Post by Dan-RN on Mar 19, 2004 20:18:16 GMT -5
Heh, posted on NSider and here. Good thing I saved this on Word...
Teh Reviews 1: Skies of Arcadia Legends.
I base my review off 5 criteria followed by my closing statements.
1. Story
2. Graphics
3. Gameplay
4. Sound and Music
5. Presentation
6. Closing Comments
1. Story
You're Vyse, a Blue Rogue Air Pirate in the land of Arcadia. Arcadia is a set of islands that float in the sky, and you move around in airships that resemble boats. Blue Rogues plunder the rich and powerful and look out for each other. Tha game starts out as you raid a Valuan Airship commanded by Admiral Alfonso. Valua is under the Yellow moon. There are six moons total and each gives it's power to the underlying lands. So anyway, Vyse and his friend Aika find out that Alfonso had kidnapped a young woman named Fina. They rescue Fina and head back home to Pirate Isle. The next day, while Vyse and Aika are looking for treasure, the Valuan Armada attacks Pirate Isle and takes all of the males and Fina. Being your pirate selves, you go sailing to Valua. So begins the story, which spans around 40 hours if you barely skim through. The game also has an unholy amount of plot twists.
2. Graphics
The graphics get the job done. They look pretty, but after playing some of the more beautiful titles out there (Eternal Darkness, Metroid Prime, etc.), the graphics start looking bad. Now, they look good, don't get me wrong, but the fact that this is a DreamCast port becomes obvious after a bit. The game looks good, and the graphics run smoothly, but some people look a little blocky *coughVYSEcough* or have rough edges. Either way, while the graphics could use some touch ups, the game looks good.
3. Gameplay
The game is a turn based RPG. The combat system only takes a few battles to get used to. The characters move on a limited 3-D plane and move around next to enimies to attack. The action can step up when you face many monsters, because characters tend to run off after a certain monster and you can get disoriented by it. This rarely presents itself as a problem, and it's nice to see your characters really smack a monster instead of just standing there and the monster shake or something like in old-school 2-D RPGs. The other half of the combat system is the ship battles. The ship battles are hard to explain here, but you get used to it. Basically, each member of your team can make one action per turn, whether it's firing a cannon, using a spell, or evading the enemy. You and another ship just blast away at each other until one falls out of the sky. Some battles can take a while, (I'd say there's over 50 bosses in the game), so you might want to bring a snack to some of them. Out of battle you run around in a 3-D world in a Zelda-esq manner. That's when you're on an island. Remember those airships from earlier? Yeah, you use those to fly between islands a lot of the time. Either way, all forms of gameplay are great and lots of fun.
4. Sound and Music
The sound is wonderful. The songs are RPG standard. You won't be walking around humming them all day, but they're nice and always fit the situation. Sounds are pretty good, though my dang mono TV blurred a lot of them. There are lots of voice samples, but the dialogue is all text. Voices are just grunts and battle phrases. Plenty of sounds effects. Lots of booms and crashes in the ship battles. Well done overall.
5. Presentation
The game is all about story, like any good RPG, and stays on that track the whole way through. It opens with a nice chase scene and closes with a....well, you can see that for yourself. The controls work well, though collecting chams can be a chore if you aren't in the EXACT spot. semi-high production values in that they added around 3-5 more hours of gameplay, but only semi-high because the graphics didn't really get an update. Anyway, it stays focused on the story and your main mission throughout, and offers an insane amount of plot twists.
6. Closing Comments
I love this game. If I didn't have other games to beat *glares at FFTA* I would spend 50 more hours playing again. You should savor every moment of this game. This is the peak of RPG in all aspects, and is worth whatever price you can find it for, because I think it got discontinued. Anyway, this is one of those games that is just aweshome (yes, aweshome), but just slipped through the cracks. Similar games that come to mind are Eternal Darkness, EarthBound, and Harvest Moon 64, all of which are worth checking out. So, on to the scores.
Graphics: 8.5/10
Controls: 9.5/10
Sound: 9/10
Fun Factor: 10/10
Replay Value: 9.5/10
Final Score: 9.7/10 [Not an average]
Teh Reviews 1: Skies of Arcadia Legends.
