The Greatest of Ys

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Thad
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The Greatest of Ys

Postby Thad » Mon Jun 06, 2016 12:12 am

SO! I picked up Memories of Celceta on the Vita, and it's pretty great! (Except it turns out that it really does break as soon as I got to the first touch puzzle, and I'm trying to figure out a workaround that doesn't involve just patching the firmware, because I want to be able to run homebrew and stuff.)

I've also got the Android version of the first Ys game, because I still had some Amazon Funbux left (and the second game said it wouldn't run on my device, because Amazon has strange ideas of what will run on things).

I remember Brent recommending the TG16 version of the first two games (and I might still have some Wii Points), but I suspect the Redbook audio will not be intact on the Wii version because that would make for a big-ass download.

What else should I check out? I might get Ys 2 for Android if I play through the first one. Ys 3, 6, and Origin are all on PC. The platforming looks a little suspect, but I remember top-down platforming actually being pretty fun in Link's Awakening (and sometimes in Mario RPG, but often not).

I mean, I plan on getting Celceta fucking working at some point, and finishing that, too. But I figure there are probably pretty good odds of a Steam sale coming up shortly that involves the various Ys games and I might see my way to getting more of them.

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pacobird
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Re: The Greatest of Ys

Postby pacobird » Mon Jun 06, 2016 8:21 am

All of the old Ys games except 5 have been remade post-6, and the updates are all pretty worthy (and tend to get steep discounts in Steam/GoG sales). Oath in Felghana turns Wanderers from Ys into a legit good game with possibly the best VG OST of all time. Origin probably has the best boss fights, and Seven (PSP exclusive) is IMO the best game in the series overall (Celceta felt like a step backwards to me, though I know a lot of people disagree). 8 is coming out for PS4/Vita in Japan pretty soon and I'm sure XSEED will pick it up.

Basically, all the PC Ys games are worth picking up at Steam Summer Sale price points. If we're going bare-minimum, Oath in Felghana and Origin.
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IGNORE ME
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Re: The Greatest of Ys

Postby IGNORE ME » Mon Jun 06, 2016 9:24 am

The only games where order matters at all are 1->2, 2->Origins (because Origins has a couple puzzles that just go ahead and assume you recognize things from 1&2), and 5->6 but 5 is aggressively mediocre and everyone skips it.

I haven't played the VC version of 1+2 but it sounds like it does have the original soundtrack intact (keeping in mind that half the original soundtrack was still FM synth, so yeah one of the first things you'll hear is the awful bloopy town theme). Seems to transition more smoothly too since it's not tracksearching an audio CD all the time.

I personally recommend doing 6, Oath in Felghana (AKA the only version of 3 you should play), and Origins in release order, if only because the technical progression feels awkward going backward. Haven't gotten to 7 yet but it's probably going to be a slightly more primitive version of Celceta (and does seem to immediately follow 6, so play that first).

The TGCD version of 4 is pretty great and worth going to the trouble of patching and emulating, but storywise it's just going to be a (very, very) 90s version of Celceta. The SNES version is trash and not even official canon any more, lol.

Boy am I a nerd for this series.

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pacobird
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Re: The Greatest of Ys

Postby pacobird » Mon Jun 06, 2016 10:38 am

In a way you could say everything released after 6 requires a playthrough of 6 to really get since you kind of need to know who the Clan of Darkness is to make sense of a whole bunch of retcons in OiF, Origin, and MoC, and it establishes a major character of 7, but while the continued Indiana Jones-ish narrative in Ys is one of my favorite parts of the series, you aren't really playing it for coherence.

I mean, all of the cleverness they cut out of Dawn of Ys for the Memories of Celceta remake sort of establishes they don't want you to worry too much about canon. Actually, on reflection that might be why MoC left such a bad taste in my mouth despite being a really good game. "Hey, aren't I supposed to be going to Rance Village at some point?"
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Metal Slime
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Re: The Greatest of Ys

Postby Metal Slime » Wed Jun 08, 2016 1:49 am

So I got the TG versions on Wii, and yes the redbook audio is there. You pretty much want to load them on to an SD card to run them from.

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Thad
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Re: The Greatest of Ys

Postby Thad » Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:31 pm

So it turns out the answer to "Which Ys should I get?" is all of them. (Well, all the PC ones.) Like, the sale is rigged up so it actually costs more money if you don't buy all of them.

ETA: I put another post here but then I changed my mind, deleted it, and reposted it in the Vita thread, because it was really about the PSTV interface in general and not about Celceta in particular.

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