After Ys 5, much like the Kefin, the Kingdom of Sand itself, the Ys series went missing
for a long time.
Eight years might not seem so long, especially after how long the last console generation
lasted, but after Adol's last adventure on the Super Nintendo, we wouldn't really see
him again until halfway into the Playstation 2's lifecycle.
And it's even worse if you were a fan of the series living outside of Japan.
Outside of Japan the last entry to get released was Ys III, Wanderers from Ys.
And in the west we wouldn't have known what a mess things had turned into from there on.
With the fourth entry being split into two different games, each a completely different
take on the same script, and the lesser of the two titles being made part of the official
canon moving forward.
Followed by Ys V, which to this day is often considered a black mark against the series,
even over Mask of the Sun.
Likely more-so because of how long it'd take before Falcom would make another entry into
the series, when they finally felt confident enough to move beyond bump combat.
With Ys VI, two console generations later, they either had to revive the franchise or
accept it wasn't going to work anymore.
It was time to go big or go home.
And Falcom... went big.
Okay, hold up.
No.
We don't talk about the Konami PS2 CG on this channel.
Let's do this again.
Falcom...
Went big.
Now I could play into the mystery on what my stance towards this game is, but we've
already covered a game in this engine with the modern take of Ys 3 - The Oath in Felghana.
Not only that, but if this game hadn't been any good, we likely wouldn't have had a series
to discuss at this point.
So there's no real reason to hold anyone in suspense about whether this is a good entry
or not.
While Ark of Napishtim might not be my favorite of the three titles in its engine, it's still
a classic in its own right.
So with that said, let's actually talk about the game itself as we follow Adol's journey
to Canaan in Ys VI - The Ark of Napishtim.
In Ys VI, Adol is, as is often the case, shipwrecked on an island somewhere in uncharted waters.
Having been chased by the Romun army, he was flung overboard and sucked into a vortex before
waking up in a small village inhabited by the Rehda, a pointy-eared tribe living in
wooden huts in the middle of a jungle.
The Rheda take a liking to Adol even though they're generally at odds with the other people
who wash up on their shores, and he soon finds there's a whole town full of people from Eresia
who, just like him, got sucked into the vortex and are now stuck on this island with no way
out.
Instead of trying to escape, they make peace with being stuck and try to make a decent
life for themselves out here, building houses from the only stone they could get their hands
on, the ruins left by the ancestors of the Rheda.
It doesn't take long before the conflicts between the two sides not only escalates but
also gets overshadowed as Adol and his adventures do the thing they always do.
I don't want to spoil it too much, because it is a really fun story.
And looking up how much the Xseed has given away in their own marketing, I do think one
thing that's safe to say is that this game ends up being a better way to tie most of
Adol's previous adventures together than both iterations of Ys IV were.
As the story of a certain Winged race is brought into question again.
In fact, it did such a good job, that a good chunk of the modern remakes retooled their
stories specifically to fit the narrative of The Ark of Napishtim better.
And all in all, I think that's been a net positive, as Adol's journey has had more of
a purpose since then, with even Ys 3's story tying directly into it now.
In a lot of ways the story is setup with the intent of both being refreshing and familiar
at the same time, with a lot of the events and setup following patterns of previous titles.
We have an arrogant rival who is hostile because he's afraid your interference only makes the
situation worse.
An island locked off from the rest of the world due to mysterious weather surrounding
the place.
Adol gets washed ashore at the start.
Dogi crushing a wall.
Two blue-haired girls.
But it presents everything in a unique and fun way with some good twists and turns to
events to keep it interesting.
The gameplay is where this game really shines though.
In a lot of ways, it's clear Ys V was attempting to lay down the basics for a lot of what ended
up happening in Ys VI, but it never quite made it work.
Ys V had the regular action RPG combat, magic imbued into weapons with a charge mechanic,
items used from menus, and a more traditional style of having stories unfold.
Quite a lot of that is back now, but much more fluid and well thought out.
Combat is a blast, with a good fast pace to it.
