#34: Wanderers from Ys III

No real title screen for this game, somehow...

Wanderers from Ys is a game name that has stuck with me for 22 years, but I can't remember a single thing about it. I know it was available for rent from Midnight Video and that means I must have rented it at some point but I don't know what it is. Even after playing it a bit today I can't remember having played it before. But that name is pretty sweet, huh? And apparently this is the third one? A brief look at Wikipedia claims the Ys series is actually the second largest jRPG series after Final Fantasy. Huh. I'd have guessed something like Dragon Warrior. Apparently it has two animes and an MMO!

I see you, bug thing!

The game plays out as an action-adventure game where you play a red headed hero who is wandering around aimlessly with his buddy. His buddy gets a scary fortune told which portends disaster in his home town. We have nothing better to do since we're wandering aimlessly anyway so we go back to his home. Where my buddy immediately locks himself in the inn and I'm stuck wandering around town. Turns out some monsters have attacked the quarry and the mayor is trapped. I volunteer to go save him. I start the game with 1000 gold and no gear... Why? I seem to recall Lagoon started the same way and it just seems stupid. I have enough money to afford a full set of gear at the shop. I'm an adventurer! Why am I walking around naked? Heck, in the intro movie my character even kills a wildcat with his sword... Where is that sword?

Chopped!

I didn't end up making it very far. All the early enemies took two hits to kill and I mostly couldn't find a way to hit them without getting hit back. So I took a hit from every ground enemy and some of the flying ones. Then I made it to this guy who seemed to do more damage or something since I died almost immediately. Maybe I needed to grind on bugs at the start of the mine until I leveled up? Go back to town and spend some of the cash on healing potions if they exist?

Combat was pretty uninteresting (I had a jump button and a short ranged attack button that I just held down) but I was willing to give it another try. Except it forced me to start at the beginning, including watching the intro speeches again. And wander through town buying my gear again. And there didn't seem to be a decent way to speed through dialogue. The game didn't interest me enough to do that, so I'm done.

That said, there was a save feature and I probably could have saved before going into the cave. Grinding for experience and cash may be a bit of a foreign concept now but it's certainly the way the RPG world worked back in the day and I could see myself having liked this game enough to keep trying back then. Combat seemed pretty smooth and quick and I probably could have gotten better at it, so this game felt better than Lagoon did.

I wish I knew what/where Ys was. The intro didn't explain that at all. I bet this is another case where the backstory was listed in the manual. Oh well.

Rating: B