In many ways Skies of Arcadia is one of the most symbolic games of the Sega Dreamcast. Both were ambitious, full of heart, adored by fans, and largely ignored by fans. This game caught me mostly by surprise. Though the critical reviews were all positive I had some issues with the art style. Honestly it was the character designs in particular that rubbed me the wrong way. The colorful presentation was not something that was common in role playing games of this era.
Regardless I was looking for a new RPG after completing Grandia II, and as far as Dreamcast releases go this was my only choice. Skies of Arcadia started off slow and I was sure it wasn’t for me. Then after a few hours I was absolutely blown away. Much like the Dreamcast itself, Skies of Arcadia is absolutely one of the best things to ever come from Sega. Let’s take a look at why.
Skies of Arcadia may have all the trappings of a traditional role playing game but it’s the unique elements that grabbed me right away. For starters let’s look at the setting. It’s a fantasy world consisting entirely of floating islands above sky. Traveling the world map is done exclusive aboard airships which are stylized like classical nautical vessels complete with oars, cannons, and sails. The premise of the story centers around air pirates. Of these there are two types. Black pirates are the classic pillage, murder and steal guys who raid ships weaker than theirs. Blue Rogues on the other hand are more akin to Robin Hood. You know, steal from the rich to help the poor and less fortunate.
Our ragtag band of heroes belong to the latter faction of swashbucklers. The story centers around a blue rogue named Vyse. Our story begins as he discovers a girl dressed in mysterious garb during a raid who has been taken prisoner by the evil Imperial armada of Valua. He and his best buddy Aika rescue the mysterious damsel in distress. The three are swept up in a fantastic and heartwarming adventure in the purest sense. This quest takes them around the world to undiscovered lands to save the world from certain destruction.
Skies of Arcadia’s greatest strength when it comes to storytelling is how simple it is. At a time when the role playing genre was overrun with convoluted angsty plots this game really stood out. It’s a simple tale that’s innocent and fun. It showed that sometimes we don’t need a cast battling their inner demons or an amnesiac main character. Skies of Arcadia’s approach was beyond refreshing for the time. The main cast primarily just wants to explore and go on adventures. It’s heartwarming, innocent, and honestly a great change from the norm. I absolutely love the story and scenario in this game.
One other area in which Skies of Arcadia deviates from the norms of the genre is that the environments and characters are rendered entirely in 3D. You view the action from behind your character when on foot, and with dynamic camera control at that via the trigger buttons. All of the standard RPG standards are well represented here. You explore towns, buy supplies, and battle enemies in random encounters in both dungeons and on the world map.
A rather unique feature is the discovery system. This fits the premise of the game very well. Basically there’s a lot in this world that hasn’t been found yet, and as an adventurer it’s your goal to discover it. You can find artifacts, landmarks, etc on the world map by flying over them and pressing the A button when the on-screen compass goes on the fritz. These discoveries can net you cash and other bonuses at the guild located in each town.
The battle system is mostly traditional. It’s completely turn based with you selecting commands for each character at the beginning of each round, and then watch these actions play out. Your options consist of the all too typical attack, item, magic, special move, and run. Skies deviates from the formula a bit with it’s placement system. Some spells and skills the enemies possess cause splash damage to everyone in it’s range. In this sense it’s similar to the Lunar series. The only problem is you have no control over where your characters stand. They sort of move on their own in between turns and this is unpredictable and a bit random. The attack command makes them move near enemies, but often times they wander on their own as the battle progresses.
One of the most interesting aspects of the battle system is the SP system. Every spell and special skill requires use of skill points, and every character in your party generates a specific number of these each turn. They can even spend a turn using the ‘focus’ command to recharge even more. In the more difficult encounters you have to pay attention to these to use more powerful attacks or magic to buff your party. This is an interesting way to limit use of these specialty commands, and adds a fair amount of strategy to the boss encounters.
This leads me to a few other issues with enemy encounters. The pace of battles is really slow. The game has to load each attack (as can be witnessed by hearing the loud disc drive) and there’s a brief pause between the camera focusing on the character in play to them actually moving. Worse yet the special skills feature really long animations that are unskippable. The scenes are dazzling from a graphical perspective but I grew tired of them almost immediately. Then there’s the fact that nearly a third of every attack you use against enemies just plain misses. This screws up the pacing of the game and causes a lot of headaches. I found repeated battles thanks to the high encounter rate very frustrating after a while.
Honestly that’s just about it for the game’s faults. While I’ve thrown around the word frustrating a lot the experience is well worth the moments that made me feel like I wanted to pull my hair out. Although combat is slower in terms of pacing this made the boss encounters feel more significant for me. I loved the wide variety of tactics I could use against each boss, and how there were just enough tactical possibilities that grinding is completely avoidable if you understand the mechanics. The battle system falls short of perfect but I think it fits Skies of Arcadia plenty well.
By far the most interesting and fun mechanic in my opinion is the airship battles. The gameplay here is completely different from your standard enemy encounters as you duke it out with an aerial foe in the skies using your vessel. The basic mechanics are still in place. These encounters are entirely turn based, SP is used for each command, and your objective is to drain the foe’s hit points. What’s different is the fact that commands are laid out on a grid that allows you to anticipate the enemy’s actions. Some turns are better to strike, others to defend, and only in specific instances can you use your ship’s ultimate attack (provided you’ve stored the large amount of SP required). These encounters are more slowly paced than standard encounters, but honestly I thought it added to the tension. I absolutely adore the airship battles.
The way Skies of Arcadia eases you into these is also really well thought out. In the beginning you command a simple old fashioned ship that isn’t particularly impressive. The Little Jack is there more to ease you into the mechanics of this combat system. Later on the party acquires a more capable airship and it is here that the battle system is expanded. For one thing you can have a crew. Many of these add passive abilities such as enhancing accuracy or attack of specific types of weapons. Others can only be used as a command in battle at a cost of SP and have unique effects. You can only assign one character per role (these include things like gunman, lookout, etc).
Skies of Arcadia is a really nice looking game. The art style while colorful is evocative and goes to great lengths to realize actual real world cultures in it’s fantasy backdrop. For example there’s a country based on Arabian lore here, and it absolutely looks the part. Meanwhile the country of Yafutoma is clearly based on Japan itself with architecture and nuances that fit rather well. The developers did a marvelous job of incorporating real world culture to make this world seem realistic. The character models look fantastic, as do the environments. It’s not a top tier Dreamcast game visually but it’s clear a lot of effort went into the engine and designs.
I’m happy to report that the composers went to the same lengths with the soundtrack. The diversity here is almost unparalled. As with the art style the soundtrack does a fantastic job of representing different real life cultures. The basic themes really hit the adventurous themes home. Only the battle theme is weak in my opinion. There are a few of these, and only the armada boss battle track is well done in my opinion. Regardless had the game sold better I’m sure it would be considered an iconic soundtrack. I can’t sing the music any higher praises; Skies of Arcadia has absolutely amazing music.
