Skies of Arcadia was originally released on the Sega Dreamcast in the fall of 2000, to much critical acclaim. Now, Overworks has gone back and made what they like to refer to as a “Director’s Cut” of the original title, and they’ve dubbed it Skies of Arcadia Legends. The game follows the story of Vyse, a young Air Pirate who resides in the world of Arcadia. Arcadia is orbited by 6 different moons. The gravitational pull of these moons causes the land on the planet to literally float in the sky like islands in an ocean. Not only that, but the power of the moons affects almost everything in the world. Pieces of the moons, known as moon stones, regularly fall to the surface and are used for everything from fuel to weaponry.

Vyse is an Air Pirate. He is a member of the Blue Rogues, a faction of Air Pirates that steals from the rich and gives to the poor, Robin Hood style. The other faction is the Black Pirates. Their only interest is to steal from anybody and give to themselves. The Blue Rogues target much of their pillaging on the Valuan Empire. The empire, headed by Empress Teodora, wishes to take over the entire world with their might.

The game opens with the Blue Rogues, under the command of Dyne (Vyse’s father), attacking an imperial armada ship to loot it of treasure. Little do they know that the ship is holding prisoner a mysterious girl named Fina. The Rogues take the ship and rescue Fina, setting off a chain reaction of whirlwind events results that encompass this 50+ hour epic RPG title.

The Valuans are after the 6 moon crystals, which can be used to control the Gigas. The Gigas are ancient monsters bound to their respective crystals. With control of the crystals, a single person could take over the entire world with the power of the Gigas. Vyse and company are determined to beat the Valuans to the moon crystals and stop their evil world domination plans once and for all. The story is very epic.

It’s a slightly more light-hearted story as compared to some of the more modern RPGs, but it’s not without serious moments. Skies strays from the formulatic plot of a deranged bad guy who thinks destroying the world is the only way to save it, and you won’t find any crazy existential moments that question the meaning of life in this game. In exchange, you get a more simplistic plot about saving the world from the evil super-villian. While it is still a cliché, it’s one that isn’t seen very often in RPGs anymore. It’s a very captivating story, full of excitement, adventure, and a very memorable cast of characters. Most of the characters fit into standard RPG archetypes, but their clichés are so well handled that it’s charming. The plot and characters give the game a very “old-school” charm that is quite captivating.

While Skies of Arcadia follows most traditional RPG conventions, it adds enough new elements to spice up the genre. What separates Skies most from other RPGs is its original world. Whereas most RPGs have you running across land from town to town, Skies has you sailing through a huge and very open world of islands in the sky. This does wonders in creating a sense of exploration. You’ll get the feeling of being free as a bird. You’re not just limited to following the story either. If you wish, you can set sail and look for discoveries, or go recruit crew members. To keep you from getting too far off your general direction, there are obstacles such as stone reefs and sky rifts that prevent you from passing into certain areas until your ship is capable. The sense of exploration and freedom is one thing that makes Skies of Arcadia such a wonderful game.

Though the world is set in the skies, you’ll be spending most of your time on the ground. A majority of the game takes place in towns and dungeons. Dungeons are composed of mostly simple puzzles, and they feature random battles. You will also encounter random battles as you sail through the skies. Overworks has toned down the number of random encounters for the GameCube version, especially while sailing through the sky. The original received many complaints about the frequency of the battles. To balance this decrease in battles, you are now rewarded with more experience per battle.

Battles are pretty standard and follow a turn based system. Your group pools a certain amount of Spirit Points, which are replenished at the beginning of every round. You can use these Spirit Points to unleash deadly special attacks and cast magic spells. Spells also require one Magic Point each in addition to their Spirit Points. The group Spirit Point system keeps battles from being too similar to those found in standard RPGs. You need to watch your Spirit Points and plan ahead if you want to fire off more powerful attacks later in the fight. Enemies are aligned with a specific elemental color, and certain colors are stronger against each other. You can switch the color of your weapon at any point in a battle to help give yourself the upper hand.

