Story	5/10	Characters	5/10
	Graphics	7/10	Music	6/10
	Gameplay	7/10	Extras	6/10
Reviewer: Chi Phan Final Score: 6/10

Ever heard of the YS action rpg series? No? Then you're not alone. YS: The Ark of Napishtim is the sixth installment of the series which extends all the way back to the 16 bit era. However the YS series is really a series from the PC platform as oppose to the console platform. From the surface this looks like a good action rpg game similar to the Alundra series from the Playstation. But is it as good as it looks? That's something we are going to discuss about.

My name is Ohla. The end of the world is near. At a tavern, Adol and his friend Dogi met with a pirate name Ladoc and his daughter Terra. Adol had previously met Terra in one of his earlier adventures and this is the first time the two of them have been re-united since those days. Their reunion however was short lived as Romun soldiers came in searching to arrest Adol. Adol and Dogi fled the soldiers by climbing aboard Ladoc pirate ship and journeying out into the open sea. On board the pirate ship, Ladoc expresses his interest in heading out to the Great Vortex of Canaan where legend speaks of great treasure to be found there. Adol agreed to this idea and the ship set sail heading for the vortex. However at the Great Vortex, a fleet of powerful Romun battleships attacked the pirate ship resulted in knocking Adol overboard and into the Great Vortex that swallowed him up. As time passes by, Adol washed ashore on the beach of Quatera Island where two Rehdan sisters named Olha and Isha discovered him and took him to their Rehdan Village. As dawn approaches, Adol met and talked with the Rehdan chief named Ord. From Ord, Adol learned that he isn't the only human to have washed ashore from the Great Vortex. In fact through the history of Quatera Island, there have been many humans that have been swallowed up by the Great Vortex and ended up on Quatera Island. These humans have set up a village on the other side of the island. If Adol wish to find a way to get off Quatera Island then he must trek through ancient ruins filled with monters to the other side of the island to make contact with the other humans. With a sword given to him by Ord, Adol set off on his quest in hopes of finding a way home. The story is fairly pretty short and doesn't really have too much of a purpose. The trek between Rehdan Vallage and Port Rimorge is very short. Once Adol reached Port Rimorge, the story takes a turn where he basically has to do some errands for some of the citizens of Port Rimorge. This in turn set up the gameplay of exploring dungeons. Near the end of the game, the story starts to shift into the save the world by the hero phase of the game that you see in every rpg. The Romun Fleet has managed to breach the Great Vortex and have landed on Quatera Island. They are lead by Ernst, a young commander in the Fleet. Ernst goal is to resurrect the Ark of Napishtim in hopes of gaining power over the world. Of course we can't have that happening. Adol goals then shifted into stopping Ernst from resurrecting the Ark. The story didn't spend too much of a background into what the Ark of Napishtim is or what purpose it was created for. It really is an underdeveloped story that lacks anything of any interests to the gamers out there. The Ark subplot seemed to be place in there solely for the purpose of having some sort of end game boss fight. The characters are very poorly introduced and used. There just wasn't any meat to this story that would hold anyone's attention span. Please look elsewhere if you think stories are what make rpgs special.

I've grown up now, Adol. Interesting characters seem to be lacking in this game. Since this is an action rpg game, the main character would only be the hero, Adol Christin. The main hero doesn't talk in this game. All other story characters do talk with their perspective voice actors. It's not new to have a main hero that doesn't talk in an action rpg game, but if you're going to have that then the characters surrounding him should be interesting to give the story some depth and personalities. However that's not the case here. Each story character seems to lack real depth to them. The story doesn't spend any time developing them and letting us know any pass history to them. Heck, even the main character Adol whom is known throughout the world as Adol the Red from his adventures in the previous games is poorly developed. The game doesn't give us any clues as to how he gained such fame in the world. And since this game is a sequel to the other YS games, there are quite a bit of returning characters that the game introduce us to. And yet the game gives no clear indication on how Adol met these characters and what sort of relationship he has with them. We don't see any sort of pass history on Adol or any other characters at all. How can you introduce characters to gamers and not give any in-sight on where they are from and how they formed such relationship bonds with one another is beyond me? I had no interest in any of these characters at all. A good rpg need to have good characters where gamers can relate to. It's as plain and simple as that.

