Chronological order
Ys Origin
Ys I & II Chronicles
Ys: Memories of Celceta
Ys: The Oath In Felghana
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana
Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim
Ys Seven

As much as chronological order is interesting, i prefer release order, since you can see the evolution in gameplay and graphics.

- YS I&II Chronicles
- YS VI - The Ark of Napishtim
- YS - The Oath in Felghana
- YS Origin
- YS Seven
- YS Memories of Celceta
- YS VIII Lacrimosa of Dana

YS V is missing, since there's no Falcom remake yet. You can play SNES version (an english translation is avaiable) or wait until they remake it.

Of course, there's also Ys III: Wanderers of Ys, not available on PC (except via emulation, of course), which was released between the first two entries on your list (if you consider those versions of Ys 1&2 to be the same games as the originals). Also, there's the two other Ys IV games, which are not the same, but which, unlike Ys V, did not see US release.

YS Oath in Felghana is a remake of YS III: Wandereres from YS. It has a gameplay pretty different from the original YS III but it tells the same story. Same goes to the two YS IV, that was remaked in this YS: Memories of Celceta

The fact that the gameplay is completely different from the original is enough for me to treat it as a separate game that happes to be based on the original.

I could also mention that this sort of "same story, different gameplay" has been seen elsewhere; I could point to Castlevania IV sharing its story with Castlevania 1 (and Vampire Killer on the MSX), but those games are not the same; CV 4 has completely different level design than CV1.

By the way, which Ys IV is Memories of Celcets most similar to?

Good news. Bought Ys I&II from sale during winter times, thinking "meh, I play this for an hour, then get bored". Did not happen. Played it almost in one sitting. Became a fan of Ys and Nihon Falcom after that. Had to get the rest of Ys games. Only this and LoD are missing from GOG collection.

I've seen that opinion before, but a remake can feature changes in the gameplay. Anyway, regardless of what we could name it, Oath in Felghana and Celceta are now the canonic versions of YS III and IV, respectively, and for the purpose of following the lore makes more sense playing them than their classic counterparts. It's interesting to play them tho, so you can see the differences, and for the Yonemitsu's badass soundtrak in the PCE versions.

And as for the last question, i don't know very well, since i didn't play YS IV classic versions so much, but it's supposed to borrow things from both. Anyway, none of them was made by Falcom originally. So this is Falcom's own version of YS IV and it's the one that it's supposed to tell what Falcom's wanted to tell.

So, I guess that one boss from Ys 1 didn't drive you so batty that you ended up quitting? (If you've played the game, you *know* what boss I'm talking about.)

I suppose you mean Screensaver boss fight? Thankfully amazing ost these games do null the pain.

Story-wise, it's more similar to Mask of the Sun, which was the canon Ys IV until Memories of Celceta. Dawn of Ys is a clearly superior game, but the lore is vastly different and doesn't really fit in the canon.
There is another version of Ys IV, though. Mask of the Sun - A New Theory, a remake for the PS2 made by Taito. It's way better than the original Mask of the Sun (not that it was difficult to surpass, to be honest...), but still clunky, and again, no longer canon.

Speaking of Ys, is Lacrimosa of DANA in a fit state to play now? Reviews gave me the impression that it was borked at launch. Has it been fixed yet?

I, of course, mean that one bat boss that is one of the most poorly designed bosses in any game I have played. I actually think this boss is the reason that not many people play the game's boss rush mode to try and get good times.

I believe I saw a TAS of the boss rush mode in which the player took a bit of extra time on the previous boss in order to get better RNG for the bat boss.

Fortunately, the boss's reappearance in Ys Origin is much better designed; there seems to be a reasonable bound on how long the boss can stay in bat form, and the boss stays in humanoid form long enough to attack, so you have more time to hit it.

Yes and no, i bought it cca month ago on steam and played on my laptor Ideapad Y700. Gameplay no problem. The only problem arise for me during cutscenes in 2nd half - it always crushed. The solution was skip them and then look in gallery.. During my playtime a new patch came out. The cutscenes problem stopped. Dunno if coincidence or at the end of the game cutscenes were already fixed before.

Anyway i played, finished it, enjoyed it. I personally prefer one hero YS games but still Hope it helps

Cool, so we're just missing a port of V then.

That's good to hear.