Yuzo Koshiro Celebrates Ys II’s 32nd Anniversary With Intro Arrangement

On Twitter, Ys II composer Yuzo Koshiro revealed a new arrangement of the game’s iconic opening theme, “To Make the End of Battle” in commemoration of the game’s 32nd anniversary. Koshiro specially received permission from Falcom to create the arrangement and, according to him, this is the first ever arrangement of any of his Falcom tracks since leaving the company in 1988 after the release of Ys II. After leaving Falcom, Koshiro would become a freelance composer, creating songs for Sega’s Streets of Rage series and Quintet’s ActRaiser.

The arrangement has been made using the soundfont of Konami’s Thunder Cross shoot ’em up.

Check it out below:

To Make The End of Battle / Ys II/ Copyright© Nihon Falcom Corporation

(Thunder Cross Arrange Version)

Happy 32th anniversary! pic.twitter.com/fm7sF1WFFo

— 古代祐三 (@yuzokoshiro) April 22, 2020

Koshiro also shared a memory of working at Falcom during the Ys II days. After work, Koshiro and main programmer Masaya Hashimoto would always hang out at the amusement arcade near the Falcom offices and play co-op Darius nearly every day. Koshiro loved playing the game and listening to “one of the most excellent FM sound chip music of the era.”

Here’s a look at what the original NEC PC-88 version of Ys II‘s opening looked like:

The iconic opening would be remade many times, including for the PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Nintendo DS. This version of the opening movie also happened to be animated by Makoto Shinkai, who was working at Falcom at the time:

Ys II originally released for the NEC PC-88 in 1988.