Initially developed for the PC-8800 series by Masaya Hashimoto (director, programmer, designer) and Tomoyoshi Miyazaki (scenario writer), the game was soon ported to the Sharp X1, PC-98, FM-7, and MSX2 Japanese computer systems.

DotEmu has released the game on Android with the following localizations: English, French, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Italian, German, and Portuguese.

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.

[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 video game.

According to GamesTM and John Szczepaniak of Retro Gamer and The Escapist, "repetition of the act was pleasurable as you developed a psychological rhythm and, even in the event of backtracking, progress was always swift since the player never needed to stop moving".

The versions developed for the TurboGrafx-CD, released as Ys I & II in 1989, included additional cutscenes, such as an opening detailing Adol's arrival in the town of Minea.

Composed by Yuzo Koshiro along with Mieko Ishikawa, the soundtrack is notable for its rich melodies,[10] in an age when video game music was beginning to progress from monotonous bleeps.

It was reviewed in the March 1989 issue of Computer and Video Games magazine, stating that it has some of the best graphics on the system and that it "offers depth and playability" that "will keep you engrossed for weeks".

[23] ACE magazine in 1989 listed Ys as the second best Master System game available at the time, praising the "huge scrolling" world, characters who "can be questioned" and "good deal of role-playing" depth.

She stated that the game was "a fairly simple entry with a few puzzles to solve" along with "Nintendo-style combat and graphics" that was "a romp" and "interesting mainly for seeing what the Japanese do in terms of lightweight CRPGs".