Falcom in Japan was a huge thing in their early days due to how big their Japanese PC market was with the likes of Enix & Konami. With the increasing popularity of the home console market since the launch of Famicom/NES, many game companies jumped right into it but Falcom played too safe & way too hesitant to get into it, as a result they got left way behind the competition, diminishing their built-up reputation. Adding insult to the injury, a mass exodus of employees happened due to their company policy, yes that includes Yuzo Koshiro as well.
I can understand your feeling that they're always battle music. But the big thing with this series is it is not turn-based it's all real-time action combat in the field. So all of the music is primarily either field/dungeon music or boss fight themes. A lot of the field theme is meant to get you pumped and going as you dash along fighting enemies heading to your objectives. That's why so many of them are bangers. As for the reason you always see these two games group together, it's because these two games are actually directly related in terms of story. As soon as you finish the first game it leads directly into the second. They have been rereleased a few times now and are generally bundled together to give the full experience of the story. And final tidbit. Falcom is definitely still active as a company and they actually have a new Ys game dropping this year in the West. Ys X Nordics, which is actually set directly after 1&2. Hope you keep loving the music from the series and eventually give it a try.
I was just listening to the Ys 1 soundtrack again last night and earlier today so the timing on this was perfect. Yuzo Koshiro the absolute goat, not to mention how insanely good the arranges are.
I think the inundation with the metal themes of Ys is in part because those were the tracks that immediately hooked us in to the franchise. "Whoa! An rpg that shreds this hard!? Why am I air guitaring so much?!" A lot of that is front loaded into the overworld and battle themes. There are definitely more relaxed or gentler tracks in Ys, people just like to hone in on the music that hypes them up.
He is right that 8's tracks aren't as full though. It's good, but I prefer the soundtracks of some of the earlier games because they're just grittier and have more rawness. I think in 8 and even moreso in 9, the tracks suffer from something I call overpolished. They're just polished so much that they lose some important things in terms of feel. It's the same with the Xenoblade 1 remake and Xenoblade 3. Original XC1 was just raw and gritty sounding, but the remastered soundtrack is just far softer and that especially hurts the tracks that go hard (not all of them). XCX is a completely different style, but they did go hard with it. XC2 started to suffer from it, but somehow managed to balance it properly so it was kinda balancing on the border. But for XC3... they went so much over hardly any of the music even stuck with me.
Tension is such a good theme! Especially the c64 version. Try to imagine this: You are climbing a giant spiraling tower full of demons. At the top of the tower, the evil demon lord sits and waits for your arrival. As you are climbing, you fight some gruesome and exhausting battles. The ordeal started at morning. Now, you are stepping outside the corridors of death to the balcony with its spiral staircase that will takes you to the top floors. A moment of respite. You look into the distance. The glow of the dawning sun is blinding you. You step towards the remaining stairs, griping your sword and shield tight and marching on, unafraid towards the final battle. At that precise moment, tension kicks in and you feel like an unstoppable force. This is peek goosebumps. The embodiment of pure, epic and heroic adventure.
Also the reason why "Ys 1 + 2" is always a thing is because they were originally intended to be a single game, they're the only games in the series with a connected story. They released Ys1 in 1987 because development was taking too long, and then released the second half (Ys2) the next year in 1988. Then HudsonSoft ported them to the Turbografx in 1989 as a single game, and they've been remade together ever since. Also PLEASE someone get this man to listen to the Turbografx version of Palace and *ANY* version of Beat of the Terror
There's three games that people I talk to have a tendancy to know the *game*, but not realize that Falcom was the developer for. Though I think I remember you saying something along the lines of not playing many games on Nintendo consoles growing up so you might not know them regardless lol They're usually Faxanadu for the NES, a "port" of Falcom's Xanadu by HudsonSoft that basically makes it into a completely new game. Legacy of the Wizard also for the NES, an english version of Dragonslayer IV with a more marketable name for the US market. And then there's Brandish for the SNES. I find a a decent amount of people that grew up with these consoles will have a "Memory Unlocked" moment when I mention those games and go "Oh wow I played that when I was a kid, Falcom made that???"
