Ys III: Wanderers From Ys
Year of release:
Developed by Nihon Falcom
Published by Hudson Soft
For CD-ROM² System

After the succesful YS Book 1 & 2 Falcom decided to make a platformer YS, thus leaving the action RPG format. Many critics has said that this is the worst YS ever made and this game truly splitted the YS fan's opinions. Some of the fans claims that YS 3 isn't a real YS game. Falcom got pretty much hate mail because of this game and they decided to return to the original YS concept in the next YS game.

Ys 3: Wanderers From Ys is a platformer RPG. Much has changed since the last 2 games. You can only move in 2 directions, slash, jump and crawl. Instead of traveling to different places, you now choose your destination from a map. Adol moves at a decent pace and the controls are overall good. The only thing which I didn't like was huge jumps. The PCE version is a LOT easier than the SFC, X68000, MSX, NES and Genesis versions. Adol kills almost every monster with one blow and the bosses are very easy. Graphics are below average in the main game: this game has to have the worst vertical scrolling ever seen on a PCE platformer. Every time when there is an animated background or more than 2 background layers, the scrolling gets VERY choppy. I've seen a LOT better-looking platformers (Dracula X) for the PC Engine which has better scrolling effect. The cut-scenes are very beautiful (like in every other Falcom game) but there are only a few of these in the game. The sound effects are pretty much the usual sword slashes, etc. The musics, however, are a totally another story. The Ryo Yonemitsu composed soundtrack sounds unbeliveable. The music is a mix of hard rock and synth and the melodies nears perfection. The soundtrack can't be described in words, it has to heard with your own ears.
The soundtrack is already a good reason to buy or download this game. The ADPCM is awesome: some of the audio tracks can be heard in ADPCM when the characters speak in dungeons. The Japanese voice actors are awesome, but the US version has awful voice acting. :) However, AVOID the translated version. Almost every place and character names have been changed. If you want an awesome translation of this game, play the translated SNES version. It has the best Ys 3 translation I've seen so far.

Here is the story of the game, which can be seen in the "Beginning" screen. Check out the differences between the translated and the original versions: (Both of are in English.)

Original Japanese:

Almost 3 years had passed since Adol had rescued YS from the clutches of evil. Adol with his faithful companion Dogi were wandering from country to country. One day, a rumor they had happen to hear lead them to return to Dogi's place of birth. Something strange had happened in Felugana. Fields were dying and becoming barren. Strange creatures hunted the people in the dark cloak of night. This did not discourage Adol. Adol plunged into this new adventure.

Translated USA version:

Almost 3 years had passed since Adol rescued the land of YS from the Dark One. Adol and his courageous companion Dogi were wandering the lands in search of adventure. One day, they happen to hear a rumor about Dogi's hometown. They were told of a searing heat that had burned the prosperous fields of Kenai. The town had been inflitrated by gangs of dark and eerie goons. As Adol listened to these atrocities, his blood raged and his adrenaline flowed. Adol's next adventure was upon him...

Like I said, stay away from the US version. ;)

Track info: (Same in both US and JAP versions)

Track 1: The normal warning-speech
Track 2: Data, contains everything.
Tracks 3-25: CD-DA

Emulation info:

Magic Engine: Playable in both Windows and DOS versions.
Hu-Go!: Playable.
HuDX/Hu6280: Dumped ISO of track 2: Playable.
Real PCE / TG16: Since I don't own a real TG/PCE, I can't test a CDR copy... E-Mail me your results.

Data track info:

Nothing is compressed. Since there is already a translated version, no translation is needed.. but a re-translation would be a great thing..... because the current translation is horrible.

CD-DA info:

Audio tracks are called in separately. No adjustments needed.

Current progress: Finished!

The only thing I had to do was to change the 2 second pregaps to zeros.

Downloads:

Released CUE file HERE
Released CDRWIN CUE file HERE

Sample MP3's:

Track 7
Track 16