The Shrine

<div style='font: bold 10pt ; text-align: left; '>Good stuff, nice to play a nice old fashioned RPG with lots of easter eggs and side quests. Never played it for the Dreamcast. Even with the slightly dated graphics, it's still very colorful and eyepleasing. Thumbs up!</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I like the ending quote:

A girl had a mission
A girl had the passion
A boy had a dream

Together they changed the world

Or something like that. Simple, and yet it captures the essence of the game.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Also the graphics haven't really been improved in quality, but they certainly have put extra detail into the characters, they look a little more advanced, hair, clothing, and hands. Also the clouds seam more realistic, the animations have also been updated.

They changed some of the music, and added a few new tunes that I don't remember hearing. They added more details to the towns, such as wanted posters and such (they might have been in the DC version, I just never looked at them), and they added the whole wanted thing to shipsguild where you can claim a bounty for hunting black pirates.

Due to the much lower encounter rate outside, and the quick loading of battles, I am no longer discouraged to go out and seek new discoveries, I have more discoveries now than I think I ever had before, and I'm only in the North Ocean just after Ixa'Taka! Moonfish are also a very nice addition, I hope I've found every single one of them, I guess Chams are easier to find as well (since sometimes I ignored my VMU). I have also found myself fishing quite often too, I didn't do that in the first version of the game at all. Saving is not a hassle anymore either since the whole process now takes about 1 second.

All in all, the game is more or less the extended complete version of the Dreamcast game, it is more advanced, fixes the issues that people had with the Dreamcast version, and has added a lot of side-quests (there's quite a bit more in this game than in the Dreamcast one, I can already tell that and I'm not even into the main part of the game yet).


As for the game itself, Skies of Arcadia is a fun game, it's all about adventure and exploration of distant lands, finding treasure. You begin by living with your parents on Pirate Island, and then you grow up as a crew-member on new ship sailing out and seeking adventure, and eventually you get your own ship, and your own crew. Then finally you've moved up to the leader of a town that you can customize to your will. Fighting significant battles in an evolving war, gaining allies, etc... There's a definite building process going on in the game, the characters and settings are great as well. The game reminds me (probably as far as characters and settings go) of Chrono Trigger on steroids, it definetly seams as an evolution of that particular game.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>I got bored with the game in about 30 minutes or so.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>That's because you suck.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Actually, I can understand this because Skies moves very slowly.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>He likes Xenogears, and Xenogears moves even more slowly. Actually, in Legends, the South Ocean wasn't even bad. Took about 4-5 minutes to get through.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>There's your problem, nothing much even happens in the first 30 minutes of the game.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Because exposition is a bad thing</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Except XG had an awesome story. SoA looked trite and boring and like your typical RPG storyline.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I liked Skies of Arcadia better than Xenogears.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt ; text-align: left; '>Ask yourself the last time you played a traditional RPG. It's actually pretty good, I dismissed it at first as well, but I'm playing the remake, and it's quit fun.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>I guess to sum things up. For me it's like playing Skies of Arcadia again for the first time.</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>Well the premise is very trite but the execution is really good... but you can't really tell from the first couple of hours</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Can't enjoy a good old-fashioned RPG? Can't say I'm surprised at all.</div>

<div style='font: italic bold 14pt ; text-align: center; '>dumb ass :p</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>Dorky dork.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Dumbass! Duh! Oh wait...this is my own thread.</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>Sort like Grandia 2? There's another game that I only got halfway through.</div>

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Heh, dumbass. :P</div>

<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>It's not really much like Grandia 2 at all. Skies of Arcadia is more similar to Chrono Trigger, Grandia 2 reminded me most of the Breath of Fire series (not gameplaywise, but just the atmosphere, story, and setting, the game in general).</div>

<div style='font: 11pt "EngraversGothic BT", "Copperplate Gothic Light"; text-align: left; '>You have to be a big and daring man to actually have the guts to compare ANYTHING with Chrono Trigger.</div>