Skies of Arcadia Legends Review

Ship battles are another type of battle you will encounter quite frequently. Basically you will fight from your ship against another ship. You decide for 4 turns in advance what you want your ship to do, whether it be heal itself, shoot torpedoes, cannons, or secondary cannons, or your ships special weapon. All of these take Spirit Points, which charge up slightly after each round. These battles are exciting at first, but soon you’ll be taking trips to the kitchen to make a snack while the battle takes place, that is literally how long each round takes, and it get annoying at times, especially when you are presented with several ships to battle consecutively. You’ll get to battle in 2 different ships during the course of the whole game, and you get to upgrade them and deck them out with whatever you want, which is allows for your ship to get incredibly strong.

Your party will consist of Vyse, Aika, Fina, and a third character that will change at different points in the game. This keeps the battles feeling fresh every once in a while. Eventually you will be able to own your own ship and run a customizable base. You will be in charge of finding a very large crew also. The freedom and upgrading of everything in your possession is definitely the reason you keep going on, and even well beyond after you complete the game. There are just so many things to do, you’ll often just spend a few hours at a time exploring or doing something outside of the normal quest. Deep, diverse, exciting, and polished. Everything you would expect from a great RPG.

Fun

This is one of the few games that I have played that will actually have you emotionally involved. When a town is leveled, you will actually care. When you finally get your own ship to command, you WILL get excited. You will actually want to explore every inch of the map, and you will learn to care about the characters in the game. I have only experienced this type of gameplay in a handful of other RPGs and the N64 Zelda games. The story is actually interesting, and you won’t ever feel like skipping through. There is no crap filler in an attempt to make the game feel more epic or deep like I have seen in countless other games.

The variety of settings will more than impress you. Everything from tiny pirate villages to giant empires exist within the world known by Vyse. You’ll encounter an oriental town, burning desert cities, a dark evil metropolis, an ancient ice encased temple, and a primitive tree dwelling village, among other things. The people in each section all look and act differently, and keep the game fresh at every moment. Admittedly, the game feels a little too “happy and bright” most of the time, but it still has a great nautical atmosphere nonetheless.

Now, this game is not without its frustrating and boring times. Unless you are some kind of level-up loving freak, you’ll want to skip about half the random battles you encounter during your ship navigation. I constantly felt like I was wasting my time battling enemies that gave little incentive to beat other than just to get through it to continue traveling to my destination. The battles are so incredibly sluggish you’ll want to just put the controller down and take a break every once in a while. The random battles in the dungeons get exceedingly tedious also. I guess this is just the type of thing experienced in most old-school RPGs, but the battles could have been exciting the whole game through if they just made the enemies more difficult and occur only 1/5 of the time they normally would. Emotionally involving gameplay and charming settings will suck you in and won’t let go until you finish.

Replay

Being that this game is so long, I couldn’t ever see myself replaying it again. There are some side quests, discoveries, and moonfish to collect if you feel like you want to extend your playing, but as for me, I worry about the story progression, not getting 100% on the game. I see the side-quests in this game as gimmicks and are of little importance to completing the game. Enough side quests, although shallow, to keep you busy for a short while if you are really into it.

Overall

It’s not for no reason that this game is so commonly hailed as one of the greatest RPGs of all time. Simply put, it is one of the best gaming experiences you will ever have, if you are willing to give it the needed 40 hours or more of play time. If you still have doubts about this game, perhaps it isn’t for you, and it definitely isn’t for everyone. If you have never seriously played an RPG, this would be a great one to get started on. I would like to thank SEGA for porting over this wonderful game, as it is not often you stumble upon such a wonderful masterpiece. Get out there and experience it.