The Shrine

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I'll have to say, this is the first RPG in a VERY long time that has really drawn me in if you exclude Vagrant Story (it's more of an Adventure game with RPG elements). If you have a Dreamcast and you don't have this game, you're really missing out. I'm about 10 hours into it now, most of that I've done in the last 4 or 5 days.

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<span style="background: black; color: black;">Actually I'm skipping one, I felt fairly drawn into Xenogears as well when I played it.</span></div>

<div style='font: 9pt Modern; text-align: left; '>It will be my next game when I'm done with Grandia 2... BTW, has anyone here found Skies being sold for less than $50 anywhere?</div>

<div style='font: 12pt "Times New Roman", Modern; text-align: left; '>I'll go buy it once I finally get around to beating FF9 :P I've been on the final disc, waiting to level up forever</div>

<div style='font: 9pt arial, Modern; text-align: left; '>Wait until some of the later segments of the game...I was truly impressed with the way they managed to integrate the party and ship battles.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt "Comic Sans MS", Modern; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>I'll get it when I have time to play it after I'm finally done with PSO...</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Even then, the ship battles still manage to capture a sense of epicness. I think the music is a big part, as are the gorgeous graphics. Though it kind of sucks when you see stuff that looks like it'll rip your ship in half like Blue Wind do like 3000 damage.

To be honest, the Skies battle system is just a mad charge fest to pump 21 SP into Vyse each turn for Pirate's Wrath (and Cutlass Fury before you get PW). But it's no more trivial than any RPG that runs on a similar system (attack/heal) which is pretty much every other RPG out there. I think they managed to capture the atmosphere of battle pretty well (battle music was okay, but generally just the norm, except for the special bosses), and I'd say graphics is certainly one of the biggest factor they're able to do so.

The only real flaw I found in the game is that you can't explore in the Overworld without constantly being harassed by enemies. Skies has a beautiful Overworld, but it's hard to appreciate it when you're constantly pestered by pointless random encounters. You'd think with all these super guns on your ship your Joe Smoe monster would stay away from it lest they want to be blown out of the sky. 

I want to see more spells in the lines of Aika's Delta Shield. It didn't work in that game since all the big attacks from bosses do not count as magical or physical, and the only real spell you ever cast is Increm, but it's got a pretty neat concept if it works. Do you take a chance of not being able to cast any spells and a net -5 SP (2 to use, and you can't be charging), banking on it'll nullify an enemy's powerful spells? Only the last two or so battle does Delta Shield even have a realistic use as Eternum is actually nullifible AND dangerous.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>As RPGs don't exactly sell that well in America, it is less likely they drop the price (because they won't be able to sell many to begin with) unless the store just wants to get rid of them.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Then again, it's probably just here, because of new laws made (THANKS QUEBEC!!!!!) all major retailers have to have an English and French instruction book packaged with the game, so wherever you go, you're not going to find many DC games in places like Walmart and Futureshop.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I don't think you have to level up in FF9</div>

<div style='font: 9pt arial, Modern; text-align: left; '>I actually used magic and regular weapons a lot in the ship battles, as opposed to items and the specials (though I didn't mind using the moonstone cannon, of course).</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Arial, Modern; text-align: left; '>Woohoo! I'm looking forward to that.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>The arrow indicating Increm can be hard to see sometimes, and for some reason the 4 SP used for Increm always seem to come back and bite you when you really want to have a cool volley of 4 attacks on a Critical attack.

And there's just no comparison using a Complete Kit that costs about 150 gold pieces and 0 SP versus using Sacrulen which is what, 12 SP?</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "Arial bold", Modern; text-align: left; '>That, Grandia 2, and PSO I'm getting...just later</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>I played Grandia II for a while, but honestly, I don't know how it's going to top Skies, the graphics are nice and crisp in Grandia II, that's about the only thing it has over Skies, possibly a better story, I can't comment yet. Skies is just so much fun for so many different reasons</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Does Increm ever wear out? If not, then it really is an overpowered spell</div>

<div style='font: 12pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Well, the last two bosses consistently dispel it but other than that it basically sticks around forever, unless you die.

Incremus lasts 4 turn on ships, though it's hard to justify blowing 16 SP for it when you can just cast Increm twice.</div>

<div style='font: 10pt "Copperplate Gothic", Modern; text-align: left; '>Gonna buy it, I swear.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt Modern; text-align: left; '>Just bought it today. I gotta force myself to play through the rest of Grandia 2 first....</div>