The Games

Humiliated by the same boss multiple times...Check!

The Ys series is one of Falcom's flagship franchises. After appearing first on the PC-8801 in Japan in 1987, the series has gone on to include seven major chapters, a number of title remakes, a strategy spinoff, a prequel, a hidden typing trainer, and an MMORPG. The series has also expanded into mobile offerings which are, unfortunately, Japan-only as most of their releases tend to be.

As mentioned before, not every Ys title made it over here. However, thanks to the Internet, their availability has become less of an issue by enabling fans to order directly from Falcom. It has also opened the door to emulation which has become the only option for some to even hope to experience what they have lost out on from Ys' console era despite its very grey legality.

Despite that, a number of fansub efforts have helped to bridge the language barrier by supplying translation patches for certain titles. The obvious benefit is that English speaking fans can enjoy Ys in English, especially after ordering their copy from Falcom which only arrive in Japanese. For titles that don't, dedicated fans have provided walkthroughs to guide others through while still being able to enjoy the action packed gameplay.

Ys is also an arcade RPG series featuring a number of characters carried through most of its chapters, but the main focus has almost always been on Adol Christin or, as he's also known because of his hair, Adol the Red. This red haired, swashbuckling swordsman is an icon of the series not only because of his penchant for finding adventure everywhere he goes, but because players see the world through his third-person eyes. Although each adventure can be played without having gone through any of the others, they all tie into each other to varying degrees as a part of one, contiguous world.
 

Adol, not quite at his best in the anime based on Ys I & II

Adol's world also draws a few parallels to our own with certain names. For example, the Romun Empire is a play off of the Roman Empire, but they don't look like Romans at all aside from being one of the most powerful nations there, along with “Afroca” and "Europa". The series is a mix of anime-styled swords and sorcery and many plots revolve around a distant past with the ruins of super-civilizations casting long shadows waiting to swallow up those greedy enough to awaken their secrets again.

They're also action heavy arcade-style slashers with just enough RPG aspects to them to keep them in the genre. Characters level up, buy new items, fight monsters, and even use materials to improve armor and weapons in certain titles. There's also a very specific formula to each one in that it's possible to push as far as you think you can go before encountering monsters so powerful that they would use Adol's head as a cue ball. The later titles don't fence in the player too much and let the critters do most of the work for them instead. There's clearly a basic strategy in getting through each one.

But it's the bosses that will likely test your patience. Some bosses are easy to figure out, others can make grown men weep before reaching for that walkthrough or in seeing how it's done on Youtube. And in its simple way, just leveling up is usually the answer to surviving long enough to take them down.

They don't try to reinvent the genre or force anyone to rethink the paradigms they might have grown up with. But in their own stylish approach, they're addictingly simple, fun, and challenging adventures done in what has become Falcom's unique style.