Skies of Arcadia

Skies of Arcadia is a console role-playing game developed by Overworks and published by Sega in 2000 for the Sega Dreamcast. It was released in Japan in October 2000, and subsequently in North America in November 2000 and in PAL territories in April 2001. more...

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An enhanced remake, Skies of Arcadia Legends, was released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2003. Known as Eternal Arcadia in Japan, the game's story focuses around Vyse, a young pirate, and his friends as they attempt to stop the Valuan Empire from reviving ancient weapons which could destroy the world.

It was critically well received thanks to its stylish graphics and light-hearted setting, which contrasted with the then highly popular cyberpunk-influenced brand of dark fantasy that was popularized by such games as Final Fantasy VII. The game's musical soundtrack was composed by Yutaka Minobe and Tatsuyuki Maeda.

Gameplay

The majority of gameplay in Skies of Arcadia takes place in standard RPG dungeons. Controlling the male protagonist, Vyse, in a third-person view, players must traverse and defeat these dungeons in order to advance the storyline. Dungeons comprise of a network of pathways with some treasure chests, the occasional puzzle, and littered with monsters. Throughout the dungeon gameplay the player meets compulsory random encounters every one of which must be won. If the entire player party is defeated progress is reset to the beginning of the dungeon. In the Dreamcast version it was possible to slightly foresee these random encounters by noticing a loud spin-up of the console's GD-ROM drive.

The player may purchase weapons and armor for both his party and his ship in this way. Completing the dungeons is usually a matter of exploring each of the possible pathways presented to the player until the correct one is found. Treasure chests are commonplace during this style of gameplay and contain some of the most powerful items in the game. It is usually in the best interest of the player to explore all routes as it is frequently impossible to return to dungeons the player has visited, and significant portions of the game are cut off when certain events occur in the storyline.

Travel between the numerous dungeons is accomplished by piloting an airship through the overworld. The overworld in Skies of Arcadia is a three dimensional sky with massive floating rocks forming islands and continents. Some islands and continents are completely uninhabited while others are filled with sprawling towns and cities. All dungeons throughout the game are located on these islands and continents. There is one exception where a dungeon is traversed whilst piloting an airship. This under-utilised form of dungeon contains floating spherical objects instead of treasure chests, and vortex-like tunnels in place of corridors and doors.

Throughout overworld travel, the same unavoidable random encounters occur as while traversing the dungeons. These battles take place on the deck of the airship and are otherwise identical to their dungeon-based counterparts. Later in the game, however, an advanced mechanism is discovered for the player's ship which allows it to rise above the upper cloud layer and sink below the lower cloud layer of Arcadia, presenting two ways to avoid these encounters. In addition, ship-to-ship combat can occur whilst travelling through the overworld; however, the majority of these are unavoidable boss fights which advance the storyline. Random ship-to-ship battles can occur, but they are rare and avoidable.

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