Skies of Arcadia is a game that, for me, came out of nowhere. I didn’t keep up on video game news at the time, but I began researching the Sega Dreamcast shortly after the PlayStation 2 launch because I wanted a next generation system and the latter didn’t have a lineup at the time that interested me. Skies of Arcadia had a fair amount of buzz surrounding it, and it was one of my first games on the system. Sky pirates, and a world filled with floating islands and airships was certainly unique, but I had no idea what I was in for. Skies of Arcadia quickly became one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and although the Dreamcast died off only a few months after I added it to my collection this one game was worth the system. Despite bigger titles like Final Fantasy IX and Grandia II releasing in the same time frame Skies was by far the best of the bunch.
The world of Arcadia is composed of numerous floating islands hovering over a dark abyss. Airships are the main means of travel here, but they’re fashioned with sails and composed mostly of wood. Within this world exists two different groups of sky pirates; blue rogues who steal from the rich and give to the poor, and black pirates fueled only by selfishness. You play as a blue rogue named Vyse and his gal pal Aika who discover a mysterious girl held captive aboard a ship they are attacking. This girl, Fina, is from a forgotten civilization and is on a quest to obtain six moon crystals with powers to summon giant nearly invincible beasts that once wreaked havoc on the world. Vyse and Aika soon join her cause which leads them around the world to places none know exist. The story is charming and cute, but it does come off as rather cheesy. It’s a mostly lighthearted affair, and this is a nice after how angsty most RPGs were during this era.
Skies of Arcadia is one of the few fully 3D RPGs of its time; no pre-rendered backgrounds or sprite based characters here. You guide Vyse and crew through a series of environments which primarily consist of town areas and dungeons. Instead of a traditional world map travel is done via airships with towns and dungeons usually appearing on separate floating islands. Travel is a lot of fun here because the camera follows your airship from behind and the 3D world is a lot of fun to explore. It is here that you will find hidden discoveries (which nets you money) not related to the main story, and this makes exploration very rewarding. Battles occur at random both on the world map and inside dungeons as you walk/run about. Enemy encounters take place on a separate screen displaying both enemies and your characters along with their hit points. These are strictly turn based affairs wherein you input commands for your party and then exchange blows with the opponents. You win when the enemies hit points have been wiped out, and lose when your party’s life is completely drained. The battle system is pretty standard but Skies offers a few twists.
The first major twist is the SP system. Rather than using MP for magical spells and special skills you have SP, and it is pooled for the entire party. You gain a specific amount of SP each turn which is determined by the current level of everyone on your team. This prevents you from simply being able to spam your most powerful attacks each turn. What’s cool is the fact that your characters each have the ability ‘focus’ in battle which increases SP for the next turn. Each party member has a pool of special skills that they learn at specific levels, and they all differ from one another’s. Each character does however learn the same magic spells. There are six different elements that you can set each individual’s weapon at, and successive victories in battle teach them spells from that specific type. It’s a decent system, but I rarely opted to use magic outside of for healing purposes. Unfortunately this gets a little muddled as you have Vyse, Aika, and Fina through most of the adventure but your fourth party member switches regularly based on story events, and the previous guy’s magic isn’t passed on to the next which is unfortunate.
While many complained about them one of my favorite features by far is the airship battles. When you’re aboard the ship exploring the world map you will encounter black pirates and large creatures. When this happens your ship, and the enemy appear on a large battlefield, but the battles are different here. You don’t have direct control over your ship and instead input a series of commands based on how many different characters are in your party. You can fire cannons, cast magic spells, and the ship even has special moves that can be activated only in specific turns based on the automatic placement of you and your opponent. The turns and actions are displayed on a grid which shows when your enemy is going to attack, when they are most vulnerable, etc. These encounters are dynamic in that you can knock your enemy off balance and change the entire set up of this grid. Furthermore, once you get your second ship, you have crew members with special skills that can be activated in any of these grids. These include increasing accuracy, attack, and other stats of your ship which is really cool. Many of the bosses in this game are fought with your ship, and these are absolutely massive and epic in scale. Your vehicle is fully customizable with weapons and armor which is really neat. Airship battles are easily one of my favorite features, and throughout the fifty hour adventure I never got tired of them.
Skies of Arcadia isn’t the best looking Dreamcast title, but it’s a clear cut above all PlayStation and Nintendo 64 titles. This is a bright and colorful adventure, and the anime art style for the characters is very charming. The scenery is also really pretty, but it’s mostly blocky and is saved almost entirely by the intricate designs. Even today, in an age of high definition gaming, I still find myself stopping simply to take in the scenery. The special attacks are the real highlight here. These are extremely flashy, and stylistic, and the game even has a warning about seizures due to bright flashing lights because of these. I also really like all of the little touches here, such as the fact that the battle scenery directly reflects where you were when the battle began. Airship battles are a little more drab with little to no scenery aside from the sky, but the ships and other enemies you encounter here are huge and absolutely incredible looking. Unfortunately the game does suffer from a few framerate issues most noticeable when flying around the world map, but it’s never a big issue in my opinion. The game looks downright fantastic even today.
The soundtrack is also incredible. Each composition is the perfect accent for a grand and sweeping adventure, and the soundtrack has its own distinct style that I’m a really big fan of. Each of the battle themes are incredible which is thankful considering the fact that you’ll be hearing them a lot here. The town themes differ greatly, and reflect a variety of different cultures such as the pan flutes of Ixa’taka, the oriental instrumentation of Yafutoma, and more. These are all done extremely well. I’m personally not crazy about the world map music, but it is dynamic and changes slightly depending on which area of the world you’re in. It’s really good stuff. The general boss theme is a little boring, but the armada battle music is simply incredible and is one of my favorite tracks from any video game. This is a truly amazing soundtrack that I will never be able to get enough of. This game isn’t fully voiced, but characters do have short recorded samples both in and out of battle. It adds a lot of dimension to each person and is surprisingly charming though it does get repetitive.
Skies of Arcadia is not only the best RPG on the Dreamcast, but also one of the single greatest games ever released. It’s really a shame that the developer, Overworks, was disassembled because they made something truly memorable and, dare I say, magical. The game was only ported to one other system; the Nintendo Gamecube, and while it does feature some nice additions the original release is still worth playing and it’s possible to get working with the VGA box which is cool. Every RPG fan needs this game in their collection; there’s nothing else like it.
