This is going to seem a bit early since I just posted the first review, but I don't know how much longer I can hold off my wanting to review this game. Skies of Arcadia is an original title/game, first released on the Sega Dreamcast, then later ported as Skies of Arcadia Legends to the Gamecube, with some added (and some retracted) features. It's my absolute FAVORITE game in existence, but I'll try to keep this review at a neutral standpoint.
In the world of Arcadia, there are 6 moons: Red, blue, yellow, green, purple, and silver, and each moon controls a different element: Red is fire, green is health, purple is ice, blue is wind, yellow is electricity, and silver is life/death. The lands under these moons reflect these elements (IE the lands under the red moon are harsh desert, the land under the purple moon is covered in ice, etc...). In ancient times these lands were each home to great civilizations that have long since been destroyed after they went to war with each other.
In the present day, the different lands under the moon live divided, both figuratively (the existence of other lands is definitely known, but whether they still exist beyond the stories isn't) and literally by rock reefs, sky rifts (did I mention every location in Arcadia is in the sky? Hence the name
) and other means. Though some have managed to explore beyond these seemingly impenetrable walls and visit these other lands...while others find new ways to break these walls so they can conquer these different lands, and bring back the ancient secret that was used in the ancient times.
This is where the real story begins. You take on the role of Vyse, an Air Pirate from the faction of the Blue Rogues (which are modern day Robin Hood types). During a heist on one of the imperial Armada's flagships, you come across a young girl of mysterious origins that the Armada has kidnapped. When you and the crew take over the ship and spare the crew (even letting the Admiral get away despite his cowardice in killing his vice captain and having him take the blame), you take the young girl with you as well. She becomes an invaluable part of your team, but by saving the girl, Vyse is thrust into an adventure to save the world of Arcadia, one that will test him and everything that he believes in.
Cut and dry, it sounds like a pretty simple story - Save the girl, go on a quest, defeat the bad guys, yadda yadda. And in essence, it really is cut and dry. But the things that happen in between the main plot that make this game especially exciting. Firstly: this is an RPG from just shortly after the PS1 RPG games, meaning there's a lot of world map traveling happening. But in Arcadia, the world map is the entire sky. You'll travel to different islands, learn to fly downward into the deep, deep underbelly of Deep Sky, or so high that you're touching heaven itself, and everywhere in between. At the beginning you'll feel restricted with the rock reefs and sky rifts, but before they end, there will be no place that you can't touch (and like normal RPG world maps, it doesn't stop when you hit the edge, goes around).
Battles have various types in SOA: Random, Ship, and Bounty. Random battles are like other RPGs; you'll hit them at any point in time inside a dungeon or on the world map. You have the option to flee, use skills (known as S-Moves/Super Moves), use magic (which every character can use magic), fight, use items, and focus. And once you've established your base, you'll be able to access your two specialty group skills. As a group, you'll all have a group Spirit Point bar, and every time you use magic or a skill, the spirit bar will decrease, but will increase a certain amount (depending on each character and level) at the beginning of your turn. Focusing also gives a little back to your spirit bar. A full spirit bar is needed for the specialty group skills, one of which is an exceptional damage dealer, the other a balance of damage dealing and health restoring depending on the people in your crew and who your active crew members are.
Ship battles run differently than normal battles. Triggered by event or by running into a ship on the world map, it's literally your ship against theirs. You're presented with a grid in which each of your party members can be assigned an action somewhat similar to a regular battle: Magic, Attack, Focus, Items, and Crew. Magic won't be useable until you've acquired the Magic Cannon, and crew obviously is worthless until you have an actual crew. Difference in this especially shows in the Attack portion. Unlike a regular battle, you'll get to decide between torpedoes, main cannons, and secondary cannons (which are less powerful than main, but can be carried over to use over more than a turn) to use. However, use of any of these will consume SP (which you have more to work with if I remember correctly). There's also a specialty weapon you can use provided you've gained it (such as the Harpoon canon). These do MASSIVE damage in most instances, but also cost most of your SP to use, as well as an extra turn. Another difference is that on the battle grid, you'll also get to see an idea of what your enemy's turn is going to be like in the form of different colors (green means either nothing or a minimal attack, yellow means moderate, they'll use a decent attack on this, and red means they're going to use a significant attack that will deal exceptional damage if you're not careful). This is one of my favorites because it requires the player to use a bit of strategics.
The last is the Bounty quests. When you visit the Sailor's Guild at certain points in the game, a new person will be added to the Wanted list. People on this list can be found flying around somewhere in Arcadia, hanging out in a part of one of the towns (some require a certain rank to see), and one is found in the final dungeon. Along with the above requirement for some, you won't encounter these people until you've seen them appear on the Wanted list (the exceptions being Blackbeard and Gordo I believe, since they're required to advance in the story).
