JRPG Journey 2024: Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim (Spring Bonus Game)
May’s game: Shin Megami Tensei
June’s game: Super Mario RPG [Switch]
Yep, despite falling several months behind on these write-ups, I’m still squeezing in a spring bonus game—even though that lovely season is now over a month in the past. Don’t worry, I’m finished the Super Mario RPG retrospective and will release it in a few days. Humor me one more time; I love talking about RPGs.
I wanted to slide Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim in as a bonus game, because truth be told, I thought I might not have much to say about Ys VI that I haven’t already covered in my Ys V retrospective and others on the earlier games. If you’re new to JRPG Journey, I’m playing the Ys series in order, and as a gameplay-first kind of guy, well, Ark of Napishtim is more of the same. Not exactly the same, since Napishtim debuts a new gameplay engine, except it’s not new to me, having already played Oath in Felghana and Origin, which build on it further. Unfortunately, the fact that Ys VI was the first in the series to use the eponymous Napishtim engine shows. Combat feels like a rougher version of what I’m familiar with from Origin or Oath: fine enough, but it’s clear the devs at Nihon Falcom hadn’t perfected their new engine on the first go.
Adol controls OK; the combat plays alright; but somehow Ys VI lacks a certain magical touch I remember from Ys I and II, Origin … really all the entries except V, but especially those three (my favorites so far). It’s hard to describe, but Ys VI feels a bit boring and less flashy in comparison, as if it’s going through the motions instead of really taking advantage of the power of the PlayStation 2. That’s the version I’m playing, anyway. Originally it came out only in Japan for PC in 2003 then got its first release over here for PS2 a few years later, before finally getting a 2015 Steam release. Now, I would unquestionably recommend going for the Steam version for one big reason I’ll get to later. Trust me, there’s no need to pay out the ass for an overpriced PS2 copy these days.
Not much of a concern, though, even on PS2, are the visuals — the Steam version no doubt looks superior, but I played over HDMI for a nice result. Er, technically speaking, anyway. In terms of art direction and visual design, I’m not particularly impressed by Ark of Napishtim: it looks like … another Ys game. Maybe it’s the lack of sparkly effects or the muted color palette, but something about this one fails to pull me in as much as previous games have. Ys combat ain’t exactly complicated, so I’d appreciate more splooshy boomy effects to keep my attention. Jesus, I sound like I’m a lizard. But my point stands: the devs seem to have figured this out by Origin, but Napishtim’s not quite there.
Difficulty-wise, I remember always hearing this is one of the harder games in the series. “You’re really gonna struggle during Napishtim”, random forum-goers would say. They’re insane. Napishtim’s about on par for Ys, at least on Normal mode, which I tend to stick with for first playthroughs. I died way more times to bosses in Origin and Felghana, for one; Ys VI in comparison wasn’t too bad. As always, your mileage may vary — grinding’s always an option, and magic makes many fights a lot easier. If you’re familiar with the way Origin and Felghana handled it, magic works much the same way here, with three unlockable elemental-based options that recharge as you kill enemies, each building up to a massive AOE or ranged attack. In practice, it tends to be more effective to use them when you have them rather than planning out specific strategies, since most bosses let you get up close and personal. A few of their patterns all but beg you to use a certain magic as the clear best strat, but for the most part, Ys VI is more of the same hack and slash goodness.
Beyond the fightin’, for a PS2 game there’s not much to else to Napishtim — small maps, small world, not a ton of content — but that’s part for the course for Ys. Just don’t go into it expecting a 40-hour experience like in the series’s most recent games. if you spend longer than 15 hours on this one, I’d worry there’s something wrong with you. I’m remiss to say that beyond the art design, the locations here feel uninspired. You’d think a story focused around a giant unmoving hurricane that envelops a mysterious island chain could make for a fascinating fantasy setting, yet instead what feels like a retread of Oath in Felghana.
OK, OK, you got me — Oath in Felghana came out after this game, so maybe I’d think differently had I played Napishtim first. But Nihon Falcom themselves recommend going through the series in numbered order playing the latest remakes, and since that’s what I’m doing, I can only be honest in saying, yeah, Ys was suffering from Mario Bros syndrome in the early aughts: it’s starting to get too samey. Let’s mix things up — do we need yet another mountain environment, or another cavern with a waterfall somewhere? Another lava zone, another quiet mining town? Heck, even the characterization lacks oomph; I didn’t care about most of these characters nearly the same as how I got into the townsfolk of Ys I, for example. That game’s populace had more charm, pulling me in right away, whereas the denizens of Ys VI felt like, well, NPCs. After thinking about it, I believe this might be because the game sticks with the formula of only one or two major towns, while making the mistake of not including enough interesting characters with personal quests to get into. At least, that’s one thing I loved about the first few Ys games. Aside from optional bosses mostly reserved for the endgame, I don’t recall any side content in Napishtim. What a shame. Makes me wonder why these games lean so hard into their RPG mechanics like equipment, leveling, and crafting while slacking on the storytelling aspect many fans like most about the genre.
