Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga News

[p]Hi everyone,[/p][p]With the release date being just a couple days away, we wanted to announce the contents of our Digital Limited Edition! This bundle will be available for purchase for a limited time only.[/p][p][/p][h2]Ys vs. Trails in the Sky Collective Music Files[/h2][p]This is a 2-in-1 set featuring the following 2 albums:[/p]

• [p]"Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga Original Soundtrack": The original soundtrack of the game, featuring unique tracks for the game as well as key arrangements.[/p]
• [p]"Falcom Best Sound Collection - All in All -": A collection of curated tracks and deep cuts from throughout Falcom's history.[/p]

[p]As part of the Limited Edition, you'll be able to have these tracks as part of your Steam Soundtrack library, available to play them separately from the game whenever you want![/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][h2]Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga - Digital Art Book[/h2][p]This is a brand-new art book that features unique key art from the game, detailed designs from both playable and support characters, and a few behind-the-scenes sneak peeks for the main characters![/p][p]Whether you loved the scenes from the opening, want to take a closer look at promotional art made exclusively for the game, or simply want to check out all character art on full display, this digital art book is the perfect companion piece for the game.[/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]The Limited Edition purchase period is set to last during the launch week, and will end by the end of Friday, October 17th 2025.[/p]

[p]Hi everyone![/p][p]With the release being just a couple days away, it is now time for the second entry in our Remaster Features Overview series. If you haven't read the first part of the series yet, which mainly goes over all the visual enhancements, I highly suggest you take a look at it! As promised there though, with the way how the game looks out of the way, we'll explain the context around how the game plays. But first of all, here's some historical context from the original release.[/p][p]The game's original release on PSP featured 2 modes that are going to be relevant for this topic:[/p]

• [p]Network Mode, which used the PSP's Ad-Hoc functionality to play with other systems in the vicinity.[/p]
• [p]Free Mode, where you simply could choose your own character to play as, and play against up to 3 other CPU players with any configuration you want, including handicap and teams for yourself and other players, etc.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Those 2 modes filled the expectations of the original platform just fine, but the way people played the game, which was 15 years ago on a handheld, is very different from how people are going to play today in home consoles, PC, and, well... handhelds again! And with that comes a new set of expectations that we seek to not just fulfill but surpass, which we also believe is going to be the main draw of the remastered release.[/p][p][/p][p]We'll talk about the Network Mode, which was the original way to play the game with your friends. The Network Mode option now offers multiple sub-modes that let you connect to players in different ways:[/p]

• [p]LAN Mode: This was a must-have as a very basic option, especially for our fellow DRM-free folks. This is a no-strings-attached LAN Mode that, as the name might imply, uses your LAN (Local Area Network) to find other players connected to the same LAN to play together.[/p]
• [p]Local Mode (exclusive to Nintendo Switch): This is very similar to LAN Mode, and the most identical to the PSP original Network Mode. Just like the original game, this will find other Nintendo Switch systems directly, no LAN required, and let you play together with them. This is offered on Nintendo Switch only due to it being the only platform currently providing this sort of functionality.[/p]
• [p]Online Mode: This is probably the most awaited addition of all: Indeed, the barriers of distance are broken, allowing you to play with players from all over the world through the internet. This requires no additional accounts at all: just start the game through the storefront you bought it from and it will work like magic - you'll be able to play with other systems across the internet. You can limit visibility of your lobby, find your friends with lobby codes, and set a lobby password to control who gets in.[/p]
• [p]And just to be clear: With this release, you'll be able to get over the barrier of platforms, as LAN Mode and Online Mode are fully cross-platform! No matter what platform you or your friends are playing from, everyone gets to play together! (You're not forced to, though - you can turn it off if you really wish to do so.)[/p]

