Ys songs

[LordDarm]

Does anyone have a favorite Ys song?? mine is "To Make The End of Battle" check it out here -----> www.rpgfan.com/soundtracks/vboys/vboys-07.ram

[moongazer]

This is my favorite piece.....
I think it's called "Dawn of Ys"? I am not really sure!

rpgfan.com/soundtracks/ys4-pc3/07.ram


I like "The Morning Glow" too.

[LordDarm]

Yeah .....Ys 4 has an awesome soundtrack.....or how about this one from Ys 3? ------> rpgfan.com/soundtracks/ys3-pc/1-17.ram

[ysbaddaden]

I have plenty of Ys songs that I like and here are some that I like:
- To make the end of Battle
- Tabidachi No Asa (Ys III)
- Redmont (Ys III)

[LordDarm]

Lets face it .....all Ys songs are awesome, and JDK is awesome

[Golvellius]

my fav. Ys song would be fro Ys 2 ice ridge of noltia
i'll probably change it again after 5 minutes....and again and again because i like them all.this one just popped in my mind first.(Ys 2 was the first Ys game i played so it left the biggest imprint in my brain.)anyone else got Ys imprints on their brains? it's ok to tell.
ohh and does it have to be your fav. ORIGINAL song? or can it be a remix as well.

[LordDarm]

Yeah ...i agree about Ys eternal.....its still a great game though and I meant which melody is your favorite....the one i listed is a JDK hard rock special remix so as long as you name the melody, I would know which song you are refering to....and the song on the ice stage is definitely one of my favorites as well as the song in the lava stage........oh and the bell tower...thats another one! There are so many

[graffias79]

Too many to name! But I'll try. This list subject to additions

Ys IV - so far from what I've heard:
Field
(and another one where I forgot the name lol)

Ys III
Be Careful
Valestine Castle
Fighting Will
Winged Boy

Ys II
To Make End of Battle
Companile of Lane
Palace of Solomon

Ys I
Feena
Shrine Entrance
Tower of the Shadow of Death
Tears of Sylph
Last Moment of the Dark

[Justus]

I can't help interjecting about the Ys Eternal music.

Before you go comparing Ys Eternal's music to the PC Engine soundtracks, remember this: the PC Engine soundtracks were MADE BY HUDSON, a multi-media giant with a massive budget to spare. Don't forget that the original versions of Ys 1-3 were on PC-88, developed by Nihon Falcom alone, a very small developer with practically NO budget.

Similarly, Ys Eternal was developed for Windows by Falcom ALONE, with no multimedia giant backing them up. As such, ONLY ONE synthesizer was used to make the redbook audio (specially, a Roland SC-88pro). The music is not bad considering it is all made by a single synthesizer....though actually, I do think they could have done better myself. In fact, they HAVE done better using an SC-88pro, as anyone who has heard the music of Legend of Heroes IV knows (it's an absolutely brilliant soundtrack). However, for Ys Eternal's music, you also have to realize that a lot of it was intended to mimic the original version of the music (on PC-88). In fact, the Ys Eternal arrangement is actually fairly clever if your main memories of the game happen to be memories of the PC-88 version (which it would be for most Japanese players). It's intended to invoke nostalgia and all that.

[Logain74]

Justus, you seem to know a lot about the Ys soundtracks. Do you happen to know who did the arranging and actual performance (playing of the instruments) of the Hudson-made soundtracks? Did the same people work on the PCE Ys Book 1&2, Ys III, and Ys IV (although not sure if Ys IV was also made by Hudson).

Additionally, did these people ever work on any other game soundtracks, Falcom or otherwise.

Thanks in advance.

[LordDarm]

I am not saying the songs on eternal/story are bad but they just dont compare to Turbo Duo.....i still love them even though they pale in comparison....plus i never got to hear the songs that were cut out of the Turbo Duo version until I got eternal story for PS2........songs such as "Dreaming" and "Tension" are awesome!!!......and even with the LOOOONG load times in eternal story it is still one of the best versions of the best game ever!!

[Justus]

No, they sure don't. There's no way a set of recordings with a 6-digit budget COULD compare to what is basically a bunch of MIDI files played on a cheap synthesizer. My point was that they do have the merit of clever nostalgia (for the Japanese players anyways). Oddly enough, it would probably be more nostalgic for us international players if it sounded more like the Hudson recordings.

As for who was in it, Ryo Yonemitsu did all the final arrangeing for the Hudson recordings (I believe for Ys 1&2, Ys 3, AND Ys 4). Additionally, Yonemitsu, who was NOT one of the composers of the music, but just the arranger for Ys 1&2, WAS one of the composers for Ys 3 and Ys 4. You might say that he was the backbone of JDK for a good while. He left Falcom and Hudson shortly after Ys 4, when he quit his career in game music to start one in anime music (his first anime soundtrack was the Record of Lodoss War OAV...which you might also note was done by the same studio that made the Ys 2 OAV, and had a lot of the same cast and crew).

As for the instrumentalists who played in the recordings, there are really no leads, except that several of them are credited in the credits for Ys 4: the Dawn of Ys. Since my saved game for it seems to not work for some reason, I can't look up the names just now...and they are in kanji anyways.

