Introduction

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys is the third game in Ys, an action-roleplaying series of games developed by Nihom Falcom Corporation. Originally developed for the NEC PC-8801 and 9801, it would soon see its way to being released on many other consoles including the MSX and Sharp X68000. In later years it would continue to release the game for the Famicom, Super Nintendo, PCEngine and Sega Mega Drive.

The game boasted a broad list of changes from its predecessors, boasting a sidescrolling adventure akin to games of its time such as Metroid and Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest.

Confident about its development, Falcom attempted to make a much stronger step into the US/European video game market than previously attempted. It licensed a series of localizations to various US publishers for releases of the game to SNES, MegaDrive and TurboGrafx-CD.
The localizations varied in success, with some ports staying reasonably close to the initial design. There was, however, one US based company that took a rather extreme tackling of creative control over the TurboGrafx port. This company is known as none other than HudsonSoft US. Changing names of people, places and items; doing poorly voiced and levelled audio for the voiced cutscenes (which the game boasted as its selling point); as well as completely writing out half of the game's plot to simplify it for their audience. This basically destroyed the already weak threads of plot the game already had, making it a poorly comprehended and rewritten mess.

The game's real forte, avoiding the obvious pun, was in its soundtrack. The original compositions by Mieko Ishikawa were magnificent and the TurboGrafx arrangements by Ryo Yonemitsu were also very good. I'd argue that the Ys III soundtrack competes with Ys 2 and Dawn of Ys for the best soundtrack in the series.

The game itself, while being fun for the most part, had its long list of problems. Some of which include:
- Really awkward platforming controls. Jumping and manoeverability were made rather cumbersome by the awkward jumping physics and tank-like controls. Getting hit by enemies because of problems with jumping or bad platforming was a general inevitability and bordered on downright frustrating.
- Poor level design. Compared to similar games of its time, the dungeons in Ys III were very linear, grindy and uninteresting.
- The difficulty curve. In this game more than the rest of the series bosses for the most part were either pathetically easy or excrutiatingly hard with the difference hanging over levelling up just once.
- (TGCD) VERY jarring scrolling. Apparently this was due to hardware limitations, but there were plenty of Turbografx-CD games that ran scrolling just fine.
- (SNES) A horrible system of displaying game dialogue. With text boxes over text boxes and very slow scrolling. Tonkin House, the team that made the SNES port, continued to use this in Ys IV: Mask of the Sun.

This playthrough of the PCE version of the game will be a 100% playthrough, collecting all weapons and items. I will also show some tips and tricks to dissolve the grinding the game is so heavily panned for. It will be similar to the format from the previous Ys I&II Chronicles LP where I will have friends providing guest commentary.

I'll have an update or two every week depending on various circumstances. If you absolutely must know the second a video goes up, I have a twitter thing for it.

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys [PCE Redbook Version]
Opening 1
A Premonition - Styx
Opening 2
Prelude to the Adventure
The Boy's Got Wings
Be Careful
Dark Beasts as Black as Night
Alcaino Ruins
A Searing Struggle
Snare of Darkness
Quickening Dream
Steeling the Will to Fight
Shock of the Death God
Valestine Castle
Sealed Time
Beat of Destruction
Tower of Fate
Behold!
The Strongest Foe
Departure at Sunrise
Wanderers from Ys

Wanderers from Ys Super Arrange Version
Dancing on the Road
Presentiment
Commercial Town Redmont
A Boy With Wings
Burning Battle
Trap of Darkness
Balestine Castle
Drumbeat of Doom
The Greatest Enemy
Morning of Departure
Wanderers from Ys

User-contributed Art From Cool People

_{Rumrusher establishes that Chester is an asshole who don't need no-one second guessing him. The way he handled that Adol fight was a disaster. Something about a bomb, another Deus Ex joke, something something inside joke.}