[p][/p][p](you can't see it, but these are a PC, a Nintendo Switch, and a PS5 playing together!)[/p][p][/p][p]LAN Mode and Local Mode are of course really good options to have, but they're quite analogous to the original release. Meanwhile, Online Mode is the most wanted novelty that we really wanted to bring, but with that came new challenges as the game was programmed with low latency in mind, and not really made for the high and unpredictable latencies of the internet. This fortunately has a solution that I expect fighting game players to be quite familiar with:[/p][p][/p][p]To address the conditions inherent to the internet, the game's original delay-based netcode has been replaced with rollback netcode powered by GGPO, which helps the game feel as responsive as if you were playing locally. This is considered the gold standard for netcode by the majority of the fighting game community, so we worked really hard to get it working, which was challenging as the game was not made with this in mind and had to be slightly retooled.[/p][p]This is a bit of an oversimplification, but to put it in easier terms: instead of delaying your button presses so that your opponent's button presses arrive at your console in time, it lets the game directly process your inputs for visual feedback while it predicts the button presses your opponent did to keep the game going. If the prediction was wrong and your opponent's input was different, it rolls the game state a few frames back to where it made the incorrect prediction, and resimulates those frames with the actual inputs that it got from the opponent.[/p][p]This process happens in the background mostly, but in cases where there's lag, it can be apparent that the game is doing this in the form of apparent teleport/jittering from remote players. This is why the game also mixes in just a little bit of delay-based netcode, where some delay is applied in order to make the visual jittering less jarring. Even with this, the default delay feels lower than the delay of the PSP version. If you don't like delay at all and want your inputs to be reflected immediately, or if you'd like more delay due to your connection not being that stable, this is completely possible as well, as we leave the configuration of how many frames to delay at the hands of the player. If you're not sure though, we recommend you keep the default settings (3 frames). In cases of severe lag (around 200-300ms and higher), there is going to be visual jittering regardless. This is due to the nature of how rollback netcode works, so please keep this in mind![/p][p][/p][p]We recently showcased a match which was conducted on Network Mode via the internet, so please check that out too![/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p][/p][p]All these new options for Network Mode are very nice indeed, but this release is also coming to home consoles and PCs, and you might want to play with your fellow Falcom fans while just having a single console and a bunch of controllers waiting to be connected. Supporting this type of local play was also a high priority for this release.[/p][p]To meet this demand, we have expanded Free Mode in order to allow for up to 4 local players to play together, sharing the same screen while having the camera accommodate all players by zooming in and out to keep them on screen. As we mentioned in our previous entry, some geometry was revised for the expanded view that ultrawide brings, but these improvements incidentally also apply to the case where the camera zooms out, up to a certain point at least. We hope that with this addition, Ys vs. Trails finds a spot as one of your go-to party games whenever you meet with fellow Falcom fans.[/p][p][/p][p](Adol, those flames aren't gonna reach Estelle from all across the map...)[/p][p][/p][p]There's just one more thing that I want to cover that is related to both Network Mode and the Offline Multiplayer functionality that we just went over. Both are great additions to the game indeed, but what if you find yourself in a situation where you have a friend over, but you want to play with 2 other friends across the town, the country, or the planet altogether... or maybe you have 2 big screens and want to share less of the screen by giving each 2 players their own screen... what can you do about it?[/p][p][/p][h2]Mixed Local/Network Multiplayer[/h2][p]Network Mode supports starting any of the 3 already described sub-modes with up to 3* players on the same system. We thought there was value in having this for some players, especially from my own experience, so it was definitely something that we wanted to support.[/p][p]*Just for the avoidance of doubt: It's only up to 3, because if it was up to 4 local players, you'd just be playing Free Mode, as 4 is the maximum number of players.[/p][p][/p][p]With the original release tied to its original platform and Network Mode, we really wanted to offer the most flexibility that we possibly could, so we hope that with all these options you have no obstacles when it comes to playing with your friends whenever, wherever, and however you want. And continuing from that, we'll head over to inputs:[/p][p][/p][p]The original release had some basic options to allow remapping battle inputs, but it was a bit limited in configuration. In contrast, it has become a staple of recent Nihon Falcom releases to offer very extensive input remapping options. I'm glad we're able to continue the tradition by offering full input remapping across the game for controller players as well as mouse & keyboard players:[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Alongside that, the controller type can be detected automatically in most cases, to offer you the correct button icons for your type of controller. In general, there are the following additions as well:[/p]

