Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.



---The Game---
The cult classic Dreamcast RPG, remastered for the GameCube as an ersatz Director's Cut. A high-skies adventure featuring a plucky gang of air pirates, creative twists to the standard turn-based combat system, a huge open world filled with magic and personality, and a surprising level of detail and characterization for its original release date, Skies of Arcadia is a fun and engrossing adventure worth buckling up for.

The Story is Such: Vyse and Aika are young members of the Robin Hood-esque sky pirates, the Blue Rogues. During one of their customary raids of the malevolent Valuan Empire's flagships, they rescue a mysterious young woman named Fina. Vyse and Aika get whisked off on an adventure to help Fina fulfill a super-secret mission and fight off the Valuan admirals standing in their way. However, the Valuan High Admiral seems to have their same goal...

---The LP---
This LP is headed by Travis (BigTUnit1), as it is his favourite game of all time. It's a standard playthrough - as much of the game will be shown as possible, and Travis is well-informed on where everything is. Myself, Mugiwara Yoshi and/or Highwang back him up as co-commentators.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

































































----------------------------------------------

ThornBrain fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Apr 1, 2016

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

ThornBrain
Jan 25, 2011

Hi. I forgot your name. Whatever.
My... point is...
Hi. Your head's on fire.


(By Shoeless)


(By Dicky Oldman, Twitter)


(By Rahonavis)




(By NullBlack)






















(By RasterPunk)




(By ChibiWisdom)


(By Akogare Zephyr)



ThornBrain fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Apr 3, 2016

Senerio
Oct 19, 2009

Ooh! Are we messing with Adora?



Awesome! This is one of my favorite games ever!

Crabtree
Oct 17, 2012

ARRRGH! Get that wallet out!
Everybody: Lowtax in a Pickle!
Pickle! Pickle! Pickle! Pickle!

Dinosaur Gum
Why in god's name hasn't this game either been ported to eshop or PC? Freaking old school bass fishing gets ported, but not sky pirates?

Senerio
Oct 19, 2009

Ooh! Are we messing with Adora?



Crabtree posted:

Why in god's name hasn't this game either been ported to eshop or PC? Freaking old school bass fishing gets ported, but not sky pirates?

with the success of Valkyria Chronicles (which is the strategy game that features Vyse and Aika. Fina's actually the medic of the squad too), I wouldn't be shocked to see it on Steam in a year or two

Also, I played both and they fixed the biggest problem with the Dreamcast version: the encounter rate was about 8x as high in the Dreamcast version.

Judge Tesla
Oct 29, 2011

:frogsiren:
I've only actually played the Legends version on the Gamecube but, I completely loved the game and will forever drat Sega for not re-releasing this game in HD, or just releasing it on current consoles/PC.

Crabtree
Oct 17, 2012

ARRRGH! Get that wallet out!
Everybody: Lowtax in a Pickle!
Pickle! Pickle! Pickle! Pickle!

Dinosaur Gum

Senerio posted:

with the success of Valkyria Chronicles (which is the strategy game that features Vyse and Aika. Fina's actually the medic of the squad too), I wouldn't be shocked to see it on Steam in a year or two

Also, I played both and they fixed the biggest problem with the Dreamcast version: the encounter rate was about 8x as high in the Dreamcast version.

I'd love for SEGA to be logical or for a wizard to make them do the Valkyria Chronicles miracle again too. I've just waited so drat long for them to do this. I've broken my heart on hoping for a sequel decades ago and burned out my Dreamcast's disk reader in playing this game so drat much. Let me spend $300 in buying keys for this on Steam or WiiU! I don't want to have to :filez: to play this game again, SEGA.

The GIG
Jun 28, 2011

Yeah, I say "Shit" a shit-ton of times. What of it, shithead?
I actually never heard of Skies of Arcadia until a couple years ago but Vyse and Aika were my favorite soldiers in VC before that because they looked so ridiculous compared to the rest of the cast and were so good at wrecking stuff. All I knew was that this guy with a hosed up monocle and this girl with the ultimate pigtail game were great, and then way later I looked it up and suddenly everything made sense.

Chimera-gui
Mar 20, 2014
Skies of Arcadia and Evolution: The World of Sacred Device are the two Dreamcast games I was always curious about when I first saw them in an old gaming magazine so I'm definitely looking forward to this LP.

Derek Barona
Dec 8, 2009

WHO'S YOUR FRIEND?!
Skies of Arcadia has always been one of my more favorite Sega games. It, Evolution, and Phantasy Star Online are all kind of a weird set of games that show just how genuinely good Sega was at making vibrant games that look and feel really cool, but almost no one cared or paid any attention to them until they appeared on the Gamecube long after the Dreamcast died.

