Play Ancient Land of Ys Online

Game Overview

Ancient Land of Ys is one of those old-school action RPGs that feels simple at first but gets surprisingly deep. You play as a swordsman trying to stop an evil wizard who’s wrecking the land with stolen magic—classic setup, but the way you fight is weirdly satisfying. Instead of button mashing, you just walk into enemies to attack, but the angle matters. Hit them from the side or back, and you take less damage. Mess up, and you’ll be standing still a lot waiting for your health to regen (which, yeah, is a thing).

The dungeons are full of hidden walls and teleport traps, so you’ll be poking at every suspicious corner. Townsfolk drop hints about better gear hidden somewhere, and you’ll need it—later enemies hit hard. The music’s surprisingly catchy for an ‘89 MS-DOS game, and the pixel art holds up better than you’d expect. Just don’t get too attached to that mirror item—it freezes enemies but shatters after a few uses.

It’s got that old-school charm where nothing’s handed to you, but figuring it out feels rewarding. Definitely a relic, but a fun one if you’re into retro RPGs.

Each game uses different controls, most DOS games use the keyboard arrows. Some will use the mouse , "Alt" ,"Enter" and "Space bar".