Accessories

Y's The Ark of Acceptable Gameplay
Ys The Ark of Naphishtim

I purchased the PSP version when I was looking for games that seemed decent on the PSP. Since there aren't many out that I am able to enjoy. This happened to be one I may see the end to.

Sure playing one dungeon for 5 hours may be fun to some people. But it gets frustrating when you are doing it to try and jump to an invisible ledge repeatedly in the distance, and if you fail then you fall to a screen below you and need to traverse back up. Thus this means not only running back and hopefully getting it "this time" but sitting through the long LONG load times this game suffers from. It experiences lag when you Level up, decide to buy or sell your goods, or zoning. Luckily once you zone and you are in combat the game is truly fun.

It is all real time combat with a certain amount of enemies that spawn in each zone, once you leave the area and come back that same amount will return. Enemies are simple to having to retreat from them even from the very beginning of the game. This really helped me personally feel like I was getting stronger throughout the game.

Figuring out where to go can also be quite difficult since they don't necessarily say where to go unless you talk to some random NPC who tells you, you can go to a faroff area to experience one little scene that really doesn't even matter. Or the fact that there are sidequests that require you to traverse long long roads through enemies that aren't even worth killing throughout the game. So it definately would be useful to have a guide with you for these things.

The key to battle is defeating enemies to get gold to buy healing items, armor, and shields. Sometimes enemies drop little blue crystals called Emil which is used to power up 1/3 of your swords and near the end of the game, make the high leveled armors. The key to this is getting and mastering the 3 swords' secret techniques. If you use the magic bar which fills up with each time you hit an enemy, then the Water will unleash a Maelstrom around you, the Fire will shoot out a beam along the ground, the Electric one will fire a homing attack lightning bolt onto enemies. Each sword can do special triggers as well. The Water sword unleashes more hits if you time your [] button hits correctly to unleash a semi-maelstrom. The Fire sword will unleash a mini wave along the ground if you just hold the [] button. The Electric sword will unleash more attacks if you keep tapping the [] button until your character glows and eventually will lunge you into an enemy.

All of these various ways to make battles fun really helps out the game. And it would be highly suggested to at least be a rentable game if you enjoy RPGs all the way to dungeon crawling games like "Diablo". But sadly you will have to get used to load times that seem to take some time, but is bare-able.

All in all I'm giving this game a 3/5 since it could have worked out some things better (mainly the "leaps of faith" concept). I'm near the very end of the game, and in two dungeons out of roughly 3 or 4. They have all involved this concept of "dash jumps".

Still for being a fun game with a decently "ok" story, and very difficult boss battles, this game received a 4/5 for being fun.

Just get this on your PS2
I really wanted to beat this game, I am a big fan of this type of action RPG(this game runs the same lines as Secret of mana, zelda, and Alundra), but the insane load times on the PSP make it almost impossible for me to enjoy the game.
I found myself taking less time to walk across the screen than it took to load it(a real annoyance when trying to find something you missed)
the graphics are really good, I loved the cutscenes, and the story was very well written(short but good)
Like I said, just get this one for the PS2 and save yourself some money, and stress from obsurdly long load times
there are plenty of better RPG's to pick up for your PSP

Not as good as it could have been
There was a lot that this game had going for it. The visuals both in game and during the FMV moments are the best I have ever seen from any game system of the size ever, and that does got a long way towards the enjoyment of the game.The deveolpment system has been used in some form or another for so long that a lot of people who play games like the console versions of baldur's gate will have no problem dominating this game. Anyone who is a fan of hack and slash action will enjoy this game.
There are three things that made detract the one star that I did in each category. The first item is that since they push the in-game visuals so far, there is a loading screen, every time you go from map section to map section. You can actually say they went a little bit too far for the psp capabilities. There seems to be less replay value in this title than in the average handheld game.
In short:
Pros:
1. Insanely good visuals.
2. A gameplay system that's very easy to learn.
3. Enjoyable hack and slash action

Cons:
1. The visuals are so good that they push the psp to the point where there is a loading screen every time you go from map section to map section.
2. There replay value is below average.

Decent Zelda Wannabe
The story is okay. The game play is action oriented and fun, but nothing great. The graphics are good. The load times can take quite a long time and happen fairly frequently (enough to take a bit away from the fun)

It attempts to play similar to Zelda or the Secret of Mana, but falls far short from the fun, story, and overall appeal.

Overall, this game is decent and worth paying a discounted price for but I'm still looking for a great adventure / role playing game. Buy it used if you can.

Now Loading.....
I have beaten the game, the final boss is not that hard (level 50 can beat them pretty easily)
gameplay is good; upward/downward slash, dash slash are cool
sword magic is cool as well, but only Lightning magic is practical (can hit enemies anywhere)
story is decent and linear
game control is OK, but you need to use analog pad a lot due to d-pad sucks
the only thing is pretty annoying is "Now Loading..." everytime changing screen, this is pretty annoying, and the loading can last up to a minute (only minus)
if you'd like to have a 3-D Advanture game, this one is for you