RPG fans with long memories will recall the Ys series, which appeared chiefly on the SNES but also on the NES, Megadrive and TurboGrafx CD. The series, developed by Nihon Falcom, followed the adventures of Adol Christian, the red-haired hero who in the first game collected six magical books that gained the bearer entrance to the long lost paradise world of Ys. Subsequent adventures took place in Ys, or in other realms entirely, always with the same afro-ed redhead at the fore. Setting this action RPG apart from others in the 8 and 16 bit era was its combat system. In most games in the Ys series at least, there were no attack buttons as such, simply running at foes at the correct angle being the required way to defeat enemies.The fifth game in the SNES series was released in 1995, and it wasn't until 2003 that Konami published a long overdue sixth instalment, this time on PC. Time moves slowly in the world of Ys these days, and it is only now that we humble Europeans will be able to get a version of this sixth game on PS2.Let's be honest, the aforementioned running-into-enemies combat system was a bit trial and error. This instalment of Ys has been positioned as a dyed in the wool action RPG in the modern style, which means plenty of running, jumping and - most importantly - slashing. Once again starring Adol Christian, the game's Judaio-Christian naming convention is expanded on when our hero is washed up on the shores of a land called Canaan, after a hard day's adventuring with longtime friends Dogi and Terra. Wasting no time, he hooks up with Olha, a priestess, and Isha, a young girl. There's no stopping a real explorer and Adol straightaway sets out to explore the islands of Canaan and the strange whirlpool that took him there.Swords feature heavily in the storyline, and Adol will acquire swords with elemental abilities'Fire, Water, Wind'which will not only improve his combat powers but also come in handy when negotiating the game's puzzles.If you're still miffed at having to wait so long for a game our Japanese friends finished nearly two years ago, consider this: whilst the first version of Ark of Napishtim depicted 2D characters roaming the luscious 3D landscape, we are blessed with in game characters with the same number of dimensions as the environment they tread: three. We also get a new soundtrack promised to feature re-workings of tunes from the original 16 bit series. Altogether now'