Now, I'm not a huge fan of RPGs. The only RPGs I've played have been Final Fantasy 1, 4, 6, Secret of Mana, Crono Trigger, and Paper Mario. For some reason, after going through the SNES RPGs I listed, I more or less lost interest in the genre in general. I got Skies Of Arcadia: Legends as a gift a month or two back, and finally started in on it about a week ago.
One thing that I always found a little irritating about the Final Fantasy games I played was the whole "random encounters with invisible enemies" thing. I could understand that it was possiby due to a limitation of the systems of the time, in that they couldn't display every single creature roaming around the plains. Crono trigger may have had unavoidable fights, but at least you could see them coming and/or the enemies jumped out of a realistic hiding place. The same goes for Paper Mario, as well. It was a nice change of pace to actually be able to see the enemies and approach them on my terms.
Unfortunately, it seems that Sega didn't feel like making the enemies visible when you're walking/flying around, so it's back to the sudden random encounters... but I got used to it after a little bit...
It's also a little disappointing to find that the battle system is just as non-interactive as the ones from the old RPGs I've played. After playing Paper Mario (and Mario and Luigi:Superstar Saga... I forgot about that one), I guess I just assumed that being able to do something to have some real-time input on the outcome. Instead, it's just the same old "take a swing at them, they take a swing at me, repeat" stuff. Again, I got used to it after I got a little more into the story and game world.
Of course, at this point, my party was getting stronger than the enemies in the beginning area, and in the first of a good few major annoyances to come up, I get kicked into the random battle, wait for everything to load, set all my guys to attack, then all the enemies run before I can get any hits in. It really makes exploring an area not a whole lot of fun when you know you're going to be interrupted constantly by battles you won't even get any experience from.
A little later, in the game, I come across an area where the enemies are slaughtering my party members with a single spell. At first, I thought I had accidentally strayed into an area I wasn't supposed to be in yet, and I was just being outclassed. However, after wandering around a little bit, I realized that yes, that's where I was supposed to be. After thumbing through the instruction book a little bit, I come to the section on spells, and find that the spell that's killing my party members isn't doing it because I'm not at a high enough level, it's just doing it because that's what the spell does. Yes, there's a spell that, if it works, kills the target in a single hit. And it's being cast by what looks like an insect the size of a small cat. The next line down shows that a spell exists that casts this insta-death spell on an entire group of people! So now not only do I have to worry about random battles, but I've got to worry about killer wizard bugs.
I would have looked forward to having my party members learning that spell eventually, though, except it also looks like Skies of Arcadia follows another old RPG convention in that status-altering spells hardly ever work on enemies. Every time I try the "poison" an enemy spell, it does damage, but never poisons them. Whenever I tried the spell that would stop an enemy from casting spells, it would always miss. However, whenver the enemies do a status-altering spells, my party comes down with every plague and malady in the book.
Again, I trudged onward even after it looked like the plot was developing into the old "Collect the X number of ancient powerful relics" thing. After getting the first stone and sitting through the cutscene with the (pretty obvious) betrayal sequence, it's time for yet another ship battle. While I like the idea of the ship battles in theory, the insanely long wait time for them to do ANYTHING just makes the whole thing just drag out. I really don't need to see the two ships fly around in front of the camera for such an extended period before every single action.
So anyway, I'm in a ship battle with the giant 4-headed red thing, and it appears to be the usual "stay alive against the unbeatable enemy" thing. It takes some time to finally get through the whole sequence, then I have to go fight an actual ship which I can beat. The battle takes a while, but I finally win. After sitting through another cutscene, I head back to town. After I'm there, I walk past the save spot at the port, as I'm headed to the Inn. On the way there, I see a new NPC just standing there on the docks. After I walk up to him and hit the talk button, the game informs me that he's one of the pirates from the bounty list, do I want to talk to him? Now, since the game said "talk" to him, I figured that there wouldn't be any harm in it. However, the conversation basically starts out with my character challenging this guy to a fight to the death, which starts immediately. I can't run for some reason, so I'm stuck fighting. However, the guy pretty much beats my ass three tries in a row (it's the fight against the big buff guy and the little kid who keeps casting spells). Realizing that I'm pretty much outclassed here, I select "I Quit" from the prompt, figuring that it'd just drop me back on the docks. Instead, I'm treated to a "Game Over" screen.
