Post by leesmapman on Feb 20, 2011 16:20:18 GMT -5
Hya all.
I found this forum while looking for an old site called "Ancient land of Ys", way back before Web2.0 existed. I played Ys 1, 2 and 3 on my MSX2 computer (in Japanese) and was interested in what happened after the 3rd game. I live in the Netherlands, where MSX was a big system, because Philips released their own MSX models.
I got Ys 1 in 1988 when I bought my first home computer from a friend. There was a whole lot of games with it, including the first Ys 1. I played it a lot, despite it all being in Japanese. Then Ys 2 came out and I was totally blown away by the intro and the superb music. A lot of hours went into this game, including the time I was stuck at the end, because I didn't know what items to use. Still, I loved it to death.
Ys 3 came with lots of anticipation. We were quite into the MSX scene so news, was scarce but available. So Ys 3 was announced and released and I loved it again.
Falcom had become a name for quality titles, after some so-so games like Dragonslayer 1 and 3 (Romancia). A friend of mine had Xanadu for MSX1 on cartridge, but I never played it. I did play quite some Dragonslayer 4 - Drasle Family.
Then Dragonslayer 6: Legend of Heroes was released.
It was a rainy day at the end of 1990 or early 1991, that I can't remember. We went to a day for MSX enthousiastics and there it was. It was also Falcom's first venture into the FM PAC, the new MSX sound card. And since Falcom had been amazing with the standard PSG sound chip, this could be legendary.
The intro started. The music was beautiful. Japanese text entered the screen and went away until the visuals were presented. And they were beautiful!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3bjnoOLtrg
In fact, my best friend and me recently talked about that unforgettable event.
After seeing the intro I knew I had to have this game. I bought the game (the MSX2 game came with a world map, cool stuff!) and played the game. In Japanese. So we phoned eachother to ask what to do when we were stuck. One point, I had to use a key, but I couldn't read it. Luckily, I got my hands on a katakana translation table and that helped a little.
Friends of mine were stuck for a long time at a certain point and they decided to finally get rid of their armor to get through a gate and it worked. They danced in the room when that worked, they told me a few years ago :-)
The game amazed me. There were pirates, there was cool music, there was backstabbing, a villain which recurred throughout the chapters and there was a huge world.
I've never had the time to play Dragon Slayer 5: Sorcerian, which was released on MSX sometime later. Which is too bad, since I think I might have liked it.
After that, the MSX scene really fell apart and while reports of Lord Monarch and Ys 4 were coming in, we all knew they wouldn't be released on MSX. I quit MSX gaming and went to PC, but because of the aforementioned Ancient Land of Ys, my interest in Falcom's games was back. I got the PC Engine versions of Ys 1&2, 3 and 4 and started playing them, the first 3 with nostalgia of course and then the fourth, which I still prefer over the SNES version, to be honest.
Then I bought Legend of Heroes 1 for PC Engine and I still have to play LoH2, which I have in my cupboard for quite some years now.
And then I was happy to see Falcom is getting more acknowledgement in the west after Ys 6 on PS2. Even Gurumin and Gaharv trilogy came out in the US and Europe!
And now, after the excellent work of XSEED, PSP has become one of the best systems with superb translations of Ys 7 and Oath in Felghana, with Ys 1&2 Chronicles and LoH:TitS coming up. Exciting!
Anyway, that's it for me now. Quite a long story, but it's been 23 years already.
I found this forum while looking for an old site called "Ancient land of Ys", way back before Web2.0 existed. I played Ys 1, 2 and 3 on my MSX2 computer (in Japanese) and was interested in what happened after the 3rd game. I live in the Netherlands, where MSX was a big system, because Philips released their own MSX models.
I got Ys 1 in 1988 when I bought my first home computer from a friend. There was a whole lot of games with it, including the first Ys 1. I played it a lot, despite it all being in Japanese. Then Ys 2 came out and I was totally blown away by the intro and the superb music. A lot of hours went into this game, including the time I was stuck at the end, because I didn't know what items to use. Still, I loved it to death.
Ys 3 came with lots of anticipation. We were quite into the MSX scene so news, was scarce but available. So Ys 3 was announced and released and I loved it again.
Falcom had become a name for quality titles, after some so-so games like Dragonslayer 1 and 3 (Romancia). A friend of mine had Xanadu for MSX1 on cartridge, but I never played it. I did play quite some Dragonslayer 4 - Drasle Family.
Then Dragonslayer 6: Legend of Heroes was released.
It was a rainy day at the end of 1990 or early 1991, that I can't remember. We went to a day for MSX enthousiastics and there it was. It was also Falcom's first venture into the FM PAC, the new MSX sound card. And since Falcom had been amazing with the standard PSG sound chip, this could be legendary.
The intro started. The music was beautiful. Japanese text entered the screen and went away until the visuals were presented. And they were beautiful!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3bjnoOLtrg
In fact, my best friend and me recently talked about that unforgettable event.
After seeing the intro I knew I had to have this game. I bought the game (the MSX2 game came with a world map, cool stuff!) and played the game. In Japanese. So we phoned eachother to ask what to do when we were stuck. One point, I had to use a key, but I couldn't read it. Luckily, I got my hands on a katakana translation table and that helped a little.
Friends of mine were stuck for a long time at a certain point and they decided to finally get rid of their armor to get through a gate and it worked. They danced in the room when that worked, they told me a few years ago :-)
The game amazed me. There were pirates, there was cool music, there was backstabbing, a villain which recurred throughout the chapters and there was a huge world.
I've never had the time to play Dragon Slayer 5: Sorcerian, which was released on MSX sometime later. Which is too bad, since I think I might have liked it.
After that, the MSX scene really fell apart and while reports of Lord Monarch and Ys 4 were coming in, we all knew they wouldn't be released on MSX. I quit MSX gaming and went to PC, but because of the aforementioned Ancient Land of Ys, my interest in Falcom's games was back. I got the PC Engine versions of Ys 1&2, 3 and 4 and started playing them, the first 3 with nostalgia of course and then the fourth, which I still prefer over the SNES version, to be honest.
Then I bought Legend of Heroes 1 for PC Engine and I still have to play LoH2, which I have in my cupboard for quite some years now.
And then I was happy to see Falcom is getting more acknowledgement in the west after Ys 6 on PS2. Even Gurumin and Gaharv trilogy came out in the US and Europe!
And now, after the excellent work of XSEED, PSP has become one of the best systems with superb translations of Ys 7 and Oath in Felghana, with Ys 1&2 Chronicles and LoH:TitS coming up. Exciting!
Anyway, that's it for me now. Quite a long story, but it's been 23 years already.
Welcome aboard, Leesmapman!
I assume you're familiar with Konami's MSX games, as well?
