I'm sure that it would be a safe bet to say that if not for the Wii Virtual Console than this would be the most obscure game I have ever written about on here. Not only is it for the extremely unpopular TurboGrafx system, but it's for the even harder to find CD add-on. It seems like everybody was trying to make one of those in the early 90s, and at least in America they were all dismal failures. Remember how unsuccessful the Sega Cd was? Well that was the most successful of any of the CD add-ons. Nintendo still gets criticized for splitting Sony in the early 90s, but given the history of CD-Rom gaming up to that point who could blame them? The Turbo CD came out in 1990 at a price of 399.99 which was pretty steep back then. That's one of the many reasons that the system never caught on and is only really sought after by obsessive collectors like me. I'm not sure if the retail price was ever truly justified, but there are some impressive games.
I can't even imagine how awesome Ys must've seemed way back in 1990. I mean, this was a time when there were still a few stray Atari and Intellivision games coming out. Here was a game with large anime type characters during cutscenes, CD quality sound, and real voice acting. Who wouldn't want to hear some of Debi Derryberry's early work? Of course there are a couple of problems with the new technology. There are times where the music will cut out which I suspect is due to the music track ending and not being able to loop. You have to leave the room to get it to start back up again. There are also some load times, especially when someone is about to talk. It's not as bad as Playstation or some of the other more advanced systems, but it can get a little annoying sometimes. It also has a picture frame around it making the action screen smaller. It didn't bother me much, but I have a big TV.
Thankfully behind all this flash there is a very good RPG with one of the most unique fighting systems of all time. When you see a monster in you sight you just run right into him. Then you keep doing that until he is dead. You don't even have to swing your sword. This takes a little getting used to, but I enjoy it because it takes up much less time than standard action RPG fighting. Another unique thing about this game is just how much of it is spent in dungeons. There's an opening grassland and mountain in the first half of the game, and that's really about it. The rest of the game will be spent in long, confusing dungeons. Luckily you are able to save anywhere, and in the second half of the game you have a magic spell that that teleport you back to the nearest town.
Another important feature about this game is its boss fights. I've honestly never really been that in to boss fights in RPGs. They always take too long. These, however, are some of the funnest and most difficult bosses I can remember fighting in a long time. Having to make contact to hurt them makes for some interesting strategies, and no two bosses are fought the same way. This was my second time playing through this game, and I had the same reaction as I did when playing back through Star Tropics. I couldn't believe that I had killed all those bosses twice.
I guess my one major complaint with this game is the ending. I was expecting some really spectacular visuals, but it was mostly text moving slowly across the screen with about 30 seconds of voices. The final cutscene was actually quite short. I guess they spent all the money on the cool intro which is very easy to miss. You have to let the game load up without pushing any of the buttons. I only knew about because I read it in EGM. They sould've put something like that at the end of the game so everybody would see it. Oh well, I guess nobody's perfect.
This is one of those games that falls into the lost classic category. I hope some of you have gotten to play it now that it is on the virtual console. I wish I could've taken my time and really enjoyed playing through it again, but I didn't have any other games going so I wanted to get it finished for the blog. I actually got pretty mad at it sometimes. I guess I should apologize. Sorry Ys. It's not you, it's me.
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