Ys IV

[Johnpv]

I would play through the SNES Ys V 10 more times before ever firing up 6 ever again.  Ys V to me was very much the cornerstone on what modern Ys games built upon.  You can see that continuation in 6, Oath, Memories and VII.  6 just has aged so poorly IMHO.  It needs a major remake, from the poor hit boxes, the painful platforming, the controls, all of it needs major upgrades.  I really don't get why people are so down on V, yeah it's short and you can miss a fair amount of side stuff, but I don't think it terribly hurts it.  If V had come to the US during the SNES years it's a game I would have been all over and probably played through multiple times.  Kind of like Soul Blazer.

[NightWolve]

I love their art style! It's so cool that they post these things. 

I've got to finish playing your translation someday ... I'm stuck on one of the bosses, and am a poor-enough player that I'll probably have to hack myself an invincibility cheat to get passed him and back to the rest of the game.  :oops:

I was really enjoying it up until that darned boss!

Oh wow, surprised you got stuck on a boss. It seemed easy enough to just go back and grind for EXP if you really ran into problems on any of the Ys games. The great challenge for me has been Galbalan in Felghana, I can't defeat him on Inferno max difficulty setting. I sure love his design, his patterns, etc. though, it's all very well crafted.

The major issue that got people stuck with Ys IV was when playing it in Japanese as I was in 1997. It was the first import Japanese ARPG I bought for $55 and I justified it because I'd at least get an awesome soundtrack even if I couldn't understand the story and possibly get stuck (which I did).

There's a white knight who blocks the entrance back to the castle that you escaped from at the start of the game. With the English patch, you'll know what to do, you'll have understood the hints, but without it, most will get stuck and it was game over for me for years until the Internet and guides.

[NightWolve]

I love their art style! It's so cool that they post these things. 

I've got to finish playing your translation someday ... I'm stuck on one of the bosses, and am a poor-enough player that I'll probably have to hack myself an invincibility cheat to get passed him and back to the rest of the game.  :oops:

I was really enjoying it up until that darned boss!

I have had something for that.

http://www.ysutopia.net/projects/ys4/#downloads

Get the Ys4hack ZIP file. It's a Perl script for either the YAME or MagiceEngine state files. You can just get the offsets for gold or EXP from it and hex edit your state file, then reload it. You also need to cause an event change, exit or reenter a town, etc. for the changes to appear. Or, load state file, save your game within it, reset, and load it with the Continue option.

[seieienbu]

The major issue that got people stuck with Ys IV was when playing it in Japanese as I was in 1997. It was the first import Japanese ARPG I bought for $55 and I justified it because I'd at least get an awesome soundtrack even if I couldn't understand the story and possibly get stuck (which I did).

Wow, $55?  That seems like a steal for an import title back then.  I think I paid around $100 for it after finding an ad in the back of a magazine.  Where did you get it from?

[elmer]

Oh wow, surprised you got stuck on a boss. It seemed easy enough to just go back and grind for EXP if you really ran into problems on any of the Ys games.

OK, you shamed me into trying again ... and "nope", that's one mean boss, and grinding got boring-as-heck after I levelled-up and still got my behind kicked!  :oops:

It's the "Ice Immurer", which the FAQ says is one of the toughest bosses in the game. 

Get the Ys4hack ZIP file. It's a Perl script for either the YAME or MagiceEngine state files. You can just get the offsets for gold or EXP from it and hex edit your state file, then reload it. You also need to cause an event change, exit or reenter a town, etc. for the changes to appear. Or, load state file, save your game within it, reset, and load it with the Continue option.

Thanks!

I'm really trying-my-best to play the game without cheating and giving myself extra stuff like that ... unless I get blocked.

So I took the "programmer's way out" since I'm playing in Mednafen, and just figured-out where the current HP is stored in RAM, and then gave myself a bunch of extra HP whenever I was getting dangerously-low.  :-"

It's stored at $68:FC4E, BTW.

Now that I'm passed that one bit, hopefully I can go back to playing as normal.

