Skies of Arcadia Legends

"The Legend Will Never Die... NEVER."

I once wasn't a fan of RPG since they were tiredsome back than, and I didn't have any Chrono Trigger back than. But when I played the original Skies, it was so good it made me love RPGs. Now, 3 years since the original release, Sega ported the legend to the gamecube with bonusses and of course it still has the magic from the original.

Without ruining the story this much, it goes like this. The evil Armada Empire are after a girl known as Fina, but she's saved by the Blue Rouges air pirates. Those are pirate that help for people. The main one is the usuall hero guy, Vyse, a young pirate who dream to sail all over the world. Aika, his assistant, is his his closest friend since his childhood. Together the rescue Fina. Fina tells the Rouges about her mission to secure 6 crystals or else the Armada will use them to destroy the world. Without more details, this is the story. It's too much engaging to spoil it.

Gameplay.

The game starts with a battle and the battles are the highlight of the game. As any RPG you can Attack, use Items, Magic (explained later), Gaurd and Flee.
New to this game is the Special Attack. By obtaining moonberries you can learn moves that are either very strong or they can help the rest of the team. For example Vyse's Cutlass Fury can cause major damage to an enemy, but Aika's Delta Shield protects the party from Magics. There's a catch though, you can't do those moves all the time. There's a spirit meter above and you can't do a particular move without have enough spirit points. If you have 6, you have to wait a turn until it'll fill up so Vyse can use the Cutlass Fury which costs 7 spirit points. You can also use Focus to get more points.
There are also Magic, unlike other RPGs you get them by Moonstone EXP. In Skies of Arcadia you can change the color of your weapon, Blue, Yellow, Silver and more. If you use Blue color on your weapon and win the battle you can in addition to the regular exp points (so you can level up) you gain the Moonstone EXP, when the numbers reach zero on the blue section you can learn a new Blue magic. Even if the four characters has different colors to their weapon, one character can get all the colors exp. The magics goes like this: Red (Fire and Power Increase), Green (Cure and Poison), Yellow (Electric and Power Decrease), Blue (Wind, Sleep and Increase Speed), Purple (Ice and Confusion) and Silver (Revive and Instant Death). Like the Special moves, to perform Magics you have to get enough Spirits points, but if you have 0 MP you can't perform them even if you have enough Spirit points, thankfully using a magic, even if it's the strongest one, costs only 1 MP. Much like other RPG like Pokemon for example has the Rock-Paper-Scissors mechaniques. Silver weapons will work great on Yellow Monsters but they'll be weak against Silver Monsters. Although people do not use this system regularly it helps some.
The game has 7 different characters, although you will play 4 of them at a time and 2 of them will always be Vyse and Aika, each character has its own stats so you can use if wisely. Aika is the fastest character, people use her for Magic attacks and her Delta shield while Vyse is the main attacker.

Now for the RPG itself, you move on the world on two different ways, by ground of by air. Groundwise you can walk around towns and temples and find tresure, talk to people and encounter random battles. It's much like any other RPGs but the places are huge.

In the air you can sail throught the vivid skies freely (and yes, encounter random battles) and go from a place to a place. Much like a world map which you travel with your ship and it's very original, more original it's the air battles.
Except from the hand-to-hand battles you fight ship-to-ship. Using a 4*4 grid you can either attack, use magic, gaurd your ship or focus to unleash the ship's main attack. The grid works this way, when the block above is green, both sides don't have advantage. When the block is yellow the opponent has a slight advantage over the user and when it's red, the opponent has a very big advantage, thus it's recommended to gaurd. But, when a C! shows on a block the user has a great change to attack and cause heavy damage on the opponent. Those are very long and fun battles.

Skies does everything that other RPGs has never gone before, trying something new that works perfectly.

Score: 10

Graphics

The biggest lowdown of the game since it wasn't improved a bit from the Dreamcast version. The characters look pretty nice for their own right, they might look like cartoon characters for some people but most of them look great (except for Aika, the hair...). The backgrounds on the other hand aren't detailed at all and it's still simple. The game still runs on 30 frames per second and there's no progressive scan, sorry. It's hard to give this score but I don't have many choices:

Score: 7

Sound

The music is still great, it's not groundbreaking but it has its moments. The sound effects are decent although it doesn't matter for this review. There are no voice and there's many text to read, instead there are cheesy voices that lasts for 3 seconds. You can hear Aika for yelling Yay or That was fun, it's still pretty cheesy. But I think this game has Dolby Pro Logic 2 support but I'm not sure. Still it has great tones and it's fun to listen. I just wish for voices next time.

Score: 9

Replay Value

Now for the bonusses new to legends. You have to fight more enemies this times. Piastol is one of the hardest foes in the game, unless you defend a lot you cannot beat her. She's a good challenge for those who said that the original had easy difficulty. There's also additional story and a moonfish quest where you need to find all 24 to feed a bird that gives you many prizes. Piastol and the Moonfish Quest are connected to finish this sidequest.
Also you can be a bounty hunter and fight some thieves in order to get lots of cash.
Those quests, finding new discoveries, crew members, capture fish and many more, this game is huge. It lasts 40 hours WITHOUT the side quests so it's one of the longest games today.

Score: 10

Enjoyment

Its engaging story, fun gameplay and the unique feel for adventure turns to game into a must-buy.

Score: 10

Overall

It's a must buy, for those who like RPGs you can't miss it, and for those who don't like RPGs, give it a chance, you won't regret. It's not a sequel and it's probably outdated but it doesn't lost its magic. The legend will never die.

Score: 9.5 (But for me, it's a perfect 10)

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/23/03, Updated 07/23/03