Skies of Arcadia

Skies of Arcadia is an RPG from Sega. In the game you control a Blue Rogue pirate named Vyse. Along with Aika, Vyses childhood friend, and Fina, a mysterious girl that Vyse and Fina found on one fo their journeys, you start upon an epic journey.

Fina, is looking for these things called moonstone crystals. These crystals have a special power that allows whoever posseses them to be able to control a Giga. A Giga is a superweapon that can cause such massive destruction that at one point in time in the history of Arcadia they almost ccaused the destruction of most the world.

Fina is not the only one looking for these crystals however, the Valuan Empire is also searching for them. Valua wants to control the Gigas so that they can use them along with thier extensive armada to take over the world.

After having spent (wasted?) over 30hrs of my life with this game I feel ready to offer my opinion:

Good things:

• Great story (which means a lot in a story driven RPG!)
• Absolutely beautiful graphics
• Love the setting (floating islands in the sky, swashbuckling air pirates and an evil empire Yay!)
• Huge world map
• The fact that navigating the world map actually requires skill (not a totally new idea but unique in its scope), also, discoveries and similar cool things to do whilst flying in the world map
• Tons of mini-quest
• Interesting elemental weapon/magic system
• Ship to ship battle! (can get a bit boring after a while but a great concept)
• The music, think "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum" cheesy in a (usually) good way

Not so good things:

• Lack of freedom i.e. no choice on where to set up your base (A bit of a silly gripe really, when buying a Japanese RPG with anime characters what else should you expect?)
• The sequel isn't coming out on the dreamcast *mwa*..!
• The damn random battles that happen every 20 yards in the game world (this is a *BIG* complaint, you can mostly stop it happening later in the game though)
• The fact that you only get to play as a character other than Vyse for 20 mins