Anyone here ever played the Ys series? I like it a lot and I have Ys Book I and II (Ys I and II bundled together) on Wii Virtual Console (Turbografx-16/PCEngine). I also got a copy of the PC version called Ys Eternal. Besides that I like Ys II, III and both versions of IV, and I played Ys The Ark Of Napisthim a bit, too. Ys III is nice too, although it's a platformer instead of top down view and is very hard.

Here are some videos of the original game:

PC88


PCEngine/Turbografx-16


Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom.


Sega Master System


Playstation 2


PC (Same as PS2 but with different music and has my favorite final battle theme)


PSP


Nintendo DS



There was also a FM-77AV and DOS version of it, but I couldn't find any video of them. The japaneese version of the SMS one also got better music than the american version.

Indeed. The Turbografx-16 version isn't too hard, though, and the Eternal version got difficulty settings. In easy mode it's ok at least.

Yeah, except that you gain experience to increase your HP/MP/power, while in Zelda you must collect pieces of heart hidden at places.

I had that idea in mind actually. First I would prefer experimenting with a mini RPG, though, because I never wrote a working tilemapper in Axe, let alone a RPG.

Oh, wow. That is pretty odd. I never noticed that either, though I haven't really played too many Metroid games to be fair.

Tangentially related, I keep forgetting to hunt down a copy of the PSP remake of Ys III, and the first sound clip reminded me I should do that.