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Why Everyone Hates It: Skies of Arcadia most definitely falls under our coverage here by way of obscurity, rather than popularity. Those familiar with the game generally seem to agree that it's one of the best games out there.
Legitimate Issues With the Game: There are only two remotely negative comments I've ever seen directed at Skies of Arcadia, both of which can be dismissed as subjective at best. The only thing it ever really did wrong was coming out for the Dreamcast right as it was becoming clear that the console wasn't going to last.
Why I Like It Anyway: As mentioned last month, Skies of Arcadia is by Rieko Kodama, and is a spiritual successor of sorts to Phantasy Star. That alone is a fairly good reason to play it. To really properly appreciate it though, we're going to need some proper context here.
It's the year 2000, and thanks to Final Fantasy 7, RPGs are the hot new genre. Rather than the closed off little niche they were just three years earlier, with only a handful of new games being released in the U.S. each year, suddenly it seems like everyone is getting into the scene. In many ways, it's a golden age, paving the way for experimental new games like Koudelka and Valkyrie Profile. On the other hand, when it comes to traditional, by-the-numbers RPGs, we are suddenly staring at an amazing flood of uninspired mediocrity. Even from the publishers who should know better. For many (myself included) it seemed like the genre was essentially dead, and could only be made interesting by way of increasingly convoluted gimmicks and a general abandonment of the basic things we expect from an RPG.
Then along came Skies of Arcadia. While it has a few things going for it to set it apart from the pack, the real appeal of Skies of Arcadia is how well it embraces its roots. In many ways, it feels like it's the mid-90s again. We have a simplified, cartoonish art style, a plot which is profoundly influenced by Laputa (AKA Castle in the Sky), and we spend the bulk of the game racing against an evil empire to gather elemental crystals from all over the world, upgrading our mode of transportation along the way. The only thing that would make it more of a straight-up, by the numbers experience would be if it started off with the main character's village being burned to the ground, leaving him an orphan. It's all been done before, but when it's done well, as it is here, it doesn't feel tired at all.
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The lack of a tragic opening incidentally is very much in keeping with the overall tone of the game. With every other game of the day bringing us bleak desolation, characters with severe mental and emotional problems, and nothing working out for the heroes until the very end, Skies of Arcadia is as cheerful as they come. Someone shows up with their big intimidating new superweapon, launches an assault on the nearest town, your party members come up with a crazy reckless plan which goes off without a hitch (discounting any instances of you dying and trying again anyway), you get treated to their little "Go Team Venture!" style celebratory pose, and odds are you have a fun new toy to play with for the rest of the game. It is very rare for any character in your party not to be sporting a huge grin, and things almost go your way. It really makes for a refreshing change of pace, and the energy frequently transfers over to the player too.
Aside from the tone, the most immediately evident aspect of the game is the detail put into the setting. Skies of Arcadia goes against tradition somewhat by starting the player off with an airship, rather than make a big deal of acquiring one halfway through the game. This is because the game is set in what long time D&D players would likely refer to as the elemental plane of air. There is essentially no ground, no oceans, just a huge sprawl truly 3D open air, with various sized hunks of floating rock scattered about. One would think this would make things rather dull, but between the unique character of each major landmass (even if they do form a romanticized version of earth circa 1790), the huge "reefs" of hundreds of small stones, strong winds, and various sorts of cloud, it becomes a very interesting world to explore. In fact, a rather major ongoing sidequest of the game involves taking the time to closely study the world around you, looking for interesting landmarks, and sharing news of their discovery for some quick cash. The whole "wonder of discovery" angle is pushed quite successfully as a major theme of the game, especially compared to certain other RPGs from around the same time.
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This brings us to the most controversial aspect of the game. Generally speaking, when you have a console RPG, some number is picked out of a hat, as the basis for how often you find yourself in a random battle. Sometimes they're frequent, sometimes you're only going to hit half a dozen between each boss. Here, it's all dependent on how you move, rather than how far. Travel a straight line from point A to point B, and you can manage to circumnavigate the entire world before you get in three fights. Flail about like crazy in tight circles, there's a fight more like every three seconds. The idea is that when you're in a hurry to move things along, you won't be slowed down, but taking the time to check out every little detail becomes more dangerous. It's an interesting system, although it might have made more of a splash if it weren't implemented so subtly.
Speaking of combat, here's where we have a bit of originality on display. Your entire party has a shared pool of points that gradually regenerates and can be given an extra charge by skipping a character's turn. Any abilities besides attacking and using items drain this pool by varying degrees. Early in the game, this leads to tricky resource management, having some characters hold back while others use their best attacks, cutting back on offensive powers to keep enough points free for healing, and so forth. Later in the game, as the recharge rate increases, it becomes more of a free license to use powerful room clearing abilities in the first round of every battle. There's also a system wherein the elemental affinity of each character's weapon can be changed each round, to do maximum damage to different monsters, and also effecting the order in which new spells are learned.
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Much more interesting than standard combat though is the ship to ship combat, which becomes increasingly common as the game goes on. Visually, it has much in common with battles from Panzer Dragoon Saga, circling around your opponent trying to position yourself properly for various attacks. Mechanically though, it's very much its own experience. Four rounds of combat must be planned at a time, with each character running about the ship firing various weapons, using evasive manuevers, making repairs or casting spells. This much was later imitated by Wild ARMs 3, and adds an extra bit of strategy to the mix between the forethought involved, and a more restrictive version of the shared action point pool coming into play.
On top of this though, we have the circumstantial modifiers to deal with. Any given round might grant bonuses to your attacks, the enemy's both, or leave you too far apart for any attacks to be accurate. Predicted conditions for the next 8 rounds are always given, but from time to time, these will be effected by command decisions every few rounds. In random battles, these tend to be simple question of backing off or heading in for the kill, but boss battles require you to outthink your opponent and take a few gambles. Cutting your engines might allow you to drop into position to fire your single astoundingly devastating forward mounted weapon (usable only at great cost, and when a command decision leaves you at the proper angle of attack), or it might just leave you a sitting duck as they swing around for a quick barrage. Heading up above them might hurt their accuracy as the sun gets in their eyes, or it might just leave you vulnerable to their top-mounted "torpedo" tubes. Then when we add in weapons which can land up to 6 rounds after they're fired, or guns that can be set to fire continually over a period of several rounds, and proper planning becomes very important. To say nothing of the customizability of the weapons and crew.
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Those looking for more games like Skies of Arcadia have a few places to potentially turn. While a sequel has yet to come about, a remake for the GameCube was eventually released, handled by a third party developer who decided to take some liberties with the storyline, and add quite a few new characters. Whether this is a good thing or not is a call I can't make first hand. Two of the main characters also manage to put in an appearance of sorts in Valkyria Chronicles. A few games from other developers have also cribbed heavily from the same playbook, such as the aforementioned Wild ARMs 3 and (I'm told) Rogue Galaxy. Then there's also much to be said for the (generally much darker) Phantasy Star series, and for those rare few who can find it, Panzer Dragoon Saga can essentially be defined as an entire game of nothing but SoA's airship battles without it being too big an exaggeration. In any case, Skies of Arcadia is, most definitely, required playing for any serious fan of the genre.
I suppose a passing footnote should also be made that Skies of Arcadia has the odd distinction of being the first console game of any sort to feature a free, downloadable expansion. While a number of other games have attempted such features, it's still quite rare to see it done well.
