RPGs are very hit or miss with me. Even if you break it down into which sub-genres I like, one game will be great and the next will be awful. An RPG either has 'it', or it doesn't.
The Skies of Arcadia are full of air pirates and floating islands, with colourful, anime-styled characters swashbuckling their way through a two-disc monster of an RPG. In that sentence alone, there are things I like the sound of, and things I'm pretty sure I don't. But does Skies of Arcadia have this elusive 'it' that I seek?
Fun Times
After a montage of characters and locations that make no sense right now, we see an aircraft flying through the clouds, pursued, Star Wars style, by Alfonso of the Imperial Armada.
He's a wordy fellow, this Alfonso, but as luck would have it, someone is out there who might shut him up.
Enter our hero, Vyse. He's a young Air Pirate, full of confidence bordering on arrogance, with more expression than any character in RPG history. The stylised look of Skies of Arcadia characters was chosen to allow anime expressions to loom large on everyone's faces and with respect to showing you what a character's attitude is at any given point, the look works. Whether you like the anime look in the first place is up to you - I tend not to...
Frustrations
I'm also not a fan of writing like this. It's not awful by any means, but it's so... unnatural, I suppose. People don't talk like this unless they're characters in a fantasy epic about air pirates. "Oh, hi. I'm Aika. I'm a Blue Rogue like Vyse...", I mean, come on... Even "I'm a person and my name is Anakin" is better than this.
Thankfully, we're screen-transitioned into our first fight. Each character, as you'd expect, has options to attack, use magic, dig into their inventories for items and so on, but there's no obvious guide as to who acts first, or even when, as we'll soon discover.
After declaring attacks on targets, people moved and executed their actions in some kind of real-time way, until pausing when it was my turn to do something again. At one point, I swear enemies were attacking at the same time I was, so we're not quite using a turn-based system here... or are we? I don't know. I'm just hitting the 'accept' button again and again until the problem is solved.
At the end of the battle, we get some experience and gold, as well as some unknown, colour-based attributes. It looks like a lot of stuff to dump upon players. I wonder when it'll become important to explain it.
Further Fun Times
Things pick up a little with the next cutscene - I've cut out the worst part of the dialogue, as it happens - before we're allowed to wander through the ship looking for the captain. The controls are alright, movement feels light, although you do end up running into walls like a video game character a bit too often.
Your map fills in as you discover it, but we don't get much time before Alfonso cuts us off.
For some reason, this line was voiced. Beyond the odd 'Hey' and 'Let's go', this game is mute. I guess spreading the game across two-discs wasn't enough to add voicework for every line as well, but to have what seems like a single percent of the dialogue voiced is a little jarring.
Opponents drop from the ceiling and we're into another jumbly fight where things happen without me having much clue as to when or why, but it ends in my favour so who's complaining?
After some more exploring of the ship, if you can call a corridor and a ladder exploring, we're cutscened into seeing Alfonso for who he really is.
Enter the obligatory miniboss to strike fear into new players. How on Earth can we ever hope to defeat a bull with horns that look like that? That's an absurd notion. We're just anime children!
It hits with a thunderous punch - well, a lightning-strike - but we can hit back with some fury of our too, provided we have enough of our meter full. Each action we take, like attacking, increases the meter by one point, and by taking the focus action we can increase it by one more. With seven points we can use Cutlass Fury, which is a special attack that RPGs simply need to have in order to feel great - if video game history has taught us anything...
Further Frustrations
98 points of damage. I was hoping for more, I must admit, especially if I have to wait for another 6 or so actions to unleash the fury once more. Hmmm. Well, let's just keep chipping away at the health of this bully...
... or not. Huh. I wonder what I was doing wrong. Let's give it another shot.
Well, there goes Vyse. Aika can't use Cutlass Fury. She's might have the fury, but she's not got the cutlass so this fight might drag on for a while.
It's worth pointing out while I remember that the music of this boss fight is awful. Imagine children messing around with instruments, only they somehow find and repeat a tune long enough for it to be called music and you're about there. It's annoying, it's grating, it's a monstrosity. Maybe it symbolises the bull, I don't know.
Eventually, after a few health items and some critical hits, the bull was brought to an inexplicably explosive end, and I was left with a character who was now 3 levels higher, and one would assume much stronger, than the main character. I'm three fights into the story.
