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Will there ever be another RPG like Skies of Arcadia?

I play other RPGs but all I remember is SoA. Its charm, story, and characters overcome its weak battlesystem to present the RPG experience that will always be my best RPG experience.

Must I remind everyone of Disc 2? Its godly climax. The large world to explore, the fantastic villains? Jesus man alive.
 

IJoel

Member
MrAngryFace said:
I play other RPGs but all I remember is SoA. Its charm, story, and characters overcome its weak battlesystem to present the RPG experience that will always be my best RPG experience.

Must I remind everyone of Disc 2? Its godly climax. The large world to explore, the fantastic villains? Jesus man alive.

It's one of my favorite RPGs. I sure hope Sega releases a sequel.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
belgurdo said:
Jesus, I hope not.


not gonna agree 100% but if they do make a new one, they need to work on the random battle rate and the boring combat engine (liked the ship combat, though)
 

Deku Tree

Member
I'd love to see a sequal. SoA:L was just charming. But I am pessimistic about it.

1) I don't think Sammy would approve it.
2) Unfortunately SEGA is not in the buisness of making "system sellers" anymore.
3) I doubt SoA (DC) and SoA:L (GC) sold enough to warrant it.
 

Lazy8s

The ghost of Dreamcast past
These are the kind of games that most often only come out of SEGA and GameArts. Has a lot to do with the lead producer/director. Both companies have creative enough developers to still expect something other than the typical brooding RPGs every developer feels the need to make these days.
 

Tritroid

Member
Probably not.

The problem with RPGs today is that they're waay too serious. Skies had a serious story, but the way the characters approached it was so lighthearted that it actually made things seem more interesting and unpredictable. (Especially loved the Aika & Fina bed scene)
 

Prospero

Member
My God, I loved that game--every second of it. Not even Aika's gamebreaking Lambda Burst was enough to keep me away from it. The last three hours of it were absolutely nuts.
 

border

Member
Will there ever be another RPG with a decent story and a shitty everything-else? Yes, I can imagine it happening...
 

jarrod

Banned
Dragon Quest VIII is giving me a similar vibe with a huge visually stunning world to explore and charming characters... only with good mechanics and game design this time. :p
 
Oni Link 666 said:
Whatever happened to SOA2? It was announced years ago.

Sega and Overworks (they are wow-works now) never announced Skies of Arcadia 2. In a Interview the producers said they would Like to do one someday, but they never officially siad it was coming this Generation. people took the "we would like to do" as an annoucement, and let the rumors fly rampant. I think thier are a lot of rumored games that peole want Sega to make, but many of these rumors aren't true and are not going to happen, especially this generation.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
MrAngryFace said:
I play other RPGs but all I remember is SoA. Its charm, story, and characters overcome its weak battlesystem to present the RPG experience that will always be my best RPG experience.

Must I remind everyone of Disc 2? Its godly climax. The large world to explore, the fantastic villains? Jesus man alive.

Let's not forget the soaring, rousing and even moving music. I just impoted the 2-disc Eternal Arcadia soundtrack, and it's incredible.

No game that I've played has captured the sheer sense of adventure and joy of exploration the way Skies has. It's a brilliant game.
 
Well, it was on some list of upcoming games at Sega's old site a long time ago. Like, back when SOA:L and the new Shinning Force were first announced.
 

GDJustin

stuck my tongue deep inside Atlus' cookies
sonic4ever said:
Sega and Overworks (they are wow-works now) never announced Skies of Arcadia 2. In a Interview the producers said they would Like to do one someday, but they never officially siad it was coming this Generation. people took the "we would like to do" as an annoucement, and let the rumors fly rampant. I think thier are a lot of rumored games that peole want Sega to make, but many of these rumors aren't true and are not going to happen, especially this generation.


That's not true. In the interview they said a sequel to SoA was in the planning stages. Although that means it's still plenty far off, it implies much more than just "wanting" to make a sequel someday.
 

DarienA

The black man everyone at Activision can agree on
Tritroid said:
Probably not.

