Ys (イース, Īsu, IPA: [iːsɯ]) (English: /ˈiːs/) is a Japanese computer and console role-playing game series, and Nihon Falcom corporation's flagship franchise. It started on the NEC PC-8801 in 1987. Ys titles have appeared on the X1, X1turbo, MSX2, FM-7/77, FM-77AV, NEC PC-9801, X68000, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, Sega Saturn, Famicom, Super Famicom, Nintendo DS, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, TurboGrafx/PC-Engine CD-ROM, cellular phone, SNES, and on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console service.
In early games, the player uses solely the directional pad to fight. The player must literally run Adol into enemies, hitting them on the side, back or slightly off-center of the front. Ys III: Wanderers from Ys adopted side-scrolling action-adventure gameplay, similar to Zelda II, with an attack button and a variety of different attacks. The classic control scheme returned in Ys IV: Mask of the Sun. With Ys V: Kefin, the Lost City of Sand, the game adopted a top-down viewpoint. Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim graphically departed from its predecessors, using three-dimensional graphics and hack-and-slash gameplay.
Source: Wikipedia, Ys %28series%29 , available under the CC-BY-SA 36License.