Another adventure awaits us. YS graphics are a mix bag between good and not so good. YS have that feel of old school 16 bit graphics but it's really an animated 3-D lush background environment. Impressive are how realistic some of the render backgrounds are. One can't help but stop and admire the beauty of the forest when you're traveling through it. The trees, plants, and bushes look like they are about to come to life. The various different colors used in the game also give credit to the render background environment. Towns and villages are also design exceptionally well with details on each houses and shops. The render polygon characters are in short 3-D forms that pay homage to the short sprite character designs of the 16 bit era. The animated movement of these characters as they walk and interact with other characters are done smoothly too. Moving the main hero around in the surrounding area gives you the full meaning of free style movement. I really like the overall gameplay graphic design. However I really can't say the same about the CG movies. Some of the CG movie is ok but for the most part, the design of the CG movie felt totally out of place with these characters. The beginning CG movies were a bit too soft and out of focus for my taste as oppose to the sharper CG movies near the end of the game. It doesn't help that the CG movie didn't match one another in terms of quality and designs. When I say designs I mean character designs. They just look different from one another. You'll know what I'm talking about when you witness the CG movie involving scenes of the pirate ship and the CG movie involving the Rehdan girls. They look like they don't belong in the same game with one another. It also doesn't help that the CG movie doesn't really fit into the overall game design. This is one of those games where I think the game would have been better off without CG movie cut scenes. Good gameplay graphics but bad movie graphics. That's a first for me.

You don't like my music? In all honesty I didn't notice too much about the musical scores in this game. The game is too short and the story isn't in-depth enough to have any real particular heart felt musical scores playing behind the background. Most of the tunes you will notice are the ones being played while you are trekking through the woods or dungeons. Musical boss scores are also present but the real lack is those wonderful heart warming musical scores of a character or story cut scene. They maybe present but you just don't notice much at all. What you do notice is the sound effects of the surrounding environment. If you turn up the volume you can easily hear the sounds that make up the world of YS. Adol's footsteps as he's running through the forest or crossing a bridge, birds chirping in the forest, and water flowing from a nearby stream. These are some of the examples of excellent realistic sound effects that help bring this 3-D world to life. With the exception of the sound effects, voice acting is the second most noticeable thing. All the dialogue in this game is done in voice acting. The voice acting however is a mix bag. I guess you can say it's half and half. I guess the view point depends on which character that you are listening to. Some characters I think are done quite nice while other characters you just can't stand listening to them talk. The good and bad of the voice acting sort of cancel each other out. As a whole, the musical aspect of the game didn't really grab my attention other than the sound effects and the voice acting. The theme of the story and gameplay didn't require the game to have a strong musical presence I suppose.

