I missed out on this one back in the day, though it remained in the back of my mind, a constant nag that I need to sit down and play it. A couple years ago I finally did just that, and having now completed Skies of Arcadia, I do feel like I slept way too long on a classic, perhaps one of the better JRPGs of its era. Which is why it's a little surprising to me that there are so few reviews for it here. Maybe I'm overestimating how popular Skies of Arcadia is, or (more likely) the series has been dormant for so long that everyone has long since moved on from discussing it. I don't know.

My usual bullshit of constantly checking my progress was thankfully averted with Arcadia. It's not that I don't give myself enough space to really enjoy a game, but especially with JRPGs (and other lengthy games) I start to feel the pressure to finish them as other games pile up in my backlog. I was far too comforted by Acadia's world to do this, and spent a lot of time just wandering around, exploring the various islands in the overworld and chatting it up with NPCs when I should've been tackling dungeons. Something about this game just puts me into a zone where I can't be bothered by anything else, and that's nice.

Of course, actually exploring dungeons and engaging in combat feels pretty good too. Arcadia isn't the most complex JRPG out there but it's as satisfying as it needs to be. I've seen some people say the game is very slow paced, but clearly that wasn't an issue for me, even if I think that's a valid point of criticism. Some battles can drag, but I was cool with it. I got to play as a sky pirate, what do I care if some of the sky battles are a little glacial when I'm caught up in the spectacle of it?

I've been meaning to play Skies of Arcadia Legends as well. Sure it's just a Gamecube port, but that means I can get it running on my CRT, and that's reason enough to go back and play this game. This is pretty much JRPG comfort food to me.