Forums

Sega Master System / Mark III / Game Gear
SG-1000 / SC-3000 / SF-7000 / OMV
Home - Forums - Games - Scans - Maps - Cheats - Credits
Music - Videos - Development - Hacks - Translations - Homebrew

View topic - Review: Ancient Ys Vanished - Omen; Mark III, PSG

Reply to topic
Author Message
  • Joined: 14 Feb 2024
  • Posts: 42
  • Location: Andorra
Reply with quote
Review: Ancient Ys Vanished - Omen; Mark III, PSG
Post Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2024 3:17 pm
Introduction

This is an unfinished review for the game “Ancient Ys vanished – Omen”, Japanese version for the Mk. III. The game was played in a real MK.III without FM unit, with original gamepads and with composite video output. As stated, the review is considered unfinished as the FM soundtrack for this game was not experienced and it is an important factor to value in this version. Also, I would like to compare it with the European version of the game for difficulty Settings and other aspects.

During this review the game will be compared with other versions in other platforms including but not limited to the Ni****do DS or the PC-Engine versions (soon they may join MSX and Sega Saturn ones) to give a comparison of how this game evolved over the years. I will also take the opportunity to overview Ys II and give my opinion of why it was never ported to Sega Mark III/Sega Master System.

Finally, I warn you that this review contains spoilers; at the same time also take this chance to inform you that canonical names are used in this same document, as SEGA messed with nearly every single character and location.

I hope you enjoy this review as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Technical aspects

I will talk about the controllers first. There are six buttons in a Sega Mk.III, and all of them are used. Four of them comprise the directional pad, which is used to direct the player across the maps. Button 1 is used to talk with the NPCs and, more importantly, display the contextual menu from which one can equip pieces from the inventory and save/restore the game. Button 2 is used to consume items from the inventory such as potions, mirrors and wings.

I have read this game does not work in all Sega Master System models and revisions. Those units with the Master System II VDP cannot play this game!

One of the aspects that left me unsatisfied with this specific version of the game is the experience level. There are only 10 levels in this RPG, to defeat Vagullion in the mines it is recommended to have this level as well the complete set of silver gear. This means that from the mines until the end of the game there is no motivation to kill more monsters. On top of that there are many points of the game where one must farm to increase the attack points as enemies are susceptible to the level and there are even bosses that are caused 0 damage if a certain level has not been reached. By the tower, I found myself equipping the timer ring and escaping the monsters instead of chasing them. Had they made a more escalated experience system, the game would have been more far more enjoyable.

The fact that there is a point of no return in the story also makes one cease to care about obtaining gold as there is nowhere to have it spent.
After the struggles to obtain the first, third and sixth book, the way of obtaining the other three seems cheap.

While the plot, art and level design is top notch the bosses are very simplistic and it is a hassle seeing them moving diagonally when the character cannot. Although most move at the same speed as the protagonist, they do so both horizontally and vertically, therefore being 1.21 times faster. This made the combats with Vagullion and the one with the two headed demon the toughest of all the game, even more than the final fight with Dark Fact.

Also, the difficulty of the game is incredibly unpolished and may be too much at some points.

The save feature is one of the redeeming aspects of this game, which allowed me to approach it with time to appreciate it in a casual way.

Artistical aspects

The game makes good use of the limited colour palette the console has. Unfortunately, the game was played in an LCD TV with composite video, therefore image was seen blurry in contrast of the crisp RGB could display. The game will be beaten again in RGB once the FM unit is obtained, therefore this section will be updated in the future. Nevertheless, quality of both background and sprites was deemed as high. It is very interesting to see how the silver mine dark effect was made.

About the PSG version of the soundtrack, I must recognize two things: the first one is that is one of the worst versions of this soundtrack that can be heard from any version of this game. At the same time, it is a well-composed, well-executed soundtrack for the SN76489 that is cool to hear. If one considers upon which is this music composed on, it makes it a very good soundtrack – the culprit here would be SEGA for not upgrading the sound of the MK.III from the SG-1000.

At the time of writing this review the FM version of the soundtrack has not been played as the FM unit is not available to me yet. I will beat the game again and update the review once this is done.

Plot aspects

The plot of Ancient Ys Vanished is a solid one. Unfortunately, the deal is that we only have half of it and therefore it feels incomplete and is difficult to understand why certain characters do something or something happen to them.

In this version, Adol starts the game directly at Minea (as opposed to other versions that starts on some yard or even a shipwreck), which may be consequence of being one of the first wave of ports from the NEC PC-88. He is instructed by Sarah, the town’s seer, to gather the six books of an ancient land called Ys, which vanished overnight a lot of time before the events of the game.

Search for the first book starts at the Temple of Salomon (biblical reference, often mistranslated as “Temple of Salmon” as it was transcribed in katakana, which is a lossy conversion). There he finds a girl named Feena in a dungeon and rescues her. After fighting some monsters, he receives one of the books and returns to Minea.

Upon returning to the town Adol finds that Sarah has been murdered but before she died, she made the arrangements so a second book of Ys could be handled to him. He is hinted by the seer by a note that the next book may be hidden in the silver mines. About those, there is a rumour circulating in the town about a room where two statues were found that were later found to have vanished. Before leaving Minea the poetess, called Reah, tells him that her silver harmonica has been stolen.

