The Shrine

Also mentioned were God of War 3 and Gears 2....yeah, those are shocking revelations

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163790

Skies of Arcadia...Arcadia...2?

...

Did you hear that?

It's the sound of God orgasming.

Skies of Arcadia, as good as it was, was still basically a game that has nothing beneath an absolutely beautiful overworld that makes retarded mechanisms like taking an hour to get past 1 screen tolerable (South sea tornadoes I think). I'm not sure which team at Sega will be responsible for doing SoA2 but the game better look at least as good as the Dueling Room cutscene in Shining Force Exa if they're going to have nonexistent gameplay covered by awesome graphics again.

Don Wang wrote:Skies of Arcadia, as good as it was, was still basically a game that has nothing beneath an absolutely beautiful overworld that makes retarded mechanisms like taking an hour to get past 1 screen tolerable (South sea tornadoes I think). I'm not sure which team at Sega will be responsible for doing SoA2 but the game better look at least as good as the Dueling Room cutscene in Shining Force Exa if they're going to have nonexistent gameplay covered by awesome graphics again.

You'll have it on day 1, smile and nod.

Well assuming it's on a system I own, sure, because I've given lesser games the benefit of the doubt before. I'm just saying that I expect the game to look like a dream because that's what it took for Skies of Arcadia to overcome the lack of, well, everything else.

Whatever, I played SoA for about an hour. Hated the gameplay, and hated the traditional JRPG bullshit.

SineSwiper wrote:Whatever, I played SoA for about an hour. Hated the gameplay, and hated the traditional JRPG bullshit.

Your words are meaningless because they are filled with fail and ignorance.

Also, fail.

Well, tell me. What was good about the game?

SineSwiper wrote:Well, tell me. What was good about the game?

It was pretty and had fun characters!

1. The world. The world is one of the most engrossing and genuinely fun RPG worlds to date. It's incredibly huge, incredibly detailed, and filled with tiny, yet colorful details (in the form of discoveries) that add new chapters of history and interest. The sense of discovery is not only a vital part of the world map on a whole (which combines the only really fun part of an overworld system, and that is airship travel), but also a central theme to the plot as well. The locations themselves, while cliche, are presented in a vibrant, lively, and genuinely swashbuckling. It's really hard to NOT like the areas, considering the amount of effort that's placed into making them not only believable, but also fun to spend time in.

2. The soundtrack. The soundtrack is really really great--again, along with the locations, each of the songs not only fit the locations, they also add an extra poignancy to the dramatic scenes. Sure, there's some crummy voice-over clips that happen during some dialogue scenes, but you can't really deny that the soundtrack fits the pirate and exploration theme to a tea.

3. Characters. Yeah, ok, some may give me some crap for this. In truth, I suppose, the characters are fairly cliche. In fact, it may be better to say that the "characters" part is better turned to the "dialogue" section, because the game's script is freaking FANTASTIC. There's no voice acting, but every character has incredible amounts of life and vigor. Gilder is possibly one of the most likable characters ever to be made, but every one of them has a spot in the limelight--even Fina, who is painfully close to being a total cliche ends up becoming a truly interesting character thanks to decent writing and plot development.

4. Airship Battles: They take the basic battle system and add a cinematic flair, some nifty tweaks, and an extra edge of difficulty and come up with something truly interesting. If you ask any Skies fan what their favorite battle was, they'll likely tell you it was one of the great airship duels, whether it's with an enemy ship or with one of the monstrous Gigases. Plus, you can recruit a wide range of colorful crewmates that add special abilities to your ship's roster, which adds a fun sort of Suikoden side-quest to the game's already huge number of cool things to do.

Plus, in addition, most of the slow-down and loading problems were solved in the Gamecube port. So, it makes it even MORE AWESOME.

The gameplay for SoA sucks. The entire game exists as a reason to explore the world and nothing else. At its core you've a game that's:

1. Impossible to win if you actually play use MP like you're supposed to
2. Impossible to lose if you use items, or turtle with Lunar Light (can heal yourself to full every turn while doing minimal damage, but you can't lose).

