I don't finish JRPGs, and I happily finished Skies of Arcadia. Twice, in fact. It's impossible for me to be biased towards this game because Skies is THE hidden-gem masterpiece. It's not just any hidden gem, it's THE hidden gem.
Is Skies perfect? No, of course not. I'd argue it's not even all that great, objectively speaking. Random encounters are an issue, especially on the Dreamcast version - although you can upgrade your ship to the point where you can essentially avoid random encounters altogether, you'll still be spending a lot of time dealing with them all the same. One of the first major dungeons in the game has this awful difficulty spike with this boss that can turn you to stone, and then it's followed by the first and most difficult ship-vs-ship battle in the entire game (the desert arc is ROUGH). Movement's on the slow side, it can be easy to get lost from time to time, and there's these racist Chinese dudes that like... nah, they're pretty racist-looking, can't excuse that at all.
But Skies of Arcadia gets a 5/5 because it's fucking MAGICAL. It is scientifically impossible not to have a smile on your face while playing this. Skies of Arcadia's adventures and setpieces are incredible - something interesting and wondrous is always happening, and it keeps the plot moving at a brisk pace, so brisk that the 40-60 hours you'll spend playing it feel like a breeze. The characters are full of personality and life, some of them even having some unexpected depth (shoutout to Fina, Drachma, Belleza, Ramirez, and Enrique), and Vyse is the charismatic glue that holds them all together. The NPCs are shockingly fun to talk to, especially once you get a crew together and you walk around the Delphinus talking to everyone. The late-game story beats are surprisingly impactful. A seemingly dreadful-section where Vyse, Aika, and Fina get separated winds up being one of the best segments in the game. And that feeling of when you finally get to pass through this impenetrable wall of storms and gust and explore the rest of the world that's waiting for you beyond the rift... untouchable, man.
The coolest thing about Skies is how it always provides these little twists to classic 90's JRPG tropes. The combat is pretty standard, but the magic-leveling system where you can assign an element to ANY weapon to make that element level up faster is utterly genius (it cuts down on grinding considerably and unlocks better spells). The ship combat is surprisingly nuanced due to the different abilities of each crew member on board. You can turn Cupil - Fina's cute little silver pet dude - from the weakest melee weapon in the game to possibly the strongest by collecting these Cham things that the VMU will beep at whenever you get close to them.
And then there's this awesome exploration system that's basically a rat-race against this rival adventurer called Domingo, where you're encouraged to explore the world as thoroughly and quickly as possible in order to map out locations before he does. You get extra $$$ for doing this, and if you utterly stomp Domingo at the art of geomapping, he'll actually concede defeat and offer to join your crew like a champ and FUCK THIS GAME FUCKIN ROCKS MAN
In spite of its intermittent frustrations, Skies of Arcadia is entertaining, engaging, surprisingly intricate at parts, and most of all: charming and full of wonder. It's the perfect JRPG, a focused and finely-tuned experience that's stood the test of time so well that even its' fandom of, like, 10 people at most, is passionate and vocal enough in their love for this perfect game to have Skies included in Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. The soundtrack also fucking slaps. 5/5. Gaming peaked at the turn of the century with Skies of Arcadia.
Is Skies perfect? No, of course not. I'd argue it's not even all that great, objectively speaking. Random encounters are an issue, especially on the Dreamcast version - although you can upgrade your ship to the point where you can essentially avoid random encounters altogether, you'll still be spending a lot of time dealing with them all the same. One of the first major dungeons in the game has this awful difficulty spike with this boss that can turn you to stone, and then it's followed by the first and most difficult ship-vs-ship battle in the entire game (the desert arc is ROUGH). Movement's on the slow side, it can be easy to get lost from time to time, and there's these racist Chinese dudes that like... nah, they're pretty racist-looking, can't excuse that at all.
But Skies of Arcadia gets a 5/5 because it's fucking MAGICAL. It is scientifically impossible not to have a smile on your face while playing this. Skies of Arcadia's adventures and setpieces are incredible - something interesting and wondrous is always happening, and it keeps the plot moving at a brisk pace, so brisk that the 40-60 hours you'll spend playing it feel like a breeze. The characters are full of personality and life, some of them even having some unexpected depth (shoutout to Fina, Drachma, Belleza, Ramirez, and Enrique), and Vyse is the charismatic glue that holds them all together. The NPCs are shockingly fun to talk to, especially once you get a crew together and you walk around the Delphinus talking to everyone. The late-game story beats are surprisingly impactful. A seemingly dreadful-section where Vyse, Aika, and Fina get separated winds up being one of the best segments in the game. And that feeling of when you finally get to pass through this impenetrable wall of storms and gust and explore the rest of the world that's waiting for you beyond the rift... untouchable, man.
The coolest thing about Skies is how it always provides these little twists to classic 90's JRPG tropes. The combat is pretty standard, but the magic-leveling system where you can assign an element to ANY weapon to make that element level up faster is utterly genius (it cuts down on grinding considerably and unlocks better spells). The ship combat is surprisingly nuanced due to the different abilities of each crew member on board. You can turn Cupil - Fina's cute little silver pet dude - from the weakest melee weapon in the game to possibly the strongest by collecting these Cham things that the VMU will beep at whenever you get close to them.
And then there's this awesome exploration system that's basically a rat-race against this rival adventurer called Domingo, where you're encouraged to explore the world as thoroughly and quickly as possible in order to map out locations before he does. You get extra $$$ for doing this, and if you utterly stomp Domingo at the art of geomapping, he'll actually concede defeat and offer to join your crew like a champ and FUCK THIS GAME FUCKIN ROCKS MAN
In spite of its intermittent frustrations, Skies of Arcadia is entertaining, engaging, surprisingly intricate at parts, and most of all: charming and full of wonder. It's the perfect JRPG, a focused and finely-tuned experience that's stood the test of time so well that even its' fandom of, like, 10 people at most, is passionate and vocal enough in their love for this perfect game to have Skies included in Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. The soundtrack also fucking slaps. 5/5. Gaming peaked at the turn of the century with Skies of Arcadia.