The problem with RPGs today is that they're waay too serious. Skies had a serious story, but the way the characters approached it was so lighthearted that it actually made things seem more interesting and unpredictable. (Especially loved the Aika & Fina bed scene)

You know I loved Skies but the light heartedness actually started to get on my nerves after awhile....
 

MrCheez

President/Creative Director of Grumpyface Studios
For me, Tales of Symphonia actually dethroned the mighty Skies of Arcadia. :eek:

They both have a similar charm, graphical style, and likeable characters... but Tales actually has fun gameplay. =)

I still want a Skies of Arcadia 2, though.
 

madara

Member
"No game that I've played has captured the sheer sense of adventure and joy of exploration the way Skies has. It's a brilliant game"

Well said, you saved fair people of GAF 3 paragraphs of my rambling.
That said I think they still need to make SOA work first. They need a definitive director's cut so maybe in few years. Legends should have been it but it was a poorly emulated update at best. Fix battle system(maybe turn into action rpg, work on fina for sure), the hair pulling mobs that just run or miss, make air battles actually challenging. Let us explore those discoveries, etc. Lastly explain why everytime normal peace loving Vyse seeing a new creature he has to kill it, lol.
 

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
I count on Rieko Kodama to deliver in the (hopefully offline) Phantasy Star Universe... A new PS game based on the whole Skies template... discovering new planets and galaxies, having a spaceship instead of an airship, which allows you to upgrade it with new technologies to allow you to explore further into the galaxy... different planets with different cultures and races living on them... I've always loved overly epic RPGs that had a huge scope.

Actually, that's the idea behind the RPG Maker game I'm working on (except it's not called a PS game)
 

Vgamer

Member
One of my favorite RPGs as well! It was just a plain fun game. And a blast to explore the huge world and find the secrets etc... I hope Sega makes a sequel someday.
 

MrCheez

President/Creative Director of Grumpyface Studios
Bizarro Sun Yat-sen said:
Dunno but I'd sure like a moratorium on the use of 'charm' and 'epic'.

Why? When a game compels you to use such words to describe it, you know it's doing something right. =)
 

Tamanon

Banned
The Skies story wasn't GREAT, but it was rather good, mixed with a new environment and some innovations made for a very good game.

But I think Tales of Symphonia is better personally, as far as light-hearted RPGs go. The characters are cooler and more fleshed out(I mean, there was almost NO character development aside from Vyse in SoA) and the battle system is TONS better.:)

Of course if you're looking for serious RPGs, that's a different story, avoid both hehe.
 

nitewulf

Member
i loved the whole planet, and the event based pacing. it actually had large 3d dungeons, which was fairly new at the time. all the special techniques ruled too.
 

Alex

Member
I didn't care for Skies, cute and simple story and characters, but I agree that the rest was a bit, well, a lot lacking. For fans though, the Legends port for Gamecube offered up some great shit though, made it worth a replay to be sure.

One thing I did enjoy about the game, was the 3rd person camera system. 3rd person/ground level cameras rock for 3D RPG's. More devs need to catch the fuck on. No more isometric/birds eye view garbage, or even worse, the cinematic auto-adjust crap.

It figures the one genre where a manual camera wouldn't piss you off, and no one uses it, blah!
 

ferricide

Member
this is most definitely a game where my official opinion is "fuck the haters". i can understand the arguments about the simplistic gameplay systems, but it was just such an amazing experience, not least because it was the first RPG to really bring 3D vistas to prominence (and i don't think any game has really done a good job of it since.) thanks to the free camera, the then-fresh power of the dreamcast, and the first person view, i just marveled at every location in the entire game.

it also really did recall that feeling i got from final fantasy IV, of really getting involved in the adventure of the quest and enjoying all of the characters. it was built from cliched building blocks (does anyone argue it wasn't?) but they were used to such great effect. it was just, yes, EPIC and CHARMING in a way nothing has been since.

