Ys 2 Special Game Recording
I never thought I’d one day make something as awesome as adding “Falcom” and “SoundTeMP” tags to an entry here on saladedemaïs. This day has arrived though, and to explain how, I will quote Seldane/FM77, who’s responsible for bringing that gem to the light:
“In 1994, something fantastic was created. A Korean company known as MANTRA released a game called Ys II SPECIAL – under the slogan “Features For The Future.”
“Ys II SPECIAL is – just like Ys II ETERNAL – a remake of the original Ys II. However, Ys II SPECIAL is so much more than just a remake. It can be compared to what Taito did with Ys IV: Mask of the Sun. They gave the game a whole new layout – a whole new feel – and named it Ys IV: Mask of the Sun – A New Theory. This is what MANTRA did – they made “a new theory” of Ys II. (Although – unlike Taito – MANTRA succeeded in it.)”
Exited yet ? Wait for the rest …
“It contains all the music from Ys II, but since this game contains so much more than Ys II does, it needs more music. And it has. Lots of it. And it is good! It was composed by a group of Korean musicians known as soundTEmP.”
Bam. There you go. Suddenly you realize there’s Falcom music arranged for DOS Adlib by the composers of Ragnarok Online out there. Oh, and I don’t know about you but I’m also an Adlib fan by the way. So yeah, I just had to get my hands on this. A link to a Korean website containing all the recorded tracks was posted on Seldane’s Ancient Land of Ys, but turned out to be dead. Fortunately, I managed to get them from someone who carefully saved them (thanks again Groenegel <3), and could finally feast my ears on this improbable awesomeness. And here it is delivered to you, faithful *cough* readers. I tagged, renamed and reordered everything according to the usual Ys 2 tracklisting, incorporating SoundTeMP’s work here and there. I didn’t play the game though, so the order probably won’t make sense to those who did (approximately 7 people outside of Korea, that is).
As a bonus, I added arranged tracks from this album. ;)
Well, enjoy !!! :D
edit 24/03/2011: tracks reordered and renamed after Groenegel’s recommendations ;)
Read Seldane’s full Ys II Special Article
edit 04/10/2013: new proper recording by zonx !
March 24th, 2011 at 10:52 am
Thank you. niki
Ys 2 Special Three Version.
-Roland SC-55
-OKSORI Professional 3.0
-Adlib
Roland SC-55.. It is possible ?
March 24th, 2011 at 10:57 am
I didnt record these versions myself, but damn a Roland recording would be awesome indeed !!! :o
March 24th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
MIDI package version (Roland SC-55 and OKSORI Professional 3.0) and CD-DA version.
It’s been canceled.. But Sound TeMP! finish the work ..perhaps..perhaps ^^
March 24th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Whoah CD-DA ! Too bad ! Do you have the MIDI package version or know where to find it ? The version of the game I have will only play Adlib in DosBox …
March 24th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Supposedly this game supports Roland MT-32 sound. Though I don’t recall seeing such an option in the setup screen, perhaps it appears if you have an MT-32/LAPC-1 soundcard installed?
March 24th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Hmmmmm ok, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about, but wouldn’t MT32 support would require actual MIDI files ? Or can the same music code be read by both Adlib and MIDI cards ? Again, I don’t know much about that, but that sounds weird to me. =/
March 24th, 2011 at 8:42 pm
edit 24/03/2011: tracks reordered and renamed after Groenegel’s recommendations ;)
March 25th, 2011 at 1:23 am
I’m not much of an expert either but I’m positive both Adlib and Roland can be played through MIDI… given the FM sound quality in Ys II though, I am lead to believe they wrote sequences specific to each card (which is not a problem for Adlib since many cards are backwards compatible with it). Anyway, a game using MIDI doesn’t imply the MIDI files are provided “as is” in the game directory, if that’s what you were hoping for.
March 26th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
Weird that you (someone who has some very awesome obscure Falcom and soundTeMP stuff on this site) only found out about this recently! I’ve had this for months and would have thought you were probably the one the rip originated from!
Anyway, as long as you have it now! But as it happens, you have delivered something obscure and awesome again (thanks for those extra arranged tracks!)
March 26th, 2011 at 6:02 pm
Interesting tidbit:- Elf Village was later arranged by soundTeMP in Leithian.