The two games were originally separate when they were released in like 1988 on Sega Master System. They were then released on the Turbografx CD system in 1990 i believe and they were bundled together. They likely did this because they were fairly short.
We got very little Ys in the west until the remakes came out in the early 2010s. We basically only had Wanderers of Ys for SNES as the only console port. The steam ports of Ys Chronicles (1 and 2 remake) and Oath in Felghana (3 remake) were big in popularizing the franchise. This era was also when many people feel that Falcom was at its peak musically with both new games and remakes putting out nonstop bangers.
The Turbografx-16 got Ys 1&2 in a single disc and Ys 3 back in the early 90's. Ys 3 was also released on the Sega Genesis. Also the first Ys got a port in the 80's for the Sega Master System. All of them were released in the west in english back then.
No one answered yet but yeah ys 1-5 are very old games from 80s-90s and all of them got remade except ys 5. ys 1 and 2 in particular got remade tons of time and this is the latest version that got released
Fun trivia: Tension is outtake music. In the original versions of Ys 1, the only exploration song that plays in the Tower of Darm is Tower of the Shadow of Death. Dreaming and Tension didn't get added until Ys 1 Eternal was released, which is essentially the version that Ys 1 Chronicle is built on, by which time Yuzo Koshiro had long since left the company. However Falcom and Koshiro were huge on their soundtracks even back in the day, so ALL of the outtake music made it into the OST releases for Ys 1. Over time, most of that outtake music has actually gotten used in releases of Ys 1 or 2, but there are still some songs that live on the cutting room floor. Also don't feel bad about not having anything particular to say about the music. To be honest, the Chronicles versions of these tracks are great shreds, but something about them feels like Yukihiro Jindo's heart isn't in it. To give you a comparison, the same fellow did all of the arranging for Ys: The Oath in Felghana, and the secret sauce feels much more present in them. Maybe it's just difficult to approach Koshiro's works, when Koshiro himself does rearranging of his older songs it doesn't always proceed in the way you'd expect.
it was said before but , in ys combat is intermingled with exploration and walking around, you are a man who is out on an adventure. so its meant to get you pumped to go run/jump/ slash around in every setting.
Ys 1 and 2 are almost always mentioned together, because they're very closely related. 1 and 2 are two halves of one whole story. I'm not too sure, but I think it was supposed to be released as one game, but it wasn't fully done yet, so only 1 was released and 2 came later.
If you wanna learn more about Falcom and why it isn't as a big name nowdays but still have a loyal and dedicated fanbase, check this short documentary about their early story and what they have made since the early 80's. Falcom works are a big part of gaming history that sadly most people don't know. ua-cam.com/video/JIcbJn-RylQ/v-deo.htmlsi=HErGWEhT3M7nLMS1
Ys is a very old series going as far back to the late 1980's, the first one was released around 1987 which was called Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished and at least from a music perspective falcom has always been ahead of the game when it came to that surpassing many other video game companies at the time with their music and sound. You can consider faclom to be the IDsoftware of JRPG's in a sense that they helped pave the way for JRPG's and action RPG's kind of like ID was the grandfather of fps games and they both ended up getting overshadowed by other companies who either worked alongside them on similar products or built on top of the stuff they put out like bungie/343/Microsoft with halo and shin migami tensei/persona and final fantasy with Atlus and square enix thus not allowing falcom to really break out into the market and becoming as big as Atlus, bungie/343/Microsoft and square enix. and the reason why 1 and 2 are compiled together is because 2 is a direct continuation of 1 in that the moment where 1 ends 2 begins
Some more info about Falcom: - Ys 1 was the best selling video game in Japan for 3 years straight, completely overshadowing other RPG releases including Zelda 1 & 2. - Ys 2 sold almost as well as 1 also. - After Ys 2, most of the developers were headhunted into other companies leading to Ys 3 being made by other developers, (and being a sidescroller instead of top down), and Ys 4 being outsourced to 2 different companies that each made a separate game called "Ys 4". That's when Falcom started falling out of the Japanese mainstream.