• [p]Vibration support as feedback for certain gameplay elements.[/p]
• [p]Configurable stick deadzone to accommodate controllers that need it, just in case.[/p]
• [p]Skills can be remapped directly to keys/buttons, which is crucial for mouse & keyboard, but also brings another option for today's controllers that have additional keys as well.[/p]
• [p]On PC, you can disable the controller for a player. This makes the controller available for the next player. This comes in handy when you want to play with mouse and keyboard, while you want to let a friend use a controller. In this case you'd disable the controller for Player 1, which would make the first controller available to Player 2.[/p]
• [p]Also on PC, you can map keys to Player 2 through 4. They have no keys bound by default to avoid confusion, but in case you ever need to, you can simply assign other keys in the keyboard to that player and let them use it.[/p]
• [p]You can set the button icon type for each player individually. While you're going to see button icons for Player 1 most of the time, this option is useful in case your Player 2-4 friends are in the middle of customizing their skills and want to see what buttons/keys are assigned to them without having to do the round trip to the Title Menu's Option screen.[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]With multiplayer being the key focus of this game, we really wanted to make sure that we could accommodate all the play styles we could think of that were feasible, so I hope you look forward to the release with the assurance that you'll be able to play with your friends, with the only requirements being either owning the game on one of the supported platforms, or just being nearby and having an additional controller (or even just a portion of a keyboard!)[/p][p]With the release date of the game being in just a few days, our final post will be done at the release date, and will focus on quality of life features and some platform-specific enhancements that round out this remaster, including returning fan favorites as well as game-specific bits.[/p][p][/p][p]I hope to see you on the release date![/p][p][/p][p]Best regards,
Adrian Graber - Producer & Lead Developer @ refint/games[/p]

[p]Hello! [/p][p][/p][p]With the release of Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga approaching, we wanted to give you an in-depth look at the extensive work that's gone into this remastered version. There's quite a bit to cover, so we'll be splitting this into a series of posts, which will focus on the visual improvements we've made to give the game a refreshed new look appropriate for the current generation of platforms.[/p][p]Note that, outside of a few PC-specific features, such as support for arbitrary aspect ratio, the improvements we're going to introduce in this series of posts are coming not only to PC, but to all other console platforms as well! Feature parity hasn't always been a given in the past, so we're excited to be able to deliver these enhancements without compromises.[/p][p][/p][p]With that out of the way, let's get right to it:[/p][p][/p][p]Of course, the most expected and immediately noticeable improvement is going to be the overall increase in texture quality across the board. Textures can be divided into 2 sections which we'll cover separately:[/p]

• [p]UI textures, which is what you'll be seeing on all menus and during the story mode cutscenes[/p]
• [p]In-game textures, which includes all the textures you'll be seeing in game, such as map textures, 3D character model textures, and support characters.[/p]

[p][/p][h3]UI Textures[/h3][p]Almost all the UI textures have been completely revamped, consistently targeting 4K resolution. This process involved redrawing most UI textures from scratch, and reexporting the original high resolution art whenever it was used. Renders of map previews were also recaptured at a higher resolution.[/p][p]This means that you'll be seeing a crisp image not only during gameplay, but also in the menus, without inconsistent lower resolution UI elements elsewhere. This required a lot of effort but we're very satisfied with the end result:[/p][p][/p][h3]In-game textures[/h3][p]Beyond the UI, we went through an elaborate process to enhance every other aspect of the game. Before applying any enhancements, we went through an effort of documenting and sourcing the best version of each texture that we could:[/p]

• [p]Where available, we sourced higher quality map textures from the original PC versions of the games the maps originated from, to ensure we're working with the best versions.[/p]
• [p]For some assets, the original high resolution project files were still available.[/p]
• [p]For most of the rest of the textures, low resolution but lossless texture sources from during the development of the original release were used, which saved us the effort on running a restoration pass on them (eg., de-dithering).[/p]

