Ys IV

[seieienbu]

That's a tough one; every time I've faced the Ice Murmurer I've taken several attempts before getting it right.  That definitely an interesting approach to beating him, I must say!

[technozombie]

I used to be against cheating, but with the limited time I have nowadays it's more important to get past a frustrating part and get back to having fun.

[NightWolve]

The major issue that got people stuck with Ys IV was when playing it in Japanese as I was in 1997. It was the first import Japanese ARPG I bought for $55 and I justified it because I'd at least get an awesome soundtrack even if I couldn't understand the story and possibly get stuck (which I did).

Wow, $55?  That seems like a steal for an import title back then.  I think I paid around $100 for it after finding an ad in the back of a magazine.  Wheere did you get it from?

Well, wouldn't you know, it's a piece of history I wanted to save!

[ParanoiaDragon]

Gah, they spelled Ys wrong!!!@)$iq3p9rje[worginvw[eoahoei  Man, Van Nuys, forgot all about that.  That's like a 20 minute drive from me.  I can't recall if I ever went by the old TZD building.  I feel like somebody did at one point & took pics.

[MisterCrash]

Gah, they spelled Ys wrong!!!

Well, to be fair, the Ys IV disc label has an apostrophe in it.

I got my copy from TZD as well. When I saw they had copies of Ys IV, I immediately placed an order. I started playing it right away, but got lost in the language barrier fairly quickly. I revisited it years later and followed the GameFAQs guide to get through it. Otherwise, that part that NightWolve mentioned would easily have caused me to quit.

[geise]

I would play through the SNES Ys V 10 more times before ever firing up 6 ever again.

Napishtim is fucking amazing.  If you aren't playing it on PC you're doing it wrong.  I played it 6 months ago and it's still beautiful.  BTW Ys V over 6?....really?

[NecroPhile]

Nice old invoice, NW.  'Tis cool that you've kept it all these years. 

As for Ark of Napishtim, I played through the PSP version and can't say I had any issues with bad controls, cheap hit boxes, or the like.  The only real negative was how it loads all the frickin' time; they weren't too painful on the PSP Go, but I'm sure they be a nightmare off UMD.

[Johnpv]

The finally bosses for SNES Ys IV were the only ones in the series that made me just break down and use a cheat code.  Specially the one before the last one, I just could not get past that asshole.

I would play through the SNES Ys V 10 more times before ever firing up 6 ever again.

Napishtim is fucking amazing.  If you aren't playing it on PC you're doing it wrong.  I played it 6 months ago and it's still beautiful.  BTW Ys V over 6?....really?

To be fair I played in PS2 since that is the version I have, but it just did not click with me.  Yeah, really.  I think people shit on Ys V for no reason.  I had fun with the game and I never experienced the frustration I did with Ark, where I had to land jumps that were a few pixels in size but with an imprecise long jump mechanic, or deal with my sword slashing over an enemy multiple times but seeming only hitting the hit box to register it half the time.  I like the characters, and the story was typical Ys fair, but the gameplay, at least on the PS2 one made the game feel a bit more like a chore.  I know on the PC side of things you can use the Wings of Alma to teleport and that would have been REALLY nice on the PS2 version, instead it just takes you out of dungeons, or to the Alma trials.

Like I said I liked the characters and story well enough, if we could get a remake for it I'd be all for that.

[NightWolve]

Nice old invoice, NW.  'Tis cool that you've kept it all these years. 

Built with Microsoft Excel by the look of it. I made sheets like that myself many times for school and work. ;) For a time I was well-versed with Corel WordPerfect and its spreadsheet sister program Quattro Pro before Microsoft overtook it all as the office standard; WordPerfect was still popular at that time period, so that's the other possibility I'm thinking.

[GaijinD]

I like the characters, and the story was typical Ys fair, but the gameplay, at least on the PS2 one made the game feel a bit more like a chore.

I don't remember having any of the same issues, but it's been a while. I was playing using a code that switched the graphics back to 2D, which I wouldn't think would have affected the gameplay, but I suppose it might have.

[crazydean]

So it's difficult to navigate the forum on my phone, and I couldn't find the Ys IV translation thread. Anyway, thanks Nightwolve for making this translation happen!

I just finished the game, and it was a ton of fun! The only pain in the ass was that fucking snow boss. I had to grind like four levels just to be able to damage him.

