The Ys series of games is one that I’ve been fascinated with for quite some time, though it’s also one that I haven’t played a huge amount of. I did beat the first game on the TurboGrafx-16 CD some years ago, and I own copies of the first five games in various formats as well as a couple that I got off of Steam. Yet, again, I’ve only played the others and only beat the first one.

Well, the other day, I got it in my head that it might be fun to take a shot at the first chronological entry in the series, Ys Origin, which was originally released in 2006 and was ported and updated via Steam in 2012. This game is set some 700 years prior to the adventures of Adol Christin (those adventures taking place in the early days of the Roman Empire), meaning this game’s time period occurred sometime between 700 to 800 B.C. Here, we discover why the ancient kingdom of Ys vanished, why Darm’s tower was constructed, and find out about a ton of lore as we play.

Overall, the game plays very well, reminding me of a Zelda game in many ways. Quite fun!

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