It's not quite the speed that it is in Oath in Felghana, though a direct comparison wouldn't
be too fair as that game was made later, using what worked in Ark of Napishtim as a basis.
There's no boost mode, and there are no potions with passive buffs, or automatically consumed
health drops in this game.
Which can make the combat feel a bit basic if that's what you're used to.
Thankfully these things weren't the only reason Oath was a blast to play, since the basis
for the combat is solid enough to feel satisfying without these things.
Plus it has some good ideas of its own.
Like Dash Ju ... let's save that for later.
Like the three weapon system.
Ark of Napishtim gives you three main swords that you use through the entire game.
Livart, the blue one which deals wind damage.
Blirante, the red one, which deals fire damage.
Ericcil, the gold one, which deals lightning damage.
The color and elemental damage aren't the only change, as the three weapons all have
a slightly different attack speed, range, and do a different elemental spell attack.
Instead of a boost meter, each of the three swords has their own magic meter that charges
over time, that can do a big damage attack when full.
To make this better, you can charge a weapon fully, switch to another, charge that one,
and switch back to the first again.
So you can have all three weapons charged and ready to go separately from each other.
Whether you prefer this compared to boost meter is up to you, but it is something that
can absolutely melt bosses if you go in fully prepared with all three weapons.
The downside to this is that if you do want to use this, you often have to wait for all
three weapons to charge before going into a fight if you want to go in full prepared.
Both of these reasons are problaby why Oath in Felghana resets your boost meter going
into the boss fights.
All three of these weapons can be upgraded 10 times at a blacksmith in trade of a special
ore that all enemies drop, increasing their damage output, adding a special property to
the regular attacks, and lets you charge your spells faster.
It's nothing too spectacular, but it is a nice system to have in place.
The ore itself, of course, is a large part of the story as it has, much like in Ys 1
and 2, special magical properties that tie to the mystery of the island.
A good way to tie the other games together more directly.
Besides your swords, you have your typical armor and shield slots, which you can't upgrade
this time around.
And accessory slots, which you gain more of over time.
Both slots, and accessories obviously.
I think a number of accessories are missable, but the important and most useful ones aren't.
So unless you're a die-hard completionist it's not too big of a deal, but if you are
you might want to look them up using a guide before progressing too far into the game.
Some of the optional upgrades are also quite out of the way, and there are a few dropped
from special side bosses out in the overworld that have a second, stronger version of themselves
appear later with a second reward.
If you end up missing things without using a guide, I can't really blame you.
Boss fights are a joy.
Every time I come back to games on this engine, I'm reminded of just how much I enjoy fighting
them again.
They're usually fairly simple patterns you have to read through and exploit, but there's
something so satisfying to the highspeed boss battles of a good Ys game that especially
turned out great in the titles on this engine, and the first game on it is no exception to
that.
Though the combat isn't exactly perfect either.
The biggest problem I have with Ark of Napishtim in general is just the grind.
Ys is kind of known for this in some circles, and I think with most entries in the series
it isn't justified, but with Ark of Napishtim it absolutely is.
In most titles if you feel like you're behind on exp you might have to level once, at most
twice, to be able to do the next boss fight.
And then even if you don't you can probably still push through it if you're good enough.
Ark of Napishtim on the other hand takes a different aproach.
If you're too low a level and it's time for you to grind, you straight-up cannot do damage
to enemies.
Not just bosses, but regular enemies.
With how aggressive the game can get about it, I spent time running around areas trying
to figure out where else I was supposed to be because the gap between whether or not
I could actually damage enemies or if swings were just bouncing off them with no damage
dealt was there for almost every area I was in.
And frequently enough I'd get to a point where I could kill enemies in one or two swings
no problem before one screen over half the enemies wouldn't take damage anymore.
There's a few cases where you do need special items or equipment to do damage, but most
of the time the answer was just to straight-up grind.
And as someone who tends to be averse to that, it's quite the problem.
The only thing I can say in the game's favor regarding that, as there really is no way
around it, is that at least the combat is fun enough to not make grinding too tedious.
