Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast, Gamecube) is my favorite
role-playing game of all time, and possibly my very favorite game of all time;
at the very least, it’s in my top five for sure. It’s often compared to games
such as Final Fantasy 7, Tales of Symphonia, Grandia 2, and Evolution 2: Far
Off Province; Skies of Arcadia seems to have the best critical reception of any
of these series, holding a near-perfect 93 on Metacritic. It was a critical
powerhouse but a commercial failure, due to the Dreamcast’s lack of lasting
success and the Gamecube version’s poorly-handled release. The critical success
of the game implies that there’s something about it that separates it from the
others; that “something” is the game’s optimistic charm.
By all means, Skies of Arcadia should not work as well as it
does. The entire story is a mashup of many standard fantasy and video game clichés,
and I began getting the feeling that I’ve heard and seen a lot of what happened
in the story before in other forms of media. I mean, hell:
·
A ragtag band of young heroes searching for
magical artifacts to save the world.
·
Over-the-top, evil villains trying to collect
the artifacts as well to rule the world.
·
Said magical artifacts are conveniently located
in environments that fit their color / properties.
·
Monsters and various creatures give the heroes
trouble over the course of their journey.
·
Technologically-advanced, powerful evil empire.
·
Nice morals about the power of love and
acceptance of others.
·
A high emphasis on adventure and exploration to
distant lands.
·
Magic and weapons work side-by-side in combat.
·
Turn-based combat system.
·
PIRATES.
Sound familiar to a billion other things you’ve seen before?
You aren’t alone. But what really makes Skies of Arcadia special is how it
utilizes every single one of these tropes in a way that is incredibly
refreshing and uplifting. The surprising success of the gloomy, angsty Final
Fantasy 7 on the Playstation had led to a large fleet of copycats trying to
imitate what Final Fantasy 7 did in the hopes of achieving the same amount of
success; such examples are Planescape: Torment, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Xenogears.
Skies of Arcadia ranks pretty low on the “dark and edgy” scale; it is one of
the brightest, most optimistic things I’ve ever seen, and it comes off as more
of a reconstruction of the classic RPG formula rather than a brooding deconstruction.
Yes, it’s cheesy, and hammy, and clichéd, but the game itself is far more than
the sum of its parts.
And that’s not even to say Skies of Arcadia is devoid of
original or decent writing; it’s superbly-written. The way that it builds up
its world is absolutely genius. Although the story itself is intentionally
linear and unchangeable, there is quite a lot to do within that linear timeframe
because of the emphasis on adventure and exploration. It’s a world set in the
sky, and the possibilities for that are never-ending. It boasts one of the most
completely realized worlds I’ve seen in anything, video gaming or otherwise,
and it gets you emotionally and aesthetically involved in the storyline.
Furthering this appeal is the game’s cast of discrete yet personable characters;
there’s someone you’re bound to like in this game, be it the bright-faced,
adventurous Vyse, the spunky Aika, the timid and mysterious Fina, the
ambitious, soulful Enrique, or the inside-and-out tough Drachma and the playful
flirt Gilder. They give Arcadia the strong human spine it needs for its enormous
action and circumstances to be emotionally involving on top of being
technically impressive.
The combat system is also really great, speaking of
technicality. It’s not that the combat is particularly deep, tactical, or hard
to master; it’s actually really straightforward, turn-based combat. But it’s
the simple fact that the combat just feels exhilarating. The big boss battles
in Skies of Arcadia have a huge sense of grandeur, and you want to win the battles, not just push through them in the hopes
that you can level up; you want to succeed.
There’s a fair amount of strategy and organization put into the combat
mechanics - hardly the stuff of intense analysis and complexity but
impressively nuanced and thoughtful. On the harder battles, you really have to
think about your moves, and whenever they work in your favor, it feels
incredibly satisfying. The attacks have serious weight to them, with a lot of
pretty visuals, impactful sound effects, and fast movement. It’s incredibly
shallow entertainment, action with no purpose other than looking really cool,
but it’s incredibly effective entertainment, too.
It’s for these reasons that I can pour so much time and
energy into Skies of Arcadia. I’m willing to overlook the few flaws it has –
the ridiculously random encounter rate, occasionally contrived plot points,
hiccups in visuals or animations – because they’re irrelevant when you have
something as fucking awesome as Skies of Arcadia. It’s the feel of the game
that makes it work; not the technicality, or the detail, or even the look of
the game, but the way that the story, characters, gameplay, and aesthetics make
me feel. Out of the countless JRPGs produced in the late 90’s – mid 2000’s,
there are only a few genuine works of art, and Arcadia’s one of them.
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