Ys X: Nordics

More recent games in the series include several other playable party members. A feature of the early Ys games is the Darm Tower. In the story, it is an unfinished and deserted tower, built with the intention of touching the sky. The people of Ys fled to the Palace of Solomon and used the Black Pearl to lift the palace into the sky, creating a safe haven. 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. In early games, the player uses only the directional pad to fight. 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. A feature that has been used in nearly every Ys title is the recharging health mechanism, which had previously only been used in the Hydlide series. Recharging health has since become a common mechanism used in many video games today. Ys II introduced magic spells to the series , and the ability to transform into a monster, which allows the player to both scare human non-player characters for unique dialogues, and interact with non-boss monsters. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys adopted side-scrolling action-adventure gameplay, similar to Falcom's own Dragon Slayer series and Nintendo's Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, with an attack button and a variety of different attacks. Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys and Ys IV: Mask of the Sun returned to the original control scheme, while Ys IV:Mask of the Sun-A New Theory requires the player to press buttons to attack. 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. Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim graphically departed from its predecessors, using a mix of three-dimensional graphics and sprites. Ys: The Oath in Felghana and Ys: Origin share this gameplay style. Ys Seven brought back the ability to actively block, with skills, stun meters for enemies, weapon types, super combos known as EXTRA skills, and the ability to parry hits from attacks with a flash guard system. Ys VIII and Ys IX continued this style. The Ys series has its roots in the Japanese computer system NEC PC-8801. 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.