XSEED Games

So, are you all enjoying Ys: Memories of Celceta on PC? YOU DID BUY IT, DIDN’T YOU? DIIIIDN’T YOU?! …Ahem. Yes, I’m sure you did. So, moving on…

The game was ported from Vita on our behalf by Hyde – the same wonderful people who ported Ys SEVEN for us last year. And of course, neither we nor they are the kinds of people to just take a Vita game, slap it on PC, and call it a day; we wanted to make the experience feel like a natural fit on PC, with all the bells and whistles modern PC gamers have come to expect from the very best titles. Additionally, we wanted to ensure it was worth your while to play this version of the game whether or not you’ve played the original version before. The idea of a “quick and dirty” port really isn’t in our lexicon!

This brings us to the topic of today’s discussion: what’s new in Ys Celceta? Why should you buy this game (WHICH OF COURSE YOU WON’T NEED TO DO SINCE YOU ALREADY HAVE, RIIIIIIGHT?), and what can you expect when you fire it up for the first time? …

Read More: https://goo.gl/BW2qLR

Hey, everyone!

Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim launches today! I’m as excited as I am nervous, since this marks my first XSEED title as lead editor. I really hope you all enjoy it.

Today’s blog will be a bit different. Rather than talk about the ins and outs of localization, I thought I’d share with you some interesting bits I found while editing. Since I’d never played the game before editing (though I was fortunate enough to be able to play the game with context after and give it another editing pass!), I edited every scene I was given without knowing when or how it played out. It was only after playing that I’d learned there were two scenes I edited in the script that weren’t even in the game! (Or at least, if they are, no one here’s been able to find them.)

So I thought, why not? Let’s share these with the world! Keep in mind that, while both scenes do look like they’re early versions of a prologue for Ys VI, some of the information revealed in them seems as if they were reserved for later parts of the actual game, so there’s no shame in waiting until after you’ve beaten it to give these a read. (In other words: Potential spoilers ahead!)

Keep reading

Hi, everyone!

This is Brittany, Production Coordinator at XSEED Games. I was the editor and graphic text monkey for the PC version of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim. I normally also do Steam achievements for our games (and my early work was…something, let’s be real here), but the honor this time fell to our extremely dedicated in-house tester, Danielle.

I thought I’d take this time to talk about my relationship with Ys. My first real interaction with the series was shortly after I’d started at XSEED as a lowly prisoner intern with Ys: The Oath in Felghana. XSEED as a whole was new to Steam and, to be quite honest, I was not a PC gamer. I definitely wasn’t into high-speed action RPGs, either. I was asked to test the title after being given a brief run of what Ys was (“Red-haired guy goes on lots of adventures”). Everyone was excited.

Except for me.

I hated it! Oh, man, did I hate playing Oath in Felghana at first. Like said, I wasn’t into action RPGS—I was into turn-based battles or slow, methodical strategy games. I didn’t know enough about Ys to really enjoy the characters or world, I never was big on the whole “silent protagonist” thing, and I kept dying! Death, death, death! Death at every corner! My co-worker had added an actual achievement for dying because he kept telling me that was half the fun of Ys, but I was just getting frustrated instead.

It took a good, long while for me to get into the swing of things. QA forces you to test dozens of playthroughs sometimes, so I didn’t suck forever. I’d eventually gotten good enough to where I could beat the entire game with all the bells and whistles in a matter of a few hours. You might think that would make me even more sick of the game, but the funny thing is, it actually made me learn to love it.

Before you cry, “Yo, that’s some serious Stockholm syndrome,” I guess I should say this happens to me with a lot of games. The first playthrough, I’ll hate it; even if I absolutely love video games, getting the feel for a new world is always a bit daunting for me. It’s hard for me to absorb all the details while I’m concentrating on the things the game is making me focus on—and the details usually end up being my favorite parts—so I end up feeling like I missed out on something. My second playthrough, however, is when I feel like I can safely explore all the nooks and crannies of the world and absorb all of the foreshadowing and subtle references, and discover new details that just add to the world’s culture. It becomes comfortable, you know?