In addition to ground battles, you will also encounter ship battles. These battles take place high in the sky, and instead of fighting with your characters, you fight with your airship. Ship battles play much more tactically than land battles. Each round starts with you picking what each of your four main crew members is going to do. You are also given information on whether or not a large attack is going to hit you in certain turns. With this knowledge, you have to plan what to do each turn to deal maximum damage to the enemy while at the same time trying to keep yourself from taking too much damage. After you’ve chosen your commands, you are treated to a view of the battle. Spirit Points also come into play during ship battles. You will need to very carefully watch your Spirit Points. If you don’t, you could miss an opportunity to do some major damage because you lack the amount of Spirit Points required to do it. The ship battles are fun, though they’re a bit drawn out with some very large and slow camera pans. Thankfully, ship battles are not very common and are mostly used for large boss fights, so you won’t have to sit through their drawn-out attack sequences too often.

Graphically, Skies of Arcadia Legends has not improved much from its Dreamcast predecessor. The main characters have all been given individual fingers, and their facial textures are greatly improved, but not much else has changed. Special attacks look fantastic, with bright flashes of color and lots of action going on. While the game has some very nice effects, the polygon counts on the characters and creatures are a notably low for a GameCube title. What may have been stellar graphics for the Dremacast come off as only average for the GameCube. Framerate is a non-issue as it never jitters. Unfortunately, there is a problem with the mip-mapping in the game. The distance for mip-mapping doesn’t occur far enough away from the character. In some areas, it is possible to see the textures go from blurry to crisp no less than a virtual foot in front of your character.

Skies of Arcadia Legends is an epic RPG, and its musical score reflects this status. The title screen has a very beautiful, symphony-sounding theme. The game’s score expands the sense of adventure and awe the vast world creates. The music ranges from lighthearted and happy to dark and foreboding, and each piece accurately captures the feel of its environment. There are a few hitches here and there, though, as some of the music sounds as if it was created with an old MIDI composer. There is an electronic “bleep bloop” quality to some of the songs. It’s an ugly mark on an otherwise phenomenal soundtrack, and rears its head in quite a few of the more dramatic, inspiring pieces of music in the game.

The game’s story is delivered via text, with a few scant voice samples added in to give the characters more personality. As you read, you will be treated to the occasional “uh-huh” or “yippee” from the characters. These voice samples are completely hit or miss. During the more lighthearted moments the voices fit in fairly well, but other times they completely miss the mark and draw you out of some of the more serious moments in the game. It’s pretty sad when you hear this big dramatic story and all Vyse responds with is his generic, canned “uh-huh” sound.

Epic is the perfect word to describe Legends. The average gamer will take over 50 hours to finish it the first time through. Dremacast veterans will probably take less time, but the new features should keep them involved in the game. The new “Wanted” battles will especially push players to their limit, as they are quite challenging and definitely not for the faint of heart. Bounties will come at you with anything and everything they’ve got, testing your skill. One thing that makes this game so fantastic is the vast quantity of things you can do that don’t advance the main plot. If you wish, you can sail around and do nothing but look for discoveries, which are hidden all over the world. Newly added are the moonfish, which reside in towns and dungeons. You can collect these moonfish and give them to a little girl’s pet bird. As you feed it, the bird grows and spits out items, which get gradually better. A whole new side-story involving Vyse and a bounty hunter named Piastol expands the background of Vyse’s character.

Skies of Arcadia Legends is, without a doubt, the best RPG currently out on the GameCube. Not only that, but it is also one of the best RPGs released in the past five years. The graphics are a bit dated, but the story is as engrossing as ever. Players who like great RPGs with epic quests and lots to do would be robbing themselves if they did not play this game. Die-hard fans of the Dreamcast original will probably find enough added material in this “Director’s Cut” to play though it again.