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Oath (remake of III) and Seven are the really good ones. Definitely do those at some point.
Ark (VI) is...rough. It was the first game they did in Origin's engine, and it really shows. It has high points and low points, and is also where they started trying to pull together the previous games' mythos. If you play it, you definitely want to do Chronicles before, and probably Seven afterward (Seven carries over one of the Ark characters and elevates him to a more prominent role). Maybe start out watching a Lets Play of it though to see if you're willing to do the whole thing? The story is fine but the gameplay is REALLY rough and combat doesn't flow as smoothly as Origin and Oath.
Lacrimosa (VIII) is coming out soon-ish. It was delayed because the English translation was done by a different company (Nippon Ichi) and they botched it so badly it even got the attention of Japanese gamers and they had to redo it. But the game itself is really good, and the redone translation no longer looks like it was done by a machine, so it'll almost certainly be worth picking up.
XSeed is picking up Celceta (remake of IV), so keep an eye out for it. Maybe watch an LP of the original Ys IV before Ark -- it had a few different releases, but lparchive has a good run of the Dawn of Ys version.
Archaeozoic Big Hole
To be fair to it...I remember that name and not the proper translation.
As for the alternatives: like Waypoint mentioned, Ark plays more like an experiment than a fully realized game. The characters, visuals, and music are all memorable, but the combat leaves something to be desired. The boss design in particular is atrocious.
Ys I & II are similar to old Zelda games: simple, challenging, and esoteric. Ys I is a serviceable opening to the series, but I really adore Ys II. It's a massive leap in technical quality, for one. It also has a boatload of easter eggs and, in my humble opinion, the best waifu in the series. I think every fan of modern Ys games should play it at some point. If I were you, though, I'd start with Oath just to ride out your momentum with the Origin combat system.
Someone else will have to describe the merits of Ys Seven, since I never got into it. The graphics, upgrade system, and party mechanic don't strike my fancy.
It's also pretty different because without a jump button you have to Flash Guard a lot of attacks instead, especially on higher difficulties. It seems cheap when you watch a video of some pro rocking out and just tanking the hell out of everything, but it's actually high risk/reward and the timing is way tighter than it looks. If you pull it off you null all damage, get free gauge, and your next few hits are auto-critical. But if you're off a bit, you take an auto-crit instead, and multi-shot attacks can slip between guards. You have to strategize which attacks are safer to dodge or guard head-on, and pulling it off consistently for a whole fight is very difficult but incredibly satisfying.
The worst part is the Japanese version had a better name that was already in English. I can at least understand a lazy translation of lines and text that were actually in Japanese, but that one was pretty much already done!
Replaying the game with that will be hilarious.
But You can do pretty much every Ys game in whichever way you want