Ancient Land of Ys

Ancient Land of Ys by Falcom Nihon was released in 1989, and is the first in a series of seven video games, the most recent of which was released in 2003.

Ancient Land of Ys is set in a region known as Ys. The people of Ys were of average wealth and lived in peace. A long time ago, a farmer discovered a precious metal later known as kureria while farming, and he shared the wealth with his fellow people. They became rich and prosperous, but this ended when natural disasters ravaged the land of Ys. A prophet told the people that the cause of the disasters was the kureria, and so the people took all of the kureria they had mined and sealed it in a cave using magic, protected by two stone statues of the goddesses of Ys.

Time passed, and life in Ys returned to normal. However, the evil wizard Malificus stole the Six Books of Ys, books that contained the secrets of the kureria. Malificus conjured evil creatures to terrorize Ys, and gave five of the six books to his most powerful servants. In order to restore peace to Ys, you must defeat Malificus and his 5 servants and retrieve the books.

Ancient Land of Ys is a 3rd person overhead real-time action RPG. Your character is a swordsman who is charged with returning Ys to peace, and so you must find a way to stop Malificus. Along the way, you'll meet many people who may give you quests to fulfill as you journey through Ys.

Combat is relatively simple in Ancient Land of Ys. Once you get equipped with a sword, you merely walk into an enemy to attack it. Depending on how you approach your enemies determines whether you take damage while fighting. Therefore, it is best to walk into your enemies from behind or alongside. In order to reduce the damage you take from enemy attacks, you can equip shields and armor. Although equipment can be purchased in town, the residents of Ys often speak of better weapons and armor elsewhere. If you take damage, you can slowly recover HP by standing still. This will work in the wilderness, towns, and in some dungeon levels, and requires special means to work in other places.

As you fight monsters and complete quests, you gain gold and experience. After reaching a set amount of experience, your character will have more HP, deal more damage in combat, and resist more damage. Each kill you make automatically adds to your gold.

Aside from weapons, shields, and armor, you may find or purchase special items to aid in your quest. For example, the wing allows you to return to town from almost anywhere in Ys, while the mirror stops enemies temporarily, but can break after some use. You can also purchase healing potions which will instantly restore your HP, but you may only carry one at a time.

Dungeons are fun to navigate and present a fair amount of challenge. False walls, hidden doors, and teleportation statues are a few of the dungeon features found in the game. The challenge lies not only in overcoming the monsters in the dungeons, but also finding one's way through the mazes. The graphics and music are pretty good given the age of the game. The monsters, NPCs, and landscapes are well-detailed, and the simple yet catchy music does a lot to convey the mood of the game.