I’ve already put over 2 hours into Skies of Arcadia Legends and let me say that it is everything the Dreamcast version was and more. It’s really quite hard to write impressions for a game you’ve already played, beaten, and loved. Right now, I can only really give impressions of the changes made to the game. The game starts with the Valuan Armada chasing down a strange girl. At the same time, a band of Blue Rogues (good Air Pirates) attack the Armada’s ship. They take over and, in the process, save the mysterious girl named Fina. I’ve already beaten the first two bosses (the intro boss and the one after) and gotten a bit past that.

The graphics are improved, though not by much. The facial textures on the characters look excellent, and the models themselves support a little more geometry. The framerate is also nice and smooth throughout the game. The sound is identical to the first version. The score is still excellent and the character voices are still well, not the best. Sometimes they really fit, and others times they sound a bit out of place. I’ve noticed that some of the sound effects have been changed, and mostly to be more dramatic. Lots of the battle sound effects have received this treatment.

The biggest changes I’ve noticed so far are in the battles. For the most part, battles are now less frequent, though there have been a couple times when I was hit with 2 battles very, very close to each other. I don’t know why this happened. But overall, the distance between battles is much more tolerable than it was in the Dreamcast version. The battles also load much, much more quickly than the Dreamcast version. They load so fast, sometimes the opening battle effect (the screen breaks apart into little squares to fade into a battle) is cut short. The battles themselves are mostly unchanged. Characters seem to find more direct routes to their targets, which they sometimes didn’t in the Dreamcast version. Ship battles are unchanged from the Dreamcast version as far as I can tell.

I’ve only scratched the surface on the additions to the game. I encountered the character known as “Doc.” (There are some minor spoilers ahead so read this at your own risk.) Doc is a free doctor who lends his services out to anybody who is sick. He also takes care of a little girl named Maria, who is presumably quite sick (they never came out and said she was). Maria has a little pet bird that will only eat Moonfish. The problem is, Moonfish are invisible, and quite rare too. According to Doc, Moonfish mostly like to hang out in residential areas, behind houses and on rooftops. He gives Vyse a new lens for his eye-piece that will allow him to see these Moonfish when looking around in first-person view. Vyse is also alerted to the presence of these Moonfish by a beeping noise. By going into first-person view, Vyse can see the fish and capture them by lining them up in a small reticule and hitting the A button. It’s quite simple really. Vyse can return these Moonfish to Doc, who doesn’t have time to catch them himself, and in exchange can receive items (and according to Sega, info on the game’s final boss).

So far, Skies of Arcadia Legends is everything I’ve hoped for. It’s a director’s cut of what is probably my favorite game of all time. If you were a diehard fan of the original, or never played it at all and love RPGs, you should do yourself a favor and go get this title.