The Dawn of Ys

I’ve played (though not necessarily finished) Ys I & II, The Oath in Felghana, Ys VI, Ys Seven, and now, thanks to the Summer Steam Sale, Ys Origin.

I haven’t played Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys, Ys IV: Mask of the Sun, or Ys V: Kefin, The Lost City of Sand.*

I am looking forward to Falcom’s remake/reimagining/reboot/retcon/whatever of Ys IV, Ys: Foliage Ocean in Celceta.** It’s scheduled for release on the PS Vita in late September, but I expect XSEED Games will translate it and bring it over to the US (since they’ve brought over other Vita games, and have done their damnedest to bring over all the Ys games they can).

I haven’t let that stop me listening to music from the games, though, and SSH’s cover of The Dawn of Ys is great. And mixing in Iron Maiden is a nice touch.

*Yes, there are two different versions of Ys IV, made by two different companies (neither of which was Falcom).

**I love Falcom, but they need to work on the literalness of their translations.　樹海 does literally mean “foliage ocean,” but it refers to a forest so extensive that it is like the sea (For example, Aokigahara, the forest at the base of Mt. Fuji that is so popular for suicides.). I think the tentative initial translations as “Celceta: Sea of Trees” were better, but it’s their game, and they can name it how they choose.

I heard you like tabs

So here’s several weeks’ worth all at once. Now that I’m getting back in the habit of blogging regularly, I doubt this will happen again. Until I get back out of the habit, anyway.

Releasing this in the US would convince me to jump ship from iOS to Android. Everyone likes Neon Genesis Evangelion!

Falcom has released some more screens from their Ys IV remake/reimagining, Ys: Woodland of Celceta. It looks far more polished than it did when it was first announced. Hopefully XSEED will bring this out over here (and since they’ve got a good thing going with Falcom, I think it’s pretty likely). Oh, Ys: Woodland of Celceta’s official homepage is up as well.

Weer’d posted about TGSCOM’s shutdown. Apparently they’d been threatened with frivolous lawsuits and hadn’t been shipping their orders or something. I bought my P226 from them in 2010, and didn’t have any problems. I’m sorry to see them go (unless they were actually stiffing their customers; I only dealt with them the one time, and can’t speak to how they were operating since).

And to counterbalance yesterday’s Japan news, some good news: the last Aum Shinrikyo member involved in the Tokyo subway sarin gas bombing from the 90s has been arrested.

Growlanser IV hits the PSP and PSN at the end of this month. It’s unrelated to the 3 earlier games, so you don’t have to worry about not understanding references or terminology, or recognizing repeat characters. The only downside is that ATLUS couldn’t justify the cost for licensing the Japanese voices (or dubbing it in English, for that matter), since it’s even more of a niche title than their usual.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown comes out at the start of October, and the preorder bonuses are tempting. Especially classic X-COM flattop soldier.

Taken 2 looks awesome. I, for one, can’t wait to see the Most Interesting Man in the World try to get his revenge on Liam Neeson.

And the full theatrical trailer for the live-action Rurouni Kenshin movie has been released. Japan handles these anime-to-live-action conversions so much better than Hollywood does.

I had a couple more links, but they’ve been lost in the æther.

Ys I Symphonic Medley

Because I can’t think of anything worthwhile to post, here’s more Falcom music:

The whole CD this track is originally from is pretty good; it’s got two symphonic medleys from Ys I, and two from Ys II, and even without any hint of electric guitar, Falcom’s music is still great.

At the risk of sounding like a paid shill*

Ys: The Oath in Felghana is on Steam for $15. If you like old-school action games where you either learn the boss patterns or you get destroyed, you should check it out. Especially since if it does well, it could pave the way for more of Falcom’s catalog to come out via Steam.

I’m not buying it** (though I am sorely tempted); I have the original Japanese PC release, the Japanese PSP release, and the US PSN release. I don’t need to buy it a fourth time.

If you like great action and great music, you owe it to yourself to give it a shot.

*Which I’m not; I don’t work for Valve, XSEED Games, or Falcom. If you buy Ys: The Oath in Felghana off Steam, I won’t see a cent.

**Though I will buy the Steam release of Ys Origin; it uses the Felghana engine and is supposed to be the best in the series.

Miscellany redux

After turning in my paper for my legal writing class this morning, and my civil procedure midterm this afternoon, I’m exhausted. Who knew retraining your brain from a technical/engineering bent to a legal bent was such hard work?

Anyway, Tales of Graces f releases today in the US; my impressions from last January of the Japanese release are just as relevant now as when I wrote them. If you’re on the fence, but you liked Vesperia or Symphonia, give Graces f a chance; the story is a bit cheesy, but it’s worth dealing with because the battle system is so good.

