Gaming World Forums
General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: TMAC on April 01, 2008, 05:28:26 am
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Ok here's the deal people:
I have both Skies of Arcadia for Dreamcast, along with Skies of Arcadia Legends for Gamecube. Don't ask why, somehow I have both. Anyway, I need some advice on which to play. I haven't played SoA in any form yet, don't know if that makes a difference, I place my trust in you GamingW!
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I would say go for the Gamecube one. While the Dreamcast one holds a fair deal of nostalgia for me, the Gamecube one really is completely better than the Dreamcast one. I can't think of a single thing the DC version has over the GC one (except the grinding the disc makes before a random battle... ah, cheap tricks!).
If you haven't played it any form, well, goddammit, get to it, and don't come back till you've finished. Don't even stop for food or piss breaks or anything. Go!
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the gamecube one has extra shit in it problem solved
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The music sounds better on the Dreamcast. If music isn't a big deal for you, then play the GC one.
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The Gamecube's pad is less likely to CUT YOU OPEN!
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uh.. the gc one is just the full dc game + all the extra stuff.
so.. yeah.
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You know I had written a big post about this game saying it is awful. However that's not productive together with you aren't asking so.
Anyway, the Gamecube version is exactly the same with a few bonus missions so you should probably play that one.
EDIT: These April 1 filters are lame because I kept trying to fix the weird things I had accidentally typed before realizing that I was the butt of a cruel joke :(
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ha ha ha you fell for it
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Hahaha! Ok seems like the GCN version wins out. It's just one of the many RPGs I own but never played, so I figured I'd start somewhere.
Thanks guys!
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You know I had written a big post about this game saying it is awful. However that's not productive together with you aren't asking so.
Anyway, the Gamecube version is exactly the same with a few bonus missions so you should probably play that one.
EDIT: These April 1 filters are lame because I kept trying to fix the weird things I had accidentally typed before realizing that I was the butt of a cruel joke :(
You know, Mala, I am actually very interested to hear what you have to say! Having loved the game profusely myself, and not having met many people who thought otherwise, I'd be interested to hear the other side of the debate. Feel like writing it up here or PMing it or something?
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You know, Mala, I am actually very interested to hear what you have to say! Having loved the game profusely myself, and not having met many people who thought otherwise, I'd be interested to hear the other side of the debate. Feel like writing it up here or PMing it or something?
To be fair I didn't play the game when it was a big deal so I'm not able to judge it probably the way it was intended to be.
Anyway, to me this game really represents basically all of the bad ideas that were going on in jRPG design at the time. There are some games that, when you go back, feel like charming classics that are still basically functional and entertaining. This is why people make games like Cave Story. Skies of Arcadia in my opinion is not one of these charming classics but rather a stale old game.
Most notably, the graphics are not just *bad*, but they are also awkward. They are a rudimentary attempt at a colorful 3D game, and the models and environments look blocky and uncomfortable. The camera moves around dramatically, especially in battles, but the designers didn't have a solid sense of cinematography and I actually got a little nauseous during boss fights (not to mention disoriented in dungeons). Competing RPGs such as Final Fantasy, Suikoden, or Dragon Quest may not have been as ambitious with their graphics, but because they were more conservative they felt much more cohesive. This game just looks like a mess. There is a difference between being a graphics nut who demands the latest in pixel shaders and being a person who wants their games to at least look as if they were intentionally made to look a certain way. Skies of Arcadia looks like a bad experiment and does not try to operate within the confines of its available technology.
I guess the basic RPG mechanics were relatively sound and everything but I felt like the rest of the core design was really boring. The dungeons were really maze-like and plain, which is not okay if they aren't randomly generated. I was also expecting the world map to be really incredible, because everyone had raved for a decade about how awesome 3D navigation was, but it really turned out to not involve any 3D navigation whatsoever and was probably one of the worst ways I can envision to move from place to place.
I also felt that the writing was really ridiculously terrible and wasn't helped by the amateurish voice acting. It was basically just like Grandia (was this game made by the same team?) except less self-aware. Rather than feeling cheesy in a Saturday-morning sort of way, it felt cheesy in a childish way. There's a big difference.
So yeah I guess this might have been a pretty good game back in the day? When I saw it at a used game shop a few months ago for $20 I snatched it up immediately and was really psyched to play it because it's such a celebrated classic. Playing it, though, felt like I was playing an old game like Fighting Force or something -- it didn't age well and just felt like a bad, old game.
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fyi this game is DS and rami's favorite.
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second favorite...
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second favorite...
When did this demotion take place... I can't believe you
Anyway both the DC and GC versions are universally praised from my experiences. Aside from Malad's rant I can't say I've heard anybody say they really disliked the game. There are just so many things about it that make the game work that it's easy to overlook its numerous flaws.
I'm also going to suggest you play the GC version, supposedly random battles were toned down in it compared to the Dreamcast release and I believe the graphics are possibly displayed at a better resolution. Then there's all the additional content: Wanted battles, Piastol, extra cut scenes, and some other stuff I've forgotten. I think they added a bunch of new discoveries to the GC version as well.
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The game is really fun because of its presentation. In its core, the game is really nothing more than your old fashioned epic tale of a dashing youth who saves the world with his friends in an incredible adventure, just like most jRPGs, but what makes Skies stand out is its presentation; never before has such an old formula been presented so well and coherently.
The whole game is just very clean and complete. The characters, setting, plot, and progression is very clean and organized, and the way the game presents the classic formula RPG's have been using for years is what really makes the game stand out.
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Second fave too. (Xenogears was always tops. #1)
I remember Dreamcast's VMU would beep when you were near that silver thing's food. Does the GC version have something like that?
(Man, now I want to dig out my Dreamcast. I love that thing.)