[p]Only after this did we proceeded to upscale the textures with various techniques. There was no silver bullet, and each technique provided different results, so we went through each variation and chose the best one. In some cases, even the best one had flaws or were simply unacceptable, so we applied manual fixes ranging from minor corrections to full redraws. Some textures that could be considered "UI Textures" also went through this process in exceptional cases.[/p][p]Compared to other titles, the texture count is a fraction of the usual amount, but it was still a non-trivial amount of work for which I'd like to thank our in-house texture whiz Vimiani for leading the texture selection and correction process, as well as Momo, and those from Studio Pom who helped with redraws for some story mode and UI sections.[/p][p][/p][p]Here are some comparison screenshots (low quality versions captured from a development version of the game, using textures from the original release for reference) - Click the arrows to switch between the old and new look:[/p][p][/p][carousel][/carousel][p][/p][p][/p][carousel][/carousel][p][/p][carousel][/carousel][p][/p][p]The difference is night and day - I hope you enjoy the results while playing the game![/p][p][/p][p]Another improvement that will be immediately apparent as soon as you get to the title screen is the increased framerate target of 60 FPS across all platforms. As you might've heard before, increasing the framerate in these games isn't a simple step, as the logic of the game, which was designed with a fixed 30 FPS target in mind, has to be revised in order to support a different target. As part of this process, some balancing to the parameters had to be done so that the game plays as close to the original as possible.[/p][p]While we investigated support for other frame rates, we ultimately focused on delivering a rock-solid 60 FPS experience to ensure consistent behavior during online multiplayer, which is one of the key features of this release.[/p][p][/p][p]PC displays come in various shapes and sizes, even more so recently with the advent of handheld gaming PCs like Steam Deck, so we made it a priority to use the extra available screen space in aspect ratios other than 16:9 whenever we could. Most of the UI and story mode cutscenes will remain at 16:9, pillarboxed to fit any other aspect ratio, as that's how they were designed. However, the main gameplay has support for arbitrary aspect ratios, and we tested support for ultrawide screens up to 21:9 as well as narrower screens down to 5:4 (and yes, we tested 16:10 for Steam Deck).[/p][p][/p][p](21:9 screenshot)[/p][p][/p][p]Increased resolutions, as well as supporting more aspect ratios the original game didn't, will expose some minor flaws the original geometry had. Some animations like support characters, which were done on 3D space as well, had to be revised for the new resolution and framerate as well. In one specific case, a specific map was optimized for PSP by mirroring a texture, which wasn't apparent in the original 480x272 target resolution, but became an obvious issue at higher resolution.[/p][p]Thanks to internal tooling specifically developed for this title, we were able to go back to work on the 3D geometry for these assets via Blender, and corrected some of the cases I explained. I want to thank one of our beta testers, Geheimen, who contributed to these efforts.[/p][p][/p][p](screenshots from a development build)[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Alongside all of these, we're providing other usual graphic enhancements and options:[/p]

• [p]Unlimited Draw Distance - Some breakable objects in the distance faded out to decrease the load on PSP, but this load is trivial on today's platforms, so this is no longer needed.[/p]
• [p]Anti-aliasing options - MSAA (x2, x4 and x8) is available as well as FXAA for lower-end systems.[/p]
• [p]Anisotropic filtering - ideal for some of the angles the camera uses, practically essential for any modern release.[/p]
• [p]Arbitrary resolution support - This comes hand in hand with the already mentioned arbitrary aspect ratio support - you'll be able to choose any resolution supported by your monitor.[/p]

[p][/p][p]This first post was all about the enhancements to how the game looks. In the next post, we'll explore improvements to how the game plays, specifically diving down to the new play modes that weren't a part of the original release, including online multiplayer and offline multiplayer, as well as mouse, keyboard and controller support, and etc.[/p][p][/p][p]I hope to see you on the next post![/p][p][/p][p]Best regards,
Adrian Graber - Producer & Lead Developer @ refint/games[/p]

[p]We're thrilled to announce that Ys vs. Trails in the Sky: Alternative Saga is coming to Steam on October 10th 2025 at 9:00AM PST![/p][p][/p][p]To celebrate the announcement, we're featuring a special illustration of Michel, Adol, and Estelle by [/p][p]@studiopomss alongside the game's original artwork![/p][p]
[/p][p][/p][p]Stay tuned for details on the available editions on Steam, including the Digital Deluxe Edition![/p]