XSEED Games announced the news that they’re bringing Ys: The Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin to Valve’s Steam PC gaming platform; the former will hit the store next week for $15, and the latter at some future date for some unannounced price. My post the other day about Ys Origin got me more interested in playing that game, and I had considered finding a store online that I could import a copy of the Japanese PC release from. Now I can just wait!

And finally, Joe Huffman found this great infographic detailing all the ways in which the TSA wastes our money, invades our privacy, and does both of those without even stopping terrorists.

Genesis Beyond the Beginning

Ah, Falcom. You manage to come up with the most ridiculous sounding track titles.

After beating Ys: The Oath in Felghana again, I thought I might as well look around on youtube for some more good Falcom music, and came across this track from Ys Origin.

And from gameplay and soundtrack clips, I’m definitely going to have to find a copy of this somewhere. It uses the Ys VI and Felghana engine, and is supposed to be even better than Felghana.

Also, I had no good ideas for a post today, so I figured why not go with the old game soundtrack filler post standby.

Livin’ la (PS) Vita loca?

Vita game-wise, I have Tales of Innocence R and Uncharted: Golden Abyss. I also bought a couple Vita-compatible PSP games off the US PSN (Ys: The Oath in Felghana and Ys Seven), and I’ve put in some time on each of them. I’m a ways into ToIR, a couple chapters into UGA, and almost to the end of Oath (aside from making sure Ys Seven worked, I haven’t played it), and the PS Vita is great.

Unfortunately, the screenshot functionality doesn’t work on PSP games, only on Vita games (at this point, anyway; maybe Sony will patch it so it works later). Uncharted looks better on the system than it does in the screenshots (damn compression!), but ToIR looks about the same. The analog sticks are great, and far better than the slider the PSP had. Even the d-pad is much improved.

Uncharted falls prey to the same problems most first-party games on new, innovative hardware do; it uses the touch screen, rear touch panel, and gyro controls in gimmicky ways when they’re not really necessary. I should be able to navigate the menu without using the touch screen if I want; balancing with gyro controls as you walk over logs was stupid in Uncharted 1, let alone here (and was rightly absent in UC2 and 3); and having to tap the ammo indicator to reload instead of a button is unintuitive. That said, a couple of the uses of the Vita’s capabilities are actually good: coarse aiming with the analog stick coupled with fine aiming via gryo controls makes targeting enemies a breeze, and using the rear touch pad to control zoom on the sniper rifle is very quick.

The touch screen is barely used in Tales of Innocence R; you can assign each party member a spell to cast when you tap their portrait during battle. Other than that, it’s only used when saving/loading (which appears to be a Vita system-level requirement, like the PSP save/load system). I’m inclined to believe Namco was working on this “reimagination” for the PSP, and just switched tracks when Vita development was feasible.

I’ll play through these games before I get any new Vita software (probably, at least). Until Disgaea 3: Absence of Detention, Gravity Rush, Ys: Woodland of Celceta, and possibly Zero no Kiseki: Evolution come out, I’m not interested in much.

Which basically gives me a month (until Disgaea 3), and then another month or two (until Gravity Rush), and then however long for those other games. Unless other games pique my interest in the meantime, anyway (Thanks to the launch 3G bundle deal, I’ll get Super Stardust Delta for free in another 3-4 weeks).

All in all, I’m pleased with the Vita launch; there are plenty of games in plenty of genres, and while most are worth at least playing the demo, some are actually even good!

 

 

Palace of Destruction

Finals week is come, and most of my nonsense is confined to twitter (for the time being).

Don’t be surprised if I tend to post more OST selections this week, since I’m listening to a lot of music while studying (and not being distracted by the internet, I swear).

And because instrumental music seems better for studying than vocal music, I’ve delved once more into my Falcom game soundtrack trove.

Today’s track: Palace of Destruction, which plays (I think?) in the first shrine/temple Adol explores in the first game.

The Ys I & II Chronicles arrangement is excellent, but SSH‘s* might be even better:

*SSH, for Saitama Saishuu Heiki (埼玉最終兵器), the ultimate weapon of Saitama, a doujin music group..

Sealed Time

Because I’m a hopeless Falcom fanboy (and also because dead week is quite … busy (finals start Thursday!)), in lieu of a substantial post, I give you (yet another) track from Ys: The Oath in Felghana.

Sealed Time plays in the clock tower stage, and like most of the rest of the game’s music, does a good job of keeping the pulse pounding.

Nothing like fast-paced music to accompany frenetic action!

Varestein Castle (バレスタイン城)

The Oath in Felghana is my great standby for music selections, I guess. When I’m short on content, I can always go back to Falcom’s remake of Ys III for rocking game music.

Varestein Castle is the rockingest track on that soundtrack, and plays in the stage of the same name.

I should have some real content up tomorrow; in the meantime, enjoy!