Skies of Arcadia manages to bring pirates and all of their ilk to create an RPG that becomes an amazing experience.
The world of Arcadia has no major land masses other than floating islands. Air pirates rules the skies in their air ships, either protecting the innocent like the Blue Rogues or attacking anything that moves like the Black Pirates. Each section of the world has it's own moon, each moon representing a different element and sporting a different color. Occasionally pieces of these moons will fall off and land somewhere in Arcadia, which can be used to power ships or alter weapon attributes. These chunks from the moon are called moon stones.
The story starts off an a ship belonging to Valua, the empire which resides under the yellow moon, which has found a strange looking girl named Fina. She is captured by the Valuans and is soon rescued by a group of Blue Rogues. The Blue Rogues take the girl back to their village.
The game is about a charismatic blue rogue named Vyse who wishes to see all of the world. He and his friend Aika see a moon stone fall from the sky into shrine nearby their village and head off to acquire the stone. When they get back to their village, they find everything in ruins and all of the men gone. The survivors tell them that Fina and the men have been taken to the Valuan capital. And so they set off on their journey.
The characters each have their own distinct personalities and they are all likable fr the most part. There is a good but of humor in the game and different choices you make can result in some hilarious events. The player will actually feel like they know each characters by the end of the game. The game sucks you in and you feel as though you are right there feeling and experiencing everything the characters are.
Despite its age, Skies of Arcadia manages to have a battle system that is not only easy to use an understand, but is still as original as the day of the original release. The game uses the standard turn based battle system where characters with higher speed move first, however characters move around the battlefield on their own free will, which can lead to some interesting events. Certain attacks and spells have an area of effect, meaning that characters have to be inside a certain range to hurt. Exploiting this can be difficult to the player because, as stated earlier, the player cannot directly control movement of characters in battle.
Moon stones add different elements to weapons which can be useful fighting certain bosses or monsters. After battles end, characters receive regular experience and magic experience. The magic experience is added to the element of the corresponding moon stone , so in other words equip the red moon stone to learn more fire magic or blue moon stone for wind. Using magic requires one mana point from the character and a certain amount of Spirit points, which is shared between the party. Spirit points are regained each turn depending on the party level and amount of party members. Each character can acquire special skills which also use Spirit points, but at a greater cost. Additionally, later in the game if the spirit points gauge becomes full, you can unleash a powerful attack depending on crew members.
Of course, pirates have ships and ships have cannons and those cannons are not just for show. Ship battles are intense and rather lengthy. All actions other than evading, focusing, running, and using items requires SP in ship battles. At the beginning of each round, the player orders all party members to attack on a certain turn, while trying to predict enemy movements. While this may seem boring, battles actually get quite intense later on when you battle against sea monsters and the like.
The graphics and presentation are not exactly as amazing as they once were, but that doesn't mean they don't get the job done nicely. The game is not ugly, but rather dated. The graphics will not ruin the experience for anybody, but there is no denying that they will not impress today's players. But, the game is old, so it has a good excuse. Voice acting is virtually non-existent other than an occasional "Aye aye!" or grunt from characters in battles. Magic effects are not incredible either, but once again, the game is old. Music is nicely done, and very much memorable. I can still hear some of the music playing in my head today.
Overall Skies of Arcadia is an incredible experience. The game immerses the player as no other RPG has before it, making the player feel as though they are right on the battlefield or sailing through the skies. With incredible music scores but dated graphics, the game is a masterpiece of its time. Skies of Arcadia manages to bring pirates and all of their ilk create an RPG that becomes an amazing experience for all.