And there's often enough side content to explore and find in areas to not make the grind feel
entirely aimless unless you make it that way.
The map structure in Ys VI is a bit more open than the other games in this engine, and you
do get a nice feeling of being allowed to actually explore a big area because of it.
There's often side branches and things hidden away outside of the main path, so there's
enough to explore besides the direction you're supposed to go in.
I guess that's one of the key differences of not having your level design based on a
side scroller, or a tower that can only go up or down, but an island instead.
There's also the way the game deals with healing items, which is probably the worst of the
modern titles.
There's six different healing items that enemies can drop, or can be bought in stores.
You can hold up to 9 of these, and select them from your menu to heal at any time.
Boss fights do lock you out of you menu, prohibiting you from accessing those items, but you can
equip any item for use with a button outside of that menu so if you really want to cheese
a boss you're entirely capable of getting whatever item you need to heal back to max
health and take 9 of those with you into the fight.
I don't have footage of this because I didn't even realize this was a thing you could do
until the very end, and even by then I really didn't like the idea of doing that.
I'm already not fond of the games where you're allowed to take one healing herb with you
into a boss fight, let alone being able to take 9 of them.
They're not exactly balanced around this either, as they're all perfectly doable with a regular
health bar if you're the appropriate level to face them, and if you're not you probably
won't be doing damage to them anyway.
Then there's the dash jumping, which is probably one of the things even the biggest defenders
of Ys VI won't defend.
Dash Jumping is a special jumping technique in which you press the direction you're already
facing once, and then pressing jump and attack together at the same time shortly after.
The timing is fairly precice.
And the feeling of inputs is pretty unnatural for what you're doing.
And you're often expected to do it in situations that require precision.
It's not something you need to do to beat the game, you can go the whole game without
ever touching it, but if you want everything, you're going to have to get used to using
it a few times, just to get that disappointing item that wasn't worth the hassle.
If there's something that didn't come back later where I'm glad that it didn't, it's
this.
On the other hand, there is something from previous games that came back in the version
that I played that wasn't in the original Ys VI and I am thankful for that.
Originally the game did not feature quick travel.
It's a feature that Xseed added in the PC version and god is it something I couldn't
possibly do without anymore now that it's here.
Being able to just teleport from one area to another is such a great thing to have.
Especially when backtracking is as heavy as it is in Ys VI.
Something that I think is often overlooked is that the three weapon system is kind of
the start of what Falcom would later use for the teammembers in the later 3D titles.
Switching between three different weapon types, each color coded, with unique attacks, dealing
extra damage to other enemies, is pretty much the basis for how those games incentivize
you to switch between your active party members in an effort to make combat feel less repetitive
as the length of the games has increased over time.
Now, I'm not opposed to the later team based Ys titles, so I see this and go "Huh, neat.
I didn't notice that until I went back."
though I guess that's why Dana's dungeon in Ys 8 also reminded me of Yunica's gameplay
in Ys Origin.
I just never realized how early they were trying to establish this kind of gameplay.
As you can tell by it playing through the video so far.
The music has a bit of a different feel to it compared to most of the series.
There's a bit more of a synthy sound, with some more focus on horns and flutes instead
of the guitar and violin sounds that the series is known for, especially now.
That isn't to say the music doesn't fit the game, or even the series, not at all.
It's a really good soundtrack, but it has a very unmistakable quality to it where you
can immediately hear it's from this game in particular.
I like it.
There's some really great tracks in the game in general.
All in all, Adol's 6th adventure is a strong one.
And it was strong enough to bring the series back into prominense.
The ending, as always, does a lot of good with the early setup and casts an interesting
shadow over the events of other titles in the series.
Although this time, it comes with some heavy retcons regarding the state of the world.
It's the one thing that makes a lot of people feel unsure about the implications at the
end of Ys 8.
Though maybe with the recent announcement of Ys 9 taking place directly after it, maybe
we'll get some answers regarding that.
Thanks for bringing this being in developement to attention.... me?
Huh.
Okay.
So anyway, this was AboveUp.
I hope you enjoyed this video
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