The reason Chronicles sounds better is because it has live performances instead of synth instruments, which most of the series use, which includes 8. Jindo was for a long time the head of JDK band, that's why whatever a song had a live arrange, he was responsible.
I think you'd like this version of Tension, not sure if you can listen to it since it might have been requested but it's from the same game just a different version ua-cam.com/video/frYnAZVlf3Q/v-deo.htmlsi=Zpo7wklc-nqnNS7C
Nobody recommends the Ys 1 and 2 Complete versions of the soundtracks. I get it because these are fully instrumental and the Complete versions are all synthetic but imo there are a lot of good Complete tracks too.
yeah when I play Ys 1 and 2 I tend to switch between the complete and chronicles osts depending on the area, some songs between OSTs just sound better than the other
Now go and listen the original pc cd audio versions from the late 80s. That's when the games got released for the first time in this franchise. Not the recent remakes. The original songs are there. Its absolutely insane how ahead of their time these osts were at the time. Mindblowing. Great action-rpgs for the jrpg genre. Pretty good stories and characters too. Level and dungeon design were great as well. They were huge influences for the later Square enix games to be fair. For history on the first Ys game -> RPGFan described it as "the first RPG on the first video game console CD-ROM" and stated that its "release heralded the evolution of the standard role-playing game" genre. Game of the year in 1990 btw. So now you know why they have tried multiple times to remake these games.
Falcom in Japan was a huge thing in their early days due to how big their Japanese PC market was with the likes of Enix & Konami. With the increasing popularity of the home console market since the launch of Famicom/NES, many game companies jumped right into it but Falcom played too safe & way too hesitant to get into it, as a result they got left way behind the competition, diminishing their built-up reputation.
Adding insult to the injury, a mass exodus of employees happened due to their company policy, yes that includes Yuzo Koshiro as well.
I can understand your feeling that they're always battle music. But the big thing with this series is it is not turn-based it's all real-time action combat in the field. So all of the music is primarily either field/dungeon music or boss fight themes. A lot of the field theme is meant to get you pumped and going as you dash along fighting enemies heading to your objectives. That's why so many of them are bangers.
As for the reason you always see these two games group together, it's because these two games are actually directly related in terms of story. As soon as you finish the first game it leads directly into the second. They have been rereleased a few times now and are generally bundled together to give the full experience of the story. And final tidbit. Falcom is definitely still active as a company and they actually have a new Ys game dropping this year in the West. Ys X Nordics, which is actually set directly after 1&2. Hope you keep loving the music from the series and eventually give it a try.
I was just listening to the Ys 1 soundtrack again last night and earlier today so the timing on this was perfect. Yuzo Koshiro the absolute goat, not to mention how insanely good the arranges are.
I think the inundation with the metal themes of Ys is in part because those were the tracks that immediately hooked us in to the franchise. "Whoa! An rpg that shreds this hard!? Why am I air guitaring so much?!" A lot of that is front loaded into the overworld and battle themes. There are definitely more relaxed or gentler tracks in Ys, people just like to hone in on the music that hypes them up.
He is right that 8's tracks aren't as full though. It's good, but I prefer the soundtracks of some of the earlier games because they're just grittier and have more rawness. I think in 8 and even moreso in 9, the tracks suffer from something I call overpolished. They're just polished so much that they lose some important things in terms of feel. It's the same with the Xenoblade 1 remake and Xenoblade 3. Original XC1 was just raw and gritty sounding, but the remastered soundtrack is just far softer and that especially hurts the tracks that go hard (not all of them). XCX is a completely different style, but they did go hard with it. XC2 started to suffer from it, but somehow managed to balance it properly so it was kinda balancing on the border. But for XC3... they went so much over hardly any of the music even stuck with me.
Ys music is perfect for driving 😊 sidenote: really wish i had requested some non metal ys tunes to round out your experience lol
Tension is such a good theme! Especially the c64 version. Try to imagine this:
You are climbing a giant spiraling tower full of demons. At the top of the tower, the evil demon lord sits and waits for your arrival. As you are climbing, you fight some gruesome and exhausting battles. The ordeal started at morning. Now, you are stepping outside the corridors of death to the balcony with its spiral staircase that will takes you to the top floors. A moment of respite. You look into the distance. The glow of the dawning sun is blinding you. You step towards the remaining stairs, griping your sword and shield tight and marching on, unafraid towards the final battle.
