Ys IV: Mask of the Sun

"Back to the roots better than ever!"

Thankfully, it seems that Wanderers From Ys was just a bad joke and now everything is back to normal. First of all you have to know that there are two Ys IV, the first one was called The Dawn of Ys and was for the Turbo CD, this Mask of The Sun for the Snes is a completely new game and aside from the name it has absolutely nothing to do with the Turbo CD version.

Story 9/10:
Adol is watching the waves remembering his past adventures when he suddenly sees something approaching to the shore, it is bottle with a message inside, the message is written in a strange language and Adol has to take the letter to one of his friends to translate it. The letter comes from Selceta and it calls for help, Adol then decides to answer the letter and decides to go to Selceta.

This is the reason why Ys IV is such a great game, the plot is superb. It is not as deep as a Final Fantasy, but it’s really good, with lots of twists and interesting things to see. What keeps it from being perfect is the typical Ys gameplay which doesn’t’ let you have companions for example, but this is not a bad thing at all, the plot is very well done and involving anyway, that is the important thing.

Graphics 8/10:
Most of the backgrounds are extremely well done, some of them I would even say that are very impressive. The enemies in the other hand are too simple, excepting the bosses, which are quite cool. The anime characters are superb and the intro sequence, as well as some cut scenes are very beautiful. The graphics may be a little bit dated, but they are very nice.

Music 10/10:
As magnificent as always, I don’t know exactly why but for me the Ys series has a music that makes you think you are hearing j-pop, it is not the typical soundtrack we usually find in every rpg, maybe it is just me but that’s what I think. Anyway, j-popish or not, the music RULES, almost every town, cave, ruin or whatever has its own music track, and there was only one that I found annoying, everything else was simply top notch.

Gameplay 8/10:
Not good nor bad, just different, but it requires time, if you have never played an Ys game before (excepting Ys III) then you’ll have some trouble trying to figure how it works at the beginning, but once you get used to it you’ll see that is pretty neat, easy, and very enjoyable.

The battle system is what makes people love or hate this series, explaining it is something really hard, play it or you won’t understand. Now, while a bit weird at the beginning, the combats are great, but I can’t say the same about the magic system, which could’ve been better, much better actually. Again, it is not bad, but the magic is a bit useless, only some weapons have the ability to perform magical spells, but they only have one per weapon and are the typical fire or ice ball. Needs a little improvement.

Difficulty:
Hard at the beginning you will have to spend a considerable amount of time leveling up and practicing if you have never played an Ys game before, some bosses are positively nasty, specially the first one, but after that first boss the game gets much easier, you’ll still die a lot time times but this is not a hard game, really.
There are some references and characters from the previous Ys games too, but it is ok if you haven’t played them.

Mask of The Sun is very short (about 10 hours), lacks replay value, and the gameplay, while very, very fun, could’ve been better sometimes, but it is a brilliant game, if it were longer I would have given it a prefect rating even with the other flaws. At the beginning the combat system is going to be a pain, but once you get used to the messy battle system a whole new game will open in front of you. Don’t give up after defeating the first boss, if you still dislike the game after that, then this fourth part as well as the entire Ys series is not for you.

”My lack of vocabulary and grammatical errors (if there’s any) are because I’m not from an English speaking country, sorry about that.”

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/17/03, Updated 12/30/03