My favorite game system is the Playstation 2, and shall remain so because of the plethora of games during its time. Still, I do recall some fun games from other older systems, such as the Nintendo Gamecube. Super Smash Bros Melee, Super Mario Sunshine, and Tales of Symphonia were some of the games I played and enjoyed for the system. But there is one game I found out about a couple of years ago, during the Wii system era. I bought it, and loved it as much as any fan before me for its fun story, gameplay, and characters. This week I’ll talk about Skies of Arcadia: Legends.

From left to right: Fina, Aika, and Vyse

You play as Vyse, a young sky pirate who is more of a helpful and idealistic adventurer than a bloodthirsty buccaneer. He lives in a world of floating islands and airships, making a living of raiding supply ships from the evil Valuan Empire as part of his father’s crew. However, in rescuing a mysterious girl Fina from a crate, he and his “pirating” friend Aika find themselves entwined into a quest of Moon Crystals and Gigas that could determine the entire world’s fate.

Skies of Arcadia: Legends is an update release Gameube game from the original SoA on the Dreamcast. It brings back the engaging and well told story from the original while updating graphics, lowering the encounter rate, and adding some new content to further on the expansive journey.

And there was much rejoicing (for the GC port)

The gameplay is simple turn-based in that you chose the actions of up to four party members at a time. There’s special skills and magic like other games, but with a few twists. Depending on what element of moonstone weapon you use, you do added damage to enemies and gain experience towards that element for every party member involved. For each level of your moonstone, you learn a new spell to the element, maxing up to six spells per element.

You also have to take care of planning your actions for certain characters because they each share the same SP counter. Depending on the strategy, you can have one character (ideally Vyse) deal the heavy damage with the most costly skill available while the other characters guard and/or channeled SP so he can do the same attack next turn. This adds a level of planning for not just random encounters and how quickly to settle them, but also in boss battles in that you can’t power your way through all the time. It’s a gameplay system I rarely see happen, outside of the Wii game “Arc of Fantasia”.

Notice the bar on top and the clear-red sword.

Given the nature of Skies of Arcadia: Legends, an airship is your means of world map traveling. You actually go through a few ships (including small rowboat rafts) before eventually sticking with your best one near the middle of the game. Two of these ships can be used for aerial combat in tactical dog-fighting of cannon fire, magic boosting effects, and timing of your coup-de-grace for massive damage. The last part is especially tricky because like in regular battles, you need to accumulate your skill points and not spend them all in one turn. The Gigas in particular are as hard as normal bosses, so watch out.

Grendal PUUUUUUNCH!

I’ve never been much of a stickler to graphics and wouldn’t be too picky about them. Many people these days might not like how old the graphics in Skies of Arcadia: Legends look, but for Dreamcast they were pretty slick. And they look just as nice IMO in the Gamecube, that you can see every character’s expressions clearly.

The music is very uplifting and catchy. There are soothing tunes like the song at the start menu, or the travel music for the last, most powerful ship. The boss music is also interesting in that when it first starts, you feel ominous and tense for facing a powerful foe. This is a special case because the boss music actually changes depending on the scenario; when you’re weak or close to death, it changes to a more tense and worrisome song. But as you get close to killing the boss, the uplifting and heroic mood is reflecting in the track.

Final point to make in Skies of Arcadia: Legends is the story. After saving Fina from captivity (twice), you help her in her quest to collect six Moon Crystals, which are the purest form of elemental moon magic represented by the six different colored moons around the world. Originally she was to collect them for her people that live on the Silver Moon for an important purpose, but it’s even more apparent to collect them because the Valuan Empire wants to collect them first and control the power of the Gigas, with limited success. To do so, you travel all over the world on your airship to the vast corners of the planet, and race to collect them first… while doing some side-questing stuff like making new landmark discoveries for cash or recruiting certain people as your new crew.

You might not expect something ground-breaking or plot-twist worthy, but that’s okay. This game is made more with fun in mind with a world saving with energetic characters than the more recent JRPGs that make it a serious business with mood swings and lack of therapy sessions. Not to say that one’s better than the other, but Skies of Arcadia certainly changes the pace of typical JRPGs.

There may never be a sequel for this Skies of Arcadia: Legends, but that’s also okay; I doubt Sega could come up with a story to expand on this anyway after doing so well. That doesn’t mean they’re forgotten though; Vyse, Aika and Fina made cameo appearances in Valkyria Chronicles (two as playable soldiers and Fina as the medic), and Vyse is also in Sonic All Stars Racing along with some of the other Sega team quest racers. And if you want a spiritual successor to this game’s battle system, I recommend Arc Rise Fantasia (and that you overlook the bad voice-acting and overall localization).