More plot later, I'm left with a similar expression to Fina here: 'What the hell have I gotten myself into?' - I told you the expressions work in this style.
If you're still unconvinced about the way Skies of Arcadia is written, maybe this next screenshot will help you out. I know that RPGs have to explain the world and the characters' place in it in some fashion, but to this degree... Nah. There are better ways, surely.
Pirate Isle. Pirate Bloody Isle?! Is that the best we can come up with?
We're let loose behind the controls of the ship for a little bit here. It's a nice change to see an overworld look like this, as opposed to a Mode 7 image scrolling beneath a sprite, or something as ugly as Final Fantasy VIIIs overworld. It's not amazing, but it might just save this game in my eyes.
Within a few seconds, though, I was in a random encounter. You start more or less in whatever state you were last in, it seems, as Vyse has a single hit point, and clearly shows it - for as much as I dislike the look, I like that the expressions are actually expressive.
Who am I up against? A tiny little blob. Ok, let me have it.
Holy smokes, this little bastard was tough. After that fiery blast and a few more generic attacks, I only managed to defeat him with a counterattack - everything that came from my own input missed him. The look on Aika's face is, again, spot on.
If things weren't ridiculous enough, what with a flying ship heading to a floating rock island called Pirate Isle, the entire cliff face drops, drawbridge style, to allow us to dock inside this thing, complete with a pirate waving flags to point us in the right direction. Absolutely genius idea to put him there in a blink and you'll miss it role. I laughed a little.
Before Aika ruined the mood with more abysmal dialogue. "Huh, yeah, now that you mention it, putting my life at risk by jumping from one flying ship to another in order to fight trained, armed and armoured soldiers while wearing nothing more than a summer top and a can-do attitude is a challenge, isn't it? But it's fun! It's fun, guys. FUN. HAHAHA!"
Give me a break.
On a couple of occasions, we've been able to choose our dialogue option, which probably does lead to something vaguely important, but I've certainly not been using it in that way. I'm going to zip it while the Captain and Fina get to the bottom of things.
Did I mention I hate the dialogue?
After being allowed to explore the topside of Pirate Isle, chatting to the locals (if we care to), we climb a ladder that rivals that of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, to Lookout Isle, no less, and get to relax with some worldbuilding, introducing us to the power of Moon Stones.
 |
| No prizes for guessing what's on that island... |
Oh for the love of all that is holy.
Morning breaks, and I struggle to get down a ladder before my father, the Captain, interrupts me with something I would say was rather important.
I don't know about you, but I think the central pillar of this games magic system has been dumped upon us in an 'oh, yeah, by the way' dialogue box, as though it was an afterthought. 'Hey, son, don't call me dad, and it is very necessary to get the magic system of this game right. Got that? Good.'
It was the straw that broke this camel's back, and I ran to the nearest save point, juuuuust in case I wanted to return to this at some point in the future. Which I don't.
Final Word
I don't want to return to Skies of Acadia primarily because of the writing. The setting is alright, the controls are fine, the look is decent - not brilliant but it could be much worse. I'm an hour in and don't know the first thing about how combat actually works, despite being in two fights and a miniboss, and I've still no idea what all those magical colours are going to be used for, but I'm sure Dad might chip in with some sound advice in the middle of nowhere later...
Skies of Arcadia is a grand adventure that most definitely doesn't want to come across as a gloomy, grounded, real-world affair. It is colourful, it is cartoony, it is uplifting. It's too much, in places. It's too much for me, at least.
Under different circumstances, I can see myself playing this further. It's easy to get into and play, even if I don't understand the underlying systems. Do I want to see where the story goes? Sure. Do I care for any of the characters? No. None of them.
That's a tricky place for a game to find itself in. Skies of Arcadia clearly has something going for it, but to me, it doesn't have the 'it' that I'm looking for. It might have some of 'it', but nowhere near enough of 'it'.
Does it do it for you? Is this exactly what you've been looking for for your Dreamcast? Then get out there and set sail for the Skies of Arcadia. If not... don't.
Fun Facts
The small development team wanted to distance themselves from other RPGs of the time, making sure to do things differently, such as transitioning into buildings seamlessly.
Skies of Arcadia, Overworks, first released in 2000.
Version played: Dreamcast, 2001, via emulation.