Ys (イース, Īsu, IPA: [iːsɯ]) (/ˈiːs/) is a Japanese series of action role-playing games developed by Nihon Falcom.

[3] The Ys series chronicles the life of Adol Christin, a young man obsessed with adventure.

The demons, focused on controlling the Black Pearl for their own intentions, began building the Darm Tower, day and night, attempting to connect to the Palace of Solomon with their construction.

Later games feature a variety of plots but frequently begin with a shipwreck, with a stranded Adol getting involved in the new area's events.

The player must run Adol into enemies, hitting them on the side, back or slightly off-center of the front.

This was created with accessibility in mind; while other RPGs at the time had either turn-based combat or a manually activated sword, Ys had Adol automatically attack when walking into enemies.

[5][6] Falcom staff have compared this style of gameplay to the enjoyment of popping air bubble sheets, in the sense that it took the tedious task of level-grinding and turned it into something similar to a high-score-based arcade game.

Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand uses a top-down viewpoint and requires the player to press buttons to attack or defend with a shield.

Ports of the games to console platforms have usually been handled by various other licensee companies, such as Hudson Soft, Tonkin House and Konami.

[8] It was one of the first video games to use CD-ROM, which was utilized to provide enhanced graphics, animated cutscenes,[9][6] a Red Book CD-DA soundtrack,[8][6] and voice acting.

They share the same setting, cast, and much of the basic plot, but the actual structure of the story plays out in a completely different manner, as do the game's levels and enemies.

Mask of the Sun is the official continuation of the series, while Falcom have deemed The Dawn of Ys to be essentially an "alternate universe" take on the events in Celceta.

It was criticized as being too easy; in response to this, Falcom put out Ys V Expert, a harder version of the game.

After this, the series remained dormant for eight years (except for remakes such as Ys Eternal), during which time Falcom abandoned console development altogether, choosing instead to focus on the Windows platform.

The sixth game in the series, entitled Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim, was released in September 2003.

A spin-off game called Ys Strategy was released in March 2006 in Japan for the Nintendo DS.

In 2010, Xseed Games purchased the fan-translated script for Ys: The Oath in Felghana from Jeff Nussbaum, the actual translator, an act considered historic and unprecedented, as unlicensed translations are technically copyright infringements as unauthorized derivative works.

Atlus released the games in one package entitled Legacy of Ys: Books I & II in February 2009 on the Nintendo DS.

[20] Ys I & II were also released via Steam in February 2013 as Ys I & II Chronicles+[21] – XSEED's Steam programmer Sara managed to combine Falcom's PC port of Ys I & II Chronicles with the earlier fan-favorite PC release Ys I & II Complete, effectively mixing all the best features of both versions like selectable soundtracks (PC-88 original, Complete and Chronicles) and art styles from both Chronicles and Complete, alongside the visual flexibility of Complete, such as greater viewing area, togglable screen frame and support for windowed mode.

The American release was also released as a limited edition called Silver Anniversary Edition, which features a 3-CD collection of both original and arranged music spanning the history of the franchise, a cloth map of the land of Celceta, a logo-emblazoned compass and Adol's Travel Journal, containing around 120+ pages of adventuring strategies and artwork.

[22] Ys Online ~ The Call of Solum, developed by the South Korean game maker CJ Internet and taking place more than a hundred years after the main series, was launched on 5 November 2007 in South Korea, and in 2009 as an open beta for Chinese, Japanese and European players, but was discontinued in all regions in October 2012.

The first anime expands on the relatively thin storyline of Ys I, including a retelling and expansion of the prologue found in the game's original Japanese manual.

Both series were released on DVD in English by Media Blasters' anime label "AnimeWorks", packaged both separately and in a three-disc box set.