At that precise moment, tension kicks in and you feel like an unstoppable force. This is peek goosebumps. The embodiment of pure, epic and heroic adventure.
I love that you’re reacting to more Ys music, this series and its special albums have some insanely great tunes!
It's good to see you listening to Ys old classics. If you love falcom try Sorcerian, brandish, Xanadú and other classic music from Falcom
Ruins of Moondoria, or as I knew it, the most commonly remixed song from Ys. Its most of what I would see when I perused for remixes way back.
Also the reason why "Ys 1 + 2" is always a thing is because they were originally intended to be a single game, they're the only games in the series with a connected story. They released Ys1 in 1987 because development was taking too long, and then released the second half (Ys2) the next year in 1988. Then HudsonSoft ported them to the Turbografx in 1989 as a single game, and they've been remade together ever since.
Also PLEASE someone get this man to listen to the Turbografx version of Palace and *ANY* version of Beat of the Terror
Oh wow, I love both of these so its nice to see them here! Also, I totally agree with you on preferring the grittier sound that this soundtrack has.
There's three games that people I talk to have a tendancy to know the *game*, but not realize that Falcom was the developer for. Though I think I remember you saying something along the lines of not playing many games on Nintendo consoles growing up so you might not know them regardless lol
They're usually Faxanadu for the NES, a "port" of Falcom's Xanadu by HudsonSoft that basically makes it into a completely new game.
Legacy of the Wizard also for the NES, an english version of Dragonslayer IV with a more marketable name for the US market.
And then there's Brandish for the SNES. I find a a decent amount of people that grew up with these consoles will have a "Memory Unlocked" moment when I mention those games and go "Oh wow I played that when I was a kid, Falcom made that???"
Ys is basically like a more badass Zelda with the way the story and separate games work
The two games were originally separate when they were released in like 1988 on Sega Master System. They were then released on the Turbografx CD system in 1990 i believe and they were bundled together. They likely did this because they were fairly short.
Nah it’s because they’re connected in plot and characters directly unlike the rest of YS
We got very little Ys in the west until the remakes came out in the early 2010s. We basically only had Wanderers of Ys for SNES as the only console port. The steam ports of Ys Chronicles (1 and 2 remake) and Oath in Felghana (3 remake) were big in popularizing the franchise. This era was also when many people feel that Falcom was at its peak musically with both new games and remakes putting out nonstop bangers.
There was also the konami ps2 version of ark of Napishtim in 2006 featuring voice acting and the best cg intro ever >:p
The Turbografx-16 got Ys 1&2 in a single disc and Ys 3 back in the early 90's. Ys 3 was also released on the Sega Genesis. Also the first Ys got a port in the 80's for the Sega Master System. All of them were released in the west in english back then.
No one answered yet but yeah ys 1-5 are very old games from 80s-90s and all of them got remade except ys 5. ys 1 and 2 in particular got remade tons of time and this is the latest version that got released
Fun trivia: Tension is outtake music. In the original versions of Ys 1, the only exploration song that plays in the Tower of Darm is Tower of the Shadow of Death. Dreaming and Tension didn't get added until Ys 1 Eternal was released, which is essentially the version that Ys 1 Chronicle is built on, by which time Yuzo Koshiro had long since left the company. However Falcom and Koshiro were huge on their soundtracks even back in the day, so ALL of the outtake music made it into the OST releases for Ys 1. Over time, most of that outtake music has actually gotten used in releases of Ys 1 or 2, but there are still some songs that live on the cutting room floor.
Also don't feel bad about not having anything particular to say about the music. To be honest, the Chronicles versions of these tracks are great shreds, but something about them feels like Yukihiro Jindo's heart isn't in it. To give you a comparison, the same fellow did all of the arranging for Ys: The Oath in Felghana, and the secret sauce feels much more present in them. Maybe it's just difficult to approach Koshiro's works, when Koshiro himself does rearranging of his older songs it doesn't always proceed in the way you'd expect.
it was said before but , in ys combat is intermingled with exploration and walking around, you are a man who is out on an adventure. so its meant to get you pumped to go run/jump/ slash around in every setting.
