Ys III: Wanderers from Ys
From Sega Retro
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| Ys III: Wanderers from Ys | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| System(s): Sega Mega Drive | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Publisher: Riot (JP), Renovation Products (US) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Developer: Nihon Telenet | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Licensor: Nihon Falcom  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Original system(s): NEC PC-8801 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Developer(s) of original games: Nihon Falcom | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Genre: RPG[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Number of players: 1 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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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.
Contents
Gameplay
The game takes a side-scrolling perspective. 
jumps. 
swings your sword, talks to people, opens treasure chests, and makes selections when talking to shop owners. 
uses selected items. START opens up the game menu. 
enters doors. You can swing your sword up by hitting and , and you can also point the sword down while you fall by holding(?) . Hold to repeatedly attack. Holding 
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. and selects between swords, armor, shields, rings, and items, and 
and 
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 to find out more about it. Press 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 to return to the equipment selection side. Press 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
Digital manuals
Project EGG manual
Magazine articles
- Main article: Ys III: Wanderers from Ys/Magazine articles.
Promotional material
- Main article: Ys III: Wanderers from Ys/Promotional material.
Physical scans
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67 |
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| Based on 13 reviews | |
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| Mega Drive, US |
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 Cover
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 Cart  Manual  PCB |
Technical information
- Main article: Ys III: Wanderers from Ys/Technical information.
References
 NEC Retro has more information related to Ys III: Wanderers from Ys
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- ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://sega.jp/history/hard/megadrive/software_l.html (Wayback Machine: 2020-07-02 23:21)
- ↑ Beep! MegaDrive, "September 1991" (JP; 1991-08-08), page 21
- ↑ Electronic Gaming Monthly, "October 1991" (US; 1991-xx-xx), page 112
- ↑ VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, "January 1992" (US; 199x-xx-xx), page 46
- ↑ https://www.amusement-center.com/project/egg/game/?product_id=249
- ↑ File:WanderersFromYs_MD_JP_PEGG_Manual.PDF, page 12
- ↑ 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)
- ↑ 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)
- ↑ Sega Force, "January 1992" (UK; 1991-12-12), page 10
- ↑ File:Wanderers from Ys MD credits.pdf
- ↑ 1700 igr dlya Sega, "" (RU; 2001-xx-xx), page 272
- ↑ Beep! MegaDrive, "November 1991" (JP; 1991-10-08), page 36
- ↑ Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 1, "" (RU; 1999-xx-xx), page 369
- ↑ Entsiklopediya luchshikh igr Sega. Vypusk 7, "" (RU; 2001-xx-xx), page 273
- ↑ Hippon Super, "November 1991" (JP; 1991-10-04), page 90
- ↑ Joypad, "Janvier 1992" (FR; 1991-12-1x), page 84
- ↑ Joystick, "Décembre 1991" (FR; 1991-1x-xx), page 164
- ↑ Mega, "April 1994" (UK; 1994-03-17), page 71
- ↑ Power Play, "5/92" (DE; 1992-04-15), page 147
- ↑ Sega Pro, "April 1993" (UK; 1993-03-11), page 68
- ↑ Sega Saturn Magazine, "September 1995" (JP; 1995-08-08), page 85
- ↑ Tricks 16 bit, "Tricks Sega Gold 800 igr" (RU; 1998-03-20), page 234
- ↑ Video Games, "2/92" (DE; 1992-04-06), page 32
| Ys III: Wanderers from Ys | |
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Main page | Comparisons | Maps | Hidden content | Magazine articles | Reception | Promotional material | Region coding | Technical information | Bootlegs | |
| Ys games on Sega systems / developed by Sega | |
|---|---|
 |
Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished Omen (1988) |
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Ys III: Wanderers from Ys (1991) |
 |
Ys IV: Mask of the Sun (Cancelled) |
 |
Falcom Classics (Ys) (1997) | Falcom Classics II (Ys II) (1998) | Falcom Classics Collection (Ys / Ys II) (1999) |