That’s not to say this adventure’s entirely without charm. The characters we do get are fine, just not quite as memorable as say, Elena from Felghana or Reah and Feena from I, II, and Origin. They all had a lot to do despite not featuring in the story all that much, and I still remember their names. I doubt I’ll be able to say the same about anyone here, even Geis, this game’s enigmatic emo kid or the prototype version of the Claw from Origin, in other words. He’s on a generic misunderstood quest and could have saved everyone a lot of time and trouble if he’d just explain his motivations, but alas, Ys hasn’t quite reached that level of storytelling yet. The townsfolk failed to stand out; there’s a few sidequests that open up late in the game but don’t involve the characters much beyond them wanting you to fetch stuff. How … fun. It was cool to see Raba again, a sage from the first game who gets a slightly larger role here, though he doesn’t get much to do besides look sagely.
On the plus side, Napishtim does have voice acting in a few scenes, which impressed me enough even though it can’t stand up against many later-era and even contemporary PS2 games. It doesn’t help that the opening dialogue scene’s got some cringe as hell lines from an allegedly “badass” pirates and guards who only manage to sound like dorks. Come on, “So you’re the red-haired Adol”? Any native speaker would sooner say “So you’re that redhead, Adol” or probably something with even fewer words. It’s a lame, overly literal translation — bad for a different reason from the industry of today’s problems, but bad nonetheless. This is why we need localizers who care. Buut until then, I’m OK putting up with my occasionally wonky fan translations and clunky Woolseyisms for these old games.
Speaking of which, a funny quirk of the PS2 era shows up here, in how most NPCs in towns have multiple dialogue lines if you talk to them twice. Now, to any RPG fan that should sound great, but longtime JRPG fans — emphasis on the “J” — might see where I’m torn on this feature: not all NPCs always have more than one thing to say, and there’s no way of knowing whether they do. So I end up talking to everyone twice and wasting time on the 30% or so that don’t say anything new. Let’s just say I’m glad there’s only a few towns in this game. And this problem has all but vanished in modern JRPGs, which have found ways to visually indicate when there’s more to hear. I first saw this in the Tales games, you know, the little star or exclam beside NPC with unread conversations. Love that. Everyone should copy it.
Even Falcom knew they made one big mistake with the PS2 version, though: no fast travel. Here it’s especially painful since nearly every quest involves some sort of backtracking, and while the world ain’t huge, it’s big enough that I felt the tedium of this after a few hours. Thankfully, the later Steam version lets you warp between save points like in Ys Origin, which had I known that before playing, I might have sought out and saved myself at least a few hours. Still, Napishtim’s on the short side even for an Ys game, so the backtracking, while frequent, ain’t a huge deal.
And that’s all I’ve got to say about the combat and gameplay. Ark of Napishtim is an Ys game. A very average Ys game based on the action alone, which scores good enough marks to recommend to Ys fans, but for anyone else there’s better entry points to this storied series. Try Ys I & II Chronicles or Ys Origin.
Far more interesting, however, is Napishtim’s story or more specifically the worldbuilding, which I’ll give props to for the first time since Ys II. With this entry Falcom establishes a new overarching lore for the world of the series, introducing the legend of the Eldeen, an ancient race that spread their technology all over the planet. That’s where all the Emelas come from: those little shards Adol collects from enemies in most of the games were originally a power source for Eldeen devices. The ability to use and transmute Emelas into different colors with different powers is a closely guarded secret by the Eldeen and plays a major role in the backstory. In the land of Canaan, a people called the Rehda once lived with an Eldeen named Alma whom they considered a god.
But people are … people, and soon some bad apples tried to attain the power of Emelas for themselves by messing with the titular Ark of Napishtim. That’s a no-no, since this ark, built by the Eldeen, acts as the planet’s weather control system — hey, that reminds me of Phantasy Star II’s plot! I’m recognizing more and more worldbuilding tropes as I progress further on my JRPG Journey. Anyway, screwing with the Ark causes the “black calamity”, which breaks apart the Rehdan people’s homeland into the Canaan archipelago Adol gets to explore centuries later. To prevent this kind of disaster from happening again, Alma sinks the Ark and spawns a giant vortex that serves as the story hook — it’s what shipwrecks Adol on the Canaan islands in the first place.
The legend of Alma, the Eldeen, and the history of the Rehdan people also ties in to previous games, albeit in smaller ways than you might think given how much some fans hype up Napishtim. Spoiler alert, I guess, but this is Ys not Kiseki — I haven’t cared much about the happenings since Felghana. But if you do, skip the next paragraph.
Feena and Rhea, the goddess-like winged sisters you had to work with in the first game, are actually Eldeen themselves. Surviving the Ark’s destruction of their land, they along with other Eldeen founded the civilizations of the world and distantly relate to a few characters we’ve met in past games. That’s about it, though. It’s the typical M.O. for worldbuilding in sequels. If you keep expanding further into the lore of the past, you don’t need to move the story forward, right? I’m only half kidding — I get why people like this stuff, but the Ys games are so light on story, it’s not like my mind was being constantly blown by any of these revelations. It was more like, “Oh, I guess remember that character” or, “Neat, that’s how Feena got her wings … now back to slicing shit up.”
This is all tropey but adequate lore, and I am excited to see if and how it’s built on over the next few games. I’m getting close to finishing this series, after all. It’s a race between Ys, Tales, Dragon Quest, and Final Fantasy to see which I can catch up on first. But they keep releasing new ones, messing up all my plans. Funny how that works.
Thanks for reading this special edition of JRPG Journey. See you soon when I cover the Nintendo Switch remake of Super Mario RPG.
