Skies of Arcadia

The game of the month for July, 2024 is Skies of Arcadia for the SEGA Dreamcast.



At first glance, this game is a bog standard JRPG with all the standard tropes for a comfortable and familiar experience to those initiated into the genre. An overdesigned, young, enthusiastic male protagonist along with his two pseudo-love interests sail around the skies as sky pirates.




You pick up a few friends along the way, search for treasure and moon themed McGuffins, and unite the world to defeat the evil empire. To be quite honest, much of the story and character writing is forgettable. What will stick with you is the feelings delivered by a world designed around exploration, the moodiness of the music, and the feeling of comfort, satisfaction, and closure you will experience by game's end.




In many ways, this game picks up on some of the design cues that Panzer Dragoon Saga innovated on, but in a much more satisfying and fulfilling way. You have a couple battle systems to manage, one ship based, one character based. The character based system is highly reminiscent of Grandia II with positioning as a strategic element, the action bar serving to add fluidity to the turn based format, and the anime aesthetic with similar style, proportions, and console based restrictions.



Your freedom flying around the world map and finding little hidden areas is not too far removed from The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker. The islands floating in the sparse world invite discovery and exploration. This game survives on mood, vibes, and aesthetic. Here, the world and level design help to sell the emotional high of finding land after too long out at sea. If only the random battles weren't so frequent...



Skies of Arcadia, like many Dreamcast games, had a rerelease on the Gamecube later, Skies of Arcadia Legends. I prefer the Dreamcast release. The game is well worth a couple playthroughs. Just don't forget the DLC content.

iirc the random battles were made less frequent on Gamecube which is definitely a plus.
Why do you prefer the Dreamcast version ?

Better sound quality, the vmu mini game, and the graphical aesthetic. For the last point, I'd argue that the game was designed with a certain display and polygon count in mind that informed the art style. Arbitrarily increasing the graphical fidelity to fit the new container is not necessarily a graphical improvement.

I was always under the impression the Gamecube version was "the" version to get, though I'm pretty sure I own both. Shame about the sound quality.

The graphical thing feels like a personal preference, which is fair.

I'm actually at a point where I need to pick a game to play, having just finished the Uncharted series. Maybe it's finally time to play more then the first twenty minutes of this.

I love this game. I bought it on GameCube back in the day and it's still probably my favorite RPG.

dibz said:

I was always under the impression the Gamecube version was "the" version to get, though I'm pretty sure I own both. Shame about the sound quality.

The graphical thing feels like a personal preference, which is fair.

I'm actually at a point where I need to pick a game to play, having just finished the Uncharted series. Maybe it's finally time to play more then the first twenty minutes of this.

Click to expand...

To note, the Game of the Month entry for Skies of Arcadia Legends reports multiple graphical issues with the port not present on the Dreamcast. This tracks with SEGA's poor quality ports from Dreamcast to GameCube. The most egregious example of this being Sonic Adventure DX.

EmeraldNova said:

To note, the Game of the Month entry for Skies of Arcadia Legends reports multiple graphical issues with the port not present on the Dreamcast. This tracks with SEGA's poor quality ports from Dreamcast to GameCube. The most egregious example of this being Sonic Adventure DX.

Click to expand...

To be clear, me being under the impression of something doesn't mean it's actually true.

I'm still pretty sure when the GC version was out that was the common perception nonetheless, that it was the superior sought-after one.

I find in the DC version the cloud walls making up the open air pathways you fly through look and pop in somewhat softer in a manner of speaking than on GC where it may be technically better (or not) but it's more obvious you're artificially walled in as the cloud walls smoothly roll in a clear line x distance ahead. I don't think some extra content/enemies (and the necessary changes to the VMU related stuff) make much of a difference (though the DC's better sound quality does for those who can hear it) to make Legends definitive or anything of the sort.

While Grandia 2 was a very special JRPG proposition and up there with the Skies of Arcadia, my (much) younger self felt that the latter was a more memorable experience. Graphically it has aged fine, it's still more than playable and a joy to the eyes even today, the sound is from another world, the gameplay is so special that one could forgive any drawbacks. Even the VMU was used for what it was originally designed but rarely utilized in practice. The video game community really misses out with SEGA not releasing a proper sequel to this one.