Friday 22 February 2013

Completed: Ys II chronicles +

and therefore i effectively beat all of chronicles + (which is available on steam for 15 bucks)

before i go on to what the story is about i just want to quickly thank Xseed (even though i know you wont read this) For distributing a large number of the Falcom games...
I love these games and if it weren't for you all i would have ever known of them is the Atlus version of ys 1 and 2 and Legend of heroes a tear of vermillion cause i just happened to randomly find it in a store...
I cannot imagine the type of gamer i would be if it were for this one particular series.... i was getting so disheartened by the types of JRPGs i was playing... some were good... some were terrible and it was pretty much a coin toss because unless you find a reviewer who has similar taste to you it's impossible to find a review of a Jrpg you can trust... so maybe thats why i make my own? no... i make these cause if i don't gush about things i finish then i will explode...
ugh i'm getting off topic.
anyways had i not seen Ys 3 on a shelf and picked it up cause yeah the other two were hard but hey at least they had great music i may not have fallen in love with the JRPG genre all over again...
although maybe if i hadn't played ys 3 i wouldn't be such a falcom fangirl...
...
oh well~

Long story short - Xseed you are the best and i look forward to Celceta in the fall... like really forward to it.... i made a noise so highpitched when it was announced that i think only dogs could hear me...
...
*sighs* I obviously have a problem and need to seek help...

ok... onto the review part of the review (but be warned it's more then a little biased... also minor spoilers for Ys 1... but really minor...

 This game starts off immediatly after the end of Ys 1, Adol Christian or Red haired Hero has been shot into the sky after stopping Dark Facts evil plan.
yeah thats really his name... yes it is increibly silly.... moving on.
A girl finds Adol unconcious in the feild and brings him home.
cause thats what you do when you are on a floating island and someone you have never seen falls from the sky. To be fair she had a sort of premonition so i guess that makes it more acceptable?
anyways He is apparently on the actual land of Ys... and things are not good... demons roam the land and it's up to Adol to save the day.

Thing i have learned from Ys.
Adol is the only person in the world with hair that red, some hair reddish hair but none as red as he.
in other games where blue, green, yellow, Cyan and even good old Silver those are not considered odd.... but Adols red hair is...

these are life lessons i tell you.

Anyways as i stated in my last Ys review i played the Atlus version of book 1&2 which add an attack button and doesn't balance how adol reacts to getting hit.... however in Ys 2 itdoesn't matter as much since you are given magic so you can attack enemies from afar and most are vulnerable to it. Even back when i played Ys 2 i enjoyed it way more then 1 cause i just didn't feel like i was dying as cheaply anymore.
however the atlus version was still glitchy as hell and one time an enemy bumped me in to a wall and i had to restart to get out.... was not pleased by this... but yeah thats all i can really compare about the two...

The good:
MAGIC... while I do think it's stupid that magic is the only way to kill all but 2 bosses having a ranged attack that even gets the ability to home in is really nice.
The story... it is so much more interesting in Ys 2... you learn more about the lore (and if you've played Origin you get to see lots of things you experienced in that game) you have way more character interaction and overall it's just better told... you get a reason for why you need certain weapons for the final boss and why a certain thing that happened after beating final boss happened... it makes more sense if you see it yourself. I just think overall it's better and you get to see more about adol and you get his first onscreen spoken line... i mean it mentions he talks but we never see what he says... unless you play alternative Saga and then you can't get adol to shut up.... i'm not complaining... that game is fun...
The leveling system, In 1 you reach level cap before the second boss.... in this one i reached level cap after beating the final boss... not that the final boss matters cause if you have everything you will not take a single point of damage... but still i like the fact that if i felt weak i coudl level a bit and get stronger.

The not so good
As i mentioned before most bosses can only be hurt by magic.... they also can only be hurt is a certain condition is met liek the mout being open or attacking from the proper angle....
normally this doesn't bug me but a few of these it's annoying cause no matter where you are they are always facing forward and then sometimes enjoy camping out near the bottom of the screen making them impossible to hit until you get them to move higher up... all while not touching them cause theres no recovery time and they will drain your health rather quick.
The game isn't as mean as game 1 cause it's ultimate weapons are actually the ones you need (unlike that lovely flame sword) however it still does a few mean things... all i'll say is no matter what the situation talk to everyone.... cause one of them may hand you a shield....

The bad:
So much shorter then i remember : (
Granted i put down the atlus version for about a year cause i was frustraied by how difficult Zava was... and gettign bumped into a wall in a place i was having trouble navigating in the first place...
but yeah much shorter...
also it's easy to get lost in this game... the solomon shrine is a huge maze where everything looks the same yet somehow yours supposed to know where everything is....
i mean i remembered how to do 3/4 of it cause i had played it before but most of the time was still me going "ah crap how do i get there again?"



I did love all the mentions of Toal... poor poor hugo... no love for the actual heir to the fact name.... only for his awesome older brother.
Also love that the tovah statue is female and has an Axe.... made me smile from ear to ear. i have no idea if that's how it was when the game was originally released but it's how it is now so i'll accept it.

This game, along with all Ys games, is not easy... but it's not that hard either once you figure out how to completely avoid getting hit.... this game has some amazing music... the final act song being one of my favs. in chronicles + you can choose which version of each song you want to listen to wich is always fun... you also get 2 versions of the game.
also as i mentioned in my last review it comes bundled with ys 1 for only 15 bucks on steam.... even if you've never heard of the series give this game a shot... you may not love it as much as i do (cause i will admit i'm a little tiny itty bitty bit obsessed with Falcom) but i think you'll have fun.

now i've played every version of every (discounting the psp ver cause it's pretty much this version with fewer features) Ys game released in north america.... gotta wait till fall to get my next fix of Adol Cristian.
luckily Ys 4 is on the way... gunna enjoy getting a Vita for it~
and i have the other legend of heroes games in my collection.... thye just aren't as fun as Ys... oh well
still have great music.

alright if you couldn't tell by all the rambling i'm actually running a pretty high fever so i'm gunna get some chicken soup and sleep for a week.... at least thats what i would like to do. *sighs*

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