The History of Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys

Falcom licensed Ys IV out, and the license produced two different games under one title in the same season: Hudson's The Dawn of Ys for PC Engine CD and Tonkin House's Mask of the Sun for Super Famicom. They share a setting, Celceta, and a starting premise; Hudson took more liberties with its presentation, and two unique games resulted. Any account that speaks of Ys IV as a single game is wrong on the record, and this Library prints the split wherever the game is named.

The music followed the house pattern Hudson had set with Ys I & II: original composition by Falcom Sound Team J.D.K. members Atsushi Shirakawa, Naoki Kaneda, Takahiro Tsunashima, and Masaru Nakajima, with the CD audio tracks arranged by Ryo Yonemitsu. Yonemitsu did not arrange the whole in game score, much of which was programmed for the console's internal sound chip by Osamu Narita, but he covered every track for the Perfect Collection Ys IV album series.

After the side view excursion of Ys III, The Dawn of Ys returns to the top down style of Ys I and II: contact combat, experience driven strength, and the magic system Ys II introduced, restored. It is, mechanically, the direct continuation of the Book I & II formula on more capable CD hardware, which is precisely what its Japanese audience wanted from it.

The documented record for this game is thinner than for its shelf mates, and the page reflects that rather than padding it: two review scores, both opened, one lukewarm and one ecstatic, which between them describe its actual standing: a well regarded Japan only entry whose Western reputation was built later, by importers and the fan translation.

Falcom's own later Celceta game would retell this chapter again, making The Dawn of Ys one of three official versions of Adol's Celceta journey. For collectors its meaning is simpler and stronger: it is a headline Falcom story that the West was never sold, on the console where the series' CD reputation was made.