FinalGamer
Aug 30, 2012

So the mystic script says.
AW MAN

I have to show my boyfriend this he'll LOVE this Let''s Play from you guys. I never really got into this game for some reason so I'll be glad to see what I missed from all this. Can't wait to see more of this!

Typically speaking btw a swashbuckler denotes any swordsman who wields a side-sword and a buckler on their off-hand, as in they swash and wield a buckler. I suppose Vyse could buckle his swash though if his sword got broken like his sleeves :v:

FinalGamer fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Feb 4, 2015

Chimera-gui
Mar 20, 2014
While Vyse is playable in All-Stars Racing Transformed, I don't know if Aika or Fina appeared outside SoA.

The One Piece thing was likely coincidence but that's not gonna stop anyone from making OP jokes.

Chimera-gui fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Feb 13, 2015

Harabeck
Feb 9, 2012

This is definitely my favorite RPG of all time. Watching this has made me sad that I gave my gamecube away.

Isn't it a side point later on that there was a famous pirate in this world whose name started with a D? I remember thinking it was a detail you wouldn't notice until your second playthrough.

Nidoking
Jan 27, 2009

I fought the lava, and the lava won.
This was one of my favorites as well, and the reason I bought a Dreamcast and a VMU. I even played the VMU minigame enough to get a Moonberry from it, as well as a very rare accessory that came in really handy. As for early game Moonberries, I always get one or two here. I'm pretty sure the drop rate is fairly high, or perhaps the drops are scripted.

7c Nickel
Apr 27, 2008
Aww yiss, motha fuckin Skies of Arcadia. I think I played it for 23 hours straight when I first got it for the Dreamcast. Also, I've always heard the music on the GC version was kind of squashed compared to the original.

7c Nickel fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Feb 4, 2015

Senerio
Oct 19, 2009

Ooh! Are we messing with Adora?



7c Nickel posted:

Aww yiss, motha fuckin Skies of Arcadia. I think I played it for 23 hours straight when I first got it for the Dreamcast. Also, I've always heard the music on the GC version was kind of squashed compared to the original.

Yeah, because they did a single Gamecube disc as opposed to two Dreamcast discs.

year199X
Oct 9, 2012
Grimey Drawer
Probably one of my favorite all time games. It has (almost) everything I've ever wanted in a JRPG. A giant world map to explore, two great battle systems, amazing music, a fantastic story, and anime teenager protagonists that don't make me want to blow my brains out.

7c Nickel posted:

Aww yiss, motha fuckin Skies of Arcadia. I think I played it for 23 hours straight when I first got it for the Dreamcast. Also, I've always heard the music on the GC version was kind of squashed compared to the original.

Something along the lines of needing to compress the music for the game to fit on one disk. It's really the only blemish on an otherwise great port.

year199X fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Feb 4, 2015

Nihilarian
Oct 2, 2013


I love how Antonio just explodes for no reason.

Ardeem
Sep 16, 2010

There is no problem that cannot be solved through sufficient application of lasers and friendship.
This game. This game is good times. I've still got my copy and a couple of save file in strategic spots because one of the minigames is so much fun.

EponymousMrYar
Jan 4, 2015

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

Derek Barona posted:

Skies of Arcadia has always been one of my more favorite Sega games. It, Evolution, and Phantasy Star Online are all kind of a weird set of games that show just how genuinely good Sega was at making vibrant games that look and feel really cool, but almost no one cared or paid any attention to them until they appeared on the Gamecube long after the Dreamcast died.

Like the Saturn, Sega tended to make consoles that were way too far ahead for their time.

Also the subtle flaws tended to creep up too often in those titles to make them really shine as their GC ports did: Skies had it's abysmal encounter rate, PSO being an online game in the age of dial up and Evolution getting samey. (Note: Second hand generalization here, I never owned a Dreamcast.)

That being said, Arcadia: Legends is a pretty fun and awesome game. Also I think Antonio has a guaranteed/nigh guaranteed Moonberry drop since I played through the intro a bunch and never noted him not dropping one for Aika.

year199X
Oct 9, 2012
Grimey Drawer
I also wanna say that the dynamic music for the boss fights were :krad:

It was a neat, cheap and easy way for boss fights to feel like they had progression without giving the boss new attacks or phases.

Derek Barona
Dec 8, 2009

WHO'S YOUR FRIEND?!

EponymousMrYar posted:

That being said, Arcadia: Legends is a pretty fun and awesome game. Also I think Antonio has a guaranteed/nigh guaranteed Moonberry drop since I played through the intro a bunch and never noted him not dropping one for Aika.

