Ys III: Wanderers from Ys

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Ys III MDTitleScreen.png

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: Riot (JP), Renovation Products (US)
Developer:
Licensor: Nihon Falcom
Original system(s): NEC PC-8801
Developer(s) of original games: Nihon Falcom
Genre: RPG[1]

















Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code
Sega Mega Drive
JP
¥8,700 (8,961)8,700e[2] T-49063
Sega Mega Drive
US
$69.9969.99[4] 49146
Sega Mega Drive
AU
Project Egg
JP
¥880880 TEL2001
Non-Sega versions

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Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (ワンダラーズ フロム イース) is a Sega Mega Drive action role-playing game developed by Nihon Telenet. A port of the titular 1989 Nihon Falcom game Ys III: Wanderers from Ys, it was first published in Japan by Riot in September 1991, and was later brought to the United States by Renovation Products the following month.

The third entry in the popular role-playing game series Ys, Ys III: Wanderers from Ys is notable for its drastic change in gameplay style; while previous entries in the series had been viewed from a top-down perspective, this entry is instead a side-scroller with minor platforming mechanics, and was ultimately not as well-received as its more traditional brethren.

Gameplay

The game takes a side-scrolling perspective. C jumps. B swings your sword, talks to people, opens treasure chests, and makes selections when talking to shop owners. A uses selected items.  START  opens up the game menu. Up enters doors. You can swing your sword up by hitting B and Up, and you can also point the sword down while you fall by holding(?) B. Hold B to repeatedly attack. Holding Down allows you to crawl; you can attack while crawling.

Beneath the game area are two progress bars that show your health and the health of the enemy you just encountered. Next to that are four stats: H.P shows a numeric representation of your health, EXP shows your experience points, R.P shows your ring power, and GOLD shows how much gold you have.

Health is recovered when levelling up, outside a dungeon, and with herbs. Levelling up only restores health partially; leaving dungeons and using herbs restores health fully. You can only carry one herb at a time.

 START  opens the game menu. EQUIPMENT opens the equipment screen. STATUS shows your current game status. BACKUP LOAD allows you to quit the current game and load a saved one at any time. BACKUP SAVE saves your game. You start off in the room and at the place within that room where you saved. CONFIGURATION allows you to change game options (TODO).

The equipment screen works a bit strangely. Up and Down selects between swords, armor, shields, rings, and items, and Left and Right chooses one of the five (or none, if you go left enough times). The current item is shown highlighted and its name at the top of the window; hit C to find out more about it. Press B to switch over to the right side of the screen, where you can get information about twelve quest items you collect as the game progresses. Press B to return to the equipment selection side. Press A to exit the screen. You can also see the four statues you collect during your quest, but you cannot get information on these.

When you select a ring from the equipment screen, Adol automatically puts it on and his armor turns gold. The ring power (R.P) section of the HUD indicates how much ring power you have. Ring power is increased by defeating enemies, and goes away slowly over time as long as you have a ring on. Some rings deplete ring power faster than others. You cannot put on a ring if your ring power is zero. You can alternatively buy full ring power (255) for some amount of money in towns.

History

Development

Ys III, alongside Valis III, features an intriguing INT MODE option in its pause screen; according to the manual, this "shakes the screen to display text clearly. Normally you don't need to use this mode."[6] The original version of the game was released for the PC-8801, a home computer system with the ability to separately render interlaced, high-resolution text atop its standard 8-bit graphics, with the game seeming to have used this option for monitor compatibility reasons. However, the Mega Drive does not render graphics in this way, and even if it did, the INT MODE option on home consoles behaves quite differently - it simply engages interlacing mode 1, drawing every other line per frame.[7]

Despite this, both manuals claiming it has circumstantial utility, with evidence indicating it was intended for Mega Drive users playing on RGB monitors - as the interlacing removes scanlines, which can improve readability issues with kanji.[8] It appears that Nihon Telenet were overzealous in the porting process and wanted to faithfully port the game's INT MODE somehow, regardless of whether the port was originally programmed to actually take advantage of it. As a result, these mostly-vestigial leftovers from the original PC-8801 versions have remained a curious and vestigial quirk of their Mega Drive ports.

Prerelease

A European release was once planned by publisher Ubisoft[9], but ultimately never materialized.