More Y's!!!
Hell yeah two bangers back to back
Yay more good stuff from the most memorable Ys games. :) Although these are practically remixes.
Ys 1 and 2 are almost always mentioned together, because they're very closely related. 1 and 2 are two halves of one whole story.
I'm not too sure, but I think it was supposed to be released as one game, but it wasn't fully done yet, so only 1 was released and 2 came later.
If you wanna learn more about Falcom and why it isn't as a big name nowdays but still have a loyal and dedicated fanbase, check this short documentary about their early story and what they have made since the early 80's. Falcom works are a big part of gaming history that sadly most people don't know. ua-cam.com/video/JIcbJn-RylQ/v-deo.htmlsi=HErGWEhT3M7nLMS1
Ys is a very old series going as far back to the late 1980's, the first one was released around 1987 which was called Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished and at least from a music perspective falcom has always been ahead of the game when it came to that surpassing many other video game companies at the time with their music and sound. You can consider faclom to be the IDsoftware of JRPG's in a sense that they helped pave the way for JRPG's and action RPG's kind of like ID was the grandfather of fps games and they both ended up getting overshadowed by other companies who either worked alongside them on similar products or built on top of the stuff they put out like bungie/343/Microsoft with halo and shin migami tensei/persona and final fantasy with Atlus and square enix thus not allowing falcom to really break out into the market and becoming as big as Atlus, bungie/343/Microsoft and square enix.
and the reason why 1 and 2 are compiled together is because 2 is a direct continuation of 1 in that the moment where 1 ends 2 begins
Some more info about Falcom:
- Ys 1 was the best selling video game in Japan for 3 years straight, completely overshadowing other RPG releases including Zelda 1 & 2.
- Ys 2 sold almost as well as 1 also.
- After Ys 2, most of the developers were headhunted into other companies leading to Ys 3 being made by other developers, (and being a sidescroller instead of top down), and Ys 4 being outsourced to 2 different companies that each made a separate game called "Ys 4". That's when Falcom started falling out of the Japanese mainstream.
Funny you mention final fantasy...
Without Nihon Falcom, Enix and Squaresoft wouldn't have existed.
Indeed!
The reason Chronicles sounds better is because it has live performances instead of synth instruments, which most of the series use, which includes 8.
Jindo was for a long time the head of JDK band, that's why whatever a song had a live arrange, he was responsible.
I think you'd like this version of Tension, not sure if you can listen to it since it might have been requested but it's from the same game just a different version
ua-cam.com/video/frYnAZVlf3Q/v-deo.htmlsi=Zpo7wklc-nqnNS7C
lets hope that ys x nordic has more of that oldschool feel then
Nobody recommends the Ys 1 and 2 Complete versions of the soundtracks. I get it because these are fully instrumental and the Complete versions are all synthetic but imo there are a lot of good Complete tracks too.
yeah when I play Ys 1 and 2 I tend to switch between the complete and chronicles osts depending on the area, some songs between OSTs just sound better than the other
The turbografx 16 pc engine cd version sounds better
Ys1 and 2 are one plot. Seperated by some time but still. Ys origins is a remake/remimagining of both games
Now go and listen the original pc cd audio versions from the late 80s. That's when the games got released for the first time in this franchise. Not the recent remakes. The original songs are there. Its absolutely insane how ahead of their time these osts were at the time. Mindblowing. Great action-rpgs for the jrpg genre. Pretty good stories and characters too. Level and dungeon design were great as well. They were huge influences for the later Square enix games to be fair.
For history on the first Ys game ->
RPGFan described it as "the first RPG on the first video game console CD-ROM" and stated that its "release heralded the evolution of the standard role-playing game" genre.
Game of the year in 1990 btw. So now you know why they have tried multiple times to remake these games.
The games were originally on the PC-88, the PC-Engine versions were already remake/ports by HudsonSoft.