Add the considerable loading time and the inability to die, it makes the entire battle system an exercise in frustration. Like I said in another post, they have a lot of cool things to keep it from being too boring, but it's still a weak battle system. It gets really excessive when you have stuff like Silver Eclipse/Silver Nightmare taking a minute to animate and is unskippable.

For the music it was decent but I don't think strong enough to carry the game by itself unlike say Wild Arms.

Airship battle suffer from the same problem where it is impossible to lose if you use items. I was showing my friend the final battle and he fell asleep in the 30 minute airship battle against Xelos (I think that was the final airship battle was called) because I mistimed my barrage of doom on the wrong round and caused the fight drag on for an extra 10 minutes. I think the fights had some good ideas, and I love the barrage you can unleash with 2 full action bars (use one the turn before, use special ability and unload 2 turns worth of firepower in one critical round).

Again the problem comes from the fact that the game is extremely difficult if played the normal way. If you take multiple hits while in the critical region on a fight like Xelos you're probably going to die. Since Xelos takes at least 20 minutes to beat, plus at least 10+ minutes earlier against Ramirez (Silver Eclipse takes a good minute to animate), you really want to avoid dying in that game. So you end up with a typical round that looks like evasive action X 3, moon cannon X 1 which would take an hour to kill any boss. If you miss the rounds where you can unload with stuff like moon cannon X 8, moon gun X 8, moon torpedo X 2 you'll be basically fighting forever because you're forced to turtle.

I really like the airship battles where you get disoriented and the enemy unloads on you, like against the guy who rams you and then you get hit by his main cannon X 8 or some ridiculous number. Problem is that the game is too simplistic. You either read a FAQ ahead of time and did the correct countermeasure, or you end up getting hit by something that requires evasive action X 4 to survive at full health. I actually like how you and the boss usually ends up just probing each other until some major attack comes, but the condition to determine the critical rounds are too simplistic. And then you got stuff like Xelos that just gets a ton of critical rounds on you with no way to counter it which forces you to turtle.

The characters of SoA are quite good, though I think they're a bit lacking because everyone in SoA is 100% positive and eternally optimistic. It's not that I prefer melodrama over bad childhood, but it's like having a game with 7 Luffies from One Piece. It is a very idealistic version of the world, which doesn't always fit with what's actually happening in the game. There's actually some pretty sad things that happen in SoA but it feels like you're just leading a bunch of kids who are just too carefree and happy to care. It really wouldn't hurt the game if the cast stop for a moment and feel sorry for Ramirez, for example.

Don Wang wrote: It's not that I prefer melodrama over bad childhood, but it's like having a game with 7 Luffies from One Piece.

Darn it Don, you will stop this disage of One Piece or suffer! *Shakes fist*

I thought I posted in this thread!

Seriously, this news is totally awesome! I seriously fell in love with this game when I first played it. My favourite bit, in regards to the Dreamcast version, was from the start of disk 2 onward. For those who only played Legends (which fixed a lot of the battle related complaints and added more to the world, slightly increased graphical detail in certain portions) this is the section after Ixa'Taka, it starts off with Vyse stranded on a deserted island north of the Nasr capital. The story really picks up a lot at this point. I found this game had a lot of rewarding scenes and locations for getting further.

On the characters, I love the characters. Gilder was totally awesome, my favourite line by him "Women are like sunsets, they're beautiful, but there will always be a new one tomorrow evening!" Balthier from FF12 seems to be based off of Gilder, Balthier, you know the guy who wasn't the main character despite totally filling the role =P

Of all the games I have ever played this one reminds me of Chrono Trigger the most. I can't wait to play a third game like it. I really hope they get the same artists, they took the Dreamcast and created an absolutely stunning game. I'll also mention tat I hope they get the same people to design the locations, there was so much awesome scenary.... Like walking up to the window in the light house on Sailor's Island and looking out to see the beautiful reef with the airships flying in and around it, and it is one of those things that a lot of players might have just run by, but it is nice scenary. Lots and lots of details that just really add to the living feeling of the world....

I am really looking forward to information on this title.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQu7y_ixLrg

Err, Balthier is the main character of FF12. Just because you control a kid as mandated by RPG 101, doesn't mean Vaan and Penelo are the main characters. They're more like clueless kids who happened to tag along the way and have no significance in the story whatsoever.