side applications and digital storefronts like Steam that they saw a global renaissance, beginning with their Ys semi-reboot Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim in 2003 - first released in the west via its 2005 PS2 port - and the remake and prequel built with the same engine: Ys Origin and Ys: The Oath in Felghana. It was from Ys that Falcom re-established their PC RPG empire and gained an appreciation from a newfound audience in the west, expanding on older franchises while introducing new ones and courting various Japanese-to-English localizers like NISA or XSEED (the latter of whom are definitely having a well-deserved bad week). They're still not selling gangbusters but there's a very vocal fan contingent in their corner, of which I am a member.

(The first two and final days will be primers more than anything, going into each franchise's history, how they play (and what makes them distinct from the other Falcom series), and where to jump in if you're a newcomer. The third and fourth days will focus on series that are new to me, so I'll also be supplementing those with some introductory screenshot LPs.)

Since it all begins and ends with Ys, let's start there:

Day -1: Ys

Ys (pronounced "eese", like in "geese" - it's a French pronunciation, like the name Yves ("eev")) was introduced to the world with Ys I: The Vanished Omens in 1987, released a few months before Squaresoft's Final Fantasy (for a little historical context). It was inspired in parts by Falcom's earliest games Dragon Slayer and Xanadu as well as Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda, switching from a side-scrolling perspective of their previous games with a top-down one that would come to be Ys's trademark.

Early games utilized the "bump" combat system. In lieu of a separate sword button, the protagonist had to walk (or bump) into enemies to damage them; the way this works is that a particular region of the hero's hit box was dedicated to the sword, which would cause damage to enemies if that part of the hit box touched them, and the rest was dedicated to the fleshy human holding it, which would cause damage to the hero if that hit box touched enemies. An inelegant system, perhaps, but it did emphasize the importance of maneuvering and caution when approaching foes. The only modern Ys game that still retains this system is the remake of the first two games, Ys I & II: Chronicles.

The rest of the modern Ys games are built in two other engines: the Napishtim Engine, introduced in Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim, and the Seven Engine, introduced in Ys Seven. The Napishtim games - which cover Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim, Ys Origin, and Ys: The Oath in Felghana - are action-RPGs with relatively concise run-times, that use sprites in 3D environments with a fixed overview perspective, and have a mostly linear structure. You progress from one dungeon to the next, finding new equipment and unlocking new abilities along the way, and you die very quickly... but so does everything else. They're definitely more arcade-y than almost any other RPG franchise available right now, and the fast-paced rock music definitely reflects this sensibility. It's a little bit of a departure from what the original games were - tough action-RPGs, granted, but comparatively sedate - but it's assuredly due to this new direction that the franchise was reinvigorated.

The Seven games, meanwhile, are a bit more involved and in-depth. Though they still involve a procession of dungeons to complete they're overall less linear, with the exploration of large overworld environments and more of the game time given over to crafting or completing side-quests, and their run-times are therefore significantly longer than the Napishtim games. These games also include multiple protagonists, allowing you to switch between Adol and his allies to suit enemy vulnerabilities or simply for a change of pace. The games built in the Seven format include Ys Seven itself, the Ys IV: Memories of Celceta remake, and Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. Be prepared to sink many more hours into these games, though the upside is that the amount of optional content means more XP to earn elsewhere and thus an overall less challenging story progression. That said, most Ys games have a difficulty slider - it's down to the player how challenging they want these games to be.

The appeal of Ys is generally twofold: the action is incredible, and the metal music complements it perfectly. It's not a game series all that interested in waiting around - though the story cutscenes get a lot longer from Ys Seven onwards - and the heart and soul of the series is in its spectacular boss fights. A good boss fight should take you several attempts: first to learn the patterns and find openings, and then training to weather the boss's attacks long enough that you're eventually able to overwhelm them. The Ys franchise from Napishtim onwards is all about combos, air juggles, evade rolls, the judicious use of finite buffs, special attacks, and healing items, a little bit of grinding, and rocking the eff out. It's also about learning your limits and beating a hasty retreat to the nearest save point whenever necessary, so don't feel you have to Rambo your way through these things just because the music's egging you on: it's like Sonic in that you're motivated to go fast by the game's attitude and presentation, but you're better off finding a pace you're comfortable with that allows for your continued survival.

Timelines

When broaching a multi-generational RPG franchise like Ys, especially if you decide you're in it for the long haul, it can be difficult to know where to start. Ys is fairly distinct among the big RPG franchises in that it follows the same character - Adol Christin - through various stages of his life, albeit exclusively the stages when he's still young and athletic enough to be taking down gods and dragons. However, the games themselves rarely acknowledge others in the series, making the Ys series more like Indiana Jones or James Bond or any comic book franchise in practice: the protagonist is a largely immutable force for good, and references to previous adventures are scant at best. The chronological order of the games is below...

Ys Origin -> Ys I & II: Chronicles -> Ys IV: Memories of Celceta -> Ys III: The Oath in Felghana -> Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand -> Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana -> Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim -> Ys Seven (-> Ys IX: Monstrum Nox)

...however, I might recommend against playing them in this order. For one, Ys Origin is a prequel, meaning that it's meant to be played after the game it's prequel-ing (Ys I & II) to properly appreciate the story and the groundwork it builds. Likewise, this timeline jumps around release order a lot which might lead to a mechanical whiplash as features appear and disappear, and since there's no strong continuity between one game and the next (besides Origin/I & II) you shouldn't be concerned with how old Adol happens to be.

So instead, it's perhaps best to go by release order:

Ys I & II -> Ys VI -> Ys III* -> Ys Origin -> Ys VII -> Ys IV* -> Ys VIII (-> Ys IX)

(* these are where the much more accessible remakes fit into the release order, not the originals)

Reason being, this way you get to experience the evolution of the series and play successively more complex and feature-rich games. Of course, if you're less concerned with switching from the immense size and ambition of Ys VIII into something a bit more brief and focused like Ys Origin, you'd be good buying any of the games available on Steam right now and jumping in wherever (keeping in mind what I said about the relationship between Ys Origin and Ys I & II). With that in mind, I might suggest leaving Ys I & II and Origin until later, as the challenge level in I & II is relatively higher than the others owing to its older style.

Honestly, if any Ys game's on sale for 75%+ or appears in a bundle somewhere, it's probably going to work as a convenient entry point. So would Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana - the newest game - for that matter, if you're not that into retro-gaming (I might recommend the PS4 port if that's available to you, since it has the fewest issues).

One last note: Ys V has yet to be remade or remastered, and currently only exists as a Super Famicom (Japanese SNES) exclusive. It's not impossible to play a translated version of it, but until it sees a modern remake with an official English localization there are very few legal methods to properly enjoy the game. Best to just wait it out for now; there's plenty of others to get stuck into.

Next Time On "Mento's Alternative to E3 2019: My Passing Interest in Falcom-ry"

We're going to look at Falcom's other gigantic current RPG series: The Legend of Heroes.