I'm sure this has been answered many times before, but why didn't they release this in the US? They managed to churn out It Came From The Desert and other gems. Without looking it up, I'll assume it was timing, probably nearing the end of the life cycle of the system.

[SignOfZeta]

Back then US versions of games would take forever to happen, like a year and a half. A year and a half after Ys IV the PlayStation was in and the Turbo was dead as hell.

[NightWolve]

I'm sure this has been answered many times before, but why didn't they release this in the US? They managed to churn out It Came From The Desert and other gems. Without looking it up, I'll assume it was timing, probably nearing the end of the life cycle of the system.

Yep, same reason Dracula X never made it on over which was also released in 1993, the US face of NEC and Hudson known as TTi was calling it quits right around this time, getting beat out by Sega and Nintendo... You figure it likely would've got the same Ys III crummy dub work, not the budget and talent Ys Book I & II received, so if our team did just a tad better than that, you got a better localization by fans in the end.

The script though could use some good editing but it's respectable enough. XXXSEED's cock-flasher never redid it as I had asked, he only finished the 4% Rachel hadn't and I was misled about that for a time, so one day perhaps SamIAm might be interested. Tough to motivate a retranslation is the thing.

[CrackTiger]

Ys IV was released a week before 1994. TTi already knew they were done and were just killing time by that point.

[elmer]

I'm really trying-my-best to play the game without cheating and giving myself extra stuff like that ... unless I get blocked.

So I took the "programmer's way out" since I'm playing in Mednafen, and just figured-out where the current HP is stored in RAM, and then gave myself a bunch of extra HP whenever I was getting dangerously-low. 

Now that I'm passed that one bit, hopefully I can go back to playing as normal.

Errrr ... I'm a wuss! 

Once I'd figured out how to cheat, I just did so on every Boss fight so that I could continue playing the game.

I'm a total failure as an Ys fan! 


Thanks to NightWolve for all the hard work with the English hacking, and to everyone involved in the dub, it was a lot of fun!!! 

The script though could use some good editing but it's respectable enough. XXXSEED's cock-flasher never redid it as I had asked, he only finished the 4% Rachel hadn't and I was misled about that for a time, so one day perhaps SamIAm might be interested. Tough to motivate a retranslation is the thing.

I'm definitely curious as to how SamIAm's translation would be different ... but yeah, it doesn't seem likely that it would ever happen.

The script and dialog-triggers in Ys IV seemed a lot less sophisticated than what Falcom did in the LoX games.

It'll be interesting to get further in Anearth and see if that's a Hudson-vs-Falcom thing, or just a difference between the times that the games were developed.


It *seemed* as though I wouldn't have known what to do next in Ys IV a lot of the time if I hadn't been using a WalkThrough.

LoX1 had a few points like that (we've tried to give slightly better clues), but LoX2 is very linear and simple, and just wants you to enjoy the ride.

[NightWolve]

It's not terribly hard, if I had a problem with a boss I just remember I'd do a little more grinding for EXP.

When I bought it in the 90's, I only got stuck due to that white knight blocking your way back into the castle you were once imprisoned in. I won't spoil the solution, but it's a clue provided in the story which you'll catch when playing in English.

I knew I'd get an awesome soundtrack at least, predicting I might get stuck with a JRPG aside from not getting to enjoy the story (I was not exactly a rabid import buyer, but Ys IV made the list along with Dracula X being the first!) so that's how I justified blowing $55 bucks on it from Turbo Zone Direct... I loved the previous Ys releases, and it was the last the PC Engine would ever see, so either way, I had to own it!

Anyway, glad you had a good time with it and I look forward to your Xanadu work.

[CrackTiger]

What I love about that part of Ys IV is that when I got stuck there for a while, I actually logically worked out in my head what should get me in, but didn't remember the earlier scene clear enough at first, as it was my first time through and I'd already spent a fair amount of time stuck at a couple other points before that.

It was so satisfying both getting past strong gaijin protection and figuring it out as it was intended to be.

[Johnpv]

It was so satisfying both getting past strong gaijin protection and figuring it out as it was intended to be.

Best line I've read in awhile.

[NightWolve]

It was so satisfying both getting past strong gaijin protection and figuring it out as it was intended to be.

Best line I've read in awhile.

Yeah, that situation does qualify as "strong gaijin protection," that's one way to put it.