I base my review off 5 criteria followed by my closing statements.
1. Story
2. Graphics
3. Gameplay
4. Sound and Music
5. Presentation
6. Closing Comments
1. Story
You're Vyse, a Blue Rogue Air Pirate in the land of Arcadia. Arcadia is a set of islands that float in the sky, and you move around in airships that resemble boats. Blue Rogues plunder the rich and powerful and look out for each other. Tha game starts out as you raid a Valuan Airship commanded by Admiral Alfonso. Valua is under the Yellow moon. There are six moons total and each gives it's power to the underlying lands. So anyway, Vyse and his friend Aika find out that Alfonso had kidnapped a young woman named Fina. They rescue Fina and head back home to Pirate Isle. The next day, while Vyse and Aika are looking for treasure, the Valuan Armada attacks Pirate Isle and takes all of the males and Fina. Being your pirate selves, you go sailing to Valua. So begins the story, which spans around 40 hours if you barely skim through. The game also has an unholy amount of plot twists.
2. Graphics
The graphics get the job done. They look pretty, but after playing some of the more beautiful titles out there (Eternal Darkness, Metroid Prime, etc.), the graphics start looking bad. Now, they look good, don't get me wrong, but the fact that this is a DreamCast port becomes obvious after a bit. The game looks good, and the graphics run smoothly, but some people look a little blocky *coughVYSEcough* or have rough edges. Either way, while the graphics could use some touch ups, the game looks good.
3. Gameplay
The game is a turn based RPG. The combat system only takes a few battles to get used to. The characters move on a limited 3-D plane and move around next to enimies to attack. The action can step up when you face many monsters, because characters tend to run off after a certain monster and you can get disoriented by it. This rarely presents itself as a problem, and it's nice to see your characters really smack a monster instead of just standing there and the monster shake or something like in old-school 2-D RPGs. The other half of the combat system is the ship battles. The ship battles are hard to explain here, but you get used to it. Basically, each member of your team can make one action per turn, whether it's firing a cannon, using a spell, or evading the enemy. You and another ship just blast away at each other until one falls out of the sky. Some battles can take a while, (I'd say there's over 50 bosses in the game), so you might want to bring a snack to some of them. Out of battle you run around in a 3-D world in a Zelda-esq manner. That's when you're on an island. Remember those airships from earlier? Yeah, you use those to fly between islands a lot of the time. Either way, all forms of gameplay are great and lots of fun.
4. Sound and Music
The sound is wonderful. The songs are RPG standard. You won't be walking around humming them all day, but they're nice and always fit the situation. Sounds are pretty good, though my dang mono TV blurred a lot of them. There are lots of voice samples, but the dialogue is all text. Voices are just grunts and battle phrases. Plenty of sounds effects. Lots of booms and crashes in the ship battles. Well done overall.
5. Presentation
The game is all about story, like any good RPG, and stays on that track the whole way through. It opens with a nice chase scene and closes with a....well, you can see that for yourself. The controls work well, though collecting chams can be a chore if you aren't in the EXACT spot. semi-high production values in that they added around 3-5 more hours of gameplay, but only semi-high because the graphics didn't really get an update. Anyway, it stays focused on the story and your main mission throughout, and offers an insane amount of plot twists.
6. Closing Comments
I love this game. If I didn't have other games to beat *glares at FFTA* I would spend 50 more hours playing again. You should savor every moment of this game. This is the peak of RPG in all aspects, and is worth whatever price you can find it for, because I think it got discontinued. Anyway, this is one of those games that is just aweshome (yes, aweshome), but just slipped through the cracks. Similar games that come to mind are Eternal Darkness, EarthBound, and Harvest Moon 64, all of which are worth checking out. So, on to the scores.
Graphics: 8.5/10
Controls: 9.5/10
Sound: 9/10
Fun Factor: 10/10
Replay Value: 9.5/10
Final Score: 9.7/10 [Not an average]
i don't have the game but it sounds cool!
