Ys Origin is one of my most favourite games of all time, and together with Ys I&II tells a pretty great self-contained story.
Then they kept making Ys games, and… it all got a bit shonen. As a result, the storyline is absolute nonsense by this point, and if you’re worried you won’t be able to follow the plot at any given point from Ys 3 onwards, fear not; all you need to know is the following:
Post-shipwreck, Adol Christin and his very best friend Dogi The Wall-Crusher accidentally get embroiled in the most cataclysmic event ever to happen to the lands they’re currently in, three or four different very attractive girls fall for Adol, they defeat some kind of grand evil, and then Adol leaves it all behind to go get shipwrecked somewhere else.
However!!! The story is not why you’re here, beyond Origin/I/II. You’re here because Ys has some of the most satisfying combat ever– relentlessly fast, fluid, challenging dungeon crawling followed by utterly monstrous boss fights that will make you regret every choice you’ve made up to that point. Ys Seven does NOT disappoint in that regard, although it’s definitely the most cutscene-heavy of the YS games I’ve played.
Entirely aside from the game itself, the music in Ys games is always amazing. Falcom has their own in-house band, Falcom JDK, who combine metal and acoustic violin in an utterly flawless way.
It’s hard to sell it more than that. If you’re new to the series, you can totally start here if you want- I personally would suggest Origin as the first one, but that’s just personal bias (Yunica <3).
Fin or Bin:
I literally own a PSP only for this game. It’s taken a shamefully long time to get here, but Finishing it will be worth the wait. I adore these games.