Ys: The Oath in Felghana -- Initial Impression.

This one has been a long time coming. Ys: The Oath in Felghana was developed and published for Japanese computers by Nihon Falcom Corporation in 2005. The game is a remake of Ys III: Wanderers from Ys which was originally released in 1989. The original appeared just about on every platform of its day, including the NEC PC-8801, MSX2, Famicom, Super Famicom, Mega Drive, Genesis, and TurboGrafx CD. Falcom was dissatisfied with the ports of their games to other systems and decided to handle the ports themselves. Falcom released Ys: The Oath in Felghana for the PlayStation Portable in Japan in April of 2010. And now XSEED Games have published the North American version in November of 2010. Ys III: Wanderers of Ys has always been beloved by some but mostly maligned by others for its drastic departure from the format of the previous two games. Wanderers from Ys was a side-scrolling action RPG where you were locked to a single plane and it introduced sword swinging and enabled Adol to jump. The Ys games previously allowed you to move in four directions and didn't allow for control of Adol's sword or offer the ability to jump. Falcom built Ys: Oath in Felghana off of the Ys VI: Ark of Napishtim engine which really is the best of both worlds. You now have eight-way movement with the ability to jump and control over Adol's sword. In creating Oath in Felghana they've greatly expanded the scenarios and mechanics of Wanderers from Ys and have included new bosses and more. From the time I've spent with the game thus far, which amounts to clearing the first dungeon and the first two boss encounters, I can say that everything that makes this series so great is in place. The story is rich with character and detail. Sure the story is going to be filled with cliche, but you have to remember this story dates back to 1989. The graphics are wonderful for being both a PlayStation Portable game and a port of a five year old computer game. Everything is crisp and clean and richly detailed. The music is astounding. Wanderers from Ys has long been considered to have one of the greatest soundtracks in gaming history. Oath in Felghana literally contains Mieko Ishikawa's brilliant original score. You can select to listen to the NEC PC88 original, or the Sharp X68,000 version of the score, as well as the standard version of the score from 2005 which contains Yukihiro Jindo's amazing arrangements. The PlayStation Portable version has voice work for pretty much every character in the game as well as character portraits. Key scenes are voiced while most of the game is text. The game also contains that satisfying and fast Ys combat. And if the first two bosses are any indication, the game is going to have some great boss battles in the classic pattern recognition style. I have no doubt that I'm in for another great game with Ys: The Oath in Felghana. The kind of game you don't want to end. The kind of game you savor.