Ys: The Ark of Napishtim
Mini-Ys for all!
Published: February 3, 2006
So here's the easy version of this preview: you know that Ys game that got kicked out on the PS2 a while back that we liked an awful lot? Yeah, it's coming to the PSP, and arriving completely intact save for the original use of sprites for the main characters just like the Japanese PC version.
That's the easy version. The harder one isn't really all that much harder, but it is considerably longer: The PSP version of The Ark of Napishtim still follows the story of Adol, a human who has his ship destroyed and his lifeless body flung onto the shores of an island by the Great Vortex. The GV (or geevee, if you'd like) is supposed to protect the inhabitants of the archipelago -- inhabitants with mysteriously long ears, an innate grasp of magic, and a deep streak of xenophobia after humans in the past arrived and went all commercialized on the indigenous peeps.
Still, Adol catches a lucky break. He's discovered by a little girl, one of these long-eared Rehda, and the wee tyke and her older sister nurse the boy back to health... so he can get chewed out and cast out of the village where he was recovering by the anti-human (or Eresians if you want to go by the Rehda tongue) village chief. Chiefy also happens to be the girls' father. Funny how those things work out.
The game does look very, very good on the PSP, better even than the PS2 version, if only because the colors and the overall detail just seem a better fit for the screen. The intro in particular looks especially nice on the screen, but then all professionally done anime-style intros always do on the PSP. It's like the thing was made for purdy animation, and all of the animated cutscenes have been reformatted to fit the 16:9 screen, which is a nice touch.
The PSP version is getting one very key upgrade during the port: mini-games. We were only able to play three of them, either unlocked by someone who played before us or a helpful Konami rep at the Gamers' Day event where we got the hands-on time. They included running a gauntlet -- an obstacle course that began with some nice introductory jumps and quickly progressed into a duck-and-dodge challenge -- playing hide-and-seek with monsters disguised as villagers all trying to move through a cave (the monsters would drop their disguise for a split-second every once in a while), and finally a memory test that had us digging stuff up on the beach where the locations and items are shown before the mini-game actually starts.
To be honest, the games didn't really feel like a part of the game, but then they're luckily unlocked as you play through the RPG proper, not included as something you have to do while playing, which is a nice touch. Konami is also including unlockable videos (including trailers) and music that can be played in the game's built-in media player, and a informational database for the fact freaks.
Ys feels right at home on the PSP, quite possibly even more at home than it did on the PS2, and we can't wait to sit down and re-explore the world on a teeny-tiny screen. Once we get that chance, we'll update you.
That's the easy version. The harder one isn't really all that much harder, but it is considerably longer: The PSP version of The Ark of Napishtim still follows the story of Adol, a human who has his ship destroyed and his lifeless body flung onto the shores of an island by the Great Vortex. The GV (or geevee, if you'd like) is supposed to protect the inhabitants of the archipelago -- inhabitants with mysteriously long ears, an innate grasp of magic, and a deep streak of xenophobia after humans in the past arrived and went all commercialized on the indigenous peeps.
Still, Adol catches a lucky break. He's discovered by a little girl, one of these long-eared Rehda, and the wee tyke and her older sister nurse the boy back to health... so he can get chewed out and cast out of the village where he was recovering by the anti-human (or Eresians if you want to go by the Rehda tongue) village chief. Chiefy also happens to be the girls' father. Funny how those things work out.
The game does look very, very good on the PSP, better even than the PS2 version, if only because the colors and the overall detail just seem a better fit for the screen. The intro in particular looks especially nice on the screen, but then all professionally done anime-style intros always do on the PSP. It's like the thing was made for purdy animation, and all of the animated cutscenes have been reformatted to fit the 16:9 screen, which is a nice touch.
The PSP version is getting one very key upgrade during the port: mini-games. We were only able to play three of them, either unlocked by someone who played before us or a helpful Konami rep at the Gamers' Day event where we got the hands-on time. They included running a gauntlet -- an obstacle course that began with some nice introductory jumps and quickly progressed into a duck-and-dodge challenge -- playing hide-and-seek with monsters disguised as villagers all trying to move through a cave (the monsters would drop their disguise for a split-second every once in a while), and finally a memory test that had us digging stuff up on the beach where the locations and items are shown before the mini-game actually starts.
To be honest, the games didn't really feel like a part of the game, but then they're luckily unlocked as you play through the RPG proper, not included as something you have to do while playing, which is a nice touch. Konami is also including unlockable videos (including trailers) and music that can be played in the game's built-in media player, and a informational database for the fact freaks.
Ys feels right at home on the PSP, quite possibly even more at home than it did on the PS2, and we can't wait to sit down and re-explore the world on a teeny-tiny screen. Once we get that chance, we'll update you.