By the way, seeing as you only found out about Ys II Special recently, I wonder if you have heard other obscure soundTeMP works like Leithian (very short) or War of Chunrang (pure soundTeMP; I like to see it as a continuation of the more oriental tracks from Ragnarok Online). I’d be more than happy to point you in the direction of some links!
March 26th, 2011 at 6:27 pm
ahaha, well those last 2 years have been pretty busy and I don’t check as many places as I used to. Thanks for the info though. I know Chunrang but not Leithian. Would be interested to hear that indeed ! :p
March 26th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
tora.to/discutter/92373.htm
Currently, the servers are taking too long to respond, but hopefully that’s just temporary. You see other stuff like AceSaga there as well, also soundTeMP. Just don’t get your hopes up about Leithian, all but two tracks (Title and Ending) are less than 1:00, so it’s basically just jingles, but interesting that it’s soundTeMP nonetheless!
Credit to kirafreedom, I’m just the messenger!
March 26th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
Awesome ! Thanks friend ;)
October 5th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Thank you for posting this and taking the time to do the tagging. Been listening to SoundTEMP lately and this is a great re-discovery.
May 30th, 2013 at 4:29 pm
I can’t say how much I thank you.
Your priceless data is perfect.
Frankly, I recorded the YS 2 special mp3 several years ago, but unfortuately I lost the date.
I still remembert the music what I heard when I played the game first, and your work reminded me that memory.
Thank you again, and I wish you continued success and good health in the years ahead.
May 30th, 2013 at 4:42 pm
You’re very welcome Robert ! Thanks for the kind words, and glad I made you happy ! ^^
June 30th, 2013 at 3:33 pm
Hi. I’m zonx from South Korea.
I think that your recordings are based on files in here : http://pl.ssu.ac.kr/~delios/adlib (now it closed temporally.)
But, that is not an actually game recording.
It just play *.rol files with bank file and recored it. The uploader said that some instructions are missed. (There is the note of the uploader wrote in Korean.)
So I play the game, record it digital, and make public a “Perfect” Ys II Special Game Recording at my blog.
Here it is : http://zonx.egloos.com/5753483
[unused] is the bgm that not used in game. It cannot be play on game so I copied the recordings on http://pl.ssu.ac.kr/~delios/adlib
[secret area] is the bgm that you entered secret area.
[Game World…… ver.] is arrange tracks.
August 8th, 2013 at 9:44 pm
This is coming rather late, but some of the track names in your recordings could use more common/correct translations:
The Morning Grow –> The Morning Glow
Selseta –> Celceta
Dabi –> Dabbie
Palace of Salmon –> Palace of Solomon
Companile of Lane –> Campanile of Lane
Dales –> Dalles
Daam –> Darm
Develloper Room –> Developer Room
Thanks very much for having this up for download. Appreciated. (:
October 6th, 2013 at 1:35 pm
Hi. I managed to extract the in-game recordings and log them to .vgm using another MANTRA-licensed falcom game (Eiyuu Densetsu II). One thing I noticed was that there is a missing song (presumably ending, see ys2_058.vgm)
You can download it here. Use Foobar2000 foo_gme or Winamp in_vgm 0.40.3/VGMPlay to play.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1287967/ys2special-raw.rar
October 8th, 2013 at 2:12 am
whoah neat ! well it crashed my winamp right now but I’ll have to give it a proper try when I have more time. ^^;
Recordings of all of these Mantra games should be made ! :D
September 1st, 2014 at 4:33 pm
OK. Just thought I’d mention that above zip has now been trimmed/looped and tagged.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1287967/Ys%20II%20Special%20%28OPL2%29.zip
Enjoy!
September 1st, 2014 at 4:35 pm
Also, here are also tagged .vgm sets for the MANTRA ports of Eiyuu Densetsu I and II respectively.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1287967/Dragon%20Slayer%20-%20The%20Legend%20of%20Heroes%20%28OPL2%29.zip
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1287967/Dragon%20Slayer%20-%20The%20Legend%20of%20Heroes%20II%20%28OPL2%29.zip
February 19th, 2015 at 12:07 pm
Hi MaliceX ! Sorry your posts somehow got lost in the spam filter. Thanks for posting these ! :D