As far as I'm aware, most of the bosses during the first half of the game have 100% drop chances for it, whereas the normal drop rate for anything besides a Looper is like, single digits. I personally always just sat and hoarded them until I had enough to knock out several moves at once.

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
Skies of Arcadia is one of my favorite games ever and I'm still sad it never got a HD re-release or anything.

Well okay it got a racetrack. That's something.

BigTUnit1
Jul 10, 2012

Yeah, I think the excitement of the moon berry pickup was a bit of foreshadowing excitement. So far through this play through, I have already picked up way more Moonberries then I ever did in any of my other play throughs. You are right though, Antonio is a default drop, but the first fight producing a drop? That was a first for me!

Shoeless
Sep 2, 2011
Yes, yes! Oh I have been waiting for this! Skies, pirates, pirates in the sky, what more could a sane person possibly want?

To add to the discussion of the game itself, I think another reason it really shines is that it came out just three years after FF7. A game that got a lot of other games trying to go the grim gritty route. And then along comes SoA with its upbeat tone, bright, vibrant colors and locales and it just stands out all the more against the dark color pallets, both literal and figurative. I think it does an excellent job at showing how you can have a plot with stuff going on, serious stuff, while not making it super dark and brooding.

FinalGamer posted:

Typically speaking btw a swashbuckler denotes any swordsman who wields a side-sword and a buckler on their off-hand, as in they swash and wield a buckler. I suppose Vyse could buckle his swash though if his sword got broken like his sleeves :v:

I am really glad to finally know what swashbuckling actually means.

Shoeless fucked around with this message at 12:12 on Feb 4, 2015

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Yeah. In a normal "gritty" RPG you'd expect "being a sky pirate is awesome" to give way to a bunch of downer stuff.

But nope, being a sky pirate is awesome and stays awesome.

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Oh, and in case you didn't know, Legends makes the white and black flags common drops so encounter rate can be easily manipulated. I believe they show up at the headwind area which is exactly where you'd want them. With reduced encounter rate compared to the Dreamcast version AND a white flag, you can practically cut random encounters to 0.

Shoeless
Sep 2, 2011

Bruceski posted:

Yeah. In a normal "gritty" RPG you'd expect "being a sky pirate is awesome" to give way to a bunch of downer stuff.

But nope, being a sky pirate is awesome and stays awesome.

Oh, and in case you didn't know, Legends makes the white and black flags common drops so encounter rate can be easily manipulated. I believe they show up at the headwind area which is exactly where you'd want them. With reduced encounter rate compared to the Dreamcast version AND a white flag, you can practically cut random encounters to 0.

Such a game would no doubt feature REAL MORALE CHOICES! Do you rob the dirt farmer and kill his children or do you give him $1000? You decide! Also, white flags I have seen drop in battles with regular enemies in the basic Pirate Isle area right here at the very start of the game. So it's entirely possible to get one right off the bat after the sort of tutorial dungeon that is Alphonse's ship.

And after having watched the whole episode, a couple of things I want to touch upon. Firstly, the magic XP system. As Travis mentioned, you get XP in each element you have a character using. To elaborate, the amount of Magic XP you see after a battle is given for each character you have in the party, to whatever element they were using, and then this amount is given to everyone. So if you have 1 character with green and 1 with red, and gain 2 Magic XP, both characters gain 2 red and green magic XP towards those spells. If both were using red or green, they would both gain 4 in whichever one was being used instead. Personally, I always focused down one path before starting another, since if everyone's going to get the same magic XP anyway, I may as well get to each spell ASAP rather than splitting it up and end up getting all of them at once, but taking much longer to get there.

Then there's the elemental system. I never ended up using it very much, personally. Partly because I didn't know for my first time around how to see what element the enemies are. When you are looking to see what enemy you want to target, in the upper right corner it shows a list of enemies. Each will have a border, and the color of that border is their element. The Marrocas for instance are blue element, hence taking less damage from Vyse when he switched his sword to red, and more from green. I also just never really could remember which color was weak to which other, and given that you'll get groups of different color-typed enemies in battle it requires switching a lot to get full use out of it and it's just easier to smash away against all but the beefiest random encounter foes.

As was mentioned, there's a lot of Hispanic names in the game, most of the for Valuan characters (Spoilers, we meet more people from Valua). This is probably because Valua is not!Spain in SoA. I think it'll become clear as the game progresses that there's a heavy influence. On a completely different topic, the music to Skies is astonishingly good. I actually bought the soundtrack just because of how good it is. Some people have mentioned the gamecube version sounding not as good, but I've never been able to detect a difference. Either way, it's really, really good music and I highly recommend people check out the soundtrack, though keep in mind some of the track titles are somewhat spoilerish.

