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XyZ - About the Site

So What is XyZ?

XyZ stands for as you might guess, "Zelda, Ys, Xak" in which this site is dedicated to these three legendary series in all respects. Having been a webmaster for various gaming sites in the past, I wanted to try and develop a singular site that would focus on one specific genre that I've always been fond of: The Action-Adventure-Role Playing genre. I am a fan of many, many different games and series that belong to this genre, however there are three game series in particular that especially deserve attention in that they offer a legacy of a adventurer's ongoing quest to fight against the evils of their worlds. Thus the idea came one day to make a site about all three of these series rather than three seperate sites. It is taken quite awhile to get to this point in the creation of the site as I have limited time to work on the site, but I feel that it is coming along quite nicely. Currently only the Xak content and a bit of the information regarding other Action-Adventure-Rpgs are available with more content always around the corner!

Preface:

When dealing with adventure games and adventure roleplaying games, most gamers know all about the famous Legend of Zelda series. And there are quite a lot of gamers out there that enjoy and respect this series as well as this type of genre, that of overhead sword-slashing-action gameplay as the hero quests for items that will make him strong enough to defeat the main boss of the game.

Another series that is both similar to Zelda and yet vastly different is that of the Ys series, which while respected by many gamers as probably the next best action-adventure-rpg series in that category, the amount of fans that play or even know about the Ys series are far less when compared to Zelda’s fans. You might even say that the Ys series is an underdog to the Zelda series.

There is another series out there as well, a third series of games that are very well done and very similar to the Ys series in terms of gameplay as well as many other elements such as characters, art style, combat, means of equipment, setting, et cetera. This series is known as the Xak series and while it is every bit as creative and fun as the Ys series, there are not a lot of gamers out there that even know of its existence. And many of the ones that do know about this series know that most of the recent versions of the Xak games are still in Japanese, while the rest of the games that have been translated are a bit harder to find and originally came out for a Japanese computer/system/platform known as the MSX.

All three of these game series have something in common, (yes, aside from the fact that you play as a young adventurer that primarily fights with a sword and has to save the world from evil) all three of these series have a story that is so classic, that it has to be retold time and time again through newer and fancier versions of the same games. In Zelda the story of Link, the hero and Ganon, the corrupted evil villain and Zelda, the princess that Link is sent to rescue is eternally retold throughout many of the game in the series. Their story and struggle is repeated many times with each new rehash offering something more that the others did not.

 

 

Various The Legend of Zelda series screenshots below:

Link, from The Legend of Zelda

The same can be said for the Ys series, especially that of the first two games of which is usually referred to as “Ys Books I & II. Together, these two games make the full story, the original story of the series and the one that started it all for Ys. These two games have been remade and re-mastered many times during its history as to not only retell the story in a updated sort of way, but to allow fans to relive their nostalgia of the original classics.

 

 

 

Various Ys series screenshots below:

Adol Christin, from Ys

This also applies to the Xak series, in that just about all of the games have been remade for many different console and computer systems. All of the Xak games released for this MSX system have been translated, however the newer versions of the same games, the ones with prettier graphics and cutscenes have been untouched and are still in Japanese, aside from the final game of the series titled “Xak III: The Eternal Recurrence” which was translated by Nightwolve fairly recently. It was through his translation of Xak III that I first came to know about this series and what I found was that this wonderful series was not very well known about by the general gaming populous, as a matter of fact it seemed as though only a handful of “old school” gamers even knew that these games existed.

Various Xak series screenshots below:

Latok Kart, from Xak

It was my original fandom of the Legend of Zelda games that led me to try the Ys series, and it was through the online Ys community that I discovered the Xak series. You might say that one thing led to another and it is for this very reason why I’ve chosen to create XyZ to focus on all three game series respectively as well as the overall similarity of this particular style of action-adventure-rpg genre these classics share in common.

My aim for this site is simple. I want others who enjoy these types of games and genre to discover other series that are similar in form, and conceptual style. If I can get at least ten Zelda fans to discover the Ys series and at least ten Ys fans to discover the Xak series I will consider this site a success. My primary focus on this site will be the Xak series as there are already a great many Zelda fansites out there and some very nice Ys fansites as well. There are not a lot of Xak related fansites out there as this series is commonly overlooked. My personal goal of this site is to make it easier for fans of this genre to at least try the Xak series if they have not already and have a chance to easily find and play any and every Xak game ever released. I also hope that perhaps one day the interest in the series will perhaps lead to fan-translation projects of some of the Xak games left untranslated. I would very much like to start the process myself, but right now I know next to nothing about romhacking and my Japanese skill alone is not high enough to even put a dent into the scripts, save for the translation of character names, place names, item names and menus.

So all of this basically just an idea, an idea that has grown into this very website, XyZ. However ideas can oftentimes lead to greater things down the road and so I hope that this idea of seeing more of the untranslated Xak games translated into English will one day become a reality.

-SkyeWelse