Wikipedia Page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ys_III:_Wanderers_from_Ys
Source: Youtube Channel KamilDowonna
I remember as a kid, I wanted Ys 3: Wanderers from Ys for the Super Nintendo and begged my father to get it but never got it. I found it again much much later in my life but never got around to playing it. Just this past Steam Summer Sale, I bought Ys Origin and Ys: The Oath in Felghana (this one being a remake of Ys 3) and decided it's time for me to play the original so I have something to compare to the remake.
Let me tell you, it rocked and sucked hard both at the same exact time. I've always had an interest in Ys because of the colorful graphics, catchy tunes, and that flaming sword that you get at the very end of every Ys game. The Ys series is usually played as a top-down Action-RPG; however, Ys 3 is the first and only game out of the series to be played as a 2D Action-RPG. Doesn't this switch sound familiar? Ys 3: Wanderers from Ys was released on 8 different systems, not counting The Oath in Felghana for Windows XP/Vista/7. They were all essentially the same game aside for graphics and audio differences (except for the Playstation 2 version). I'll start out by saying that it's possibly the best Ys between Ys 1-5 in terms of gameplay. The Ys series has always had likable graphics, memorable tunes, and an on-going, cohesive story line that links all the games together; however, Ys 1, 2, and 4 used an odd combat mechanic where you run into the enemy. When you run into the enemy, it's Adol's (the main character) right hand that has to touch the enemy to attack or the player will take damage (sometime, it's a lot). So to have that much more control over your character in Ys 3 is a huge relief, BUT there were a lot of design flaws in the game.
First and foremost, the Ys series (at least from the first 4 games) is a freaking grind fest. It's not surprising to have this implemented back in the day to virtually extend the gameplay time. But for a 2D Action-RPG, can you imagine how boring it is standing in the entrance way of a dungeon and killing the same enemies for an hour? Luckily, I found a great grind spot in one of the dungeons (Ilvern Ruins) where I could just stand there and hold down the attack button which helped me max out my character level and farm enough gold to get all the essential equipment at an early part of the game. The combat mechanics, although significantly better than what was used in Ys 1/2/4, had some problems. When you hit an enemy, there's very little feedback. You don't hear a sound when you hit an enemy, but you do see them flash a little. They don't flinch when you hurt them, so they can easily hurt you. When you get hit, you hear a little "crackle" sound to indicate you got injured. It's not very noticeable, and so getting getting hit by lethal enemies that can 1-2 shot you won't really register in the player's mind unless they're intently looking at their life bar. The hit box is way off on a lot of the enemies. To put it simply, your character is not touching the enemy at all, but you're taking damage from them. A lot of the boss battles are require cheap and tedious tactics in order to defeat them (watch the video above). The game was hard in an odd way: no recovery animation and stuff that hits really hard, even if you didn't touch the sprite for it. It was also difficult to gauge the range of Adol's sword, and that's what usually gets the player so close to the enemy. The enemy doesn't really need to hit you or anything, they just run right into you and *BAM*, you get hurt. The last boss wasn't too bad, really. Compared to that second boss (as shown in the video), all the other bosses were fairly easy.
Probably the aspect I enjoyed the most out of Ys 3 was the music. I was really hoping to hear remixed/arranged versions of the original tracks in The Oath in Felghana and so looked it up. They did, and it's glorious:
Source: Youtube Channels Cellidor and zBiyte
Ys 3: Wanderers from Ys wasn't great, but I'm glad I played through it. Ys 4 was never officially released in the Western market, but I found an English patch and tried it and hated it (screw the bumper car mechanics!). Ys V (which I never got to play) was the first in the series to retain the top-down view and allow the player to control the attack of the sword like in The Legend of Zelda games. The remakes of Ys 1 and 2 also allows this (which got me to playing them). The remake of Ys 3, The Oath of Felghana, goes back to the top-down view Action-RPG with 3D graphics. Ys 6, 7, and Origins also uses this style of graphics for the game. The upcoming remake of Ys IV: Mask of the Sun called Ys: Foliage Ocean in Celceta will release on the PS Vita and have the camera behind the characters in a 3D environment (I really hope the bring it over to the Western market). Now all they have to do is remake Ys 5, localize it, and the whole series is set for the Western Market.
For the tl;dr version of this article:
-Ys 3 was a better game than Ys 1, 2 and 4 but still wasn't very solid
-The Oath in Felghana is the remake of Ys 3: Wanderers of Ys
-Ys 1, 2 and 4 used a bumper car combat mechanic, which sucked
-All the remakes have made the original games a lot better
-Ys: The Oath in Felghana and Ys: Origin is available on Steam
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