Ys VIII Lacrimosa of Dana

[APAROT]

I'm a huge fan of RPGs in general, but if there's a company which games have made me fall in love with, is Nihon Falcom. Their games have this meticulous craftmanship, and focus on gameplay, without letting loose script, and such awesome music by their in-house band, that is hard not to like their games!
They're the grandfathers of Action RPG and many modern mechanics we see today.

Anyways, their Ys Series is one of the most beloved (although unknown to many) and best series of RPGs out there, and it's one of the first Action RPGs. In recent years, they were mostly brought over by the beloved folks of XSEED Games, but they lost the battle against NISA, for the VIII entry of the series.

The english version of this entry will be shown for the first time on a Live Streaming on NISA's Twitch channel, so I just wanted anyone to know, to see if it interests you. This series it's too awesome, and it's such a shame that not many gamers know aboyt it. It deserves all the success in the world!

This is the NISA Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/nisamerica
There's also a fanpage that's so well done, you can't believe it's actually made by fans.
So, if you're interested in knowing more about this series, please check it out (no, I'm not related in anyway to either NISA, XSEED, or the creator of this website, but I really want more people to get on the Ys love train). https://www.digitalemelas.com/

 

[Juno]

Ys Origin has been a game that's been on my backlog for a while now - I actually don't know too much about the series but I got it in a bundle and never got around to playing it. I'm also a big fan of RPGs though, so this definitely looks like something I'd enjoy. :) How much continuity is there in the series? Is it more like Final Fantasy in that you don't have to play previous installments to get into the newer games, or is there a main story to follow along?

 

[APAROT]

Ys Origin has been a game that's been on my backlog for a while now - I actually don't know too much about the series but I got it in a bundle and never got around to playing it. I'm also a big fan of RPGs though, so this definitely looks like something I'd enjoy. :) How much continuity is there in the series? Is it more like Final Fantasy in that you don't have to play previous installments to get into the newer games, or is there a main story to follow along?

Ys supposedly is the story of Adol Christin since his first adventure. Ys Origins, is the only Ys Game that's not based on Adol, but helps to explain more on the lore of the game, and understand why the first Ys game happened.
However, you can play Ys on any order you want. Of course, it helps to play them on launch date order, rather than chronologically, in my opinion, since the order not necessarily marks the time line of the story. For example, Ys Seven is the latest Adol adventure in the timeline, but Ys VIII, it's barely after the IV game (I'm not entirely sure, but it's way before Seven).
In the Digital Emelas website there's a more detailed and better explanation on that. Hope you give it a try! And thanks for the interest!