TOS really fails at that, actually, comparatively, but it's the closest game in tone since. probably because it hijacks its story from more recent games, tries to go crazy on the twists and complexity and just boils over into a frothing pile of irrelevant nonsense by the end.

skies made you feel like you were in control of your own destiny, and there was, for me, a real emotional component to finishing that game. beautiful.

waiting for rieko kodama to do a PS2 game; the fact that she hasn't left sega is about the only reason i give a shit about that company anymore. PSU is an MMO -- don't kid yourself -- but if she's invovled it'll wipe the fucking floor with PSO, as much as i like it.
 

ge-man

Member
SOA is wonderful, screw the haters. Who cares that the battle system wasn't super advanced--it isn't the only RPG that has an antiquated game system. Where the game really succeeds is in building an environment and atmosphere. It's amazing what Overworks was able to do in that department without the aid of the latest graphical techniques.

The game is drenched in the feeling of discovery and adventure. Little things like the scenario with Vyse on the desert island or having to build your own pirate base and crew allows the game to transcend its contemporaries. It's one of the few Japanese RPGs of recent times that allows for some real role playing.
 

MrCheez

President/Creative Director of Grumpyface Studios
ge-man said:
The game is drenched in the feeling of discovery and adventure. Little things like the scenario with Vyse on the desert island or having to build your own pirate base and crew allows the game to transcend its contemporaries. I

Easily the most memorable part of the game. I remember right before that happened I was planning to stop playing in a few minutes to go to bed... then it happened and I couldn't stop playing for hours. o_O
 

Temujin

Member
I have a strong dislike for RPGs with random battles... but I saw SoA:Legends cheap and picked it up. Now it's one of my favourite RPGs. Agreed, the battles are too slow, but for me that's about the only thing wrong with it (apart from the random battles of course).

I would love a sequel in which you can buy and custumise your own ship, put together your own crew, and build up a reputation. Some of this was already in SoA:L, but it was too limited, so much more can be done with this concept...
 

DjangoReinhardt

Thinks he should have been the one to kill Batman's parents.
I enjoyed SOA as a solid example of the "traditional" Japanese RPG, but it was pretty unremarkable otherwise, IMO.
 

nitewulf

Member
ge-man said:
The game is drenched in the feeling of discovery and adventure. Little things like the scenario with Vyse on the desert island or having to build your own pirate base and crew allows the game to transcend its contemporaries. It's one of the few Japanese RPGs of recent times that allows for some real role playing.

thats the stuff i loved about SOA. just when you couldnt take the frantic pacing anymore, what a nice break. and it was very serene and melancholy, the whole atmosphere of the island. and you got to sort of "chill out" there for a few days, doing things, also got to control aika and fina and their own little adventure on the other side of the planet. the whole world design and pacing was brlliant.
 

Tsubaki

Member
Despite Grandia II being TEH SUCK compared to Grandia, it still managed to be better than Arcadia. Sorry. Arcadia is for the FF7 generation.
 

ferricide

Member
Tsubaki said:
Despite Grandia II being TEH SUCK compared to Grandia, it still managed to be better than Arcadia. Sorry. Arcadia is for the FF7 generation.
is it possible to have a thread on this forum without haters? i stay out of threads for things i hate! even when the topic says "stay out haters" and it makes me want to go in and hate!

assholes.
 

P90

Member
Willco said:
Skies of Arcadia is the last great RPG ever made. Everything else in the genre is dead to me.

IAWTP, but ToS is good. Most everything else just doesn't do much for me. I thought Shadow Hearts was decent, flawed, but showed potential.
 

jett

D-Member
Sorry...no. SoA is mediocre at best. The only thing interesting about the game was the setting, but even that was ruined by the cliché world design. Desert area, jungle area, icy area, industrial area, woo hoo, how interesting...

SoA2 better be pretty damned different from the first one if Sega wants me to take notice. :p
 

Xellos

Member
I hope there's another RPG like Skies of Arcadia. Skies is one of the few RPGs I like from this gen, the others being Morrowind and KOTOR.
 

Shompola

Banned
I wouldn't mind if they made a sequal on GC. But they need to fix the battles. You know there is a problem when you just want to escape from all random generated battles in the game.
 
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