I'm making this a counter to the other thread, as well as making this the place to better explain what's wrong with the game. For the record, I've played through and own the US Dreamcast game. So everything is from that viewpoint.
I don't hate Arcadia, but I think there's a lot to dislike. I acknowledge there are some great things about Arcadia - the space pirate setting, the light-hearted tone, the customization of your base, the well-written story (note: the plot itself was utterly predictable for anyone familiar with Japanese plots, but the way it's told is quite well-written and better than most RPGs)... and unlike most Arcadia haters, I have a really different view of battles. I enjoyed the regular battle system, well at least when it came to bosses. "Do I skip my turn with Aika and thus build up my SP so that next turn, Vyse can use his special move? Or do I attack right now because I know I can do some damage this turn? Or perhaps I should just turtle just in case the boss targets me..." Decisions like this kept me engrossed with the fights.
But I didn't really enjoy the airship fights at all. The fact that you knew what the enemy was up to made these battles incredibly dull. I'm not exactly sure why this was a high point in many people's view. The airship battles dragged out way too long with minimum thinking and little risk in anything you did. That's one negative against the game, but my real beef mainly stems from the majority of the game.
Random battles suck. I hate random battles and do not believe they have any place in gaming anymore. In fact, they never should have... it was only tolerated for so long because we didn't know any better. Then games like Chrono Trigger came out, and proved that it didn't have to be that way.
But what's worse isn't just the random battles. It's the insane frequency of them that ruins Arcadia. Is it really fun to people to have to fight useless battles every 3 seconds? Is it somehow a better game because now the playtime is artificially extended? Let's be honest here. In any RPG, it's rare that you will die through a normal battle, even after fighting many succesive ones. Some games like Breath of Fire II make life difficult for you from the get-go, but Arcadia is not one of these. So the only purpose it serves is to make the game easier (leveling up when you don't necessarily want to) and making the game longer.
I remember I started running away from battles not because I was terrified for my life, but simply because I was sick of monotonously slaying the enemy only to encounter another and another. Later I learned that the game screws you by decreasing your reputation because you run away from battles. Lovely game design folks.
By the beginning of disc 2 (and depending on the way you play, you could have done this by the end of disc 1), all the enemies on the overworld could die before you in one turn. So the irritation is further increased by the fact that you're so vastly overpowered to the random overworld monster. Yet they keep on coming, as if only to piss you off and interrupt your travel.
And who could forget discoveries... cool concept right? Fly all over the world jamming on the A-button to see if you bumped into an invisible trick. Whee~ How about the way the game punishes you for looking for them by throwing enemy after enemy in your face (see first two points)? Is that supposed to be fun? Or is it supposed to be a deterrent from you finding bonus things about the game? Oh it's a deterrent alright, from playing the stupid game.
Finally, their solution to their jacked up encounter rate was an item which allows you to float above or below the clouds and encounter nothing. Good going Sega. Too bad it's no replacement for no-battles. To either progress in the game, or to find most discoveries, you're forced to still fly in the enemy-infested areas. Wow, thanks. Even Overworks couldn't solve its own problems.
So there you have it. The game looked and sounded pretty good. The story/plot elements played out nicely, albeit in a predictable fashion. But people forget that RPGs are still 80-90% battles, because that's how much time you're actually in them. And it's in this area the game is ruined. Sure the boss battles were fun to me, but the insane encounter rate tested my patience on many an occasion. Whatever good points the game had were soon forgotten once you were in the middle of playing it. That's what's wrong with the game.
I don't hate Arcadia, but I think there's a lot to dislike. I acknowledge there are some great things about Arcadia - the space pirate setting, the light-hearted tone, the customization of your base, the well-written story (note: the plot itself was utterly predictable for anyone familiar with Japanese plots, but the way it's told is quite well-written and better than most RPGs)... and unlike most Arcadia haters, I have a really different view of battles. I enjoyed the regular battle system, well at least when it came to bosses. "Do I skip my turn with Aika and thus build up my SP so that next turn, Vyse can use his special move? Or do I attack right now because I know I can do some damage this turn? Or perhaps I should just turtle just in case the boss targets me..." Decisions like this kept me engrossed with the fights.
But I didn't really enjoy the airship fights at all. The fact that you knew what the enemy was up to made these battles incredibly dull. I'm not exactly sure why this was a high point in many people's view. The airship battles dragged out way too long with minimum thinking and little risk in anything you did. That's one negative against the game, but my real beef mainly stems from the majority of the game.
Random battles suck. I hate random battles and do not believe they have any place in gaming anymore. In fact, they never should have... it was only tolerated for so long because we didn't know any better. Then games like Chrono Trigger came out, and proved that it didn't have to be that way.
But what's worse isn't just the random battles. It's the insane frequency of them that ruins Arcadia. Is it really fun to people to have to fight useless battles every 3 seconds? Is it somehow a better game because now the playtime is artificially extended? Let's be honest here. In any RPG, it's rare that you will die through a normal battle, even after fighting many succesive ones. Some games like Breath of Fire II make life difficult for you from the get-go, but Arcadia is not one of these. So the only purpose it serves is to make the game easier (leveling up when you don't necessarily want to) and making the game longer.
I remember I started running away from battles not because I was terrified for my life, but simply because I was sick of monotonously slaying the enemy only to encounter another and another. Later I learned that the game screws you by decreasing your reputation because you run away from battles. Lovely game design folks.
By the beginning of disc 2 (and depending on the way you play, you could have done this by the end of disc 1), all the enemies on the overworld could die before you in one turn. So the irritation is further increased by the fact that you're so vastly overpowered to the random overworld monster. Yet they keep on coming, as if only to piss you off and interrupt your travel.
And who could forget discoveries... cool concept right? Fly all over the world jamming on the A-button to see if you bumped into an invisible trick. Whee~ How about the way the game punishes you for looking for them by throwing enemy after enemy in your face (see first two points)? Is that supposed to be fun? Or is it supposed to be a deterrent from you finding bonus things about the game? Oh it's a deterrent alright, from playing the stupid game.
Finally, their solution to their jacked up encounter rate was an item which allows you to float above or below the clouds and encounter nothing. Good going Sega. Too bad it's no replacement for no-battles. To either progress in the game, or to find most discoveries, you're forced to still fly in the enemy-infested areas. Wow, thanks. Even Overworks couldn't solve its own problems.
So there you have it. The game looked and sounded pretty good. The story/plot elements played out nicely, albeit in a predictable fashion. But people forget that RPGs are still 80-90% battles, because that's how much time you're actually in them. And it's in this area the game is ruined. Sure the boss battles were fun to me, but the insane encounter rate tested my patience on many an occasion. Whatever good points the game had were soon forgotten once you were in the middle of playing it. That's what's wrong with the game.
(I played the Dreamcast version...)