This is what happened with Oath in Felghana. I started to see beyond the insane amount of deaths and started going, “Wow, actually, it’s really cool how all of these items I own have hidden uses that I have to really explore to figure out. I like how the game’s not holding my hand,” and, “You know, the story and the characters are really entertaining. I can’t believe how each NPC has a name and unique character design!” The dungeons were well thought-out and left plenty of surprises to make back-tracking enjoyable. Despite the story being simple, it didn’t have any holes, but instead wrapped itself up in an orderly, neat bow. I was even starting to see the value in Adol Christin being a silent protagonist. He was an adventurer, and he wasn’t meant to actively impress his viewpoints of the world—he just wanted to explore and be a part of the world that already existed.

What truly solidified my love for Ys, however, was the series’ prequel, Ys Origin. This story didn’t star our lovely Adol the Red and his best friend (boyfriend), Dogi, but instead starred the ancestors to many known figures introduced in Ys I&II. This time, I didn’t feel so lost; thanks to Oath in Felghana’s introduction to the world, Ys Origin felt more like I was expanding upon finely-documented lore. The story, once again, was simple, but its characters, flow, and gameplay (now that I’d finally gotten a handle of Ys in general) left me craving more. Barring Ys V, I’ve now happily played every single major title in the series.

I knew we were going to do The Ark of Napishtim eventually, so I’d intentionally held off playing it until we had received the rights and were able to proceed with the localization. Of course, I had no idea that I would be editing the game until a few days before I’d started—we had several editors in the office who have played Konami’s localization on PS2 before, and then we have our own resident Falcom fan, Tom Lipschultz. Why would I be chosen to edit? But it happened. Somehow.

Initially, all the character, item, and location names in the PC version were given localized names that were more or less the same as those in the Konami versions of the game, and while most are still the same (since they were perfectly fine, accurately-translated names to begin with), I did end up changing a few here and there. This is most apparent with NPC names—little Sia, for example, is called Shea in our localization, shopkeeper Cloa is Croix, and Romn-loving drunkard Calman is Carmine. There are several more, but I’ll save those for when the game has launched.

 (This screen isn’t actually in the game, but a fun text bug. QA is great.)

This also ended up being my second project at XSEED as lead editor, so while I am proud of the end result, I’m still feeling out my “style,” admittedly. I hope what Tom and Jess (Trails in the Sky, Rune Factory Frontier/4) have beat into me taught me over the years reflects well with this project. Every editor has a distinct style, and every editor will also tell you they have an easier time with certain types of characters than others. As an example, one of our Story of Seasons editors, Nick, has always said he works best with older, more formal characters. I personally struggle with those types, which made The Ark of Napishtim a challenge since there’s an entire village full of characters on the formal side. I’m definitely not a fan of the old standby “formal = no contractions” rule, as even the most formal of people in real life say things like can’t/don’t over cannot/do not—I think abusing the no contractions thing comes off as stiff and unnatural—but still, I hope that the formal air of the Rehda wasn’t lost by choosing not to go that route. Just as well, I hope that my connection with the much more rowdy townspeople of Port Rimorge shows, too. And with Geis. I like Geis.

(I also wonder if it’s really a good idea to talk about struggles with editing like this in an official blog post. Ha ha.)

To me, the beauty of Ys is that even though the series has been around for decades, the developers have cleverly designed the series so that your starting point doesn’t matter. Adol Christin is a simple young man who started adventuring at 16 and didn’t stop until his death at 63 (yes, that’s canon, apparently!), and each game features one of his many expeditions which were dutifully recorded in his travelogue. All of this and more has been known from the very first game, so you’re simply filling in a few pre-established blanks with every new Ys title you play. Developer Nihon Falcom has had plenty of time to move from laying down the foundation to building a fantastic library of information that effortlessly intertwines with each new title—all without ever forcing the player to know Adol’s lengthy history as a prerequisite for enjoying any single one of his adventures. Looking back on it now, how on earth could I have hated these games?

I can’t stress enough how much of a privilege it is to have edited an Ys title. Newbie I may be, but I certainly poured my heart into The Ark of Napishtim. If you’re a returning Ys fan, enjoy yet another wonderful entry in the series. For those who are only just now stepping into the world of Ys, all I can say is: adventure awaits.

