Leger vs. Ys 3: Wanderers from Ys (Mega Drive)

It might be that Ys 4: Mask of the Sun on the Super Nintendo was mentioned in the Swedish Nintendo Magasinet at one point or another, together with a picture making it obvious that what I had learned from Ys: The Vanished Omens on the Master System a couple of years earlier still had some relevance.

But if so, I did not make much of it. Not really registering the info, because if I had things would probably have played out in another way.

Considering many sequels at the time took things in completely different directions, not to mention Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (switching from mainly adventuring in an overhead perspective to spending most time platforming and battling in a side scrolling context) or Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest (dropping the linearity and inplementing some light rpg elements), what I was about to realise should not have come as a surprise.

But it did.

Emulation had to be a thing, and internet at home aswell, until actually getting in contact with the PC-Engine, or TurboGrafx-16 as known in the west.

As Ys on the Master System had been an experience above and beyond the usual much thanks to the soundtrack, the somewhat odd battle system where the red haired hero Adol runs into enemies to hurt them and the few but huge places to visit (with the final tower making up almost a third of the playtime of the entire game), this to me previously unknown version on CD blew me away.

Studio produced music, simple but really nice looking animated cut scenes, two smaller games turned into one big and with that a continuation of a game I loved.

The sequel never reached the Master System.

Nor did the third and fourth game in the series, with this particular third one doing a Zelda 2 and dropping the overhead perspective for simple but effective action and platforming.

A black sheep, of sorts, some will still claim. Except it really is not.

Not even considering the full blown 3D remake released as a follow up to the rebirth of the series, with the now somewhat classic The Ark of Napisthim, The Oath in Felghana, while radically different from Wanderers from Ys, is an excellent game but partly because the game it is a remake of already did many things right.

So, what about this Wanderers from Ys then?

Keeping in line with the prequels few but huge places to visit still is a thing. No more than one small town acting as a hub of sorts between the map and the other places to explore.

Two shops, few people to interact with and not that much of a large selection of equipment and items to buy or find. The concept of less is more is put at work here, flawlessly, because it makes it easy to feel that everything is of relevance.

Even the simple story, no matter how predictable it actually is. Falcom just hits a sweet spot where the most one dimensional of a character manages to feel important in a bigger context, but this was just as true in the first two Ys games. And, no matter what anyone says, Adol and his blue haired companion of always, Dogi, do very much seem like a couple even if not seemingly realising it themselves. But they often do, nothing new here.

Progressing the story, reaching new places aswell as opening up new paths in places already explored are all things happening in an experience with a high tempo; Wanderers of Ys is a short game, some few hours long, but it never seems to be lacking content wise and it seems almost impossible to get stuck not knowing what to do next.

Having a hard time with a boss the solution seldom is further away than finding or buying some new eqpuipment or going grinding for a short period of time. Boss battles are rather chaotic at times, thus while learning patterns may be enough to progress as long as Adol is strong enough to deal damage to whatever creature he is fighting one never have to feel stuck because of a lack of options of making things easier.

Adol can find rings that consumes magic power while being used, granting him more stenght, defense or the ability to slow down the flow of time, aswell as use herbs to restore health or even cheating death under certain circumstances with the help of a special object.

Fighting, while not keeping in line with this thing with running into enemies in previous games (aswell as in the fourth game in the series), is so fluent that it almost feels like the battle system of old. Adol swings his sword at a ridicilously fast pace (especially while trying to hit enemies passing above his head) and it is never more complicated than beating up the enemies while avoiding other kind of physical contact.

Physically interacting with enemies or their weapons, if not having good enough protection, may result in death in a second or two. The life drains away just as quickly as Adol swings his sword.

While the environments thematically are somewhat generic (caves, castles, snowy mountains and a burning inferno), they do look fantastic much thanks to the details.

Being too familiar with the huge graphics of many 16-bit games the small blocks, 8 by 8 pixels, used here to build the world gives everything a seriously nice 8-bit look with a touch of paralax (which the PC-Engine version handles horribly bad), more colours (the SNES version looks drab in comparation) and small things worth noticing everywhere.

The look is, of course, partly due to the 1989 origin of the game being released on the PC-8801 8-bit computer by NEC.

Oh, and the developers have, as expected when it comes to most things Ys related, done a ridicilously good job with turning the music of Falcom Sound Team JDK into something that sounds like it is working with the hardware and not against it.

Electronic, intense and melodic, and maybe one of the best soundtracks the entire series has to offer even it could be discussed to no end which version of the soundtrack in question one prefers.

Thing is, playing through Ys 3: Wanderers from Ys is a blast from start to end, no matter things that could have been designed differently. Everything just falls into place, such a smooth ride, and while it differs quite much from the rest of the games in the series it very much nails the classic Ys feel of the early games down to the classic jingle played when opening a chest.

If I had played this when it was new, it would not have taken me this long to appreciate it for what it is, as much as I do. I would have been more open to it approaching things in a different way, just like The Adventure of Link and Simon's Quest.

Not that I ever have disliked it.

It is just that as of today I love it.