But believe me, I could go on forever about who has been in JDK over the years, and what they've done.

Since I'm trying to cut my habit of rambling in forums, I won't go too far into it, but probably the most famous of the JDK members was Yuzo Koshiro, who was a composer for Falcom for about 5 years, and wrote music for Xanadu: scenario 2, Dragon Slayer 3 and 4, Ys 1 and 2, and a few others. After leaving Falcom, he went on to quite a bit of fame writing music for games like Actraiser and the Streets of Rage series, and more recently, Shen Mue.

[FM-77AV]

So he wrote the music for the Record of Lodoss war OAV. That is impressive. In that case, he really must be a musical genius! Because that is, honestly, some of the greatest music I have ever heard. Absolutely amazing!

And as far as I have heard, he did also compose (at least some) of the YsIV music, just like you said. I have no idea who wrote the YsIII music though.

As for Yuzo Koshiro, check the Falcom discussion board for a complete list of his works. It's here.

[sideshow]

In comparing the music of Ys book 1 and 2 (Turbo Duo) and Ys Eternal Complete (PC) it boils down to this: The Turbo Duo version sounds to me more like a actual band is playing while the PC version has much more synthesized sounds thus makin it more VideoGame Sounding. There both cool but the Turbo Duo version just has a more powerful sound than the PC version.

[DjShini]

I'd really like to know if someone happens to find a link featuring some of these soundtracks. I can't seem to find anything oh well......by the way, is there a big difference in the soundtrack between Ys eternal story PC version and PS2 version, I have PS2 version but not played it yet due to slow delivery of modchip It's Driving me nuts >_<

[FM-77AV]

The PS2 soundtrack is far superior to the PC version. I assure you.

[LordDarm]

I found this awesome site that will let you download Ys songs .......you have to sign up with them but its free. Alot of good songs to download from the different versions of Ys.

www.classicgaming.com/reviews/Ys/Ys.htm

[Jimmy Stewart]

The end boss music in Ys 3 is godly.

[Charan]

Hi everyone - newcomer, stumbled onto this wonderful site whilst googling for (gee, have a wild guess) Ys info.

I played Ys for the music. Tolerated the iffy gameplay of Wanderers on Sfamicom for the music, and when I found out there were actual cds for sale with the tunes (this is well before the age of mp3s and the like), it was really quite an awesome shock. And they were arranged too! That's how my endless quest for Falcom music began. First came Wanderers Arranged, then Symphony Ys, Dramatic Concert, Ys IV JDK special...now I'm kicking myself because a lot of the cds I couldn't afford back then are -extremely rare- now, such as Symphony 95 - reading the review of this one at rpgfan just *hurts*...

But as they say, first impressions last, so, to this day, my favourite Ys tunes are from Wanderers: The strongest foe (endboss music mentioned above), Searing struggle (the 'lava cave' tune - remixed and arranged many a time, and for good reason) and Varestine/ Valestine castle.

But the classic tunes are the ones that last: First steps, Feena, Dark Fact (Dulk fact? hm...the katakana would suggest that, as would the 'Dulk Factory' bit of Provincialism Ys), To make the end of battle, Palace of destruction...and I've never played Ys I or II...!

Ys IV has Celceta (Celseta? Im too used to the katakana again!), Temple of the Sun, and one of my favourites, that never got arranged or orchestrated, Bronze District (track 24 on the JDK special).

I recently got back into Ys after a friend sent me the opening movie for Ys 1 Complete, which was absolutely amazing. To see my favourite character so updated, and the music so smoothly recreated (old dogs and new tricks!) was quite eerie. And Konami are bringing 6 (and the original Ancient Ys Vanished I and II? Think I read that somewhere) to the west via Ps2. Yay! My poor machine has been collecting dust RPG wise, with the exception of SO3.

Now, I read elsewhere that Yngwie Malmsteen (who I know nothing about other than that he's a character in the Dark Schneider manga "Bastard!!") has some tunes very similar to Ys music. I acquired 'Far beyond the sun', which was mentioned, and yeah, the similarity is beyond coincidence.

Does anyone know of any other such parallels?

And thanks for such a great board. For a while there, I thought I was alone in my adoration of Ys/falcom music - Uematsu/Mitsuda/Sakuraba tend to rule the 'VGM' scene, but let's not forget that Koshiro graduated from the Falcom School!

Charan

[Justus]

Seldane said:

The PS2 soundtrack is far superior to the PC version. I assure you.

That is DEFINATELY a matter of opinion; particularly since the PS2 version is simply a dumbed-down and MIDIfied version of the PC soundtrack.

When they formulated the soundtrack to Ys Eternal, they were trying for a nostalgic feel; basically, they took the original version of the music (for PC-88), and then gave it a facelift. It is meant to appeal mainly to Japanese PC gamers, whose primary memory of Ys is on the PC-88.

Admittedly, because the PS2 version doesn't have all the distortion effects and such as the PC soundtrack, it sounds a bit cleaner. However, I would argue that the PC soundtrack is far closer to the creators' intent.

If you want the best soundtrack, play the Turbo Grafx version already. Not like it isn't in English and cheap to get off of Ebay.