It's at this point I realize that I hadn't saved after the whole sequence after I got the first stone. So in order to get back where I was, I have to sit through a too-long unskippable cutscene, as well as two excessively long ship battles. Ugh.
One thing that I always found a little irritating about the Final Fantasy games I played was the whole "random encounters with invisible enemies" thing. I could understand that it was possiby due to a limitation of the systems of the time, in that they couldn't display every single creature roaming around the plains. Crono trigger may have had unavoidable fights, but at least you could see them coming and/or the enemies jumped out of a realistic hiding place. The same goes for Paper Mario, as well. It was a nice change of pace to actually be able to see the enemies and approach them on my terms.
Unfortunately, it seems that Sega didn't feel like making the enemies visible when you're walking/flying around, so it's back to the sudden random encounters... but I got used to it after a little bit...
It's also a little disappointing to find that the battle system is just as non-interactive as the ones from the old RPGs I've played. After playing Paper Mario (and Mario and Luigi:Superstar Saga... I forgot about that one), I guess I just assumed that being able to do something to have some real-time input on the outcome. Instead, it's just the same old "take a swing at them, they take a swing at me, repeat" stuff. Again, I got used to it after I got a little more into the story and game world.
Of course, at this point, my party was getting stronger than the enemies in the beginning area, and in the first of a good few major annoyances to come up, I get kicked into the random battle, wait for everything to load, set all my guys to attack, then all the enemies run before I can get any hits in. It really makes exploring an area not a whole lot of fun when you know you're going to be interrupted constantly by battles you won't even get any experience from.
A little later, in the game, I come across an area where the enemies are slaughtering my party members with a single spell. At first, I thought I had accidentally strayed into an area I wasn't supposed to be in yet, and I was just being outclassed. However, after wandering around a little bit, I realized that yes, that's where I was supposed to be. After thumbing through the instruction book a little bit, I come to the section on spells, and find that the spell that's killing my party members isn't doing it because I'm not at a high enough level, it's just doing it because that's what the spell does. Yes, there's a spell that, if it works, kills the target in a single hit. And it's being cast by what looks like an insect the size of a small cat. The next line down shows that a spell exists that casts this insta-death spell on an entire group of people! So now not only do I have to worry about random battles, but I've got to worry about killer wizard bugs.
I would have looked forward to having my party members learning that spell eventually, though, except it also looks like Skies of Arcadia follows another old RPG convention in that status-altering spells hardly ever work on enemies. Every time I try the "poison" an enemy spell, it does damage, but never poisons them. Whenever I tried the spell that would stop an enemy from casting spells, it would always miss. However, whenver the enemies do a status-altering spells, my party comes down with every plague and malady in the book.
Again, I trudged onward even after it looked like the plot was developing into the old "Collect the X number of ancient powerful relics" thing. After getting the first stone and sitting through the cutscene with the (pretty obvious) betrayal sequence, it's time for yet another ship battle. While I like the idea of the ship battles in theory, the insanely long wait time for them to do ANYTHING just makes the whole thing just drag out. I really don't need to see the two ships fly around in front of the camera for such an extended period before every single action.
So anyway, I'm in a ship battle with the giant 4-headed red thing, and it appears to be the usual "stay alive against the unbeatable enemy" thing. It takes some time to finally get through the whole sequence, then I have to go fight an actual ship which I can beat. The battle takes a while, but I finally win. After sitting through another cutscene, I head back to town. After I'm there, I walk past the save spot at the port, as I'm headed to the Inn. On the way there, I see a new NPC just standing there on the docks. After I walk up to him and hit the talk button, the game informs me that he's one of the pirates from the bounty list, do I want to talk to him? Now, since the game said "talk" to him, I figured that there wouldn't be any harm in it. However, the conversation basically starts out with my character challenging this guy to a fight to the death, which starts immediately. I can't run for some reason, so I'm stuck fighting. However, the guy pretty much beats my ass three tries in a row (it's the fight against the big buff guy and the little kid who keeps casting spells). Realizing that I'm pretty much outclassed here, I select "I Quit" from the prompt, figuring that it'd just drop me back on the docks. Instead, I'm treated to a "Game Over" screen.
It's at this point I realize that I hadn't saved after the whole sequence after I got the first stone. So in order to get back where I was, I have to sit through a too-long unskippable cutscene, as well as two excessively long ship battles. Ugh.
