There are many RPG games out there for gamers to dig their claws into, but few have a long running, and rich history such as the Y’s (pronounced ease) series does. It originally started back on the classic Sega Master System ages ago and since then, Y's has continued forward with plenty of releases for the TurboGraphx, SNES and PlayStation 2. Konami and Falcom bring the latest release in the Y’s series to the PSP and although it is a remake of the PlayStation 2 version, which was released around this time last year, there are a few crucial differences from the Ps2 version and the PSP version.

The story follows the red haired adventurer Adol as he washes up on the shores of an uncharted island after his ship is attacked by Romuns. Being that you are found by the Rehdan Tribe and they are not too fond of Eresians, which you happen to be, you need to earn their trust to gain information about the happenings on the island. In doing so, Adol learns there is a lot more going on around the island than seems to meet the eye. As in most RPG’s, you will spend a lot of time roaming from town to town and talking to the citizens to unfold the story and to learn what you need to do to proceed onward. Between towns, you’ll find plenty of areas to hack and slash your way through, enemies to kill to add fat loots to your inventory, and gather gold and emel stones to upgrade your swords and armor, your regular, run of the mill, typical RPG hoopla.

Y’s takes full advantage of the PSP graphically and is a pretty remarkable game to feast your eyes on. Animations are smooth, environments are lush and detailed and the cut scenes are equally as impressive. When you talk to characters in the game, an image of them that is beautifully drawn will appear behind the chat dialogue box, giving you a good shot of what they look like, which is much appreciated on the PSP’s smaller screen. All RPG’s are known to have their razzle-dazzle effects and Y’s is no different. When you use you special attacks or special items, the effects are not over the top, but visually appealing enough to look very good. The audio of the game is a definite plus as well. The music score is fantastic for each area and during battles, as are all the minor sounds, like creatures’ grunts and groans and the clang and swipes of attacks. One thing lacking from the Ps2 version is that all the dialogue was done in voiceovers, where as in the PSP version, there are none to be found. Every conversation you have is all in text and, for better or for worse, lets you sharpen up on your reading skills quite often.

As mentioned, you will spend a lot of your time going between towns and islands. Going back and forth from one to another is something you will be doing quite often, and facing off against the enemies along the way is a simple straight forward hack and slash. You have a few special attacks like dashing and downward thrust, as well as sword magic that you can use when your magic gauge, in the lower left corner is full, to send out a blast of magic to a broader area. Needing to know where to go to advance through the game really isn’t that much of a chore and can be pretty linear at times. Once you reach an area out of town and run across enemies that you suddenly cannot hit and they wipe the floor with you in one shot; it lets you know that that’s not the path to be taking and you should high tail it in another direction.

As much fun as it is to be dungeon crawling and talking to each person in a town, Y’s has one enormous and inexcusable flaw with it. It takes way too long to load each screen. When you enter a building or do anything that makes the game load, such as walking from one side of the screen to the other, it takes the game an average of ten seconds to load. That is a very long time when it can sometimes only take you five seconds to cross the screen to the next load. There are times you’ll find yourself cursing under your breath when you happen to walk into the wrong building, since you’ll need to wait for it to load going in and then wait for it to load going back out right away. There are other time intense oddities found within the game as well. Every time when you level up, the game pauses in the middle of it for a few seconds for some reason and when you scroll through your inventory, moving one square to the next, takes an agonizingly long time just to load up the tiny little image of what you are looking at.

While the campaign itself is quite entertaining and interesting, it’s not really all that extensive compared to some other RPG games out there. To help try and make it worth your while, Y’s has a few extras added to it. There are mini-games that you can play to give yourself a change of pace within the game, a well as being able to unlock trailers and the musical score for the game which can all be played on the built in media player. There is also a character database which gives you the goods on all the people and enemies that you have run across during the duration of playing, but these all these features need to be unlocked as well. Even with these nifty little extras, it just doesn’t make up for the excruciating load times which will have you quickly turning off your PSP in frustration. If you can look past the long load times or are a Y’s purist and need to have your fix while on the road, then you might want to consider picking this up, but otherwise you might be better off looking elsewhere for an RPG on the go.