Review  Skies Of Arcadia: Legends
- By Eric Tajchman
[Senior Editor]
In a not-too-distant past, an impressive but struggling console breathed away its last life. But in those final seconds before its sacred first-party support was snatched away by the bony hands of financial troubles, the system quietly released its final hurrah, and some of the greatest games in the last decade were revealed to a small but faithful few. That system was the ill-fated Sega Dreamcast.
One of these outstanding titles was the cult-favorite Skies of Arcadia, and though it is considered by many to be one of the greatest RPGs in history, the title was quietly released on the Dreamcast with lackluster sales. However, Overworks recently re-released the title for the Nintendo GameCube with bonus content under the title of Skies of Arcadia: Legends.
In Skies of Arcadia: Legends, you play as Vyse, the son of the Blue Rogue air pirate Captain Dyne, and Vyse’s friend, Aika. While pillaging an airship of the evil Valuan Empire, you run across a strange girl named Fina that the Valuans had captured who seems to have no knowledge of the world. On return to the Blue Rogues’ base of operations on Pirate Island, the Valuan Armada follows your ship, and while you are away on your own treasure hunting adventure, the Armada destroys the island town, captures your fellow pirates, and takes Fina prisoner. It’s now up to you to save your friends, your family, and Fina, and to help her in her mysterious quest that will ultimately threaten the entire world.
Gameplay:
Skies of Arcadia: Legends is a fairly simple turn-based RPG. Skies of Arcadia’s greatest asset is the exploration aspect of the game. There is literally a whole world to explore, and traveling across the map and finding new sites and discoveries is wholesome fun when. In fact, just when you think you can’t explore anymore, you come across a new invention or device which opens a whole new path to explore. While traversing the skies of the game’s immense overworld in your very own airship or exploring dungeons in search of treasure or whatnot, you’ll encounter random battles with native creatures and enemies. The battles are regular RPG fare. You have your options to attack, defend, use magic, run away (as most pansies tend to do), or use items.
However, you can also perform Special Moves, which are offensive, defensive, or ability-affecting power moves. Each character has his or her own unique Special Moves, which are powered by Spirit Points. Spirit Points are acquired through completing one round of attacks, and require no special ability or power to accumulate, though if you want to acquire Spirit Points faster, you can have a character Focus for that round. For example, if you have 3 characters in your party who can each raise 1 Spirit Point, then each round you gain 3 Spirit Points. However, just as the group gives to the amount of Spirit Points, a single character’s Special Move takes away Spirit Points from the group. Proper use and tactics regarding Spirit Points are key, especially during tough boss battles. To make things even more complicated, using Magic also requires the use of Spirit Points, as well as each individual character’s Magic Points.
Skies of Arcadia also allows you to engage in ship battles. These ship battles are similar to the character battles, except that they require a bit more strategy and tact to win successfully. Each character gets a chance to play a round, so the number of chances to attack or regroup depends on the number of characters you have in your party. The selection interface is the same as the character battles, except that there is a gird representing who plays and when. The grid lets you know when you have the strategic advantage or when your opponent does. Attacking is slightly different, as all of your characters use the same ship weapons. However, the stronger your character’s stats are, the more powerful his or her attack will be compared to a weaker character. Also, you can use delayed or continuos weapons, ouch as torpedoes and subcannons. So, if you have an advantage the next turn, you can fire a torpedo during the preceding round, and it will not hit the target until the next round.
Skies of Arcadia is about as difficult as the average RPG. Some battles will have you scrambling for every ounce of MP, HP, and SP you can muster, while others seem like a walk in the park. The random battles are just as frequent as in other RPGs, but if you dislike random battles passionately, they might seem like too much too soon. Also, some dungeon levels might seem bland and tedious, and in conjunction with random battles can easily irritate or frustrate, especially when you’re just looking for the end and not exploring.
There are some extra side-quests you can do in the game, when not out solving the secrets of Arcadia. You can collect Moonfish to feed to a mysterious bird, become a bounty hunter and bring in those pesky criminals, or scour the world searching for the lost Discoveries of the Old World. All in all, there is about 40+ of gameplay on the disc, not including the extra quests and bonus content.
Aesthetics:
It’s quite strange how the graphics of the game are either really good, or really bad. Technically speaking, the graphics of Skies of Arcadia: Legends are just a tad bit better than the Dreamcast. There are a lot of fuzzy textures, blocky characters and creatures, and repetitive and jaggy character movements reminiscent of Nintendo 64 graphics. The framerate stays pretty constant, but every now and then there is some occasional slowdown. The graphics don’t take away from the game, but it does bring up the thought of what Overworks has been improving in the
However, the environments and many of the levels are so beautifully structured that sometimes they outshine some of today’s GameCube titles. It’s great to just sit back and admire how the worlds and levels seem so fantastically designed, as if they were something from an ancient romantic, civilization or wrought by nature itself.
Sound:
The game’s audio is also. The original Dreamcast version touted one of the most over-the-top and outstanding original musical scores ever. The exact same score returns in Legends, but the quality of the music has somehow deteriorated somewhat during the transition to the GameCube. This is most notable during the Special Moves during battles. The sound bytes and voice clips sound as if they’re coming from a stereo TV with only one speaker working stuck at the bottom of a steel barrel. As I said, it happens only during the Special Moves, but it would have be extremely annoying if it weren’t for the fact that you can skip the Special Move cut-scenes.
Ultimately, the sound, but more especially the music, seems to capture the dynamic and fantastic mood of the game and its environments. In fact, the musical score could easily be featured in an orchestrated concert or symphony. It’s easily one of the best musical scores to ever grace a video game.
Control:
Since this game is only an RPG, the controls are mostly menu-based. The massive overworld, towns and dungeons are all in 3D, and moving across levels is simple. While flying various airships, you can increase or decrease altitude with the L and R trigger buttons or moving the C-stick up or down. Walking around is pretty simple with the analog stick, and, in fact, this game works perfectly with the GameCube’s centralized controller as most of the actions are performed with the big, green A button.
The only flaw of the control is the game’s camera. It’s not the worst, but nor is it the best. It does a decent job of maintaining a good view of your character and the level. However, you can only rotate the camera and not zoom in or out. It’s adequate, but it doesn’t utilize the GameCube controller’s C-Stick to it’s fullest. In fact, the camera can also be moved with the shoulder buttons, which just goes to show that this game was designed with the Dreamcast in mind first.
Multiplayer:
Nope. No multiplayer abilities of any kind to be found.
OVERALL:
It may not be the prettiest, it may not be the flashiest, and it may not be the newest, but this game still rivals many RPGs of today. This is by far the best RPG to hit the GameCube, so if you’ve never played the original, or even if you have and you want to play it again and experience all the new gameplay, Skies of Arcadia: Legends is a great game to pick up. It will somewhat soothe the RPG itch for GameCube owners.
The Lowdown on  Skies Of Arcadia: Legends
| Aesthetics: Average |
Control: Above Average |
| Gameplay: Very Good |
Multiplayer: Average |
| Sound: Above Average |
Innovation: 4/6 |
| Lasting Appeal: 4/6 |
Rating Explanation |
Overall: Very Good!
"A Must-Buy"
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This game is:
Very Good
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IN A
NUTSHELL: |
| If you’re a fan of RPGs, then you need to play this game. It’s intoxicatingly fun, and that’s always the best kind. |
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