A Closer Look at Skies of Arcadia

A Closer Look at Skies of Arcadia

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With the Sonic Team currently busy developing Phantasy Star Online, the Phantasy Star series' original development squad has been largely left to pursue other avenues for its grand forms of RPG expression. The result is Skies of Arcadia, Sega's first true RPG for the Dreamcast and a game with a thematic tone that is wholly unique.

Originally known by the enigmatic code name Project Ares, Skies of Arcadia puts one interesting twist on the well-defined set of RPG conventions: All exploration is done via airship, and the game's "field," in effect, is the wild blue yonder. Landmasses lie scattered throughout the cloudy expanses of sky, and the settlements borne by them are both exotic and teeming with life. With the themes of exploration and discovery heavily set into the game's world and narrative, Skies of Arcadia's mood and tone are pleasantly thick and engaging.

An Introduction

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Vyse, the game's protagonist, is a member of the Blue Sky Rogues, a faction of pirates with a proper Robin Hood code - stealing only from the moneyed and privileged, the Blue Sky Rogues spread their own brand of justice throughout the world, as likely to plunder an imperial craft as they are to aid a young lass in need.

The game begins as the Blue Sky Rogues launch an attack against a Valuan capital ship - the Valuans being Skies' requisite malevolent superpower. While their original intention was to merely relieve the ship and its crew of their valuables, the Rogues wind up rescuing a captive of the Valuans', a young, fair, mysterious foreigner named Fina. The affluent Valuan Empire would normally just chalk off the plundering of a capital ship as a small loss, but, as their dainty, arrogant, and ultimately ruthless representative Alfonso makes explicit, the loss of Fina is simply unacceptable.

At any rate, Vyse and fellow Blue Rogue Aika proceed to make a mockery of the Valuan forces, succeeding in both their intended looting and the inadvertent saving of a presumably innocent soul. Needless to say, though, they've also succeeded in stoking the rage of Valua, a force, seemingly, that is not to be taken lightly. You can expect high drama to unfold, involving the mysterious foreign traveler, the rage of a highly armed nation, and a cadre of rogues with hearts of gold.