This year (while playing through the games that I was missing from Falcom) I’ve also decided to replay all the Ark engine game in the Ys series. These are Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, Ys: The Oath in Felghana (a remake of Ys III) and Ys Origin. These 3 games have the same engine as a base, with Felghana and Origin being build upon the foundation that Ys VI gave them.
I originally started with Ys Origin, but after I’ve finished Yunica story I got distracted by Zwei II. After I’ve finished it, it was time to pick up once again Ys, but this time around, before returning to Origin, I’ve decided to play Ys VI and Oath in Felghana again and then finishing Origin once again.
When I originally played them, I remember liking all of these 3 titles, but I wanted to revisit them to see if some of my opinion changed or not. And honestly, I’m glad I decided (after Yunica story) to go in order with them, because I will see all the improvement made to the various game in order.
Now I will start to talk about Ys VI, and I think the best starting point here is the story.
Adol, after falling from a ship in the ocean, finds himself washed up ashore in a beach (in an island which is part of the Canaan Island). He is saved by 2 girls, Olha and Isha (who are part of the Redha tribe), who treats his injuries.
After his injuries heals, Adol manages to gain the trust of the Redha and after this, he starts his travelling on the 3 island of the archipelago, learning other things about the Eldeen - a race which its first introduced in Ys I&II, and in the meantime, meeting other people (Geis, the rest of the human who washed ashore and they are living in another island compared to the Redha etc.), reuniting with the crew of the ship you were part of before falling into the ocean, Dogi crashing walls.
Ys VI story is very simple, but it’s a fine story and serves his purpose well. It’s refreshing and familiar at the same time.
But the part where Ys VI really shines is the gameplay. Ys VI is fun. Like I mentioned before, it’s the first game on its engine (which the engine used for 3 titles is called after this game) and in a way because of this its combat is the less refined out of the 3.
The combat is a blast, fast-paced and really fluid. If I had to define the combat in a single word, I would say: fun. And this is the case for all the Ark engine game: even though Ys VI is the first game in this engine, it’s still a fun game. Oath in Felghana and Origin were built upon the foundation that Ys VI gives and improve the engine, but these 2 games wouldn’t been good if the foundation wasn’t strong (it’s worth mentioning that the combat speed was increased so you will kill the difference enemies faster in the next 2 titles).
I need to make some other comparison with the next 2 titles in the engine: unlike Oath in Felghana and Origin, there’s no boost mode in this title and the potion system (these will give you passive stats booster while fighting). In this sense, the combat in this title is more basic compared to the next 2 games, but it’s still fun in its own right.
Adol can use 3 elemental swords in this game: Livart, the blue one which deals wind damage; Brillante, the red one which deals fire damage and Ericcil the yellow one with deals lightning damage.
The color and the elemental damage aren’t the only change: each of the 3 swords has a different style of play. The 3 weapons have different attack speed, range and they do a different elemental spell attack (for example, Brillante is the stronger sword in terms of pure damage, but it’s slower one).
I mentioned earlier the lack of a boost mode, this game replaces that with a magic meter - when the meter is full, you can use this attack when you press the button. You can keep all the 3 swords charged while exploring, you can also have all of them charged before the boss battle. This is kinda broken since you can jump on every boss with the special attack immediately at the start of the fight.
These 3 weapons can be upgraded 10 times with special ore (which is dropped by the enemies - there’s also an item that increases the drop of said ore and it’s easy to obtain overall), and these upgrades improves the sword capabilities, attack etc. It’s a simple system but one that works.
You can also upgrade your armor and shield, and you can equip different accessories through the game (some of them might be hard to obtain without a guide, mostly because of their positioning - in fact 4 accessories can be obtained only if you defeat 3 miniboss in the overworld: the first one (a bell) is obtained when you are fighting on of the 3 in his regular version; after this you have to beat a stronger version of them again later in the game and this time around, all of them drop accessories).
In terms of pure exploration, Ys VI has the biggest world out of the 3 games in its engine (Felghana is a remake of Ys III, and while they have expanded the dungeon areas, the overworld map it’s still the same and it’s a smaller world overall, Origin on the other hand takes place in a tower - the layout of the floor changes when you reach a new area, but the game is even more contained than Felghana in this sense).
The next things that I want to talk about are the boss fights. They are a joy to play: every boss has some kind of pattern (which is simple to understand) and you have to strike them down in this contest (also all the boss are unique). Keep in mind that in this game, the combat is really fast: boss fight reflects this as well. It’s really satisfying to take down the boss in this contest: the high speed makes them so much fun.
I have nothing to complain about the boss battle, the games in this engine have some of the best boss in the entire series overall and they are just fun to play really.
That said, the combat in this game isn’t perfect. Unlike the following games in the engine, in this game you have to grind. This is one of the only games in the series where grinding is really needed in my opinion: sometimes you are capable to kill the enemies in your areas and then in the following section you won’t be able to damage them so much if not doing any damage at all. This game is kinda brutal in this sense: you really have to stop in some areas to do this. That said you can also do side content while doing this so you can give a purpose to the grind but yeah, this isn’t great overall. But the combat is really fun like I said earlier, so this won’t be much of a hassle but it’s something to keep in mind.
The second biggest issue (and probably the biggest one) is the dash jumping. This is one of the worst things in the game (in fact, this didn’t return in Felghana and Origin): dash jumping is extremely unforgiving and requires a very specific timing to pull off. And frankly, when you manage to do them, most of the item on the other side it’s not really worth the hassle (that said, if you look on steam you will find a way to make a script to make the input for the dash jumping automatic when you press 4 buttons on the keyboard).
The last thing here that I want to mention are the upgrade that the publisher brought to the game: besides the essential widescreen and improved gamepad support, XSEED changed the way the wing of Alma function. It now works in the same way as the other Ark games, so you can teleport to any save spot that you've already used. Considering that you will do a lot of backtracking in this game, this is perfect to have: for example, in this way you can easily go to the town and upgrade your sword before a boss battle and after this you can return to the last save point.
The second changes that I wanted to talk about is Catastrophe mode, especially considering that I did finish my recent run of the game with this (I played on Hard with Catastrophe). Thanks to this mode, healing item can be no longer equipped and used against boss fight, also when these items are dropped by the enemies you will use them immediately instead of collecting them in the inventory. This brings the game closer to the other 2 games in the engine, games in which you only have a single health bar against the boss.
If you don’t want to use this, you can still play the game normally and actually bring healing item against the boss. The game was originally designed like that (so the intention from the developer here was to use these during boss fights), but if you like some kind of challenge than Catastrophe mode is easily doable.
Playing the game in this way was more fun than I thought honestly, in my experience the game is harder in the early game and becomes easier the more you progress through it. It was challenging but not unfair, which is something that I didn’t fully know before trying it.
Even though this game originally came out in 2003, it still looks really good and pleasant on the eyes overall (it probably helps that the game blend the 3D world perfectly with the 2D sprites of the character).
The last thing that I want to mention is the ost. The music is really nice, I didn’t remember it to being this good actually. This is the type of music that, when you hear, you’ll recognize immediately that comes from this game.
Some tracks that I really like:
The Ruined City 'Kishgal'
Ys VI, while it’s not my favourite game in the series, it’s really fun to go through and it was fun to revisit the game. It’s not perfect, but this game is still a classic. Ys VI is also really short; I beat it in 16 hours which is the right length for a game like this. While Ys VI is definitely the less refined out of 3 games in its engine, the game holds up pretty well even today and I really did have a blast while going through it. Definitely recommended (just like the rest of Ark engine game, they are just fun games).