Production credits

  • ゲームグラフィック: Kouichi Nishida, Satomi Yoshikawa
  • ビジュアルグラフィック: MALDOROR, P.SAITO, アンテノール・木下
  • プログラム: 山本 雅康
  • デバッグチーフ: 折原 つなよし
  • サウンド: 窪寺 義明 (CUBE), 岩垂 徳行 (CUBE)
  • 宣伝: 三浦 猫, 吉岡 たかを, U-MA, オーノ 勝久
  • 協力: 福島 和行, 福島 雄二, 福島 次郎, 阿部 好延, 福島 孝
  • オリジナル制作: (C)日本ファルコム
  • 制作: (株) RIOT 日本テレネット
Source:
In-game credits (JP)
Wanderers from Ys MD credits.pdf
[10]

Digital manuals

Magazine articles

Main article: Ys III: Wanderers from Ys/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Main article: Ys III: Wanderers from Ys/Promotional material.

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average 
Publication Score Source
{{{{{icon}}}|L}} Division by zero.
Based on
0 review
Sega Retro Average 
Publication Version Score
(RU)
60
[11]
(JP) NTSC-J
68
[12]
(RU)
60
[13]
(RU)
70
[14]
(JP) NTSC-J
70
[15]
(FR) NTSC-J
76
[16]
(FR)
76
[17]
(UK) NTSC-U
36
[18]
(DE)
68
[19]
(UK) NTSC
78
[20]
(JP) NTSC-J
79
[21]
(RU)
69
[22]
(DE)
68
[23]
Sega Mega Drive
67
Based on
13 reviews

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys

Mega Drive, JP
YsIII MD JP Box.jpg
Cover
Mega Drive, US
YsIII MD US Box.jpg
Cover
YsIII MD US Cart.jpg
Cart
Ys III Wanderers from Ys MD US Manual.pdf
Manual
YsIII MD US pcb.jpg
PCB

Technical information

Main article: Ys III: Wanderers from Ys/Technical information.

References

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NEC Retro has more information related to Ys III: Wanderers from Ys
  1. 1.0 1.1 https://sega.jp/history/hard/megadrive/software_l.html (Wayback Machine: 2020-07-02 23:21)
  2. Beep! MegaDrive, "September 1991" (JP; 1991-08-08), page 21
  3. Electronic Gaming Monthly, "October 1991" (US; 1991-xx-xx), page 112
  4. VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, "January 1992" (US; 199x-xx-xx), page 46
  5. https://www.amusement-center.com/project/egg/game/?product_id=249
  6. File:WanderersFromYs_MD_JP_PEGG_Manual.PDF, page 12
  7. https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads%2Fwhy-does-ys-iii-feature-an-interlaced-video-mode.43060%2F#post-1077318 (Wayback Machine: 2024-09-16 04:41)
  8. https://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?threads%2Fwhy-does-ys-iii-feature-an-interlaced-video-mode.43060%2F#post-1077333 (Wayback Machine: 2024-09-16 04:41)
  9. Sega Force, "January 1992" (UK; 1991-12-12), page 10
  10. File:Wanderers from Ys MD credits.pdf
  11. 1700 igr dlya Sega, "" (RU; 2001-xx-xx), page 272
  12. Beep! MegaDrive, "November 1991" (JP; 1991-10-08), page 36
  13. Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 1, "" (RU; 1999-xx-xx), page 369
  14. Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 7, "" (RU; 2001-xx-xx), page 273
  15. Hippon Super, "November 1991" (JP; 1991-10-04), page 90
  16. Joypad, "Janvier 1992" (FR; 1991-12-1x), page 84
  17. Joystick, "Décembre 1991" (FR; 1991-1x-xx), page 164
  18. Mega, "April 1994" (UK; 1994-03-17), page 71
  19. Power Play, "5/92" (DE; 1992-04-15), page 147
  20. Sega Pro, "April 1993" (UK; 1993-03-11), page 68
  21. Sega Saturn Magazine, "September 1995" (JP; 1995-08-08), page 85
  22. Tricks 16 bit, "Tricks Sega Gold 800 igr" (RU; 1998-03-20), page 234
  23. Video Games, "2/92" (DE; 1992-04-06), page 32


Ys III: Wanderers from Ys

YsIII title.png

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Sega Mega Drive
Prototypes: 1991-08-28



Ys games on Sega systems / developed by Sega
Sega Master System
Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished Omen (1988)
Sega Mega Drive
Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (1991)
Sega Mega-CD
Ys IV: Mask of the Sun (Cancelled)
Sega Saturn
Falcom Classics (Ys) (1997) | Falcom Classics II (Ys II) (1998) | Falcom Classics Collection (Ys / Ys II) (1999)