Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys

Overview

Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys is an action role playing game developed by Hudson Soft for the PC Engine CD system and released in June 1993. While Dawn of Ys shares the same basic story outline as Ys IV: Mask of the Sun and Ys IV: Mask of the Sun - A New Theory, the game is substantially different in all other regards. As such, it is not considered to be part of the official Ys canon, though it maintains a strongly favorable reputation amongst fans of the series in comparison to the other games released as Ys IV.

Story

The game takes place two years after the events of Ys II and a year prior to Ys III: Wanders From Ys and begins with Adol and Dogi arriving in the port of Minea. Adol learns from the fortune teller, Sara, of trouble forming in the land of Selceta.

Gameplay

After the criticisms of the third game's side scrolling nature, both Ys IV: Dawn of Ys and Ys IV: Mask of the Sun return to the top down gameplay of the first two games. Unlike other action/adventure RPGs, combat is handled by running into enemies; there is no attack button. If the enemy is attacked head on then the player takes damage, but if the player is offset so as to hit just one half of the enemy then the enemy will take the damage. This results in a much faster gameplay experience than traditional hack and slash action RPGs, especially given Adol's relatively quick movement speed.

Characters

• Adol Christin
• Dogi
• Leeza
• Karna
• Leeza
• Eldeel
• Gadis
• Bami
• Guruda

Fan Translation

Unlike the rest of the Ys series on the TurboGrafx-16 Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys was not released outside of Japan. In 2004 a team of hackers and translators created an English patch. All of the in-game text was translated however all the voiced cut-scenes remained in Japanese and adding subtitles to the game was impossible. Several people attempted to create a fandub for Dawn of Ys's cut-scenes (one in 2004 and another in 2009) but none of them were finished due to lack of auditions or other problems. However a third fandub project was eventually finished and released on September 24, 2012.