Outside of the battles and Bounty Sidequest, Skies of Arcadia has much to offer. I mentioned there's 6 moons, right? In the game, you'll be given a total of 6 moonstones (one from each moon), that you can attach to your weapon (each character can have the same moonstone attached). By equipping it, your weapon will take on that property (IE green-moon monsters will take more damage from a red-moon weapon). And characters will gain points towards learning new magic from each of the equipped elements on the field. But the more of a same type of element (IE, more than one character with a red element) on the field, then the more points that will go towards that color.
In terms of magic, it splits up like such:
*Green is where healing spells as well as poison spells are learned.
*Red is where fire spells and strength boosting spells are learned.
*Yellow is where lightning and strength reducing spells are learned.
*Blue is where wind spells, agility spells,and sleeping spells are learned.
*Purple is where ice spells, magic-sealing spells, and confusion spells are learned.
*Silver is where life spells, death spells, and stat cleansing spells are learned.
It's a pretty fair balance that works out perfect. Each element has a weakness to the other one which works out perfect in building a nice magical arsenal by the end of the game.
Then comes the Super Moves. The main characters have 5 moves that they learn, while supporting party members have 3. To learn moves, unlike magic, you give a character a certain number of Moonberries. Beginning moves cost 1, and cost progressively more down the road. Again, these were balanced nicely: Each character has at least one offensive skill and one party supporting skill, and the skills are tailored towards the character (Fina, the cleric-type character has a party resurrection skill and a party stat-curing skill, Vyse has an all-enemy damage skill and an all-party protection skill, etc...), and unlike magic, which also consumes MP (though only 1 since it also consumes SP), super moves ONLY consume SP.
Next comes a neat little feature called the Swashbuckler system. This is a system which increases and decreases your rating throughout the game. Your rating will dictate how shopkeepers will greet you and how some will talk to you. It will also dictate whether or not you'll see some of the bounties when they become available. Battling monsters, and choosing the right options when talking to others will increase this rating. Battling constantly is an easy way to get your ranking up fast. However, choosing the wrong option (which is sometimes difficult to know) and running away from battles (which WILL happen at points) will decrease your rating. Also at one point of the game, one of the available bounties will "decrease" your rating to its lowest (I say it parentheses because you still have to be at a certain rating to run into that bounty, so it's really only masking it). Another way to greatly increase your rating to new heights is through the sidequests. Becoming the bounty king, catching a specific number of fish, obtaining all treasures, battling a set number of monsters, and obtaining all discoveries will earn you a special Swashbuckling rank. Doing all of them and more will earn you the highest rank.
And that brings me into one of the game's biggest draws: Discoveries. These can either be found purely by accident (or by prior knowledge), or learning about them in the Sailor's guild. But if you see your compass spinning wildly and you press the A button, a new object/land will pop up along with a brief summary/story on it. Discovering these before reaching the Sailor's Guild will earn you the most cash. Discovering these after taking them on at the Sailor's guild will earn you less, but a fair amount. However, you're not the only one searching for discoveries, and if you find it after they do (IE letting a discovery wait too long), then the guild will only pay you a minimal amount of cash, and you won't be credited with finding it first (which will make you less likely to get the specialty discovery rank/highest rank). These discoveries are all over the world though, and like all of the sidequests, there's a reward for finding most of them before Domingo (whom you can recruit later and thus stop him from getting them first), and I mean BESIDES the special rank.
There's other sidequests as well such as recruiting people to your crew, building up your base, gathering materials for special weapons, and a Legends exclusive sidequest of gathering Moonfish, fighting an exceptionally hard boss multiple times, and learning an extra bit about the story as well.
And remember what I said about the reward at the end? Well, if you're one of those 100%ers out there, you're rewarded with a lovely boss fight at the end with one of the most amusing characters in the game.
Outside of the mechanics, there's still a lot I can get into, and I've really barely dented into what makes this game enjoyable. It takes over the top to a new level in various ways, but at the same time still takes itself very seriously. The character development in this game is wonderful to where even some of the bad guys such as Vigoro, Bellezia, and De Loco are memorable. Like all games, SOA isn't without its flaws...but in my opinion, they're so tiny and far between that there's really nothing about this game that someone wouldn't enjoy. It's a great adventure, light-hearted with a touch of seriousness mixed in, pushes you to make the right choices, and rewards you with an exceptional amount of extra content that will keep you playing for hours.
Overall, it's a truly magnificent game that, while it does look dated graphics wise, it's still a game that was and still is in ways truly ahead of its time, and I don't use that phrase lightly.