 - Brittany

P.S. Have some Geis.

At long last, Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim has been announced for English-language PC release on Steam, GOG and the Humble Store alike!

This has been a long time coming, requested by fans for years now – ever since we released Ys: The Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin on Steam back in 2012 – but has always been a tricky prospect due to the logistics involved. The game has, after all, already been released on PS2 and PSP by Konami, and it’s also the oldest game in the “trilogy” of Napishtim, Felghana and Origin, with the latter two making numerous changes and improvements to the engine that fans have come to really love and, indeed, expect.

This brought up two very important questions for us: What do we do about the translation (Do we attempt to acquire Konami’s? Do we try to work with our esteemed fan-translator again? Or do we re-translate from scratch?)… and what do we do to bring this 12-year-old game not just up to modern-day compatibility and presentational standards, but also up to the standards set by its already-available PC followups, Ys: The Oath in Felghana and Ys Origin?

In other words, how do we take the oldest game in the most beloved Ys trilogy, and give it the legs it needs to stand toe-to-toe with its big brothers?

The translation part was simple: After evaluating our options, we decided that re-translating the game was the way to go. Konami’s official translation, while excellent, features an entirely different tone and different nomenclature from what we at XSEED were looking to produce, and the fan-translation largely followed suit, so it only made sense to give this game a full-on “makeover” to bring it more in line with the rest of the series we’ve had on offer up to this point. To do this, we called in our ringer, Dan: the same Falcom fanatic who translated Ys: Memories of Celceta for us. And as expected, he did a fantastic job, making life much easier on Brittany during what was to become her second ever completed editing project (after Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven).

As for how to bring this game up to the standards set by its successors, that was a much trickier prospect, but we rose to the challenge and, through the dedicated work of our loyal programmer, Sara, we’re very pleased to present to you a feature that’s completely unique to our version of Ys VI:

CATASTROPHE MODE.

One of the most daring and unconventional features Falcom added to Ys: The Oath in Felghana, and later carried over to Ys Origin, was the removal of stockable healing items. In vanilla Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, it’s very often possible to stock up on powerful healing items, then just spam them during battle with difficult bosses, virtually eliminating the need to discern patterns or strategize. Felghana and Origin remedied this by making it so that healing items were used automatically the moment you picked them up, and since they couldn’t be stocked, they couldn’t be relied upon during boss battles – every boss had to be defeated on a single life bar. This made these two games notably more difficult, but also turned every boss into a sort of puzzle as players attempted to figure out the best way to defeat them (and made traversing the dungeons a little more exciting as well!).

Our newly-added Catastrophe Mode in Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, which players can optionally select at the start of play (and combine with any existing difficulty level), mimics this by removing all stockable healing items from the game, instead having them auto-use when picked up via monster drops. To help give players who select this mode a fighting chance, we’ve also replaced Croix’s grocery stock with tremendously expensive yet permanent stat-altering seeds, as well as swapping out all healing items inside treasure chests with a slightly modified version of the “Capla Water” item, which can be used outside of boss battles to cure status effects and refill Adol’s magic gauge but has been stripped of all its restorative powers from non-Catastrophe gameplay.

These excess Capla Waters may seem like a huge boon, but thanks to us also removing all other items that cure status ailments from Catastrophe Mode gameplay, they now represent your only line of defense against poison, confusion, curses, etc. (outside of accessories, anyway), making a certain dungeon (Ys fans know which one I’m talking about!) much more threatening than ever before.

We didn’t stop with just adding a mode that completely changes the dynamics of gameplay, though – no, we also added the ability to warp among save points once the Wing of Alma item has been acquired, which is a convenience formerly enjoyed by players in the PS2 version that has never before been offered in any PC version of the game.

Add to that all the usual bells and whistles (widescreen visuals, enhanced compatibility, Steam achievements and leaderboards, etc.), and possibly a little something extra if the stars align just right, and you have yourself a fully modernized version of Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim that can easily stand tall among its brethren.

We hope very much that you enjoy the game, and we can’t wait to hear your feedback on all these new additions that I feel easily make our version of the game the definitive Napishtim experience.

Thanks for all your support these many years, and here’s to many more years of Falcom PC deliciousness to come!

-Tom