Oh, and I'm no artist but you guys have inspired me.

Charlett
Apr 2, 2011
Man I had fond memories of Skies of Arcadia. I played it only on the Gamecube, but I really enjoyed it from what I can remember. Unfortunately I think around halfway through it, I picked up like Wind Waker and rushed through that. By the time I got back to SoA I had forgotten where I was, where I needed to go, or even most of the plot, and I knew I had spent way too much time to just reset and do the game over again. I never ended up beating it, and I feel really sad for that. I'll be watching this with satisfaction, just to see what I forgot and how it ends.

Zain
Dec 6, 2009

It's only forever, not long at all
I love this game and already learning so much more watching the first video than I did in the first 9 hours playing.

Zanzibar Ham
Mar 17, 2009

You giving me the cold shoulder? How cruel.


Grimey Drawer
This game is in an eternal duel with Master of Orion 2 for the title of My Favorite Game Ever. I only played it to completion once, but man what a playthrough it was! Only problem is that I only finished it 99.9% :( Missed a treasure box somewhere, and of course if you play a pirate then you gotta keep track of the treasure!

If Sega do the smart thing and put this game on Steam in some form then I might try for that last chest.

I never got that into the magic system of the game. I mean I unlocked all the magic, but I only really used healing mostly, maybe buffs. Certainly underutilized the offensive spells. The special skills are just so awesome I didn't really feel the need to spend both spirit AND mp if I didn't have to.

Zain
Dec 6, 2009

It's only forever, not long at all
Personally healing and buffs are the way magic really should be used in a game like this. I don't think having an effective offensive system would have really worked out.

kaiten80
Oct 31, 2012
Way back in the day, one of my roommates picked up this game and I gave it a try. I got sucked in and played for about 8 hours straight. Then like a week later I moved out and never got to play it again. :(

So I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of what I missed out on.

Guy Fawkes
Aug 1, 2014

Lvl 62, +5 meadow defense

Chimera-gui posted:

While Vyse is playable in All-Stars Racing Transformed, I don't know if Aika or Fina appeared outside SoA.

Yes in Valkyria Chronicles, but that's more an in-jokes than else.

FinalGamer
Aug 30, 2012

So the mystic script says.

Chimera-gui posted:

While Vyse is playable in All-Stars Racing Transformed, I don't know if Aika or Fina appeared outside SoA.
Vyse is FANTASTIC in All-Stars Racing, he basically acts as a super-fast bruiser but steers like poo poo as if he's a boat (of course). Though I do remember hearing when the developers of the game showed off the Arcadia racecourse to the creator of Skies of Arcadia, she weeped in joy for all they put in it.

Deathwings01
Nov 2, 2013
Ah, this game. Even after all these years it still sit my uncontested Favorite Game Of All Time. It's so good that it never actually lose its replay value for me. I still replay that game from start to finish at least once a year, that's how much I love it.

Waffleman_
Jan 20, 2011


I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna!!!

One Piece actually started three years before Skies of Arcadia released, so it's possible that it might be a reference.

EponymousMrYar
Jan 4, 2015

The enemy of my enemy is my enemy.

Guy Fawkes posted:

Yes in Valkyria Chronicles, but that's more an in-jokes than else.

If anything they're even more awesome in that game since they have properly voiced lines.

Then again that could be seen as a mean joke for people wanting another Skies of Arcadia game/remake.

The GIG
Jun 28, 2011

Yeah, I say "Shit" a shit-ton of times. What of it, shithead?
No, the cruel joke is Vyse's cameo in the anime.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Nihilarian
Oct 2, 2013


Mehuyael posted:

I never got that into the magic system of the game. I mean I unlocked all the magic, but I only really used healing mostly, maybe buffs. Certainly underutilized the offensive spells. The special skills are just so awesome I didn't really feel the need to spend both spirit AND mp if I didn't have to.
Speaking from a :spergin: standpoint, the cost and the alternatives kind of kills magic. You can spend SP and MP to cast a spell - cutting into your Cutlass Fury points - or you can get the same effect from magic items for money, and nothing else. Not to mention you can carry up to 99 of an item while your MP doesn't go above, maybe 30?

The game is not difficult enough to need that much efficiency, though, and you can unlock spells before you get access to their items - as demonstrated in the video with Increm - so magic can have it's uses. Increm is definitely worth the SP/MP cost.

  • Locked thread