Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished

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Table of Contents

Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished, abbreviated to simply Ys (イース, Iisu^?) in two versions (see the names section for other various published names), is the first installment of Ys, an action RPG series developed by Nihon Falcom in 1987.

Initially developed for the NEC PC-8801 by Masaya Hashimoto (director, programmer, designer) and Tomoyoshi Miyazaki (scenario writer), the game was soon ported to the Sharp X1, NEC PC-9801, FM-7, FM-77AV and MSX2 Japanese computer systems. Ancient Ys Vanished saw many subsequent releases, such as English-language versions for the Master System, MS-DOS, Apple IIGS, and TurboGrafx-16, and enhanced remakes for the Sega Saturn and Microsoft Windows systems.

Appearances in compilations

The game was also released as part of a compilation, Ys I & II, for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-CD in 1989, along with Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished's 1988 sequel Ys II. Subsequent versions of Ys I & II were released, with new titles, for Windows (2000), PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, PSP, and again for Windows (Vista/7).

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Story

For more details on this topic, see Ys/Story.

The hero of Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished is an adventurous young swordsman named Adol Christin. As the original story begins, he has just arrived at the Town of Minea, in the land of Esteria. (In the enhanced remakes, he first wakes up in the port town of Barbado, south of Minea, after washing up on shore due to a shipwreck.) He is called upon by Sara, a fortuneteller, who tells him of a great evil that is sweeping the land.

Adol is informed that he must seek out the six Books of Ys. These books contain the history of the ancient land of Ys, and will give him the knowledge he needs to defeat the evil forces. Sara gives Adol a crystal for identification and instructs him to find her aunt in Zepik Village, who holds the key to retrieving one of the Books. With that, his quest begins.

Names

The name of this game is often misspelled, rearranged, or simplified in various ways (officially and unofficially). The original NEC PC-8801 manual artwork shows no Japanese, but only the series logo and the title "Ancient Ys Vanished" (therefore the original title was either Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished, Ys Ancient Ys Vanished, or just Ancient Ys Vanished). No image of the box art exists, but it is probably the same as the manual cover, which was used for the MSX cover.

Wikipedia uses the name Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished, which is never published anywhere. The closest title is the Ys I & II Complete title screen for Ys, which shows a combined title of Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished Omen: Ys I Complete. In no official, original (non-compilation) publication does the title ever have the number one in it (roman numeral or otherwise). It wasn't until the second game was released that a number was added to the title, so Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished may well be a retconned-like title created by people to distinguish it from the second game, but give it a similar title that is easy to recognize it as the first game.

Y's appeared as a misspelling of the logo due to an error on the packaging of the Sega Master System English-language release (see rear cover).

Official spellings across all of the releases are:

Name	Where it was published
イース	Japanese Katakana as seen on the Famicom box art. This often appears on top of the title screen images.
Ys	Series logo and artistic translation of イース that appeared on the Famicom box art.
Ys: The Vanished Omens	Box artwork, such as the Sega Master System packaging. Alternate names: Could be written as Ys The Vanished Omens if the colon is excluded. Could be written as The Vanished Omens if the series logo is excluded.
Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished Omen	MSX, PC-98, and Sega Master System in-game title.
Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished	Japanese NEC PC-8801, MSX box and manual titles.
Ancient Ys Vanished	This is an acceptable shortened version of "Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished" because the series logo is separated by much distance from the words on the box artwork (thus in some cases is it debatable if they are two separate sentences or part of the same one).
Ancient Land of Ys	Box artwork for PC releases, such as the Apple II GS packaging. This same box was used for the IBM PC-DOS and TRS-80 (Tandy) releases.
Ancient Ys Vanished Omen	Words that appear on the title screen in the NEC PC-88 and PC-8801 version. Also, the in-game label that appears at the top of the screen when playing Ys I & II Complete.
Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished Omen	Combined series logo plus words that appear in the NEC PC-88 and PC-8801 title screens.
Ancient Ys Vanished: Omen	Words that appear on title screen of Ys Chronicles (one of the Ys I & II compilation remakes).
Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished: Omen	Series logo combined with words that appear on title screen of Ys Chronicles (one of the Ys I & II compilation remakes).