Hands-on: Skies of Arcadia Legends
Features• Classically styled RPG with turn-based battles, spells, numerous items, and all the trimmings
• Detailed storyline with new plot details
• Navigate the "Skies" in your airship and take part in randomly generated battles
• Explore six enormous lands ranging from deserts to the cold reaches of outer space
• Call upon the attributes of more than 70 weapons and 36 magical skills
• Cutomizable air ship crew -- gather up to 22 crew members to help defend or attacks
• Hand-to-hand and ship-to-ship battles feature
• Improved battle engine
• New "Wanted" battles, characters, ultimate weapons, discoveries, side quests and more
• Fantastic soundtrack
• Scheduled for release on January 28, 2003 Gameplay
Skies of Arcadia Legends, although it may feature a new surname, is by no means a vastly new product. Like the name "Legends," new gameplay elements have been tacked onto the original product. For example, those who have played the original will notice that the beginning of the GameCube version bears no new distinctions. The story and adventure begin in the same fashion. Set among the floating islands and windy skies of Arcadia, players will find themselves involved in a fantastical spin-off of the tale of Robin Hood. Vyse, a young Blue Rogue pirate, and his airborne crew -- including his father Dyne, the captain -- steal from those rich and corrupt to give to the poor. This is in stark contrast to the Black Pirates, who will steal from anyone at any time. Players are thrust into the game; on a mission to take over a ship from the Valuan Empire, evil and crooked in its ways, Vyse and his sidekick Aika not only garner a bounty of treasure, but also find a mysteriously dressed young girl named Fina has been taken captive. The two's efforts to save Fina help form a bond between the three, which eventually leads the whole group down an entirely new path in a fight against the Valuan Empire to save Arcadia from peril. It's a nicely crafted story with plenty of plot twists and turns, but Overworks has made some changes to it. There are new characters to interact with and storyline elements, for starters.
However, these changes are minor, and the core game remains largely the same. If you haven't played Skies of Arcadia before, there's a lot you should be interested in. To begin with, the battle system draws upon the very beloved turn-based scheme. You can choose to run, use an item, guard, attack any enemy, cast magic, use a special attack, and focus your power. The last two go hand-in-hand. Every character is capable of multiple special attacks. Vyse, for instance, begins with his Cutlass Fury, basically a barrage of sword thrusts and swipes. It costs him seven spirit points to use. Spirit points, indicated by a long stretching bar on the top of the screen, can be focused or gained simply over the course of a battle (slower than using a turn to focus, naturally). Likewise, you will find moonberries along the way -- a rare treat used to build new special attacks. The spell system runs just as deep. Everything draws on the power of moonstones. There are six types of moonstones, but you only begin with a few. By tying a specific moonstone to your weapon during a battle you will give it an elemental attribute. During any turn you can cycle through your moonstones, which affects the experience that is earned towards learning new spells. For instance if you chose to use the red moonstone the majority of the time, you'll gain more experience toward fire-based spells. Subsequently, this deepens the battle strategy.
It's a really spectacular system, and Overworks has spent some time improving the pacing of it all. Random battles have been cut down, and to offset that you will gain slightly more experience. Regarding the latter, we have to commend Overworks for knowing how to treat a gamer right. Within an hour you can easily attain level five status. That still leaves a long road ahead of you, but it also keeps you rewarded and engaged. With over 70 weapons and 36 magical skills to be taken advantage of, we have few complaints. Likewise, the pace of the battles has been quickened slightly. Characters will animate and take their place more efficiently, and commands are executed just as fast. Overall, the changes are subtle, but they do make a difference.
Naturally, turn-based battling is not nearly all there is to Skies. When you travel on foot, the camera takes a more Zelda-esque perspective, and you have to scour dungeons for treasure chests and solve puzzles. Since battles are random, you won't see them coming so there's a constant sense of urgency to make the right choices as you explore. The rest of your travels take place in the cockpit of your giant airship. The uncharted 3D world that lies before you is absolutely massive and as you grow in power you will find yourself travelling farther and farther. The control scheme is as simple as pressing forward on the control stick and turning to steer it. To adjust your altitude you can use either the L and R triggers (like the Dreamcast did) or you can use the C-stick. A little unrefined and not quite smooth, there's little skill required to take command of the ship, but it's far better than steering around over some 2D overworld map.

Different dialogue choices alter your conversations.
Interestingly, battles take place here. For starters, creatures will land on the deck of your ship, essentially creating ground-based battles, but there are ship-to-ship duels too. As you run into Black Pirates and other baddies, you'll have to engage in distance combat. By choosing your attacks on a coordinate grid, you will watch the battle take place after you've chosen your moves. However, it's not quite like Ogre Battle 64, where you plan long, epic battles, as you still take turns frequently, setting up for another round of attacks.
There are other changes that have been made, too. "Pinta's Quest," which once let you participate in a mini-game via the VMU, has been discontinued, but Cupil is still there to guide you to invisible items you otherwise couldn't see. The way Cupil accomplishes this without beeps from the VMU is with audio cues from GameCube and controller rumble. It was merely an excuse to use the VMU before, anyhow, so it's a better idea overall. Additionally, the game content you could once upload with the VMU is now hidden within' Skies of Arcadia Legends for you to find.
Furthermore, a lot more side quests have been packed into the adventure. The "Wanted" quests, which have you locating bad guys on the open skies for rewards, are now more plentiful. So, you'll have more to do in addition to the main quest.
So, as far as gameplay is concerned, the package, which was already quite complete on Dreamcast, has been expanded even further.
Graphics and Technology
There was once a time when people indicated that Skies of Arcadia on Dreamcast could pass for a PlayStation 2 game. Perhaps at one time that was true, but by today's standards and even with the Skies of Arcadia Legends for GameCube this is not the case. The rendering engine and texture output is largely the same as it was on DC. The framerate has been smoothed out to a more constant 30, but for what is going on that is nothing impressive. Furthermore, there are definite relics of the Dreamcast-coded engine with the way textures are handled. Mip-mapping, a process that determines the detail and filtering on textures as they recede into the distance, is nearly identical. There is still a clear graduation of harsh lines, separating one level of blurry to the next. It's unlikely this will change by the title's release on January 28.
Thankfully, the visuals have a lot to fall back on in the style department; art and animation come together for some distinctly pretty scenes. There are warm sunsets and extravagant boss battles to be experienced. Little things like the flitter of Fina's cloth veil and camera direction add up to make a noticeable impression. Likewise, the spells and special attacks are very showy.
Sound
There haven't been any changes to the sound design and composition as far as we can tell, but that's hardly a disappointment considering the original. Skies of Arcadia Legends opens up with beautiful, fully orchestrated music that overlays the opening screen. That's not the case for in-game music, but just as it would indicate Overworks is passionate about the soundtrack. There is a wide variety of nicely composed tunes, which helps make up for the fact that there is no voicing.
Outlook
Skies of Arcadia Legends could very well prove to be the best RPG for GameCube at the time of its release. It's already proven itself to be critically acclaimed since its debut on Dreamcast, and if you never got an opportunity to play it, this is definitely one to look out for. |