Ys Origin (Switch)

Go All the Way To The Tower!

 So, in wait for Ys IX they apparently just released Ys Origin, a game from 2006, taking place 700 years before the first games in the series... or pretty much any of the games in the series (well, besides parts of VIII that takes place millennia before the games). So it doesn't have Adol Christin as a main character, but instead you gotta choose between a Hugo Facts and Yunica Tovah... The naming scheme is really all over the place here. If you don't know both are from the land of Ys so why one has normal western name like Hugo and the other is named Yunica (which I assume is something Japanese or Asian overall) is a bit hard to understand, and it shows up in other names as well making it a bit of a mismatch.

So I choose Yunica, since she had a big axe and went for the easy difficulty. So the game starts in french describing how the land of Ys was lifted up into the sky due to the attacks of the demons and then an anime cutscenes play which tells the intro, without words so at first it's a bit hard to get, but basically the two goddesses of Ys have vanished together with the Black Pearl so a 12 man rescue team is assembled and descend upon the land, but an unknown force blasts from the tower that the demons built (and is the tower Adol climbed in the first game) and shatters the party upon arrival. Yunica awakens near the Roda Tree and it explains that it saw the goddesses head for the tower. She follows and rescue the priest and acolytes that handled the transportation magic. Yunica heads in on recon and finds out that the demons are summoned by humans that controls them. One of them even killed Yunica's father, the commander of the Holy Knights. She herself joined the Holy Knights in order to be close to the goddesses. 

The other knights and sorcerers arrive at the tower, and one of them is the knight Roy that is a clear love interest. Climbing the tower you fight demons and solve some platforming puzzles with the equipment you get. Finding one of the goddesses ends up with her being captured and Yunica fighting against the man who killed her father, and loses, but she is saved by the goddesses giving herself up without resistance. She is taken back to the entrance by the other knights and she lost all hope, until Roy tells her of her father's sword laying on an alter in the tower. She finds it and get to speak with her father's ghost as well as getting fire powers to light torches with, as well as a decent sword. 

You continue to climb, find the imprisoned goddess, but since you can't do anything a couple of the sorceress stand guard. You continue and find Dalles, the man behind it all and one of the bosses of the original game. The other knights join, but they are turned to stone. So you have to help them to get the medallion to enter the next boss battle. You do that and continue and faces off against Dalles again, but this time he trapped Yunica and as it looks grim Roy appears and releases her, but not without getting mortally wounded. And he pretty much confesses that he loves her without saying. Yunica kills her fathers murderer and ends up at the summit of the tower where she faces off with Dalles again, together with all from the search party that still lives. You defeat Dalles and the goddess restores the black pearl... that somehow caused this. I think I recall that from the first game with both the cleria ore and the black pearl summoning demons. But know the goddess goes to sleep in the ground and the search party returns to Ys, but Yunica Hugo and two more stays behind to set up that those people descendants where on the ground at the start of the first game. 

It was a fun short game, only took 20 hours to get to the end and a high enough level to beat Dalles. I also grabbed all power-ups and most upgrades (think I only left the last upgrade since it needed 500 000 SP). The game is kinda fun in that you can see the call-backs to the first game. Not only is most artefacts in both games, but the tower itself is the same, but since the much better graphical power it isn't 1 on 1, but rather close approximations. Most obvious is the mirror hall at the end. Originally from 2006 and released for computers. Gonna run through with Hugo next to see the differences.