Nihon Falcom is a small developer known among fans for its wonderful music. While the Trails series is their flagship, they are also known for their Ys series of action RPGs. With Ys 10: Nordics set to release next month, let’s take a look back at the series’ 37-year history of spectacular songs.

Samsara and Paramnesia (Origin)

Ys Origin was released in the West in 2012 with a Nintendo Switch port in 2020 and is a love letter to the first two games in the series. It uses the same engine as Ark of Napishtim and Oath in Felghana, often called the Napishtim Engine. Unlike the rest of the games in the series, instead of playing as red-haired hero Adol Christin, Origin features three playable protagonists: Yunica Tovah, Hugo Fact, and unlockable protagonist Toal Fact. This prequel game takes place 700 years before the events of Ys 1, with the playable characters implied to be ancestors of the ones Adol meets.

Samsara and Paramnesia is the music that plays in the Blighted Blood section of the tower. Blighted Blood is the penultimate section of the tower before the game’s final boss. In Yunica’s campaign, it’s the section where the game’s villain Dalles appears to petrify some of the knights she’s allied with. Hugo’s campaign, on the other hand, sees him manipulated by the game’s villain into accepting demonic powers. Meanwhile, Toal’s campaign shows him ambushed by Dalles and a recently converted Hugo. Being a dark but driving rock song, Samsara and Paramnesia fits thematically with the events of each character’s story.

The Place Where Souls Return (SEVEN)

Ys 7 was released in 2009 for the PlayStation Portable, and released on Steam in 2012. SEVEN, along with Memories of Celceta, Lacrimosa of Dana, and Monstrum Nox, uses the playstyle of modern Ys games: multiple party members accompanying Adol, which the player can switch to controlling at any time during gameplay. It takes place in the fictional kingdom of Altago, on the continent of Afroca. For a first in the series, SEVEN features Adol’s best friend Dogi as a playable party member.

The Place Where Souls Return is the music for SEVEN‘s final dungeon, the Well of Souls. As the theme track’s title implies, the Well of Souls is where souls (and sometimes even architecture) are dragged back to during the Wind of Destruction, a ritual that brings about the destruction and subsequent rebuilding of Altago. Adol and his party are tasked with stopping the Wind of Destruction, which includes diving into the Well of Souls and fighting the person who is conducting the ritual. As is tradition with the series, the final dungeon theme is energetic and very catchy.

Next Step Towards the Unknown (Lacrimosa of Dana)

Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana was originally released in 2016 for the PlayStation Vita, and later re-released on Nintendo Switch in 2018. Though the game had localization problems when it was first brought to the West, to date it is one of the most critically acclaimed games in the series, and for good reason. Lacrimosa of Dana was one of the first games in the series to feature fully voiced cutscenes. It was also the first of the series to allow the player to fully control the camera, rather than locking it to specific angles.

Next Step Towards the Unknown plays as Adol and his party race down the mountain Genderme to the northern side of the mysterious Isle of Seiren. The northern half of the island has been a mystery for the first half of the game, so the driving rock guitar perfectly suits the anticipation and excitement of finally getting to explore a side of the island that’s been a secret for so long. This theme also continues a trend that’s very common across Lacrimosa of Dana‘s OST, of pairing violins with electric guitars. With the game featuring dual protagonists Adol and Dana, the interweaving of the two instruments can be seen as representing the two characters’ stories becoming intertwined.

Honorable Mentions

• Glessing Way! (Monstrum Nox)
• Heart Beat Shaker (Monstrum Nox)
• A Golden Key Can Open Any Door (Monstrum Nox)
• Water Prison (Origin)
• Scarlet Tempest (Origin)
• You’ll See Out the End of the Tales (Lacrimosa of Dana)
• Vanishing Trail (Lacrimosa of Dana)
• Public Palace (SEVEN)
• Extensive Forest Green (SEVEN)
• Smashing Through the Mountain Path (SEVEN)
• Marionette, Marionette (Monstrum Nox)
• Eroded Valley (Lacrimosa of Dana)
• Ultramarine Deep (Ark of Napishtim)
• Overwater Drive (Ark of Napishtim)
• Ernst (Ark of Napishtim)
• Palace of Destruction (Ys 1 Chronicles)
• Subterranean Canal (Ys 2 Chronicles)
• Illburns Ruins (Oath in Felghana)
• A Searing Struggle (Oath in Felghana)
• Sealed Time (Oath in Felghana)
• Field of Gale (Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand)

Final Thoughts

This is far from an exhaustive list of the Ys series’ best tracks. With the series’ long legacy of great music, fun gameplay, and lovable characters, there’s a lot of anticipation about the Western localization of Nordics next month. Will the newest game’s OST call back to previous games’ tracks, while also forging its own musical identity? What will Nordics‘ final dungeon theme sound like? Considering the series’ long-running joke about Adol’s adventures starting with a shipwreck, what will it be like to have Adol at the helm of a ship? Is there a possibility of Dogi being a playable character again, given that the game seems to take place after Ys 2 but before Memories of Celceta?

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