Designing Ys, Vol. 6: Yogleks & Omulgun

We arrive now on the doorstep of the endgame, at the worst boss of Ys I: Yogleks and Omulgun.

(Nobody knows which head is which, but I always assumed Yogleks was purple and Omulgun red.)

The idea behind the fight is fairly straightforward. Both heads float around the boss arena, bouncing off of the walls. Each head is surrounded by a ring of fireballs, one moving clockwise and the other moving counterclockwise, which slowly expand and contract as they orbit the bosses. In order to damage them, the player has to quickly dart between the fireballs as they get an opening, strike the head, and come out of the ring unscathed. To prevent the player from simply staying inside the ring, the heads magically swap positions every time Adol gets a hit in; only the red head is vulnerable to damage.

There are a number of issues with this fight. The first is that because the fireballs rotate in opposing directions, the head-swap means if the player doesn't correct their course immediately after making contact they'll run straight into the swapped head's fireballs as they try to exit the ring. The second is that it requires a level of pixel-perfect precision not found anywhere else in the game—Adol has to start charging while his sprite is still aligned with the lowest fireball of the two he's trying to squeeze between, and make minute adjustments to get out unscathed. The third problem is more an issue of the boss' comprehensive design: it gets easier as the fight goes on, rather than escalating in difficulty.

See, as Yogleks and Omulgun lose Hit Points, they also start to lose fireballs, one per every quarter of their maximum health taken off. Most video game boss fights escalate in challenge the further the player can make it, thus passing through one phase establishes they're ready for the next. With Yogleks and Omulgun, the player starts the fight able to handle the last phase, which results in a denouement when they finally get past the first two and the tension dissolves.

Most players take issue with Vagullion, but I would contend that Yogleks and Omulgun are the boss that really needed to be fine-tuned. They start out disproportionately difficult compared to the bosses before and after them, on a scale that one can't help feeling it was a mistake, and end up disappointing the player that actually sees their fight through to the end.

Of note is that Falcom's official user support query outright calls the boss impossible without the Flame Sword, which would otherwise be an optional weapon, and strongly recommends acquiring the Battle Armor and Battle Shield rather than relying on the Silver set. Their recommended strategy is to sit in the corner waiting for the red face to draw near before charging through it, as the middle of the room leaves the player too vulnerable to damage. As many players concluded back in the 90s, a riskier alternative is to charge the red one in the room's center as the two heads are converging and catch it a second time after the swap.

So we've just had two badly designed bosses in a row. It would have been entirely possible for Ys to have peaked at its fourth big battle and never fully recover. Thankfully, the final boss of Ys I is also one of the best bosses in any 2D video game.