Case Cover
Y's: The Ark of Napishtim
Case Cover
Game File (1 of many)
Publisher: Konami
North America Release: March 1, 2006
Number of Players: 1
Wi-Fi Mode: N/A
I actually picked this game up the day it was released when I was picking a pre-order from eb Games. I mindlessly picked it up when I saw the price & thinking it may become hard to find in the future. Although I heard that the game was short, I picked it up nevertheless.
About the game
Y's: The Ark of Napishtim is actually part 6 of the Y's game series in Japan. Again, it's about Adol Christin & his adventures. Also, this is a port of the PS2 version & it's a port of the PC version. The firmware version required to play is 2.50.
Graphics
The still portraits of the characters in the character selection screen are quite good as it has that anime feel to it. However, it has that 90's look to it as this is an old game. Also, there isn't a lot of them. Basically, 2 or 3 for each character. As for the game sprites, they are thin & long at the limbs for some characters. Some of the characters have these "Popeye" like arms & kind of gives them the ogre look. During the game play battles, the animation is quite smooth & flowing. The sword swings look natural. A complaint about the graphics would be the sprite sizes. Depending on the map, the sprites may look big or very small. This is due to the camera angle & position. When the sprites are small, it can affect your game play as the PSP's widescreen isn't big enough.
The background is beautifully done. The colours of the background is very nice & the movement is nice, I liked how the water flows & the ripples. It's almost real. Also, the colours blend very nicely with the characters & background. No clashing anywhere. However, there are some monsters that are almost camouflage to some of the scenery. This is pretty bad when the monsters are small.
Music & Sounds
The sound effects are in mono quality for some reason. And that's even with the headphones on. Also, the sounds are pretty fake. For the 3 swords that Adol has, they all sound different. This is not a bad thing since you can distinguish the 3 swords you are using. But, the sounds aren't very clean as you can hear a lot of fuzzes, especially when the sounds are loud. Unlike the PS2 version, there are no voices in the game.
The music is pretty nice. It was rich & clear. I really like the soundtrack. Although it's old, it really sets the mood well. It's got a mixture of folk & soft rock. Funny thing is that the game plays it in full stereo. It makes me wonder why the music is in stereo while the sound effects are in mono.
Gameplay
The controls are on the loose side. It takes some time to get use to it as most of the moves are timed. When you constantly press the square button, Adol really swings his sword hard as he charges forward & covers a good amount of distance. The jump attacks needed to be timed properly to get the right attack move & positioning your landing from jumps need to be a bit accurate. After some time practicing it, you will get a hang of it. Most of the time, you need to work on your jump attacks as they are a life saver.
Navigating in towns can be pain at times due to the games large amount of loading. Every time you enter a building or a new map, the game loads. Sometimes it's quick, sometimes it's long. The fastest I got was 2 seconds while the longest I had was close to 20 seconds. And that was going into a small building. Because of this, you may be avoiding going into buildings or unnecessary battlefields. Also, you would want to avoid falling off maps as you try to defend against enemy attacks & time your jumps on small platforms. Even though you may hear the game change it's music during the "Now Loading" screens, it still takes awhile to load the next map. What's funny is how the game needs to freeze a bit to load the items on the equipment screen & to level Adol up. The loading really hinders the game play a lot.
The story is pretty average as you may get use to Adol being washed up along the shores at the start of the game. It seems to be his trademark game entrance. The story is a bit on the complex side as it seems there are some things missing in the game as I couldn't make some sense in some scenarios. It was a bit sudden at times. Being a short game, it's pretty much expected that the story would be fast-paced. The translation & use of grammar & spelling is pretty good as it was understandable. There are very few errors in the script.
Saving is very important if you are playing a RPG game on a portable system & this game solves this problem. You can save anywhere in the game with the exception of battles & cut scenes. That's for quick saves only. What I don't like about the quick save feature is how the game uses it. When you use it, it will exit your game. When you load it, it will load the save & delete the file too. It kind of defeats the purpose of it since this is a portable system. I would like it if the game allows you to continue on after quick saving it & deleting the quick save when you do a normal save. What's worse is seeing the saving lag for normal & quick modes. I never seen a save menu move so slowly while it's trying to save on the default PSP save menu.
Extras, Bonuses, & Secrets
Some of the extras are exclusive to the PSP & some of it is missing the PS2 version. There are some optional mini-bosses in the game that you don't need to defeat. Plus, there is a series of mini-games in the Alma Trials. These battle extras gives some good items. The bonuses exclusive to the PSP are the media player that has the rich soundtrack of the game & a character database that gives a background of the characters that you met in the game. Also when you beat the game once, a new game difficulty setting called Nightmare appears.
Replay Value
The game has little replay value. Although you get a hard setting appear after you beat the game for the 1st time, it's hard to say if you will play the game again in that new difficulty level since the story is linear. You may spend some time finding things to complete your character database or complete the whole Alma Trial. Even though the game's story in the story department & offers quite a bit of extras, you can pretty much finish everything in a month's time if you are an average gamer.
Overall Conclusion
Although the game is quite short, it's still pretty fun to play with. I give this game a 7.5/10. The game play isn't too bad, but the load times are really painful to bear. This is the biggest downfall of the game. Also, you may need to get use to the controls as timing your attacks are quite important. Plus, the game's sprite sizes in some maps are too small at times that it's hard to see the small monsters in front of you. Before buying it, I would recommend renting it 1st even if you are a big Y's fan & see if you can bare with the load times.
Last updated on June 28, 2007
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