Therefore, Adol enters the silver mines and confronts the monsters, until he finds the silver harmonica and a Roda fruit. Upon going back to the town and returning the stolen instrument, Reah plays some tunes which awaken the two sentient Roda trees and thanks to having eaten its fruit, Adol can talk to them. One of the trees gives him a silver sword that he has been saving between its roots (if you are interested in knowing how this sword got in there see Ys Origin, Toal story). He then re-entered the mine, slaughtered Vagullion, got the third book and reached the rumoured room of the two statues, of which only the pedestals remain.

Reached this stage of the story, Adol decides to enter the Darm Tower. This decision is a point of no return as once he enters, he cannot go back to Minea anymore. The doors can only open from the outside and once he is in, he cannot get out.

Adol finds two of the remaining books while he ascends the tower. Also, in Rado’s Annex (some part of the tower that is located about halfway to the top which defies gravity) he finds Reah and frees her. Finally, he confronts the culprit of the apparition of the monsters in Esteria, the robbery of silver objects and the kidnappings of Feena and Reah: Dark Fact, the descendant of one of the priests of Ys. After slaying him, he receives the sixth and final book. Upon reading him, he is engulfed in a ball of light.

Unfortunately, this is where Omen ends and many of the players of this game never knew the real extent of the plot, who Feena and Reah were and why were they kidnapped. Other things not resolved are the fixation with silver, the existence of the room of the missing statues or even the location of the Black Pearl, which existence is hinted from the beginning of the game.

About Ancient Ys Vanished - The final chapter

It would be an incomplete review if Ys II was not discussed. As commented earlier, both are cut-downs from a larger work such as seen in the PC-Engine version.

The controls for Omen are perfect. As stated before, there is no button without function and other than some controller failures due to age and dirt that were eventually solved, they were fine. However, due to the magic game mechanics of The Final Chapter, another button would be required for those functions to be triggered. Retrospectively, this could have been solved by using a Mega Drive controller, which has more buttons but as we all know, SEGA never sold those controllers with the Mark III/Master System and didn’t make software that could take advantage of that.

Another issue would have been limitations due to the sprite system of this console. This Machine has a limit of 8 sprites per scanline. Actions such as launching objects such as the fireballs would have caused (partial) disaparition of some sprites when those were triggered. Also, in the same line, there is a moment in Ys II where lots of enemies come out of a wall in a basement; the PC-Engine struggles there to draw them all, the Mark III/Master System would not be able to display them.

The tile limit is also a contributing factor in this matter, as found by trying to display the title screen by myself.

Finally, there is the space constriction: the game contains cinematics at the beginning and at the end. This was possible due to the floppy disks, CDs and large capacity cartridges later, but at the time masked ROMs didn’t have the capacity to store such amount of data. My guess is that to not botch the game they decided not to port it. Maybe if the floppy drive unit had not been vapourware, Ys II could have been one of the titles.

Conclusions

Even if this experience to Ys is considered incomplete and has some drawbacks, I attribute them to be more of a consequence of being one of the first ports to be made and, being an unfinished tale and being dependent on already aging hardware (I’m talking of the PSG here).

In any case, this game is a must to play if one is either a fan of other games of the franchise or just love the JRPG genre. The save/load feature is one of the key aspects of this game and allows even non pro gamers enjoy this piece. With it, it is only a matter of time and patience.

To summarize it, I would give it four stars out of five due to the unpolished aspects of the game, but it is still enjoyable.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 11 Jul 2022
  • Posts: 25
  • Location: Sligo Ireland (and Wales)
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Nov 03, 2024 8:51 pm
Always fun to see some Ys talk (playing Ys X just over a week now).
I started with Ys SMS just a few years ago and had a blast. Didn't use a guide, or search up much as far as I can recall. Loading my saves, I was max level before going into the tower for sure, but I remember really enjoying the flow of the gameplay regardless.
Played with RGB and FM unit, emulating on a MiSTer. My mind was blown to think an SMS could produce such music, and visuals were a shock coming off my RF SMS 2!
I never thought much of the lack of Ys 2 (until I went on to play the various versions, Complete/Chronicles, PCE, etc. afterwards). I find it entertaining seeing the little changes as you go through the games in release order and they add details, tie up loose ends and such to fit the future stories. Certainly Ys 1 can stand alone on SMS, but a version of Ys 2 would be fun to see. I'd just imagine putting menu on pause and 2 buttons are fine from there?
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 14 Oct 2008
  • Posts: 540
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Nov 04, 2024 8:11 am
The forced EXP grinding is one feature that I don't understand why the billion clone games decided to copy as well as the future games.
It is NO fun to struggle through a dungeon only to get to the boss and the game be like "oh, you didn't grind enough so now the boss is invincible. Come back again."
I didn't, after reaching the mine boss (problems of its own) on the Famicom version. I get a feeling the multiple things to hate about the mine stage were common to all ports of that era. (dying if you don't manage to react the instant an enemy shows up within your tiny field of few) Maybe newer ports are friendlier to the player?

The latest Y's game I played was Y's 6 on the PS2 and it was still there.
WHY was such an awful game mechanic kept?
  View user's profile Send private message
Reply to topic



Back to the top of this page

Back to SMS Power!