I played
Ys Origin.
I've finished the
Chronicles versions of
I and
II before, but that's been it for me with this series. While especially Falcom's earlier output is pertinent to my general interests and tastes,
Ys is a particular concept that I can only stomach in small amounts. What it boils down to is that I dislike Adol as a central figure and don't want to inhabit his shoes for any extended period (and thus the earlier bumpy trot games are just bearable enough for their modest scale and time investment). He represents to me an uninterrogated default masculinity in video games as uncomfortably as characters like Link or Mario do, and with
Ys there's the additional stink of harem genre shading that underlies all of the narratives and the character's interactions with the world around him (
Zelda is this too). Combined with my general disinterest in the ballooning sizes of the games over time--a deterrent with Falcom's design trends as a whole--I've been fairly happy enjoying the vagueries of the series from the outside and nothing more.
Of course, that's where
Ys Origin comes in.
First off, I love a good ARPG as much as a DRPG, and
Origin is both: action set inside an isolated ecosystem of an extensive tower megastructure in the series's famous Darm Tower. For a game that's ostensibly geographically limited for its choice of setting, you really couldn't accuse
Origin of unimaginative locales in their layouts or aesthetics, and it's those limitations of a defined habitat that endow the game with its sense of narrative and structural intimacy, as the extending tower ascension shapes the story along the paths set by its sequential floors and connecting passages. I love the nominally identical exterior balconies tracing the walls of the tower: through choices of the camera's framing, outside weather and time of day conditions and the connecting tissue of what had transpired and what yet may in the story, each exterior jaunt is textured with a different emotional quality than the last. That's architecture built to last as video game spaces to travel through.
Framing the story's arc as a group investigation into hostile territory is also something that elevates the raw materials of the tale told, as the single-minded exploration is interrupted on occasion by the other parties carving their own paths through the tower, whether they're friendly, hostile, or something inbetween. It's that exact balance of a vast but contained location that allows buying into the idea that all the people present can and will stumble onto one another unexpectedly, or lie in wait at set locations in ways that a more open world structure would not as effectively convey. The artificiality of a video game space, its demands and necessities, are made more compelling to watch unfold through the deliberately artificial nature of Darm Tower itself, defining the narrative thrust of penetrating its recesses through its very shape and form.
The big appeal with this game and my interacting with it is of course Yunica's starring role as a protagonist, and compellingly argued as
the protagonist out of the game's playable cast. She's front and center in the game's promotional material; occupies a similar default role within it as a choice of player avatar; and perhaps most crucially inhabits the mechanical role and legacy of Adol's RPG hero archetype stylings in how she plays, what equipment she carries, and how her overall scenario transpires in context with the other characters. That is very important because what is tired and stock for Adol turns into a nearly subversive display for the series and larger genre when the role is played by a woman, and it's not just that base reversal that makes Yunica significant--it's all the little things about her presentation.
The most important factor here is probably the visual design of the game overall. Outside of the original games and their singular aesthetic vision, the mid-2000s period for
Ys and Falcom was likely the high point in how these games fashioned themselves to look. In addition to 3D environments playing host to squat and evocative pre-rendered sprites, the portrait and concept art (by Shunsuke Taue) lives and breathes a sense of unadorned, unassuming grace and functionally attractive mundanity that is a tough balance to walk and nail down in its high specifics and the necessary restraint exhibited without falling into forgettable anonymity. The plain nature of these designs and how the characters are presented is about as far from exploitative as you can get for the context, and appears as a lost tonal balance as seen now--heaven knows Falcom's artists have done worse since.
With that demonstrable ethos fueling the game's visual identity, Yunica's existence in the role she occupies is made all the more remarkable in just how she's specifically defined. Narratively, she operates with the premise that she has no magical capability in a setting where magic is valued, somewhat normalized and important to life in and outside of conflict. Instead, she just has bullheaded determination, the strength in her arms, and the faith and love for her goddesses to carry her forward. A physically-defined leading woman is already rare enough for the genre, but in that space there exist their own sets of cultural and social conventions that shape the depiction of such outliers, often translating to fighting styles and choices of armament that are in some way coded sufficiently feminine to remain acceptable within the fiction. Yunica does not get a bow, nor a staff, or a naginata--hell, she never kicks anyone even once. Instead she wields a large axe as naturally as anything, without it ever being "justified", commented upon, or doubted by others. It's simply what she trained to use and that's what we're left with, the character's preferences in such things left privy only to themselves. Axe-wielders are themselves in fantasy works an underserved contingent, usually playing supporting roles to the heroic swordfolk if they're present at all; the casting of one as the primary hero is itself a choice that emphasizes Yunica's other individual merits and qualities. Things get even more solidly rejectful of underthought stock conventions as the narratively significant secondary arm Yunica attains and wields for the remainder of the game is a heavy greatsword, of all things.
That's largely the power demonstrated in Yunica's portrayal, in that she is a wrecking ball of straightforward mayhem in ways that women do not get to be in fiction like this, not with these verbs and tools. At the same time, I'd caution against the thinking that Yunica attains worth for adopting "masculine" signifiers in her depiction, because while a narrow and dehumanizing angle on its own, it would also be a shortsighted assessment of who the character is in light of the elements that exist in just her visual design alone. The way Yunica is dressed isn't so much a rejection of femininity but an uncommonly unexploitative affirmation of it, which in the common language of video games is almost shocking in its seeming contradictions. Everything about her attire is functional, and in its functionality it also looks like clothes that would be fun, comfortable and fitting to wear. This is such a difficult balance to find in visual design--either characters are presented in ludicrous garb for the viewer's benefit and not their own, or visual interest is totally lost on the audience's side for the lack of compelling definition in the fashion itself. Yunica looks ready for extended swinging of her signature axe with her padded mittens; she also looks like she enjoys wearing her dress and shawl for the clothes they are, beyond function. It's a marvelous interaction of visual, narrative and mechanical design elements that exist in her.
All the good in
Ys Origin is filtered through this lens that crystallizes in Yunica, and which extends to the rest of the game through her. Like with any latched-onto representation, Yunica's portrayal succeeds because she isn't solely responsible for creating and maintaining it; she can be who she is in the context of everyone else around her. And this is the real joy of
Ys Origin, because for all who I would consider its main star, the game's extensive yet compact cast, twenty souls or so all told, applies that depth of suggestive shading to everyone you ever meet in it. There's an economy of dialogue that allows these characters to exist more as ephemeral suggestions than endlessly-dwelled upon personages, and it's enough that that's where the narrative extends and limits itself. In the same way, visual designs as evocative as Yunica's define them even more than their words do, and happily women get to exist, get to do things, in various roles, and in almost exact equal number to the men. Yunica is not Ramona who is not Eolia who is not Cadena who is not Miuscha who is not Zava--but they all are themselves, and make the narrative matter more beyond the necessities of the immediate plot and how it shapes play. It's not, unsurprisingly, a faultless treatment of interpersonal dynamics and the gender roles within, but for this developer and this series especially, it's downright liberating for how the story is told, and about whom.
I'm left with positive impressions about
Origin specifically because it is not the rest of its series, and while I appreciate a world without Adol even beyond Yunica's scenario, who knows if I'll be compelled to keep playing it through the other characters' eyes. It's an unreserved recommendation in the context of its larger series, or for those grousers that potentially carry their own share of the chip on my shoulder that I've detailed here.
