At first glance it looks unoriginal, but shows a surprising story that keeps you playing for many hours.
The gameplay is similar to every other turn based RPG. However there is a bar at the top of the screen showing your current and total SP, or Spirit Points. This is where some strategy is used. You can have your characters focus to increase the SP total, attack which does nothing to the SP, or use magic or special attacks. Also, if you allow the SP bar to reach maximum, you can use a super attack which will attack all of the enemies on the field for an extraordinary amount of damage.
What sets this game apart from most is the familiar kind of story but placed in a different context. As is common in many RPG's, there is a powerful, overzealous, evil empire seeking world domination through sheer power and numbers. The game is quite literal with this since the country of Valua is always in a constant night. What makes this different however is that you play the son of a local sky pirate. Taking on a very Robin Hood role, they steal from the evil Imperial Valua, giving to the needy, and saving some extra for themselves. What also is substantially different is the environment. The earth we know is gone underneath fierce storms, so the world is on floating islands and continents.
The story is surprisingly engaging and fun, eventually even going beyond the Valuan Empire, though the majority of the game is mainly focused on Valua and the Sky Pirates' constant struggle to bring them down. While 99% of RPG's are all character battles, this is where Arcadia changes it up with exciting ship battles. You are able to 'trick' your ship up with upgradable parts. You can add armor, 10" guns, torpedoes and a main cannon as you progress. The ship battles also use the same SP system as the character battles go, using up SP for each attack you use. Just the same, you are also able to save your SP to use a Special Attack, doing a very powerful attack to your enemy. However with the ship Special Attack, you only get one specific turn to use it, so you have to be careful not to miss it, which can increase the strategic battles.
While the first few ship battles are exciting, they can get old quickly and become like a less common character battle that you are all too used to. But in consolation, nearly all of the ship battles have a very epic feel to them. Also as you progress through your journey, you are able to recruit members to your pirate crew. By adding them on to your ship, they offer various services and upgrades to your ship. As you progress even further, you are able to have your own island base, also upgrading buildings and choosing different styles, adding a customized feel to your island. This is one of the best parts of the game and certainly increases the obsessiveness factor.
There are not much for subquests in this game, but they make up for it with a Discoveries quest and Bounty Hunting, as well as a secret boss. Discoveries add a treasure hunting quality to the game. As you go through the world map in your ship, you may come to certain peculiar areas. By traveling to them, you notice your compass going haywire, pressing the action button enables you to reveal a Discovery, which often are hidden landmarks. By finding these early, you can cash them in, in a local town for a nice amount of gold. Getting all of the Discoveries is a difficult side quest which takes many hours that you won't finish until near the end of the game. Another decent cash cow are a number of optional bosses to fight, which happen to have Bounties on their heads. By defeating them, just like cashing in with Discoveries, you can do the same, getting a good amount of cash for defeating these bosses.
What is interesting with the optional bosses is that they remain a constant challenge, no matter the level you are. So it is impossible to overpower a boss by power leveling, they maintain a very decent challenge for you. These bosses are what increase the difficulty substantially, making you to prepare quite a bit beforehand, since nearly all of those fights can take awhile to win, requiring more than raw power since they will always be more powerful than you.
The story is very satisfying, being slightly longer than other RPG's which can usually be clocked on average at 40 hours. This may take longer, ranging to around 50-60 hours, without doing any of the optional things. With discovering all the hidden areas through the world map, getting all of the possible crew members, upgrading your base and ship, defeating all of the Bounties, it is enough to keep you playing for quite some time. You are given some added benefit as the more you complete the game, you achieve a different title rank, increasing your popularity in towns. I found it to be a fun little added thing for a person to be flabergasted and honored to see you before managing to get the part to sell you some items. Achieving the final title requires even more hours, to literally finish everything in the game and getting 100% of all treasure.
With the optional quests and pizazz of such a different type of RPG, it adds quite a bit to the game, turning it into much more than just your average 'good guys fighting against an evil empire' cliche'd story. While the graphics and sound can leave something to be desired, its not difficult to look past that and see a great story with added tidbits throughout the game that add a fun flavor. It's one of my GamCube keepers, if your looking for an RPG to try out and you have a GameCube, definitely look this up.