Ys 4 - The Dawn of Ys

[Korian]

Having enjoyed Ys on the Sega Master system, then Ys 3 on the SNES, and last but not least Ys Book 1+2 on the Duo, I knew I had to try Ys 4. Was able to buy a copy mint complete copy from a seller at gamefaqs for $30 so I thought I might as well try it, I happened to print out a few faqs, some years ago hoping I would someday get to the game, they came in mighty handy.

First things first the intro, recapping the final battle in Book 2 is cool. It was great visiting past areas from the previous games and bumping into old faces. Art happens to be great esp the large image of characters faces during talking scenes. Gadis and Leo instantly come to mind the details and expressions are amazing, the females are very cute too, must be the way their eyes reflected light, but they are a sight to see. Magic is vastly improved and the abilty to move diagonal is a nice tweak in the gameplay. I enjoyed the music quite a bit, but it didn't seem quite as good as Book 1+2, boss music sounded good, but I prefer the speed and intensity of the boss theme in the fisrt Ys. My 2 absolute favorite tracks happen to be the theme in Promalock, and in Dr Flair's office, odd huh? since they weren't the major tracks to the story but wow, are the someting special. The faqs I used were complete and very accurate, and using it I clocked in at a shade under 12 1/2 hours. The faq of course made the game expeirence quicker. Also without being able to speak Japanese the story was hard to grasp at times but the faq, and many story scenes hepled. I still had a wondeful time playing it though.

Anyone a fan of Ys 4? or like it better than Book 1+2?

[Dyne]

ive only played Y's 1-3 (duo) and Y's on the Master System. I always wanted to the rest, especially the remade pc version.

[Lordmrw]

Only Ys 4 I played was Mask of the Sun of Snes. I never got around to finishing it either. That asinine attack method got on my nerves. If Dawn of Ys were in English maybe I'd track it down someday.

[Low]

I keep forgetting about this game, not even close to beating it. Now that I have a tenoke bank I hope to play past the first boss.

I remember the sound being a bit odd, Falcom went with a technology called Roland Sound Space and it sounded rather poor through my speakers. *-neo

[ferricide]

Anyone a fan of Ys 4? or like it better than Book 1+2?

yep. i beat this years ago... say, 1995 or 1996? it's super excellent, and it's much less repetitive than 1&2. it exceeds it in pretty much every way, being a much later release for the turbo. shame it never had a chance to get professionally translated and released.

i've been wanting to replay it but i never quite get around to it. i started it over a year or two ago and got maybe an hour in but got distracted. it took me about 15 hrs to get through it the first time, no faqs or help really. that was like, almost pre-internet. i think i was using a dialup unix shell and lynx to browse at home when i played it.

on the other hand, mask of the sun for SFC is complete garbage comparatively. it's a shame it's the easily accessible version of ys iv most people are familiar with. it's a real shame that they're including mask of the sun with the limited edition of ys VI -- i guess that answers my question of whether or not there was ever an original version of ys iv for PC. no, i guess there wasn't.

i'd hate for mask of the sun to be the "canonical" version and dawn of ys to be left out in the cold. i hope it was just technical constraints (SNES ROM being easier to handle in the pack than reproducing a PCE disc, and already having SNES emulation in the pack thanks to ys V) that caused them to do it this way. also rights issues could be a factor. tonkinhouse is probably easier to manhandle, if they even still exist, than hudson.