Ys (SMS)

There are games that grab your heart with their music before you grasp their combat system — and Ys is precisely such a case. The 8-bit version of the legendary action RPG from the Japanese studio Falcom arrived on the Master System in 1988 and brought with it one of the most characteristic and idiosyncratic game principles of its era.

That peculiarity is the so-called „bump“ combat. You have no attack button — instead you damage an enemy by ramming into it with your character, but off its center and ideally from the side or behind. It sounds bizarre, but in practice it works surprisingly smoothly and turns the fights into a brisk, almost dance-like rhythmic whirl. The pace of the game is fast and the action dense, so Ys never starts to bore with slow grinding like many another RPG of the time.

The music is a chapter unto itself. The Falcom Sound Team did work that went down in the history of game soundtracks — the melodies from Ys are among the most beloved of all and are in themselves a reason people return to the series. Even on the Master System's 8-bit chip the music has juice and drives the game onward.

It is precisely this combination of a brisk pace, an original combat system and phenomenal music that made Ys a classic that made the action RPG genre accessible to a wider audience. The Ys series subsequently grew into one of the longest-running and most respected RPG brands of all, and its roots reach right back to these early installments.

Why play: An action RPG classic with unmistakable „bump“ combat and phenomenal Falcom music — brisk, addictive and a historically important gateway into the genre.