[seieienbu]

That's a tough one; every time I've faced the Ice Murmurer I've taken several attempts before getting it right.  That definitely an interesting approach to beating him, I must say!

[technozombie]

I used to be against cheating, but with the limited time I have nowadays it's more important to get past a frustrating part and get back to having fun.

[NightWolve]

The major issue that got people stuck with Ys IV was when playing it in Japanese as I was in 1997. It was the first import Japanese ARPG I bought for $55 and I justified it because I'd at least get an awesome soundtrack even if I couldn't understand the story and possibly get stuck (which I did).

Wow, $55?  That seems like a steal for an import title back then.  I think I paid around $100 for it after finding an ad in the back of a magazine.  Wheere did you get it from?

Well, wouldn't you know, it's a piece of history I wanted to save!

[ParanoiaDragon]

Gah, they spelled Ys wrong!!!@)$iq3p9rje[worginvw[eoahoei  Man, Van Nuys, forgot all about that.  That's like a 20 minute drive from me.  I can't recall if I ever went by the old TZD building.  I feel like somebody did at one point & took pics.

[MisterCrash]

Gah, they spelled Ys wrong!!!

Well, to be fair, the Ys IV disc label has an apostrophe in it.

I got my copy from TZD as well. When I saw they had copies of Ys IV, I immediately placed an order. I started playing it right away, but got lost in the language barrier fairly quickly. I revisited it years later and followed the GameFAQs guide to get through it. Otherwise, that part that NightWolve mentioned would easily have caused me to quit.

[geise]

I would play through the SNES Ys V 10 more times before ever firing up 6 ever again.

Napishtim is f*cking amazing.  If you aren't playing it on PC you're doing it wrong.  I played it 6 months ago and it's still beautiful.  BTW Ys V over 6?....really?

[Necromancer]

Nice old invoice, NW.  'Tis cool that you've kept it all these years. 

As for Ark of Napishtim, I played through the PSP version and can't say I had any issues with bad controls, cheap hit boxes, or the like.  The only real negative was how it loads all the frickin' time; they weren't too painful on the PSP Go, but I'm sure they be a nightmare off UMD.

[Johnpv]

The finally bosses for SNES Ys IV were the only ones in the series that made me just break down and use a cheat code.  Specially the one before the last one, I just could not get past that a$$hole.

I would play through the SNES Ys V 10 more times before ever firing up 6 ever again.

Napishtim is f*cking amazing.  If you aren't playing it on PC you're doing it wrong.  I played it 6 months ago and it's still beautiful.  BTW Ys V over 6?....really?

To be fair I played in PS2 since that is the version I have, but it just did not click with me.  Yeah, really.  I think people shit on Ys V for no reason.  I had fun with the game and I never experienced the frustration I did with Ark, where I had to land jumps that were a few pixels in size but with an imprecise long jump mechanic, or deal with my sword slashing over an enemy multiple times but seeming only hitting the hit box to register it half the time.  I like the characters, and the story was typical Ys fair, but the gameplay, at least on the PS2 one made the game feel a bit more like a chore.  I know on the PC side of things you can use the Wings of Alma to teleport and that would have been REALLY nice on the PS2 version, instead it just takes you out of dungeons, or to the Alma trials.

Like I said I liked the characters and story well enough, if we could get a remake for it I'd be all for that.   

[NightWolve]

Nice old invoice, NW.  'Tis cool that you've kept it all these years. 

Built with Microsoft Excel by the look of it. I made sheets like that myself many times, for school and work. For a time I was well versed with Corel WordPerfect and its spreadsheet sister program Quattro Pro before Microsoft overtook it all as the office standard, it was still popular at that time period, so that's the other possibility I'm thinking.

[GaijinD]

I like the characters, and the story was typical Ys fair, but the gameplay, at least on the PS2 one made the game feel a bit more like a chore.

I don't remember having any of the same issues, but it's been a while. I was playing using a code that switched the graphics back to 2D, which I wouldn't think would have affected the gameplay, but I suppose it might have.