Feel the magic of thunder! This the Ark of Napishtim? Game Information    Genre: Action Rpg    Publisher: Konami    Disc: 1 DVD Disc    Memory: 190 KB    Players: 1 Player Mode    Analog Control: Yes    Vibration Function: Yes    Rating: Teen    Release: February 2005 Ark of Napishtim is an action rpg game. Your basic hack and slash game where you explore dungeons to make your progress in the story. The game can be played in a couple of difficulty modes at first. However more difficulty modes can be unlocked in the Cheat Menu or after completing your first game. The game itself is pretty straight forward but at times you might have difficulty figuring out where to go next. If there's any point in the game where you are stuck as to what to do next, talking to the towns people will provide hints as to what your destination is where to find it. Like with most action rpg game, if there's a point in the dungeon exploring where you can't go further then chances are that you need a particular tool to help you advance further into the dungeon. Hints for what special tools are needed can come from just talking to the villagers. There are only 2 villages in the overall game so in contrast the world of YS isn't too big. The basic concept of your gameplay is to hack and slash against roaming monsters to gain experience points and money. Buy your armor and items from shops and even upgrade your swords at a specialty shop, nothing really too special from the gameplay. Here are some minor features to take note on. Emelas Swords:You will start out with one Emelas Sword at the beginning. That will change however as you make your way through various stages of the game and begin collecting the rest of the two swords. Each of the three swords corresponds to an element. Your sword will begin at level 1. You can raise your sword level to a max at level 11 at an Emelas Shop. However in order to upgrade your sword, you need a certain amount of emelas to pay for the upgrade. Emelas are dropped from monsters as you kill them just like the same way you obtain gold so you shouldn't have any difficulty obtaining emelas for sword upgrades. Note that each elemental sword has a different attack style when they are being used to hack and slash a monster. So you might find one Emelas Sword to be more better at hacking and slashing a monster. Sword Magic: Magic is very limited in this game. The use of magic comes from your swords. Each sword has only one type of elemental magic attach to it, hence the reason why I say magic is very limited. Sword magic is ok but I didn't find much use for them at all unless it's a boss fight. Dash Slash: This is a move where you run up to a monster and slash it by tossing it up in the air. In theory it looks like a good idea but in reality it's pretty useless. The basic hack and slash combo works just as good if not better. I may have used this move only once in the entire game just to check out what the move looks like. Dash Jump:This is basically a super jump as oppose to a regular jump. Sometimes I wonder that the only reason this game have this move is to try and frustrate you into hating this game. The move is just too annoying to do it right most of the time because of the crappy timing you need to perfect it in order to do it right. It's also is pretty useless in the game. This move is required to be used maybe 3-4 times only in the game and that's only if you want to get some optional items. Outside of that, Dash Jump is useless and has no purpose. And the items you need to get from Dash Jump aren't exactly the must get kind of items you need to get in order to be able to beat the game or anything. Honesty the gameplay isn't too bad. A bit too basic for my taste and most of the so called key features I mention above didn't play much of a vital role in the game. You can basically jump, hack and slash your way through dungeons and bosses. Of course throw in a few sword magic spells now and then, a very easy gameplay to get into right a way. It took me about 4 to 5 days to complete this game. That should indicate to you that the game itself isn't too long. Unlike other action rpg games, this one doesn't have a lot of puzzle elements at all. At the most, you be just exploring the dungeons and finding your way to the very end of it for the boss fight. Difficulty depends on the difficulty mode you are playing in. I look at the gameplay as a great set up for those that want to try an action rpg for the first time. However if you're a pro at playing action rpg game then there's not much here that would hold your interest.

Score: 7/10

Are you ready for the trials, Adol? Not too many extras featured from the in-game content view. At the start of the main menu there's a cheat menu that you can enter and activate. These cheats can unlock certain things like getting the JP Anime opening movie instead of the CG NA movie opening as you start a new game, or unlock Japanese voice acting instead of the North American dub ones. You can also unlock different difficulty modes of the game as well. Note that these difficulty modes can also be unlock after you finish your first game as well. I didn't find too much usefulness from the Cheat Menu. As for in-game extras, there are minor and I do mean minor side quests that you can do. These include fighting a few extra sub bosses and completing a 5 floor dungeon called Alma's Trials. The heart of the in-game extra is the Alma's Trial dungeon but the dungeon itself is too short and lacks any real challenge to be worth much overall. There's no New Game+ mode but there are various difficulty modes you can try out if you want to give the game a second go around. However I didn't find the game overall to be worth much to give it a second go around. There just wasn't much to do once I reach the last dungeon either than to finish the game. The game definitely needs more gameplay value outside of the original in-story gameplay.

After completing YS, I'm left with a feeling of wanting more. The game is a decent action rpg game but it's not something that a hard core experience rpg gamer would want to play due to its basic gameplay and the shortness of it. This is a basic old school action rpg game, very good for beginners but if you've played dozen of action rpg games before, you'll want more meat in this game. I was able to finish this game in about five days, that's way too short for an rpg game. If you're short on time and looking for some light rpg snack to help pass the time then I would recommend getting this game, if not then skip it for a more in-depth rpg game that can offer more. Final Score: 6/10